You’re dead. Lying on a slab of stone, you are carried to a waste disposal chute and unceremoniously dumped into the bowels of a cavern. Moments later you awake, surrounded by decaying corpses and death. You were dead, but now you have been resurrected. Surely for a mortal this is impossible? You have amnesia, your memory of your previous life completely gone. The only thing to do now is to press on, to find out who you are, how you died and how you came to draw breath once again.
This is the premise of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, a large scale action RPG from Big Huge Games. In true role playing style, many of the answers to secrets of the game will be drip fed throughout the course of the main story. Luckily the answers and revelations match the ambition of the premise, creating a story arc that is well worth seeing. Story may be the foundation, but the actual game isn’t too bad either.
Combat can best be described as fun, accessible and fairly deep as well. It’s not quite God of War, but it’s not far off. There are three classes available and are split up into three separate ability pools, Might (Warrior), Finesse (Rogue) and Sorcery (Mage). Each class comes with their own type of weapons, be it swords and hammers, daggers and bows, or staves and sceptres. Each weapon is allocated a single button but this still allows combos, charged attacks and even juggle moves to eventually become available. In addition to the weaponry, each class has its own abilities which can be utilised mid-battle such as a demoralising war cry, smoke bombs and elemental magic. Cause enough damage and your reckoning meter will fill up, allowing you to become even more powerful and able to perform slick finishing moves for massive amounts of experience.
The best part of Reckoning’s combat system however is that everything can be mixed and matched. As you level you earn points which can be invested in whichever ability tree you wish. This means various combinations of characters can be moulded, whether it’s a pure mage character, a mixture of warrior and rogue, or all three combined. You unlock destiny cards which give stat boosts depending on how your player is built, and all eventualities are catered for. The icing on the cake is that your skill points can be reallocated at anytime – so long as you have the coin. What this system creates then is an experience that should hopefully keep you going until the end. I played as a mage for the majority of the game, but switched to a warrior/rogue destiny and was impressed with how different it was.
All this power at your command does come at a cost, however. Reckoning is not a hard game, even on the toughest difficulty setting. This isn’t aided by the fact some of the more powerful abilities become perhaps too devastating, especially the sorcery powers. One high level spell is so powerful it kills most enemies in one hit. That said, playing as a pure mage is actually tougher than the other two classes by virtue of the much lower armour rating that robes afford. Whilst you may seek to get a challenge by going down the sorcery path, it was all but eliminated once the powerful spells were presented. It seems that the game encourages the jack of all trades approach when allocating your skills, but some better balancing would have been nice dependant on how your character is specced out.
The world is open, letting you go wherever you wish, though not quite as open as Skyrim or Fallout. One zone leads to the next, and whilst there is usually a choice of which zone to go to, you are still funnelled into going from one to the next. The areas are very big however and missions dot the landscape. At the start of you come across little villages and hamlets, but later on you will be presented with large cities and castles. The whole world looks great and has a more fantasy style of art than the seriousness of Skyrim. There are though many similarities to Bethesdas master piece; chests can be picked with locks, guards can arrest you and throw you in jail, and fast travelling becomes essential when traversing the world map. There’s also a great sense of lore in the world, with various races and religions, all bound to pre-determined fates which becomes a key plot point in the main story. I found the world to be rich enough to want to learn about all of its intricacies. There could possibly be some more enemy types to keep things interesting, but there are some great boss battles, a couple of which wouldn’t look out of place in God of War.
There are four types of quest available, main story, faction, side and tasks. The main story and faction quests are very well done. Great stories are told with some good plot twists and surprises, all presented with (mostly) interesting characters who are voiced well. The problem however lies with the side missions and tasks. The side missions are very hit and miss. There is always some little story behind each one, but the actual missions are usually generic: go to this place, kill/steal/bribe and report back to the mission giver. There is not usually any more to it than that, and the rewards are usually pretty worthless in the grand scheme of things. The tasks are even worse, and usually result in collecting one thing or another. There are some exceptions to this rule, but again the reward isn’t really worth the effort. The only good thing about completing most of these quests is the experience which you gain, but even that is questionable.
At the beginning enemies were at the same level or higher than me, which led to a fun experience. After picking up half a dozen side quests in the starting area, I cleared them all before moving on with the story. The problem was that by the time I had done those side quests, the majority of enemies were greyed out, indicating I had levelled past them leaving little challenge. It seems that the enemies then don’t fully level up with you, at least not all the time. Enemies seem to become stronger the farther East you travel, and as the main story gradually pulls you this way, there is no issue. If however you leave some side or faction quests and come back later, some foes will be greyed out whilst some the right level. There is no consistency which leads to a mixed experience. Though if you stick to the main story and undertake the faction quests as they crop up, you will have a fun experience.
There are other small issues; the menus can be very hit and miss and some of the caves are designed in such a way that once a mission has been completed, you have to back track all the way to the start which is both boring and time consuming. Generally, however, Reckoning is a fun experience set in an interesting world. The combat is certainly better than some, if not all other role playing games out there, and whilst it can start to wear out its welcome towards the end, the story is enough to carry you through and remains excellent up until the very end. If your looking for an experience of a similar scale to Skyrim, but want a deeper combat system, then Reckoning may be just what your looking for.
I'm a gamer of diminutive size who has been playing games since the days of the NES. I also enjoy long walks on the beach. "
