Kingdoms of Amalur:Reckoning

[Krynj]

I may rent it to see how things are in the final version before buying. Seems fun generally, but in the demo some of the controls feel sorta clunky and the camera could have used a bit of work.

I would say that's largely the same in the final version. The only slight annoyances I have with the game so far are the controls and the camera. I find myself having to move the camera around a little more than I would like, and walking/running around sometimes feels a little cumbersome, especially when trying to work your way through treacherous areas laced with traps.

 

[RaiderJ]

Played the demo on the 360, it was fun, but I got destroyed as a mage type when fighting a bunch of wolves. Might have to try again with a warrior type.

 

[Rage187]

Played the demo on the 360, it was fun, but I got destroyed as a mage type when fighting a bunch of wolves. Might have to try again with a warrior type.

use a staff or wand. they absolutely destroy. Casting spells seemed more like a situational tactic instead of the primary method of doing damage.

 

[American Gunner]

I roll with daggers and a staff, and am a hybrid fighter/mage. I have wrecked every fight I have been in.

 

[BoberFett]

Couldn't resist, bought it last night. Going full finesse, daggers and bows.

 

[thespyder]

Unfortunately, I have to hold off. As much as I want to play, I am still loving Skyrim and have to at least finish it once, and then I have to get back to Batman AC and Dark Souls. But with job and family and school, just not as much gaming hours in the day as there used to be.

 

[Anubis]

use a staff or wand. they absolutely destroy. Casting spells seemed more like a situational tactic instead of the primary method of doing damage.

yea you want something ranged or fast against the wolfs

charkams are great as well as powerful as hell

 

[thespyder]

yea you want something ranged or fast against the wolfs

charkams are great as well as powerful as hell

How are people finding the balancing? Any issues? Any obvious outliers?

 

[Anubis]

balancing seems fine, no real issues but you can get screwed if you get trapped in a corner by a bunch of dudes, happened in other games with this style of combat as well

 

[Doppel]

Gamespot posted their review- http://www.gamespot.com/kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning/

Not great scores there, IGN loved it, though. It's doing well on amazon fwiw.

 

[Krynj]

From Gamespot's review:

The Good
-Top-notch combat with a real punch
-Fantastic, flexible character advancement
-Some great-looking creatures
-Extensive world with tons of stuff to do and lots of monsters to fight.

The Bad
-Generic story and characters
-Generic world
-Generic quests.

Seems like they're really grasping at straws there for their "bad" points there. I would agree that the story, world, characters, and quests are "generic", but to me, those aspects of the game seem par for the course, and it definitely shouldn't drop its score to 7.5. This game is tons of fun to play. I would even go so far as saying I prefer it over Skyrim.

 

[Anubis]

their bad points could be made for many games, one review i read was complainng the game didnt make them "care about the NPCs or anyone in the game" a point which i could make for every game ive ever played

Metacritic has it scored 80-85 on all platforms, last i looked PC was the highest critic review but lowest user review, PS3 i think had the highest user score. i say 85 is a good place for it, its not perfect but its a hell of a lot better then many games out there and it is really fing fun to play

 

[BoberFett]

I'm having a lot of fun with it. The combat is fast and brutal, the character customization and progression is very well done, the crafting is great, and I actually find the story somewhat interesting, not generic in the least.

 

[Naeeldar]

From Gamespot's review:

The Good
-Top-notch combat with a real punch
-Fantastic, flexible character advancement
-Some great-looking creatures
-Extensive world with tons of stuff to do and lots of monsters to fight.

The Bad
-Generic story and characters
-Generic world
-Generic quests.

Seems like they're really grasping at straws there for their "bad" points there. I would agree that the story, world, characters, and quests are "generic", but to me, those aspects of the game seem par for the course, and it definitely shouldn't drop its score to 7.5. This game is tons of fun to play. I would even go so far as saying I prefer it over Skyrim.

I want to know how it's possible the story and characters are generic? DO they mean typical fantasy story or that it's boring in general? I can't imagine with Salvatore involved that it would be boring.

 

[Anubis]

its not boring, but it is your typicial fantasy setting, heroes journy and all that such stuff.

i dont think the world is generic, each zone is quite different and they all have a unique feel to them, the mobs in the game are great, sure they repeat and such but you cant design a game with 60 hours of content and have 100% unique and non repeating bad guys .

the quests are no more or less generic then yoru typicial action RPG, Deleiver this, go kill theses dudes and bring me back X,..... there is only 1 go kill X # of dudes quest, its repeatable and rewards gold, and it compleats itself as you do other things


its quite long winded as there are hours and hours of dialog and stuff to read about the lore and such. i could see that being annoying for peopel who ust want to speed run the game,

 

[Krynj]

I'm not a big RPG guy, but I do enjoy them from time to time. So when I say the characters and quests are generic, I mean they seem like the typical garden variety stuff you find in most every fantasy RPG. Story and characters aren't what really keep me in a game anyway. I'm mostly captivated by gameplay, character leveling/specing, etc, etc. And that's not a real complaint against KoA or anything, as it's one of the better games I've played lately. Feels like they dunked God of War 3 in Skyrim and then tossed it inside of Fable.

 

[mOeeOm]

I want to know how it's possible the story and characters are generic? DO they mean typical fantasy story or that it's boring in general? I can't imagine with Salvatore involved that it would be boring.

-The story is pretty bland
- every character so far is boring
- the dialogue is weak and voiced terribly, nothing like ME2 or DAO
- it gets repetitive fast

The combat is fun and that's about it.

 

[mirandu04]

-The story is pretty bland
- every character so far is boring
- the dialogue is weak and voiced terribly, nothing like ME2 or DAO
- it gets repetitive fast

The combat is fun and that's about it.

well most of the reviews said the same thing.
it is somehow an arcade game if you think a little and indeed the battle system is the only things that brings the game up

 

[Anteaus]

In regards to the generic nature of characters and stories, it's hard not get jaded when over the years we play so many games that provide the same game context. I don't mean the specific story, but the whole "bad things are happening therefore someone either needs to the solution or be part of the solution, all the while choosing whether to be an angel or a butthead while you participate in said solution".

I know I'm a bit jaded. I realize that there are some really good writers out there that are still producing some great games, but it's the 10-15 games in the middle. It's hard to get excited. Like others I'm still playing Skyrim so I'm holding off on KoA for a little while.

I'm curious if a game about nothing would be successful (blantant Seinfield reference ). Instead of a main storyline, build us a true sandbox world where I can participate in various small isolated storylines or quests that have no reference to some great arching theme and simple let the world react to it. Basically, just give us Skyrim with no hero story and double up on the random fluff and general hour to hour experience. Who needs one storyline that we've all heard in different variations that takes us a ton of hours to beat when we can experience 10 small isolated, disconnected storylines in the same period of time. Think minecraft + Skyrim + Mount & Blade + X3. Just a thought.

In any case, I hope you are all enjoying Kingdoms of Amalur.

 

[Krynj]

I'm curious if a game about nothing would be successful (blantant Seinfield reference ).

"So what did you do today?"
"I got up and came to work."
"That's a game!"

 

[American Gunner]

My character got stuck in the floor and I can't get him to move. And I looked and don't have any other saves except for one about 8 hours back. This kind of blows.

 

[Krynj]

Did you turn off autosave? It saves whenever you enter/exit a building/area. I died at one point, and thought I'd lost about 3 hours of gameplay, but the autosave saved my ass, and brought me right back to the beginning of a dungeon.

 

[American Gunner]

Yeah, I leveled up right when the fight ended. So it autosaved after the fight, right when my character was stuck in the floor.

 

[BoberFett]

My character got stuck in the floor and I can't get him to move. And I looked and don't have any other saves except for one about 8 hours back. This kind of blows.

I somehow managed to get myself stuck between a crafting table and some other furniture. Saved the game, exited, loaded, my character was safely standing in front of the crafting table. Whew.

 

[Hadsus]

I went from Skyrim to this. Played it all weekend. Story is not as strong as Skyrim but I don't think it's as bad as some have made it out to be. I'm going on 15 hours now on and just chose Battlemage as a destiny.

BTW, my Gamestop copy came with a Mass Effect 3 inspired armor set. It's quite good and I'm still using it though I've found better armor loot. The set gives you some nice perks like mana and health regen....I'll probably have to give it up soon though since it's not going to keep up with enemy strength much longer. I've already had to repair the entire set once.