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KINGDOM OF AMALUR:RECKONING
General
An open-world action RPG, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is set in Amalur, a rich and deeply immersive world underpinned by 10,000 years history, created by 22 time New York Times bestselling author, R.A. Salvatore. Immersing players in a rich, living, breathing open-world dripping with magic and rife with danger, underpinned by strong storytelling, Reckoning lets players define their destiny as they engage in intense action combat while exploring the huge, vibrant and varied world of Amalur as envisioned by the visionary creator of Spawn and acclaimed artist, Todd McFarlane.Designed by open-world RPG legend Ken Rolston, Reckoning offers players unparalleled choice in a world of infinite possibility. Together, the visionaries and development team behind Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning are creating a game that aims to forever change the RPG genre.
Plot
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning follows the story of a mortal known as the "Fateless One", who having died before the game's outset, is revived in the experimental Well of Souls by the gnomish scientist Fomorous Hugues. The first and only success of the experiment, the Fateless One must escape the facility when it comes under attack by the Tuatha Deohn, a subsect of the immortal Winter Fae, who are currently waging a "Crystal War" on all the mortal races in the name of their new god "Tirnoch". Having escaped the facility, the Fateless One - having no memory of his life before his death - learns of the intriacies of the world he has returned to by the Fateweaver Agarth; Agarth explains that every individual in the world of Amalur has a predetermined fate and that Fateweavers' like Agarth are able to read this fate, predicting the circumstances surrounding the eventual death. Having been fated to die (and fulfilling that fate), the Fateless One's return from the death has taken them out of "Fate's weave"; theirs is the only life in the world without a predetermined end.Beginning a quest to uncover the truth surrounding his death, the Fateless One soon learns that by interacting with the wider world, the fate of others can be changed as well, saving Agarth from his fated, "lonely" death at the hands of a native creature; earning the personal attention of the King of the Tuatha Deohn, Gadflow. It is eventually decided that the only way the Fateless One can uncover the truth of his death is by locating the scientist who revived him, Fomorous Hugues, who went into hiding following the Tuatha attack on his laboratory.
Meeting with Hugues patron, a gnomish Templar named Ligotti Octienne, the Fateless One is directed to a former laboratory as his, deep inside the gnosmish territories of Detyre, where the two are subsequently ambushed by assassins sent by Octienne. Surviving the ambush, the two make plans to publically reveal Octienne's betrayal and, in hand, prise the location of another gnomish scientist, Ventrinio, who Hugues believes might know the details surrounding the Fateless One's death.
Travelling to the gnomish city of Adessa, the Fateless One confronts Octienne and forces his true allegiance into the public, learning that Ventrinio was previously spirited away by him to the region of Klurikon, deep behind Tuatha Deohn lines. In order to reach him, the Fateless One is directed to the Alfar city of Rathir, and then on to Mel Senshir, the besieged Alfar city in Klurikon and the centre of the Crystal War. Once again defying the dictates of Fate, the arrival of the Fateless One and his allies breaks the siege and turns the tide of the war in favour of the Alfar, earning him the moniker of 'Siege-Breaker'. Together with Alyn Shir, an Alfar who admits to knowing the Fateless One in his previous life, and Cydan, one of the few immortal Winter Fae unaffiliated with the Tuatha Deohn; the Siege-Breaker locates and confronts Ventrinio, who reveals that they had previously entered Alabastra, the centre of Gadflow's empire, in an attempt to collect the valuable prismere crystals which not only powered both Fomorous' and Ventrinio's own respective Well of Souls', but guide the Tuatha armies.
Determined to return to Alabastra, the Fateless One and his allies, Agarth, Alyn Shir, Cydan and Ventrinio help spearhead the Alfar counter-attack through Klurikon and into Alabastra. Splitting up, each made their way into the heart of Gadflow's kingdom, with the Fateless One eventually happening upon Alyn Shir and a now-dead Ventrinio; Alyn Shir reveals the truth behind the Fateless One's death, and it's connection to Tirnoch, the new Tuatha "god".
She reveals that both the Fateless One and herself are members of a non-descript organisation dedicated to protecting the secret of Tirnoch's existence from the wider world, silencing any who might learn of her existence and ensuring her imprisonment not be breached. It was Tirnoch, a dragon (creatures with the power to rival that of Amalur's gods) who, having seen the previous determination of the Fateless One to ensure her secret be kept, despite knowing he was fated to fail and die, helped revive him through Fomorous Hughes Well of Souls, freeing him of the dictates of Fate which would always prevent her from eventually escaping.
Deep beneath the Bhaile, capital of the Tuatha Deohn and former home to the Winter Fae the Fateless One fought Tirnoch and managed to ensure her imprisonment once again. He awakes several days later in the city of Rathir and learns from Agarth that Alyn Shir had rescued him from the rubble of Bhaile, before disappearing; Agarth also reveals that following the battle, many Alfar soldiers had aproached him for readings, but that he had been unable to provide, indicating that all were now free of the dictates of Fate
Gameplay
Kingdoms of Amalur features "5 distinct regions... 4 playable races, and 3 class trees with 22 abilities per tree."[5] The four playable races are the Almain (Civilized Humans), the Dokkalfar (Light Elves), the Ljosalfar (Dark Elves), and the Varani (Nomadic Humans).[6] The player starts off as a "blank slate", but can afterwards choose a class among the three available in the game, which are called Might, Finesse, and Sorcery; they correspond to the fighter, rogue, and mage classes respectively.The player can invest in a skill-tree system to unlock various "destinies",clarification needed] which act as the class system for the game. Combat is based on the timing of button presses, similar to an action RPG, with occasional quick time cutscenes like those in the God of War series. The combat includes a new rage system known as fate which allows players to enter a berserker state called "Reckoning Mode" to quickly dispatch a number of enemies, earning an experience bonus. The player can also "Fateshift" a single enemy during this state which will allow them to perform a brutal finisher following the rapid pressing of a random button, this will also dispatch all other enemies weakened during this time. The player has the ability to interact with all NPC's and most items of the environment including swimming. Lead combat designer Joe Quadara emphasized that "twitch skill is only going to get you so far. Strategy and proper RPG playing is going to get you farther." 38 Studios founder Curt Schilling said that the style of the game would be a marriage between God of War and Oblivion Main Characters
The Fateless One - a mortal fated to die in the Bhaile, capital of the Tuatha Deohn, but is returned from the death to exist outside of Fate's weave, which also grants him the ability to change the fate of others.Alyn Shir - a Dokkalfar and former associate of the Fateless One before his death. She intitally refuses to reveal the truth behind the Fateless One's death, for fear that the secret of Tirnoch became known throughout Amalur.
Agarth - a Fateweaver and associate of Fomorous Hugues; after escaping his fated death whilst in the company of the Fateless One, Agarth aids his new ally in his quest to uncover the truth.
Fomorous Hugues - a gnomish scientist and overseer of the Well of Souls experiment, which seeks to replicate the process of continual rebirth experienced by the Fae.
Gadflow - a Winter Fae and king of the Tuatha Deohn, loyal subject of Tirnoch and instigator of the Crystal War.
Tirnoch - a dragon of immense power with the ability to defy Fate and the subject of Tuatha worship
Reviews
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.
Metacritic Score:83
IGN Score: 9/10
Official Xbox Magazine: 8.5/10
Gamespot: 7.5/10
Reception
Even the greatest role-playing games aren't necessarily known for their great combat. They're frequently praised for their ambitious worlds, their involving stories, and the element of choice. But when you talk about your favorite RPGs, it's not often that the action is what you talk about first.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is not like those games. In the future, when you talk about Kingdoms of Amalur, the first thing you will probably mention is how fun the battles were. Incredibly, this RPG's combat is so exciting, it could have been used in a pure action game and would have held up just fine. In fact, from a swordplay, loot, and leveling perspective, Kingdoms of Amalur is as good as any RPG in recent memory. This is the role-playing game you should be playing if excellent action and progression are your primary concern.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
February 9, 2012 12:10PM PST
Kevin VanOrd
By: Kevin VanOrd, Senior Editor
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Kingdoms of Amalur's combat and character advancement are fantastic enough to overshadow how bland everything else is.
The Video Review
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Sharpen your chakhrams and follow Kevin through this review for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.
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PC games are reviewed using AMD Technology.
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.
Even the greatest role-playing games aren't necessarily known for their great combat. They're frequently praised for their ambitious worlds, their involving stories, and the element of choice. But when you talk about your favorite RPGs, it's not often that the action is what you talk about first.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is not like those games. In the future, when you talk about Kingdoms of Amalur, the first thing you will probably mention is how fun the battles were. Incredibly, this RPG's combat is so exciting, it could have been used in a pure action game and would have held up just fine. In fact, from a swordplay, loot, and leveling perspective, Kingdoms of Amalur is as good as any RPG in recent memory. This is the role-playing game you should be playing if excellent action and progression are your primary concern.
Lions, tigers, and bears are hardly Amalur's biggest problems.
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Of course, RPGs are about more than just swinging swords. The best of them aren't just games--they're worlds, in which unusual people mill about, inviting you into their homes and telling you of unimaginable treasures protected by unimaginable monsters. It's here that Kingdoms of Amalur falters. Amalur is nice enough to look at, and there are lots of things to do there. But each thing you do is pretty much like the last thing you did. In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, you stumble upon a coven of cannibals and have telepathic conversations with a dog. In Mass Effect 2, you explore the painful past of a troubled young woman and witness the ultimate conflict between mother and daughter. In Kingdoms of Amalur, you kill stuff and listen to a bunch of nondescript characters spout line after line of unexceptional fantasy lore. There's so much talking, so much effort put into all this dialogue. And yet Amalur never develops an identity in spite of it all. There's a lot of tell, but not a whole lot of show.
There's at least a great premise providing a foundation for your adventure. You see, you are dead. Or at least, you were dead before a device called the Well of Souls brought you back to the land of the living. Upon reawakening, you find yourself in quite the position: you no longer have a fate. And because the laws of fate no longer apply to you, you can change destiny as you see fit. Save innocent lives. Kill your enemies. In conversation, act like a jerk--or like an angel. Like other RPGs, Kingdoms of Amalur occasionally grants you the power to choose. However, the story’s very premise nods to the fact that you are a blank slate, free to progress as you see fit. You're special in this world because everyone else is tied to the threads of fate. Before you came along, the future was unchangeable.
As long as you wait long enough for your spell to cool down, lightning really can strike the same place twice.
As long as you wait long enough for your spell to cool down, lightning really can strike the same place twice.
It's a pity that Kingdoms of Amalur doesn't know what to do with the setup. You gradually learn more about your self-named, blank-slate character, but the game is more interested in getting you into battle than it is in developing its people. You can talk to the inhabitants about all sorts of things, but doing so is rarely more interesting than reading some dusty tome. It's nice to have a world fleshed out by conversations and books, but in any game, it's better to see and experience an adventure firsthand than it is to hear someone talking about one. There are some nice narrative touches that resonate, such as a conversation with a woman angry that the church has outlawed female clergy. But most dialogue is wooden description.
Many fine RPGs don't feature great central plots or superior dialogue, so the humdrum storytelling may not be a bother for you. It's too bad that the side quests don't pick up the slack. There's so little variety here. Kill spiders, find a missing person, collect these items, and so on. A few of these have a spark of creativity. You partake in a bizarre reenactment of an old legend, speak with a wolf cursed to roam as a human, and assist a dimwit who has been deceived by pranksters pretending to be something they're not. But overall, questing in Kingdoms of Amalur is a game of "chase the waypoint," in which you run toward quest goals without caring about why you're heading there. The dullness of questing is reinforced by your own voiceless character during cutscenes, who mutely stares into space during every conversation as if he or she has heard it all before.
Remember: it's never polite to point.
Remember: it's never polite to point.
You may have heard Kingdoms of Amalur compared with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, in the sense that they are both open-world fantasy RPGs. But such comparisons aren't really accurate. Amalur is "open-world" in a pedantic sense, yet it's not an enormous landmass, but rather a collection of big areas separated by winding corridors. (All you have to do is open the world map to see how different this game's world structure is from an Elder Scrolls game.) It's more akin to a large-scale Fable, with loading times and winding pathways used to segment explorable areas, dungeons, and towns.
The art design may also remind you of Fable (or maybe World of Warcraft), though Kingdoms of Amalur isn't so self-consciously lighthearted. It is certainly lovely, however, in a vanilla sort of way. Bright red and blue flowers dot sun-dappled meadows, where antelopes graze and hop about, prancing away when you draw too near. Crooked lampposts and skewed wooden rooftops welcome you to a desert village and its brown cobbled streets. It's all so pretty, pixie dust rising from enough grassy knolls and daisy patches that it looks like an army of fairies just exploded. But the visual design lacks identity, embracing the middle of the road and never reaching beyond. Kingdoms of Amalur doesn't have the exaggerated charm of Fable II or the rich detail of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. It happily embraces its pedestrian prettiness, like the front cover of any fantasy novel you might find on a bookstore's shelf
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