Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Most helpful review Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

• Good - But not Great.

   

  By eiliann (1 review) from Ipswich , 01 Mar 2012

  [Highly rated reviewer]

  This is a good game. But it could - and should - have been brilliant, which makes it's flaws more disappointing. While I agree with the others who say it's better than Fable, I massively disagree that it's better than the Dragon Ages or anywhere near as good as Skyrim, at least in terms of them being role-playing games - Reckoning is more of an Action/Adventure game in my opinon. If Action/Adventure is more your bag, then fair enough, you probably would prefer it to either DA or any Elder Scrolls game.
  
  There are several main problems with Reckoning, which are: the confined gameworld, which, while admittedly huge, the mini-map only throws into relief rather than helping. There are glitches in some of the (non-story) quests - while they aren't broken, as such, it is annoying when you see them. Enemy attacking AI is poor, with most enemies using the same one or two attacks/combos over and over with no mixing up - as an example normal Kobolds will either use a three-hit spear combo or a charged ground-pound and that's it. Although, to be fair, packs of enemies can produce an avalanche of attacks if you aren't careful (especially on hard) which can make things a little trickier. Also, the game suffers from 'character's can't jump' syndrome - there are things laying about which your character should blatantly be able to step over, but because it's marked with a barrier, you have to go the long (sometimes very long) way around, which is annoying.
  
  There are no cut-scenes, characters have only a few gestures - all the same ones - in conversations, almost all of the music does not fit in context, the dialogue is occasionally good but otherwise badly cliched and the voice-acting, for the most part (there are exceptions) is frankly bad, both in how they speak - and i'm not having a go at accents or anything here - and in terms of how the voice suits the character. Also, most characters capable of having a 'conversation' only have a few lines of dialogue each - usually between 2 and 4 lines for each conversation option. Any one of the last paragraph of problems I described is a disadvantage for any story-driven game, while the ones in the paragraph above are disadvantages in an action-based game, but all together they definitely pushed my mark for this game (which tries to be both) down a lot.
  
  Dragon Age does share a couple of these flaws, I freely admit it's not the perfect game... But in Dragon Age I found myself caring about the characters I interacted with, and what happens with Loghain when you finally face him was like a sandbag to the back of the head for me. In contrast, Reckoning leaves me almost completely cold. One of the characters dies, and even when it's noble self-sacrifice it's just... well, so what? Like I care. And as for matching Skyrim, Skyrim is vast, with a sweepingly epic grandeur this game simply cannot match - and more to the point, Skyrim is a true hard-core Western role-playing game (as opposed to Final Fantasy, Breath of Fire etc., which are hard-core Japanese Role-Playing games), whereas, as I mentioned above, I consider that Reckoning is more of an action/adventure game rather than true role-playing.
  
  On the plus-side, as stated the game-world is huge, there's quite a lot to do, the main storyline is epic, crafting your own gear is easy and can get pretty in-depth with trying to salvage the right parts from unwanted items, and fast-travel is always handy. The Character customisation, while not as in-depth as Skyrim or some others, is nevertheless quite detailed, which always helps. Graphically it's nice to look at, the water especially looks really good, all the creatures and background locations have quite a unique look compared to anything else out there and everything is animated nice and smoothly. The Lorestones which provide history and some various stories are also a nice touch. Enemy defensive AI is better, with enemies usually trying to keep their distance so you can't just hack them straight down. Being able to buy-back any item you've sold (as long as you can remember who you sold it to) is also good, as is the area-dependent Stash location bonuses if you finish a certain Quest-line in that area. Lots of unique and set-related gear to find for the treasure-hunters and bling-blingers out there, some of which have some really good histories attatched to them, though your own crafted gear will usually be better if you have good components. The Fateshifting mechanic, while mostly a gimmick, is nevertheless a good idea and works quite well, though it makes fighting even bosses quite ridiculously easy. Lastly, the way you can change your character's Destiny at any point and can purchase total character re-specs (which get progressively more expensive) are also good ideas.
  
  All in all then, definitely not a bad game, not by any stretch, but very disappointing to me when I look at the awesome potential it had, which has been largely wasted in almost every way. As a result, I am very happy I rented it instead of buying it, which is what I had been intending after playing the demo.
  
  Hope this review helps you make a more informed decision on whether to get this or not.
  
  And just for the record, once I've done destroying this, I'll be putting my furs back on, start calling myself Dovahkiin once more and be back to my dragon-slaying ways in the hard, harsh - but beautiful - Cyrodiliac Province of Skyrim.

  • Was this review helpful to you?
  • (11) Yes |
  •  No (4)

  Report this review

All reviews