Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Preview

Here’s another preview for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning coming out of GamesCom, courtesy of Joystiq, with plenty of praise for the title’s action combat. Here’s a sampling:

Combat was satisfying, requiring blocks, dodges and quick hits to take down the monsters. The mage even had the ability to phase through the enemies, causing the monsters to slow if she passed through them. It became my tactic of choice when fighting giants to pass through them, get a couple hits off as they slowly turned around, then phase through again to get in a couple more hits. The strategy would have been flawless, had it not been for the wolves and other giants in the room that took advantage of any opening I gave them.

Another nice detail with the mage is that her melee weapons aren’t completely useless (as mage weapons tend to be). Reckoning doesn’t appear to be about making spell-spam magic users. She actually had a staff that was efficient at taking out slower creatures and deadly Aerobies that kept the fast ones at a distance. It was also possible to chain spells with specific melee attacks for some spiffy animations.

The warrior was also satisfying and stylish, carrying a giant sword, his play style was more hit and roll. Blocking worked great, but it doesn’t help much against a giant that charges and swan dives on you. There was a particularly nice move where I could charge up a spin attack to go all food processor on the enemies, as long as I kept tapping the button to keep the spin going.