Why wasn't Kingdom of Amalur as praised as Skyrim or Dragon Age?

[Syilph]

Having read through all pages and comments up till now I've come to the conclusion that this thread is painfully stretching itself out of its limits, despite the initial question, as to why skyrim/dragon age/dark souls got more praise than KoA, has already been answered. Numeral times, repeated, recited in other words and answered again.
For some reason it turned into the casual "*game* is better than *game* because of *reason*".
I did not want to participate in this, but hell... I got a few minutes to kill.

Being one of the persons that have been caught up by skyrims release tornado, KoA flew straight under my radar and after discovering dark souls afterwards it kept staying there for quite some time.
But after playing through all those "generic RPGs" that are skyrim, dark souls and co. I noticed it, bought it and played it, for it seemed interesting and quite different from the games before. And that it was.
I stopped at ten hours of play. Tried it again after some time and barely got out of the beginning before stopping again.

All the things you said about it, KoA is a open world game, the combat is great, new refreshing setting yadi-blahdi-blah...
I don't say your pros and cons are not true, but I have to concur with one major flaw that I just couldn't shake off.
This game has no freedom. No, to be more fitting... Its promise of freedom is fake.

You see, gamers love freedom, be it freedom like in Skyrim, seemingly endless places to explore, without some nag on your neck to tell you to go somewhere more important, or the freedom like in Dark souls, the incredibly deep customizations on the way you want to play, no matter what's "best" or "worst", you could deal with things as you wanted them to.
KoA has neither of those types, the world you describe as open is nothing more then cut off areas that were enlarged to the brink of pointlessness. The combat is fine and functional, but there are only three ways of doing things, all three of them following the same principle of mash-mash-wait/dodge-mash.

I just couldn't take it anymore, not even for ten hours, not even to seek the sweet spots in lore and story, if there are any. Do not get me wrong I neither despise the game nor do I put another above it, I'm just telling what I thought about it. And I couldn't stomach the bland crust of KoA, maybe there was some kind of tasty filling in it but whatever it is or could be, it's not worth the amount of time you need to get through something as unsatisfying as the first part of the game.
The last parts do not look the slightest bit better either.

If you want to complain about a underrated game with great combat that didn't get what it deserved, then try out dragons dogma.
It does everything that KoA does but enormously better, while not being as recognized as your "generic RPGs".
Quite sad truly.

Long story short, why are you keeping this threat alive? Your question has been answered already, several times.
And if your next reply follows the same criteria as all your other ones, repeating what you already claimed with examples that lets the reader shake his head in a subconscious response, then I swear I will facepalm myself so hard that I literally fall of my seat. Just accept other peoples opinions and stop downgrading preferred games of your fellow gamers!
Accept! Accept! And then stop all this, it starts to hurt really bad!

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

I liked Kingdoms of Amalur... great combat system, fun crafting and some pretty fun world design. However that came with a lot of downsides... boring quest design, a world that felt to much like a zoned MMO and a really lame story that doesn't pick up until you actually get to the final boss and they finally inject a little drama into the damn thing.

It just doesn't have the memorable open-endedness of Skyrim or the great characters and player decision weaving of Dragon Age. Honestly the only great moments I can remember from Amalur are when you bat the crazy gnome through a window, fight that crazy slug monster on the city walls, that disturbing as hell corpse tree and the final boss battle... everything else was just... okay whereas I have a lot more fond memories of great moments in Dragon Age and Skyrim.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I'm reading some complaints and Dark Souls bashing, this is not ok (it is actually ok as long as they are well constructed criticism)!! Besides some balancing issues when playing pvp the game is fantastic. It has more atmosphere, character, personality, stories (yes, it has some of the most interesting lore and npcs, there are multiple popular youtube channels that just go into Dark Souls extensive lore) and the game gives a greater sense of accomplishment than any other game. There is so much depth to dark souls combat, design and mechanics. If you just use a long sword the entire game, yea it wont fricken change, and I seriously doubt most players did not have substantial difficulty on a majority of the bosses the first time they fought them. I haven't played Kingdom of Amalur yet, but the combat seems closer to an action game, which is fine, but is nothing like dark souls.

edit: So after watching gameplay footage of KoA, and reading through more of this thread, this is a completely useless thread and probably should just end. There is nothing here besides "this game has better combat", "no this game is easy piesy", "no this game has the same amount of problems", "No your wrong, I spammed this boss with 300 arrows and he died, this game is easy". I just find it silly to compare games that are completely different. Really besides the generic umbrella of "FANTASY RPG!", these games are all completely different. (Also, why is there comparisons to Bayonetta here?)

I didn't feel like I accomplished anything in Dark Souls because the first enemy fight is the same as the last enemy fight. Bayonetta is mentioned because it has proper enemies in the game that force you to use the game's advanced combat mechanics, which Dark Souls does not do.

Also people who say Dark Souls isn't hard because they abused mechanics and didn't bother to actually look into the depth of the combat are ridiculous. Mostly because their posts are filled with indicators of "oh jeez better hide the fact I don't know how to roll properly, or parry, or backstab, or do anything except spam with a rapid weapon"

There is no depth to the combat. Yeah... strafing around to the enemy's back to backstab is so hard and has so much depth [/sarcasm]. The enemy AI in Dark Souls just blows and causes every fight to be the same. What's the point of even parrying in Dark Souls? It's just too risky. You only have X amount of health to get from one bonfire to another; simply strafing around an enemy to his back for a backstab is far less riskier and does basically the same damage as a riposte.

KoA is an open world game. You can explore the whole first half of the world at the very start of the game if you want, there's literally nothing stopping you from going to the next area.

Except, you know, the fact that the game locks every single enemy of an entire zone at the level that you DISCOVER the area at.

So, I guess you could kind of say that the one thing stopping you from exploring half of the world at the very start of the game is, you know, the fact that the game will lock every single enemy in that half of the world at level 1 for the rest of the fucking game.

Every RPG has level scaling issues. There's only, I think, 5 total areas in the game. You can explore a large portion before heading into the next area. Also, the game scales the dungeons to your level when you enter so there's always a challenge there. I didn't even know how the game scaled enemies until this thread, and my play experience has been just fine. Leveling itself in KoA doesn't have huge impact on your health and damage output like other RPGs, damage mainly comes from your weapon. KoA's scaling has pros and cons but so does say locking every area to a certain level, which allows for players to be overleveled or underleveled as well as they play through the game.

No, "many RPGs" do not have the exact enemy level issues. What other RPGs lock a zone at the level you discover it at? You cite Borderlands as a source to back up your claim and yet the enemy level system isn't even remotely comparable. You can enter a high level zone in Borderlands at level 5 and you'll get fucking one shot by every lv40+ enemy. You enter a higher level zone in Reckoning at level 5 and every single enemy in the zone is now locked at level 5 permanently. How on earth do you think these are comparable scenarios? The way that your brain applies logic is fucking flawed bro.

And no, Skyrim is not "just as easy as KoA". Put Skyrim on the hardest difficulty and then start the game and get your fuckin shit slapped by any bear/troll/mage that you come across for hours on end after you start the game. You will have to kite the majority of enemies around and you will be unable to kill dragons without taking potshots at them while investing large amounts of time. Put KoA on the hardest difficulty available and you'll still be able to one-shot enemies and lay waste to BOSSES with one single use of reckoning mode by the time you hit level 7. As in, an hour into the game. Again, I do not in the slightest understand how you believe these scenarios to be comparable. 5/5 Mark of Flame one shots entire groups of mobs on the hardest difficulty in KoA, likely because the entire zone is locked at the level you discovered it at, BEFORE you've even discovered a single godamn quest in the zone, let alone begun completing them.

The flaws of KoA aren't leveled more at KoA than other games. They aren't IN other games.

And in Borderlands since every enemy is set to a certain level, you become overleveled if you do all sidequests (the game is a cakewalk) and underleveled (enemies become bullet sponges) if you do no sidequests. Both scaling systems have their issues. I totally blew through the Zombie DLC in Borderlands because my level was too high, there's was no way to play that DLC at a proper level without starting the game over. Borderlands and almost every RPG has scaling issues, the flaws ARE IN basically every RPG.

So Skyrim just becomes artificially difficult then? You know, where the enemies get so much health and do so much damage that it's fake difficulty instead of being actually challenging:

Max hard Skyrim is the exact opposite, it's too hard to be fun. You don't do enough damage early on and God-forbid you try to melee anything because you'll get one shotted by finishing moves no matter what your stamina bar is at. The one shotting is what pisses me off more than the pittance of damage you deal to mob heal bars.

I don't mind long, hard battles, they make you feel like you earn victory, but if you're stuck trying to avoid any melee attacks that'll kill you in a flash, spending less time damaging enemies and thus making the fights longer and less involving, it's as futile as playing Amalur... but it at least make you feel SOMETHING.

---

KOA:R contained some good stuff, I'm just playing through it for the 2nd time now, alongside Skyrim on a 2nd playthrough, and both have quality content.

However both suffer from the same problem - WAAAAAY too much filler, and it just drowns out the quality in there. First playthrough (which I quit after around 30 hours each) I'd rate both 6/10, 2nd playthrough where I'm skipping a lot of side-quests and BS KOA:R is a 7/10, Skyrim an 8/10.

My point exactly. I don't get why people play every quest in RPGs as it's bond to become a grind and become boring since there's usually a bunch of crappy sidequests plus you have your leveling scaling issues as well. Do the main quests and pick and choose your sidequests or you'll likely grow to hate almost every RPG.

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

Overly simplified, not very creative, rough around the edges, didn't do anything special, repetitive, etc.

 

[Windcaler]

What did you not understand?

The part that's not true?

So you think Im lying. Then prove it. Xbox 360, real time camera on your hands/controller in a smaller window with synchronized direct feed of the character. I experienced a delay in my characters dodge skill making it so the dodge would not actually dodge when I pressed the button. Instead it took a short amount of time to warm up before he would teleport away.

I would post a video of this myself if I had the equipment but Im not going to buy a capture card or buy a broken and boring game for my PC just to prove something an anonymous person who presumably hasnt experienced the same issue that I have

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

So you think Im lying. Then prove it. Xbox 360, real time camera on your hands/controller in a smaller window with synchronized direct feed of the character. I experienced a delay in my characters dodge skill making it so the dodge would not actually dodge when I pressed the button. Instead it took a short amount of time to warm up before he would teleport away.

I would post a video of this myself if I had the equipment but Im not going to buy a capture card or buy a broken and boring game for my PC just to prove something an anonymous person who presumably hasnt experienced the same issue that I have

There is a slight delay in the dodge (both normal dodge and mage dodge), but it doesn't make it impossible to dodge like you claim. It's fairly easily to adjust to the timing and dodge enemy attacks just fine because I do it all the time. It may be a flaw or purposefully done by the developer so the dodge isn't instant so your character feels more like a human and has weight to them.

 

[Joccaren]

In a lot of ways you've answered your own question.

KoA wasn't as well loved as Dragon Age because Origins had the better writing and characters, despite being hugely generic in its plot, and also had classic RPG combat - something that a LOT of gamers had been missing for ages in a dedicated single player experience as action RPG was favoured over it. Bioware was also immensely popular around that time, with their Mass Effect fame being strong. These all combined to make DA:O a hit. It was well written, with a well-loved style of combat that had been neglected in recent times, with a popular studio making it. Compare to KoA which had alright writing, a style of gameplay that - whilst not the same as all the other games - reflected the common trends in the industry that people were growing tired of, and made by a new, unknown studio. Of course its not going to get as much love.

Skyrim had the 'Awesome' factor going for it. Watch the trailer. Hear that music? The epic music? It inspires people to love the game. Without a good soundtrack any media is bland. Not saying KoA doesn't have a good soundtrack, but Skyrim had an epic one for at least one song, and in this world the quality of the soundtrack is quite often very similar to how much people enjoy the actual content of a game/movie. From there, it played all its cards as the "I'm awesome" cards. "I have DRAGONS. You fight REAL FLYING DRAGONS [That are weak as hell but we won't tell you that]. IS THAT NOT AWESOME!?". "I have a MASSIVE OPEN WORLD, where you can walk ANYWHERE you want, ANY TIME YOU WANT. IS THAT NOT AWESOME!?". "DO YOU LIKE VIKINGS? ARE VIKINGS NOT AWESOME? SKYRIM IS A VIKING COUNTRY. ITS AWESOME!". Then, its also made by Bethesda, and is a part of the highly acclaimed and much loved Elder Scrolls series. Basically, it played its advertising brilliantly, got millions caught up in the hype, whilst being made by a major, much loved studio, as an instalment in a much loved series. About 6 months after launch, however, a lot of the love for Skyrim disappeared as it was found to be a bland, barren, empty wasteland with little to no depth to gameplay, plot or anything else for that matter. Mods are what brings attention to Skyrim mostly these days. A large modding community that fixes the game, or makes it into something else that is awesome. There are those who like the vanilla game too, but they're probably only marginally larger in number than those who loved KoA.

Dark Souls... See DA, minus the Bioware level writing. Niche market appeal, studio that people loved from Demon Souls - though nowhere near the level of Mass Effect fans at that point.

Whilst KoA may or may not have been bad/good, it didn't do enough to really stand out. It followed general modern gameplay tropes, had an alright story, was made by an unknown studio, and didn't do anything to show it had a "Wow" factor.

 

[UsefulPlayer 1]

I think the game lacked charm. The combat was better than average and it looked pretty impressive, but I felt like I was just trudging through a 2-D painting as I whacked away at my enemies.

DA:O had an awesome adventure to go on. I worked very hard so that the final panels spelled out my story exactly right.

Oblivion had a fully realized world where you can live in, just wondering around would spell out its own adventure.

Dark Souls gives you that feeling for real combat by making you fight tooth and nail for victory.

Those games are good because they really make you live it.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Skyrim had the 'Awesome' factor going for it. Watch the trailer. Hear that music? The epic music? It inspires people to love the game. Without a good soundtrack any media is bland. Not saying KoA doesn't have a good soundtrack, but Skyrim had an epic one for at least one song, and in this world the quality of the soundtrack is quite often very similar to how much people enjoy the actual content of a game/movie. From there, it played all its cards as the "I'm awesome" cards. "I have DRAGONS. You fight REAL FLYING DRAGONS [That are weak as hell but we won't tell you that]. IS THAT NOT AWESOME!?". "I have a MASSIVE OPEN WORLD, where you can walk ANYWHERE you want, ANY TIME YOU WANT. IS THAT NOT AWESOME!?". "DO YOU LIKE VIKINGS? ARE VIKINGS NOT AWESOME? SKYRIM IS A VIKING COUNTRY. ITS AWESOME!". Then, its also made by Bethesda, and is a part of the highly acclaimed and much loved Elder Scrolls series. Basically, it played its advertising brilliantly, got millions caught up in the hype, whilst being made by a major, much loved studio, as an instalment in a much loved series.

I don't get hyped by stuff like that. If I see that there's dragon fights, I wanna see how gameplay of that and how it works. Gameplay is what gets me hyped for a game. I get hyped over the little things like with that Watch_Dogs E3 trailer that was all pre-rendered, and the guy hacks the sprinkler system then slides across a table shooting. The first thing I thought was that it would be awesome if making things wet allowed you to slide across things like a John Woo movie. I doubt that is in the game, but it would be so awesome if it was.

 

[saxman234]

Just a quick combat moveset for only one weapon in dark souls,
light attack, heavy attack, roll then light attack, backstep then light attack, kick, forward + heavy attack, combos with light light light attack etc, downward thrust attack, two handed doubles all previous stuff.

Multiply this moveset by the extensive amount of different types of weapons and shield combinations.
Multiply this again by the vast amount of pyromancy, magic, and faith spells,

Dark Souls combat has depth and nuance. Plus it is really only the early game where you can face enemies one at a time and backstab your way through it. Even thinking about the level design, the game constantly throws multiple enemies with different types of attacks at you, from throwing multiple melee guys at you while having fire pyromancers/ magic casters/ archers firing at you.

 

[mrdude2010]

Because it was too easy and had terrible camera angles. It wasn't bad, but it was way too easy to break.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Just a quick combat moveset for only one weapon in dark souls,
light attack, heavy attack, roll then light attack, backstep then light attack, kick, forward + heavy attack, combos with light light light attack etc, downward thrust attack, two handed doubles all previous stuff.

Multiply this moveset by the extensive amount of different types of weapons and shield combinations.
Multiply this again by the vast amount of pyromancy, magic, and faith spells,

Dark Souls combat has depth and nuance. Plus it is really only the early game where you can face enemies one at a time and backstab your way through it. Even thinking about the level design, the game constantly throws multiple enemies with different types of attacks at you, from throwing multiple melee guys at you while having fire pyromancers/ magic casters/ archers firing at you.

Dude, the only the difference between the weapons are the power attack and the special attack (up + R2 I think). The weapons in KoA are way different compared to Dark Souls.

You can pull enemies to you one-by-one the whole fucking game.

 

[sumanoskae]

The short version is that KoA is a jack of all trades and a master at none.

It's open world, but not as open as Skyrim; it has a decent story but it can't touch Origins; it's combat is fun but Dark Souls isn't really supposed to be "Fun". Dark Souls is more akin to survival horror than an RPG. It only resembles an RPG in the most trivial sense, but the purpose of it's mechanics is to create an atmosphere of dread and tell a cautionary tale.

KoA just isn't very distinctive, and as result it didn't get people's attention the way these other games did. Don't get me wrong, I actually like the game(Though nowhere near as much as the others), it just doesn't really stand out.

The more obvious answer, however, is that KoA is a completely different kind of game than Origins and Dark Souls... so the comparison is rather moot.

 

[sumanoskae]

Just a quick combat moveset for only one weapon in dark souls,
light attack, heavy attack, roll then light attack, backstep then light attack, kick, forward + heavy attack, combos with light light light attack etc, downward thrust attack, two handed doubles all previous stuff.

Multiply this moveset by the extensive amount of different types of weapons and shield combinations.
Multiply this again by the vast amount of pyromancy, magic, and faith spells,

Dark Souls combat has depth and nuance. Plus it is really only the early game where you can face enemies one at a time and backstab your way through it. Even thinking about the level design, the game constantly throws multiple enemies with different types of attacks at you, from throwing multiple melee guys at you while having fire pyromancers/ magic casters/ archers firing at you.

Agreed, Dark Souls is simple to learn, but hard to master. It has depth, but it isn't complicated. People often confuse complexity for depth, but they are not the same thing.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Dark Souls is more akin to survival horror than an RPG. It only resembles an RPG in the most trivial sense, but the purpose of it's mechanics is to create an atmosphere of dread and tell a cautionary tale.

I would've much preferred if Dark Souls was a survival horror game vs a dungeon crawler because its combat is pretty bad. Level design and atmosphere are great but you're fighting things for a majority of the time and it's just damn repetitive with no depth.

 

[sumanoskae]

Dark Souls is more akin to survival horror than an RPG. It only resembles an RPG in the most trivial sense, but the purpose of it's mechanics is to create an atmosphere of dread and tell a cautionary tale.

I would've much preferred if Dark Souls was a survival horror game vs a dungeon crawler because its combat is pretty bad. Level design and atmosphere are great but you're fighting things for a majority of the time and it's just damn repetitive with no depth.

I'm curios, how would you define depth?

 

[Joccaren]

I don't get hyped by stuff like that. If I see that there's dragon fights, I wanna see how gameplay of that and how it works. Gameplay is what gets me hyped for a game. I get hyped over the little things like with that Watch_Dogs E3 trailer that was all pre-rendered, and the guy hacks the sprinkler system then slides across a table shooting. The first thing I thought was that it would be awesome if making things wet allowed you to slide across things like a John Woo movie. I doubt that is in the game, but it would be so awesome if it was.

Regardless of whether you personally do or not, many millions of people around the world are affected by such hype. It is the reason advertising agencies exist, and their main strategies pre-launch revolve around the construction of hype. The more you hype something up and make it look awesome, the more people will buy it. It was one of the main factors contributing to Skyrim's success. Without it Skyrim would have been fairly popular still, but not the massive hit it was.

 

[Strazdas]

I havent played it but i was in a live voicechat with a friend who was streaming me the video of his gaming. so basically i talked with a streamer at the point of streaming (hes not really straming for a hobby or anything just wanted to show me the game). The oopinion i got was that it was a poor mans Fable and Oblivion hybrid that tried to be something but didnt exactly get there. SO i never tried. that friend of mine really liked it, but then again he also liked far cry 2 so i wouldnt trust his word on it.

So you think Im lying. Then prove it. Xbox 360, real time camera on your hands/controller in a smaller window with synchronized direct feed of the character. I experienced a delay in my characters dodge skill making it so the dodge would not actually dodge when I pressed the button. Instead it took a short amount of time to warm up before he would teleport away.

I would post a video of this myself if I had the equipment but Im not going to buy a capture card or buy a broken and boring game for my PC just to prove something an anonymous person who presumably hasnt experienced the same issue that I have

To be honest the proof of a problem lays on the head of the claimee. What your arguing is the same old "you cant prove god doesnt exist".

 

[BoogieManFL]

I played the demo of KoA, and I like the opening of the game. But it didn't take long for me to start to get bored and dislike the game. The atmosphere and world looked nice, what you could see that is. The camera was locked to such an obviously horrible angle and it drove me crazy. How little control you had over what you wanted to look at was maddening. And it made me twice as annoyed knowing that someone actually thought that was a good idea.

I also felt the combat was clumsy and even early on it looked like there were key attacks/spells/etc that would end up being the crutch you leaned on and favored over everything else. It seemed odd that it looked like you were supposed to combo or chain stuff together, but the means to do so felt so very clumsy.