Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Impressions

With the recent release of a demo, and the release date being as close as it, we have been getting more hands-on impressions about Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. Penny Arcade’s Gabe had the chance to get a copy early and seems pretty impressed:

The combat in Skyrim is miserable. If games like Bayonetta and God of War are on one end of a spectrum, games like Skyrim are so far on the other end that they have fallen off the spectrum and actually can not even see the spectrum from where they are. It seems like if you want to play a massive open world RPG you have to give up a fun,energetic combat system. The thrill of discovering a cave full of vampires in Skyrim is diminished by the knowledge that once I get in there, fighting them is just going to be a chore.

Amalur is the polar opposite. The combat system in Amalur is fast paced and incredibly deep. I’d say the way this game handles class choice is one of my favorite things about the title. There are three skill trees, might, finesse, and sorcery. As you level up you earn talent points and can invest them into any branch you like. So far pretty standard stuff. The twist is that throwing points into these trees will slowly unlock hybrid classes. For example, I started off in sorcery and chose a pretty standard wizard type class. I got a bonus to my mana pool and that sort of thing. Then I started putting points into finesse and I unlocked a couple of hybrid classes. Now I’m a spell casting rogue with magic blades! I get a bonus to blade weapons and a boost to magic damage. There are tons of these hybrid classes encompassing all the various combinations of talent points and trees. So as you play the game and shuffle your points around you can also be cycling through different class choices each with their own bonuses and special powers.

While The Gamers’ Hub only had the chance to play the demo, but their impressions are equally positive:

Upon completing the first mission, and getting outside, the demo really opens up. You get to wonder around the area known as Gohart for a full 45 minutes, where you can do whatever you please, and boy there’s quite a bit to do. In our 45 minutes we opted to mainly just explore and see what the game had to offer up. The area on offer was surprisingly big; you have the main town area, then some unique caves, and also a rather large forested area. One of my favourite things about the game was how it looked, not only are the graphics bright and colorful, but the fantasy stylings are wonderful. Amalur, really brings back memories of the Fable games, which are impeccable works of RPG art. Whilst exploring in the demo, we came across a whole load of NPC’s to talk to, many of which give you side missions to do, which are all quite fun to do. The dialouge system is the same as what we have seen in Mass Effect series, you choose what you want to say, out of a few different options, and each one gives you different responses from the NPC.

After exploring for sometime, we felt it only right to try and level up our hearty adventurer, and so set out into the forested area to test out the combat some more a. Combat is definitely one of the most impressive things about the game. Being able to have up to two weapons equipped at the same time allows for changeable gameplay strategies. Weapons can vary between, daggers, swords, staffs and more. We settled on dual-wielding daggers, and using a fire staff. You can also use magic in combat, and there are a few spells to try out in the demo, such as your typical fire and lightning. The combat is some of the funnest we’ve experienced in a RPG in a long time, and in the full game it looks like it will only be better; especially with all the new skills and such you will get by leveling up your character.

Finally, eGamer is also offering some impressions based on the demo:

This type of combat allows the player to potentially execute many different combos which livens up the often stale RPG combat we’ve become accustomed to in other games. You can block, parry and thwart enemy attacks from a number of different avenues and with the aid of quicktime events slaughtering enemies has never been so fun. You can also collect gold and weapons, and armour from chests by slashing through miscellaneous boxes and items. The menu interface especially the inventory is pretty well designed and offers enough comparative information about weapons, armour and consumable items. This give you enough information in order to make an educated guess about why type of playing style would suit you in the game when it’s fully released.

After being introduced to the sword and defeating an army of Tuatha you encounter a bow. The bow is used for longer range combat meaning you can take out enemies swiftly and without the brutal closeness of a sword, and another weapon introduced in the tutorial was daggers. Daggers were of course Alessandro’s favourite weapon as sneaking around the dungeon was one of the many ways to approach enemies. Once more, if you got close enough to enemies without their eye icons lighting up whilst you’re sneaking you could execute an assassination move which was bloody terrific. With a lot of emphasis on the ‘˜bloody’ part of the assassination moves you can perform. The mage’s staff is the last weapon introduced to you in the tutorial dungeon. It basically allows you to shoot torrents of fire at spiders as you try and cross some catacombs, and dodge their poisonous attacks. After making it through, and finally reaching a gnome, named Hugues, who has possible answers to your prophetic purpose your chat is cut short.