Quick Look: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

There seems to be a good number of games I would consider picking up in February. Might just wait for the price to drop on this one.

Lots of this game reminds me of an MMO, but based in a single player RPG. Once I feel the need to play another fantasy RPG I'll buy this.

I kind of have a disinterest for these games if they aren't MMO's and even then, high fantasy games like this is something I've personally had enough of.

Take for instance Blacksmithing, which Jeff thought was important, there is no one to do that for you in the game, whom you can buy stuff off if you don't want to make Mastercrafted items yourself.

Kingdoms of Amalur looks like everything that might as well had been in an MMORPG, where you at least would have the benefit of added social elements and benefit of questing with friends.

If this was an MMO I would be impressed, specifically by the combat system in use here. But as a single player game..... I'll stick with Skyrim even with the clunky combat :/

Gonna be tough to fight my inner completionst on this one, though I should have learned my lesson by overdoing sidequests in Skyrim before going after the mainquest.
 
My hope is the action combat keeps the game from growing stale too quickly once I'm overleveled and too powerful. Certainly will play on hard from the get-go.
 
I wish they had made some more deliberate design choices for hard difficulty, like introduing a cooldown on consumables and limiting buffs in some manner. I guess they cater to the RPG crowd by taking out any kind of real combat challenge by allowing people to cheese it with potion guzzling. No matter your skill level in action games, you will beat Amalur.
 
That said, I look forward to my time with KoA:R immensely and hope that it will capture a healthy audience and generate enough sales for further iterations to happen - for this is the type of action RPG I want to see more often.

Someone probably already mentioned this, but Dragon Age is one of the more recent games that did the mana sustain thing that @Jeff was talking about.

I have a feeling this game might have been received a lot better by game journalists and fans if they had not hyped it up as if it was the best game ever made.  When you release 20 hype videos for your game talking about how amazing everything is going to be from the art to the music to the combat to the story...people are going to expect a lot.

I can see why people don't like the look of this game, but I really enjoy it! I agree that the story and writing are pretty much no good (from my limited demo and QL experience), but that might not be enough to keep me away. Still intrigued!

Thank you Curt Shilling!

"Add to junk" was in Dragon Age 2. Why do people mention it here all the time but didn't in DA2? It seems DA2 is better than this game.

Also why is "lock mini-map" by default? Have these devs played a game ever?

The first game that uses the "sustained mana" thing that I can remember was Titan Quest.

@Seppli said:

I guess they cater to the RPG crowd by taking out any kind of real combat challenge by allowing people to cheese it with potion guzzling.

Err, no. That's simply catering to the casual crowd. RPGs can be fucking hard, just not these days anymore (with a few exceptions).

This game feels pretty great to me, Im going with rogue so far and stealth is really cool once you get used to using the decoys shards.

Also, pro tip for anyone complaining about non-circular dungeons: You can fast travel from ANY location as long as you are not in combat, this includes dungeons and indoors.

I laughed when I saw a guy in full armour doing push-ups in this QL...

The developer sure does like their bloom effect. Moderation is key, guys.

I'm a huge RPG fan, but I'll skip this. I don't really like the look of the game, and the story seems a bit...meh. The combat looks pretty limited too. I'm not too pumped up by the idea of playing a game that's sort of lead-in to a future MMO.

I really can't tell whether this is something I want to play. It seems competent, but maybe not competent enough to commit to?

@Seppli said:

I guess they cater to the RPG crowd by taking out any kind of real combat challenge by allowing people to cheese it with potion guzzling.

Err, no. That's simply catering to the casual crowd. RPGs can be fucking hard, just not these days anymore (with a few exceptions).

I really enjoyed the demo of this, will probably pick it up at some point in the future.

HOWEVER, everything about this seems like a parody of video games. This seems like a fake game you'd see on some CBS sitcom, where the girlfriend is mad at the boyfriend for not paying enough attention to her, and then the boyfriend goes "wait, i just gotta enter Reckoning Mode and then we'll go to dinner!" -laugh track- -music sting- -credits-

@Seppli said:

@CptBedlam said:

@Seppli said:

I guess they cater to the RPG crowd by taking out any kind of real combat challenge by allowing people to cheese it with potion guzzling.

Err, no. That's simply catering to the casual crowd. RPGs can be fucking hard, just not these days anymore (with a few exceptions).

RPGs are usually stats and/or tactics driven. Amalur is much more execution driven. It has been their expressed worry that the dedicated RPG crowd won't buy into the game, if it is too challenging. Very few deep RPGs are mainly execution driven. The Souls series comes to mind. Other than that I'm drawing a blank.

Too bad Amalur isn't exactly execution driven either given how forgiving the mechanics are.

Every aspect of Amalur has "casual crowd" written all over it. From the respeccing, over rpg parts to the combat. For me, that means instant boredom.

As a fan of traditional RPGs and challenging games in general, I fail to see how Amalur caters to me one bit.

@Seppli said:

@CptBedlam said:

@Seppli said:

I guess they cater to the RPG crowd by taking out any kind of real combat challenge by allowing people to cheese it with potion guzzling.

Err, no. That's simply catering to the casual crowd. RPGs can be fucking hard, just not these days anymore (with a few exceptions).

RPGs are usually stats and/or tactics driven. Amalur is much more execution driven. It has been their expressed worry that the dedicated RPG crowd won't buy into the game, if it is too challenging. Very few deep RPGs are mainly execution driven. The Souls series comes to mind. Other than that I'm drawing a blank.

Too bad Amalur isn't exactly execution driven either given how forgiving the mechanics are.

Every aspect of Amalur has "casual crowd" written all over it. From the respeccing, over rpg parts to the combat.

As a fan of traditional RPGs and challenging games in general, I fail to see how Amalur caters to me one bit.

the enemy AI is terrible in this game

@smokething said:

I reckon I'm first.

Classy.

This game turns me off in a number of ways.

Ugly as fuck wowesque art.

Combat that is essentially only hit X out of dynasty warrior

I know some of them worked on Oblivion but outright same font? Fuck off

Interesting. The console graphics look to be smoother than in the demo which is a plus. Everything else looks to be pretty much what I experienced in that demo. I'm planning on picking it up because it looks like a fun combat system, but I see no reason to buy it before the price drops to between $30 and $40. There still doesn't seem to be that much to it.

There's a lot of things I can overlook when it comes to games like Amalur but hearing about the lack of enemy variety from so many sources has kind of turned me off.

Played the demo and was bored witless. Also, the UI is just terrible ... like beyond just badly laid out. It's like it was made totally ugly on purpose for some unknown reason, i don't get it.

Very informative QL - one I've been eagerly awaiting too. At least they seem to have fixed the most obnoxious glitches the demo was riddled with. Unfortunately it doesn't look like the game changes all that much from what I already played in the demo. Considering Jeff's later save towards the end of the video is thirty hours into the game I just don't see any significant improvement in the combat mechanics, the story or the quests.

For my personal taste the generic, button-mashy combat doesn't seem like a worthy substitute for real in-depth RPG mechanics at all. I'd take Skyrim's functional, unspectacular combat with comparatively deep RPG customization over this approach any day. The open-world exploration seems to fall pretty flat on its face with lame sidequests and a pretty linear progression beneath all the smoke and mirrors. But the most disappointing revelation of this QL for me is that the much hyped Salvatore lore, world-building and plot apparently just don't come together in a meaningful fashion at all. And I say that while even disregarding the confusing clash between cartoon art style and the somewhat serious, philosophical motifs regarding free will, fate, individuality etc. - that stuff could've been the saving grace to make up for rather mediocre mechanics but it doesn't seem promising, at least from my perspective.

The game doesn't really look bad in any way, just like a somewhat unique mixture of elements that, individually, have been done to death already, with nothing really standing out. For now I will play a second Skyrim character and reconsider Reckoning when it's at about 30-50% full price. That way I might get surprised or at least not feel bad about spending to much on a quite possibly very generic fantasy RPG.

@thebigJ_A@MordeaniisChaos: I agree with these perspectives too. Maybe it really is an old-school/ new-school conflict that makes this this game so divisive?

Looks pretty good to me! I like that even if the combat is a touch on the simple side it's definitely more exciting than Elder Scrolls style...

This has to be one of the most generic games I have ever seen.

This game looks pretty awesome.

Yeah, some of the best bits are heavily inspired by Bioware games. The rest sadly doesn't hold up for the whole game.

@Excast: Uhh, this makes no sense.

That is what they're supposed to do. It is a new game from a new studio, if they don't hype it up then no one else would and no one would buy it. Every developer/publisher does this for their game.

@Pudge: Also Titan Quest

Is it creeping anyone else out that the skill tree goes up instead of down?
 
About the easy combat, unless he explains it differently now with a ton of time into the game(I just started the QL), didn't he say the overworld got easy very quickly and stayed easy while actual quests/dungeons/caves whatever had proper enemies for you?

@Excast: Uhh, this makes no sense.

That is what they're supposed to do. It is a new game from a new studio, if they don't hype it up then no one else would and no one would buy it. Every developer/publisher does this for their game.

I jumped in day 1 on this... UPS man needs to drop it at my door. HURRY IT UP UPS MAN!

Looks like a good game to get on sale.

@Artisan88 said:

I jumped in day 1 on this... UPS man needs to drop it at my door. HURRY IT UP UPS MAN!

I'm waiting, too, but we'll be waiting awhile. I never get UPS packages until sometime after five.

@Branthog: I don't know why you've given up on Demon's Souls but you should try Dark Souls.

I don't know what people want from the combat

Oh look it's the artillery explosion sound from Tiberian Sun that plays when Jeff hits with his fiery dagger things. That's gonna be annoying.

It's an hour long QL, I've been pretty stoked for this game and it sounds like it's not pushing Jeff to the brink of suicide and severe alcoholism, a la Hunted. So, here's to hoping the rest is as good as the first five seconds.

You know it does seem like Jeff is nitpicking here. I mean he mentions a lot of things that he says he personally didn't like and then labels them as flaws in the game. Just because it isn't exactly like Skyrim (which was pretty messy) it isn't a flaw in the game.

There are so many nitpicks that I could draw parallels to with Skyrim, yet there's something else awe-inspiring about Skyrim that still allows me to overlook its flaws. Even the stab at generic, boring sidequests and feeling over levelled by the end of the game is something I eventually started feeling, though that was actually well after the 100 hour mark.

I would still be able to forgive the flaws in this game because it looks like an Elder Scrolls game mixed with a Fable game (complete with the meh UI from the latter). Unfortunately, I'm just burned out on that type of game right now.

@Seppli said:

Gonna be tough to fight my inner completionst on this one, though I should have learned my lesson by overdoing sidequests in Skyrim before going after the mainquest. My hope is the action combat keeps the game from growing stale too quickly once I'm overleveled and too powerful. Certainly will play on hard from the get-go. I wish they had made some more deliberate design choices for hard difficulty, like introduing a cooldown on consumables and limiting buffs in some manner. I guess they cater to the RPG crowd by taking out any kind of real combat challenge by allowing people to cheese it with potion guzzling. No matter your skill level in action games, you will beat Amalur. That said, I look forward to my time with KoA:R immensely and hope that it will capture a healthy audience and generate enough sales for further iterations to happen - for this is the type of action RPG I want to see more often.

Got to about lvl 14 before having to turn it to hard. With good gear even hard is not that challenging.

The potions aren't that bad. The biggest offender in that sense is the reckoning mode, it's basically an IWIN button for any fight, which makes all boss enounters completely trivial. I so far had not have had to use a single buff potion.

Amalur seems to be disigned in such a way that if you dont play RPGs normal will still be pleasant for you, same if you have no experience in action, normal would still be a stroll.

As a result hard is normal if you play both those 2 types of games at all.

@Dagmar said:

@CaLe said:

I wonder if the world designers and artists played much WoW... Seriously, this might as well be Azeroth.

Don't see a problem, WoW has a pretty great world.

This comparison has also been beaten to the ground. I don't think anyone reading these has not already read a post saying the exact same. No new revelation. But both Brad and Jeff comment on the comparison and don't really seem to agree very much. They both really like the art, and as Dagmar just said, it looks good, whether similar or not.

I'm so deep into Skyrim I can't fathom playing another game with that kind of structure right now. Still, this is appealing.

I've been going rogue/mague, and my combat is much more interesting and varied than the warrior combat shown in this video.

snor