Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

[IrritatingSquirrel]

The demo did very little for me. Although I had just finished playing (and realising that I didn't actually like after all) skyrim, which left somewhat of a bitter taste in my mouth regarding open-ended rpgs. Perhaps a second chance should be accorded.
-edit- I have since pinpointed my issue with it - It reeked of being an MMO too scared to take on WOW so went single player

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I loved it and I'm really looking forward to the new dlc on the 17th.

It's badly balanced and too easy and a lot of fans are asking for a patch. I enjoyed it though it was kind of relaxing in a way, not too intense. I also enjoyed the lore quite a lot.

 

[skywolfblue]

It says a lot about the state of game writing that being written by R.A. Salvatore is seen as a good thing by some people.

This is probably the biggest thing holding me back from buying the game.

WoW-ish cartoony art style? YEAH!
Interesting combat? YEAH!
Written by Salvatore? Ew, really? Bummer.

Granted the only book of his I've read was "Vector Prime" but boy did I hate that writing.

 

[Black Arrow Officer]

I've put 20 hours in it now and I can't point to any one moment that bored me. Even the sidequests are engaging and fun. Maybe the combat system (which is by far the best ever in an RPG, I don't think I can play another RPG ever without wishing I was playing Amalur during combat) keeps drawing me back in, but the graphics are eye candy and the story is incredibly cool. Fate? You're telling me I'm fated to die a certain way, kill people I'm fated to and marry someone who I was fated to be with? Fuck that bullshit, fuck your stupid gods, I'm going to forge my own destiny free from the bondage of fate and destiny! It's not quite as good as Skyrim, but it's a definite competitor to Skyrim in my gaming library.

Oh, and my character is a warrior who wears heavy armor and wields a Greatsword and Chakrams, with a few points in Sorcery to max out Chakram damage. I freaking love Chakrams. Throwing them around never gets old.

 

[dancinginfernal]

the ability to dodge mid-attack

This drives me CRAZY in games. It drove me nuts in God of War, it drove me nuts in Darksiders (not to mention the dodge in Darksiders that couldn't dodge things), and I'm glad you mentioned this before I touched Amalur.

It's like DMC and Bayonetta are the only games that care about how responsive their combat is.

It is possible to dodge mid-attack/mid-combo.

You just cannot dodge when you're doing the final move in a combo. It's a risk/reward thing. If you pull off the strike, you knock back the enemy and get a nice crit in. Otherwise you can break the combo and flee.

The game doesn't have too much to the combo system however, hopefully future games expand upon it.

 

[Barry93]

Finished it a few weeks ago. Had a lot of fun with it. You certainly get your money's worth out of it.

I only have 2 complaints about it, it's just way too easy. Even on hard, I died a grand total of 4 times throughout the 50+ hours it took me to complete it. The other is that the last 3 or so hours of the main story is comparable to that of the final mission in the first Assassins's Creed game. It's just wave after wave of generic enemies. Final boss could be better as well; I walked around and killed copies of myself for 15 minutes before I realized that you had to activate reckoning to advance the encounter. Still a good game though.

 

[arnoldthebird]

Good game, plenty of content, fun gameplay and although the story may be generic, it keeps you interested and engaged.

I recommend it

 

[theevilgenius60]

I got it the week it came out and enjoyed it until Mass Effect 3 came out. I recently came back to it and got the Dead Kel dlc while I was at it. Dead Kel was better than the main game in my opinion. It's rare that I find myself not wanting to leave dlc parts of a game to get back to the main story because the dlc is a better story. Plus my Fateless One is no longer a Dateless One, Rast Bratigan took care of that. I can't wait for the new dlc coming this month, and I didn't think I'd feel that way when I first bought it. Well done 38 studios, nice first outing. Keep the dlc coming and keep making it as good as Dead Kel was and I'll keep buying.

 

[chuckdm]

Well...with the ME3 ending debacle still (apparently) kicking and screaming I kinda hate to use up my first post here but...what the hell.

(In My Opinion - it's a forum, as long as you cite nothing, that should be automatically implied with every sentence guys!) Reckoning is as close to flawless as I've seen in a while, with 2, and only 2 issues.

First, auto-aim. This is actually one of the few things about Skyrim that I REALLY like. I spent most of my life playing RTS games. The first game I ever played from first person was MechWarrior 3. Following that, UT2004, and then UT3. The idea of manually aiming a weapon is something I still suck at to this day. Then, enter Skyrim. As long as I remain stealthed I can take all the sweet time I want to place my arrow in EXACTLY the right spot. Now I've tried out 20 shooters in 30 days and all my RTS titles are gathering dust. This is where my main issue with Reckoning is. I LOVE the combat system in Skyrim, but I have to say that if I couldn't sneak, I'd hate it. There are, of course, 2 ways to solve this. First, the game can have a well developed, perhaps even overpowered stealth system. Second, the game can aim everything for me. I really, really wish Reckoning had chosen the first path rather than the second.

Second, Chakrams. This may sound like a somewhat backhanded complaint, but I rapidly discovered that, once you have a set of magical AoE elemental ranged whirling blades of doom, every other weapon seems really useless. Not to mention, they actually function equally well in melee. I have my mage/rogue hybrid run around with punching as a secondary weapon for breaking boxes (avoids damaging my Chakrams or any other weapon) and use these things as my sole weapon. Don't get me wrong, I love them, but once you get them, EVERY other weapon seems SO pointless. I guess you COULD carry a set of faeblades or daggers for stealth kills, but unless you manage to somehow magically approach a target undetected more than 5% of the time, you're better off with Chakrams and a little bit of teleporting.

That said, I have no other complaints. The game is the single best release I've seen from EA since Command & Conquer 3. Because we all know C&C4 was...well...idk, definitely not a RTS anyway.

 

[targren]

It was okay. It was basically a single-player MMO/Skyrim hybrid[footnote]I consider this as a good thing. I like knowing where the questgivers are[/footnote], without the pretentiousness and a mostly better combat system (though the lack of 1st person view with the bow is disappointing). Unfortunately, I found it got somewhat draggy after 20 hours or so, and not very compelling to continue.

 

[mParadox]

I'm playing it right now and I love it so so much. It's amazing.

The combat is so, fast paced. Hack 'n' slash like. Makes for fun combos. Juggling enemies with daggers has never been this satisfying.

The weapons are brilliant to use. Effective use of combos guarantees quick kills. Plus, the kill animations of Reckoning Mode are so so awesome.

I love the story, the characters are nicely crafted. The lore is interesting, the locations are interesting. The enemies are diverse.

So yeah, I love it~

[sub][sub]*looks at previous comments* I'm an easy person to please apparently. [/sub][/sub]