Kingdoms of Amalur: A surprisingly pleasant surprise.

[Palademon]

I found myself struggling to get through demo.

I was definately very interested in the game from the trailers, but the demo killed it for me.

I forget about the supposed great fluid combat until I saw a trailer a little after playing the demo, and thought to myself "Either it looks far cooler in trailers, or it wouldn't let me do that in the demo."

I'm not even sure how you'd get that kind of combat out of one button for each weapon. That's a page from the Fable book of depth, where it doesn't make a difference since in a fight you don't carefully time the "swingy-swordy-killy" button to make a cool looking combo, as much as you just want to kill the guy.

 

[Joccaren]

I found it interesting, but not amazing. It will be a nice timefiller for when I'm not playing something else.
My main problems were the poor implementation of the combat system. Apart from not liking straight up button mashing combat to begin with, this game seems to actively encourage/force it, except on the boss fights. The character has a magnetic attraction to the first enemy you target, and won't stop attacking them until their dead. This is very unintuitive, especially with how long it takes for you to unlock from someone. There's an enemy over there you want to turn to fight, or block, or W/E? Sorry, you're camera can turn but your character is going to keep stabbing this guy. What's that, he's about to attack you? Sorry, but that guy you're pounding into really wants you to raise your shields towards him ATM. Gah. I hated that. It tried for a freeflow combat system, and really something along the lines of Arkham City would have felt better. Intuitive transition between targets, timing based so you don't just button mash, more than one type of block you have, and your block is omni-directional anyway - it just would have felt better.
I also had a problem with the skill tree (Not the ability tree). I opened it up and had no idea what I wanted to invest in. It all sounded so useless as I had no idea what any of the systems were to know what to put my points into.
The story is mostly generic and bland.
I also hate these over colourful dross worlds. We get it, you don't like brown and grey, don't make it uber saturation dross though. I'm also not a big fan of cartoony characters. Personal preference more than anything though.

What I liked about it was the fate system, and that apparently you can keep changing your class - even though it never let me. (WHY!?!?)

Either way, getting it. Good time waster, but nothing amazing IMO.

 

[Domehammer]

I almost went totally against game when first trying to play pc version. It took fiddling with video settings to find out why on pc version the screen for in game scenes and cut scenes was pure black. Eventually something worked and was able to play it. I don't know if I will get it still though. Combat for me seemed sluggish for me. It was almost like inputs of mouse were delayed. Also wolves are so annoying it makes me want to rip hair out. The fact my character gets stunned basically for a second or two every time a wolf lunges can be awful. Not to mention I got hit once in a fight and was juggled by enemy to almost dieing when fighting kobolds. Character responding to attacks is fine but the demo had it to extreme that was just annoying not fun but annoying.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

It has its issues but overall I enjoyed it. Its nothing new, but also its nothing bad. An people here moaning about story and your character have no history - its an rpg, all that will come later. Why do you want everything spelt out for you within the first 10 minutes? Demos of rpgs are always bad because of the limits that a demo gives them - mostly for the story and character elements. I played the demo to FF13-2 and it sucked, but mostly thats due to not being fussed about the talking and story elements because you cant do much with those in a demo.

So it may not do anything new or change the rpg world. But its a solid game, if it fixes a few things. But i can also happily play this while I wait for MS3.

 

[Choffers]

i really enjoyed it. it was some odd kind of weird fable-like experience for me. the current debate for me is ps3 or pc. on my second play through i was pleased to learn you can get different combos by mixing up your timing; a small but noticeable (and i suppose completely optional) difference from the "press x to the beat to win" strategy fable had.

 

[As Seen On 360]

Played through some of the demo myself, think I stopped after escaping the tower. Mainly because I was sold and realized that I'd reached a part where I pick up quests and start venturing out, and I figured it'd be less taxing on my patience if I didn't have to replay a part like that.

I'm a fan of the on the fly weapon swaps, which I realize isn't new to the genre but they're still a fluid mechanic, at least on the PC (gonna get it on 360 through Gamefly). Also liking the armor sets, in that they allow for customization of appearance and stats while, at least early on, not overbloating stats to the point where you have a few relevant to your class, then a number of them relevant to another class.

Story-wise I'm interested enough, but having only been a demo it's not really a good indicator of what's to come.

 

[Domehammer]

I almost went totally against game when first trying to play pc version. It took fiddling with video settings to find out why on pc version the screen for in game scenes and cut scenes was pure black. Eventually something worked and was able to play it. I don't know if I will get it still though.

If your first reaction to a black screen is not to tab out and run a google search, PC gaming is probably not for you.

I did try to google problems with demo but fooling around with video settings were more effective. Nearly ever search result was reviews about demo. Not one when I tried was about black screen problem I was having.

 

[AppleShrapnel]

I did try to google problems with demo but fooling around with video settings were more effective. Nearly ever search result was reviews about demo. Not one when I tried was about black screen problem I was having.

Next best place to google are the Steam forums themselves. A vast majority of any game's posts are all technical issues and fixes, with the second most common topic being hater/troll-related... yeah. :|

 

[Daystar Clarion]

I actually really enjoyed it.

It's got a great mix of lot's of different types of games and they all seem to come together really well.

I really like the aesthetic, the combat is great and the RPG aspects all seem pretty good.

Day one purchase for me.

 

[ms_sunlight]

I did try to google problems with demo but fooling around with video settings were more effective. Nearly ever search result was reviews about demo. Not one when I tried was about black screen problem I was having.

I had the same problem. I googled and found the answer straight away: turn off antialiasing. It's a problem with ATI video cards, and should be fixed in the final release.

 

[pha kin su pah]

if it didn't look like World of Warcraft, i would have pre-ordered it on the spot.