[PC] Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. A detailed review.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is a single-player action RPG that is currently released on PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. It was developed by 38 Studios and Big Huge Games. It was published by Electronic Arts. R.A. Salvatore, a New York Times best seller, created the Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning universe and lore. Todd McFarlane created all of the artwork, while Ken Rolston was the game’s executive designer. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was created on the Big Huge Engine.

            

          Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is huge and you feel it as soon as you step out of the tutorial.

The game starts at a cutscene as a narrator telling us how the world of Fae was once peaceful until the bad guy with a sharp blade kills wandering soldiers. In the next cutscene stands a warrior and a Tuatha fighting. The warrior wins the battle but is then ambushed by a small army being killed. This is you.  

The cutscene after shows you on a gurney dead being escorted by two gnomes with  great English voice acting. This cues the “Make your character” screen. You can choose between four races. The Almain, who are warrior-like; the Varani, who are rogue-like; the Ljosalfar, light elves who are mage-like; and the Dokkalfar, dark elves who also like to use magic. They all contain racial benefits. After you choose your race, you then get to choose which God you want to follow. The God you choose gives you different benefits, like more mana or health, or better damage. Feeling pretty agnostic or atheist? You can even choose not to have a God for an extra 1% EXP boost! The next thing is the “How pretty do you feel?” screen. Very much like Bioware or Bethesda game’s, you get to pick how you character’s face looks. They even have the option of tattoo’s on your face and body jewelry. I personally liked the “Rawr! I’m a minotaur!” nose-like ring.

 When you’re done feeling pretty, the two gnomes then chuck your body into what looks like a very deep hole. You wake up on rotting corpses and bones and everything else. What a nice way to ruin happiness. You were dead though, so I guess you couldn’t have been THAT happy.  This starts the tutorial level.

When I played I synced my Xbox 360 controller to my PC and the game found it right away and changed the controls and buttons instantly. When you first move around and do whatever you want, you’re probably thinking to yourself, “Why does this feel like Fable!?” Well, your thoughts are right, especially when you pick up your first sword and swing it. This game itself is that of Fable. It even has a dodging roll option!

When I first played I thought to myself, and anytime I explain this game to a friend I keep quoted, “It’s like Lionhead Studio’s had a baby. And that baby murdered Peter Molyneux, taking over and making Big Huge Games. When Lionhead wanted to make Fable 4, Big Huge Games stepped in made Fable better with a greater story, lore and everything else!” I hope you take that all as a metaphor. I do not endorse murder for great games. Back onto the gameplay.

After you pick up your sword and travel a bit, you reach your first combat zone. You must save one of the gnomes that threw you done that deep, stinking hole! Kill the Tuatha and the gnome will talk to you saying to look for Hughes who created the Well of Souls and explaining why you are alive right now. The dialogue screen is deep. Featuring an easy way to accept quests and giving you more information the more you talk. After talking to Mr. Gnome you should see a glowing around the Tuatha’s body. This means that there is a looting system. Go ahead and loot him, you deserve it! The looting screen is much like Dragon Age and Mass Effect. Just the way it looks, really. You should see some crates too somewhere. Attack those crates. They break! AND give you money!

There are many things you can do in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. Things like persuading others to like you, blacksmithing, alchemy, dispelling, lockpicking and sagecrafting. Blacksmithing requires you to disassemble your weapons to make new ones or find stuff throughout the land. Alchemy uses reagents found in plants in which you use an alchemy lab to make and mix different potions. Sagecrafting is the use of gems to insert in your armor or weapons. You can combine different gems for different effects. Dispelling is weird and hard. It’s used for breaking spells on a chest so you can loot it. I still haven’t gotten a hang of it. Lockpicking is like Fallout, Skyrim style. You have to force the lockpick a certain way and then break into the chest. There are magical lockpicks that opens stuff automatically too, somewhere.

The boss battles are great, hard, and intimidating. The bosses use a huge health bar and are no push over, unless you have a full Fate meter. Fate is where you get to change the fate of how the battle should have gone. It’s like an overkill button. It is generic though in most games. Fate gives you increased speed and attack damage. And when you almost kill an enemy or boss? Press the Activate button and a cool cutscene will happen and a Quick Time Event will pop up, generating massive overkill and giving you 25-100% bonus EXP!

When the tutorial is finally over with you get to see the great beautiful land! The environment is coloured to such a great extent. You can hear birds chirping, waterfalls and rivers, bridges, and ruins. Around the world of the Faelands are shrines that can give bonuses that will most likely save your life. Think of the Shrines in Diablo. As an added bonus, there are lorestones spread out. Collect all the lorestones in a selected area and you receive a permanent stat bonus. They also tell a great story.

Right after you get done with the tutorial and kill the boss, you get to meet a Fateweaver. He can see everyone’s fate and destiny. However he cannot see yours. Therefore, you get to choose your own Destiny! This is pretty much how you want to let your character be. Want to be a warrior? Rogue? Mage? As you level up your skill trees, your Destiny powers up too. Don’t like your Destiny? You can change it any time!

There are towns and cities within the Faelands. Towns are great because you don’t have to go through a loading screen. But the first city you go to, think of a smaller Darnassus from World of Warcraft. You can fast travel between dungeons and towns and cities too! There are vast amount of side quests to be done, including faction side quests, which when completed give you a permanent stat boost. You can even get a few houses, buy stuff like Alchemy Labs, plant regeants, and weapon racks.

The weapons are great also. They also special moves that you can use with them. The weapons consist of: Longswords, Greatswords, Daggers, Faeblades, Chakrams, Staffs, Hammers, Sceptres, and Bows. When you level up you get 1 talent skill (Blacksmithing, persuasion, lockpicking, stealth, etc), and 3 Tree skills. You can use the tree skills on any specialty you want, like Sorcery, Finesse, or Might. There are weapon masteries you can upgrade to for Tree skill points. These let you do new abilities, like for the mage, instead of rolling, you get “teleport blink”, which is pretty much the same thing, it just looks cooler.

Overall I give this game a 7/10.

Music, sound: 6/10 (The BGM isn’t that quite interesting but voice-acting is amazing)

Graphics: 7/10 (It’s not Skyrim or Battlefield graphics but it’s great)

Gameplay: 7/10 (The combat is great, but it’s kind of like “Push X to win”, but with added “Dodge or die”. The boss fights are fun though)

I’d say buy it but only if you have beaten everything else. It is a RPG, but it’s a single-player RPG that isn’t gameplay deep. It’s a lot better than Fable though. Don’t let my bias about the Fable series get you down; if you enjoyed the Fable series then you will love this game for sure.

 This review was written by MotionM™. Did you like this review? Comment below and tell me!