Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning - Page 2

I didn't get to the demo, but I'm enjoying the game so far at around two hours in. It is essentially Dragon Age II with less morality choices and more faction options. I'm a sucker for lootfest dungeon-crawlers, and this one is dropping more loot than the DA games ever did, which is good for me. I find fantasy archetypes interesting, even if they're recycled, and I'm reasonably thrilled they're going a different route than "gritty, pulsating, decapitating realism" with the art style. I'm enjoying the stealth kill animations and the over-the-top Threads of Fate kills. 

It won't be game of the year, I'm sure, but it's been enjoyable so far. I haven't delved into any factions or done any crafting yet. There's a lot left to see, but so far I'm happy with it. 

Side note, I don't know if I just play differently than everyone else, but I'm not noticing any camera issues at all. It stays where I put it, it moves behind me when I click the stick, that's about as much as I can ask for. 

So here's a thing. After much nagging from many friends, I finally picked up and installed Skyrim last night. And (unsurprisingly, following my experiences with Oblivion and Fallout 3) I pretty much hate everything about it. Then, just as I finished up the session, I remembered I'd downloaded the demo for this, purely for the ME3 bonus gubbins. So I decided to give it a quick go and had about 100 times more fun in the next 45 minutes than the whole of the 3 hours previously. It's not without flaws - generic fantasy world, the UI/menus are a clunky, I got lots of weird graphical breakup following certain moves - but the combat was good, the approach to skill trees open enough for messing about with various builds, and artwise it's endearingly charming so I'm very inclined to pick it up when it's released here.

I'm still enjoying this. Rolling pretty steadily with a longsword-equipped fighter-type. I tried the greatsword, but the slow weapons are almost too slow to be effective at all. I can see having a tradeoff of damage for speed, but they don't do that much more damage, and even an encounter with two or more wolves (or any enemies that attack sequentially) becomes a challenge with a greatsword or hammer because of the laboriously slow attack speed. I'm not big on ranged combat though, so I was thrilled to find I can equip my daggers as my secondary weapon and use them for the odd stealth kill (and wolf battle). 

Enjoying the "the rules don't apply to you" story enough... it's nothing groundbreaking, but at least they didn't hit me with the impending end of the world after the first quest. 

My only real beef is that it's buggy. Quests don't track correctly, and sometimes subtitles and quest text get stuck on the screen. It's nothing gamebreaking like Skyrim or LOTR: War in the North, but it's still an annoyance. 

Detect hidden is really cool. Besides blacksmithing, I haven't put points anywhere else.

I haven't seen any red enemy names yet in my playthrough. I haven't left the continent I started on, but the worst I've fought are some orange named enemies, and nothing has been overly difficult. Haven't died yet. I went to the House of Ballads pretty much immediately.

As for blacksmithing, breaking stuff down has been yielding the stuff I need, and I've been able to make some pretty good stuff with four ingredients. I actually did the opposite of you, and scrapped my warrior build for a rogue... enjoying it far more at this point. The rogue tree seems exceptionally overpowered though, as I was dropping guys with my poison skill and my shadow-knife-throw in one hit all the way up to level ten. Have joined every faction I've come upon so far with no story conflicts, I'm not sure how long that's going to continue. 

Have either of you noticed any cool bonuses from the fate cards? I unlocked one today that's finesse/sorcery and turned my roll into a teleport. Pretty cool looking but it's just visual flash.

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Originally Posted by TheGhost 

Have either of you noticed any cool bonuses from the fate cards? I unlocked one today that's finesse/sorcery and turned my roll into a teleport. Pretty cool looking but it's just visual flash.

I didn't know you could do that, that is pretty cool. I'll have to look at them more. I haven't been doing any hybrid classes though. I've been straight combat, and straight stealth. 
 

Yeah, it's a tier 3 card so maybe that's when they start tacking on extras like that. I'll have to check the others out when my kids are in bed. Are you guys finding ranged to be pretty useless? I usually like playing archers but in 3rd person I really wasn't enjoying it. Any personal experience? Does it get better?

Yeah man, blacksmithing seems really, really generous with the bonuses. I made a green sword that was better than some of the purples I'd found in the world. I'm kind of lacking in armor though. The stuff my guy is wearing is great stat-wise but it looks goofy as fuck. I wish more games had that shit like mmos where you can wear one set for looks and another for stats. On the plus side I'm rocking a pretty sweet chest piece that's got a MASSIVE pauldron on one side.

Put some points into sagecrafting and blacksmithing..holy fuck. I feel really overpowered but there's something incredibly fun about that in the way this game plays. I dug the House of Ballads questline the most so far.

Anyway. If you want gold and ridiculous eq, put some points in both of those and go nuts. You'll end up making a ton of shit you probably can't even use yet but when you can it'll be a lot better than the blues and purples you find in the world.

Really enjoying this; Im currently using a greatsword/chakram combo (plus i keep some daggers handy for stealth kills); only gripe so far is how fast equipment gets  damaged, which makes repairinga  bit of a chore.

Well, that and the fact that i got cursed early on the game and still havent found a healer anywhere; probably because im just doing sidequest and barely invested an hour in the main quest.

I played the demo for this one, thought it was decent enough.

Can't see myself buying it at full price though. The game kind of seems like it could be really fun if it had some multiplayer to it, it kind of seems like it wants to be a much deeper epic experience than the almost cartoony graphics lend to, feels like you should get to dungeon crawl with 3 buddies and have a fun time, but alas there is no multiplayer to be had.

It's actually a pretty fun game all things considered. I'm a sucker for open-world RPG's though, and needed something along the lines of Skyrim to obsess over before Mass Effect 3 arrived.

But boy do I not give a shit about the world at large in this game.

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Originally Posted by LaurenOrtega 

It's actually a pretty fun game all things considered. I'm a sucker for open-world RPG's though, and needed something along the lines of Skyrim to obsess over before Mass Effect 3 arrived.

 

But boy do I not give a shit about the world at large in this game.

Far too many elves, aren't there?

Elves and cod-Celticisms always kind of get me. And this has several types of elves and words like Tuatha for double the effect.

I do actually like the game world itself though. There's something about the vivid cartoon colors and look that lends itself to the combat for me.

Agreed. I don't give a shit about the world at large or the politics but running faeblades/dagger/greatsword + skeleton familiar + chain lightning is a good time all around. In the beginning money seemed like a pain in the ass when everything good was 40k but now the garbage I craft I can turn around and sell for 3-8k so I guess there's coins raining from the sky and gods help the local economy when I decide I want to sell something that's actually good....I should own most of these towns by now.

Have any of you noticed that npcs will sometimes call you names based on your equipment? I thought that was pretty cool.

And now my teleport/roll poisons people...

So how are you guys handling the side quests?   Every time I try and start a main storyline quest, I'll meet someone on my way and get into a side quest.   On the way to that side quest, I run into another person needing my help so I queue that one up and so on and so forth.   I've played for 8 hours and maybe 25-30 minutes have been dedicated to the main quest and that's at the very start of the game.   It's the worst kind of game for a person with ADD.

All that being said, I am having a blast with it.   It has the arcade style combat that I love from Fable combined with what looks like a very deep character building system that you would find in Dragon Age and I assume, Skyrim.    As far as camera issues go, it didn't bother me as I usually guide the camera as I play with the right analog stick anyway.   I hope other RPG makers are taking notes.   This is how you make a console RPG.

Some further thoughts.   The mythology is a bit on the inaccessible side.   Alot of thought went into it but I'm not really feeling this world that was built up.   This is a bit sad because the technical aspects aside from the camera is so well thought out.    The story is told well enough but what's keeping me hooked is the gameplay, leveling up, crafting badass weapons, etc.   I still say Bioware and other RPG makers should be studying this game because there's some really excellent stuff happening under the hood.

Alright, now that I'm fifteen hour plus in this, here are my two cents.

Ken Rolston or not, they shouldn't have sold this as an Elder Scrolls style game at all. You know what established RPG franchise this most closely resembles? Diablo. With hugely expanded sidequests, yes.  But this is a loot-driven action-RPG through and through. I'm constantly changing and upgrading items, whereas in Skyrim I spent almost half my play-time with Dawnbreaker.

The story is basic. The world building is a bit better except for one thing. I found their effort to diegetically set up the MMO trope of the endless cycle of character death and resurrection for Copernicus (their upcoming MMO based in this world) excellent. If a bit nerdy. The character progression is pretty standard for an action-RPG, mostly consisting of unlocking attack variations and the making them stronger. The crafting is lovely. I heard a lot of people calling it overpowered and broken but this has not been my experience so far. Unless you go out of way to fill your items with hp and mana regen, that is. Otherwise I have been pretty much going from loot to crafted and back again throughout. This type of crafting helps to un-gimp the weapon specialization skills that often plague RPGs. Usually in loot games I tend to avoid weapon specialization because the loot system may fuck you if you're for example focused on daggers but nothing good drops except for hammers and axes. With the crafting here you can easily keep your preferred weapon type up to your character's needs. The combat system is simple, yet deeper than is usual for the genre. The immediately accessible secondary weapon is very well implemented.

Overall, a very successful first effort. And seeing that it was financially successful enough for a sequel is very exciting.

Went back to finish up some faction quests and it seems you get a different twist of fate card depending on what choice you make during the end of the storyline.  For instance, in the Warsworn faction quest you're given a choice to become the vessel for the Niskaru King which leads to a whole mission of basically wiping out the Warsworn.   I'm playing as a paragon this run through so I turned him down but I thought it was interesting that you have those choices.  

BTW 60 hours in so far.   This game just won't end! (and I'm not complaining).    If this game had a better storyline, this could easily be GOTY material.   As it is, it's a very very very good game and worth it at full price.  

Finished this a few weeks ago and really mixed feelings about it.   On the one hand, it had such a great back end setup and engine going that all it needed was an interesting world to put it in and a gripping story to tell.   As it is, the world of Amular feels very generic which wouldn't be a killing blow by itself.   Storytelling can go a long way.   Just look at Dragon Age: Origins.   Unfortunately, it didn't have a great story.   It had some great ideas in there that could have made for a good story but it never gelled.  

That being said, I was addicted to this game while I played it because while the story and world building sucked, the game play and RPG elements were stunning and IMHO a high water mark for Action RPGs.   What made the game worse was I played Mass Effect 2 right after this and the shoddy story elements got even more shoddier in retrospect.   Still worth full price but not a Skyrim Killer.    If they get better writers for the sequel and work on the morality system, look out.   It has the potential to be a serious franchise.   Just not quite there yet.

I wish I'd get a big open world game that was legitmately interesting and weird without the need to take in half-baked Tolkien leftovers.

But people still like these settings, which bugs the fuck out of me.

Playing Mass Effect 2 and 3 made this game worse in retrospect.   The game engine and mechanics were there.   All it needed was an interesting story and a unique world to mess around in.   Slap a Star Wars or Mass Effect license on this, hire some great writers and you have the game of the year.   That being said, I had so much fun crafting weapons, making runes, battling monsters, and going on quests that I can't quite hate the game.   I got a good 80 hours out of the experience and while I was playing it, I was into it.   I'm hoping that if a sequel is produced, they get away from the Tolkienisms and incorporate some sci fi elements or change something up.   Not sure if I care about this universe but I love the arcade style fighting system and leveling up system too much to see the core game go.   Here's hoping the sequel fixes the story issues or they come up with a pallete swap type game where the mechanics are there in a new skin (like Prototype to Hulk: UD except better)

Such a mixed bag this game is but ultimately a recommendation when it comes down in price.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LaurenOrtega 

I wish I'd get a big open world game that was legitmately interesting and weird without the need to take in half-baked Tolkien leftovers.

 

But people still like these settings, which bugs the fuck out of me.

Most people like what they know, what comforts them and reinforces their already existing ideas about the world. Within the world of geekdom this is no different.

Around five hours in, and I haven't come close to dying. How big of a pushover is this game?

I mean... it's fun, so far. The exploring is nice. It's like someone took away all of the sim-type aspects from Fable and poured all of that energy into quests and loot.

In a weird way, this is kind of what I originally wanted out of Fable - energetic combat, an expansive, detailed world, and so forth -  but now that I'm playing through it, I'm not so sure I want it anymore. And ugh, the trite fantasy setting. I can't skip conversations fast enough.

I'm dicking around with this, and it's a pretty fun waste of time. It's kind of nice to have a game where I have no pressing need to see what happens. I know what will happen, I'll get told to go kill things and I will. Also, lots of loot.

I've been solidly a warrior so far, with no pressing need to try anything else. Maybe magic is a lot fun, but I'll probably pass on rogue. Or I'll just max Warrior.

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Originally Posted by Arjen Rudd 

I'm dicking around with this, and it's a pretty fun waste of time. It's kind of nice to have a game where I have no pressing need to see what happens. I know what will happen, I'll get told to go kill things and I will. Also, lots of loot.

 

I've been solidly a warrior so far, with no pressing need to try anything else. Maybe magic is a lot fun, but I'll probably pass on rogue. Or I'll just max Warrior.

Once you drop some points into black smithing, detect hidden, and sage craft, you'll spend way too much time forging bad ass weapons from salvaging the weapons you find out in the world.   The bonuses you get from doing this are insane.   The only real reason to drop points into magic and stealth is for weapon mastery.   Especially the Chakrams (best weapon in the game).   I think the high point of the game happens roughly halfway through with breaking the seige and fighting the monster.   There's a nice sense of scale to the thing that speaks to the great job the developers did with game play.

One the one hand, I hate to see the story of a one-man vision for an ambitious (but not terribly good!) RPG end in disaster. On the other hand, Curt Schilling is a tea-partying asshole who cost taxpayers 113 million, which is a wonderful irony.

Yee-ouch:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/24/report-38-studios-lays-off-entire-staff

They needed Amalur to sell 3 million copies just to break even -- it only sold 1.2 million.

Jeez, that's sad news.   I hope the engine they created for this game is ported to another IP that's worthy of it.   The IP was shit to be honest but the gameplay was some of the best I've seen in the Action RPG genre.

I don't care about 38 Studios that much, other than the fact of so many people losing their jobs. It's Big Huge Games I'm mostly concerned with. Brian Reynolds, especially. My pie in the sky scenario? He goes back to Firaxis and takes over Civ.