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

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Because it was shit?

Hated it. Combat was boring, the WORLD was boring, I was completely disinterested.

And oh god the grind, the grind. After playing for roughly 30 hours, 99% of it being sidequest bullshit, I just gave up and sped through the story on hard. Was really, really, really easy.

Combat is more boring in Skyrim, Dark Souls, etc.

It's kinda your fault for grinding, it's not like the game makes you grind. All RPGs have a bunch of optional quests, they are, you know, OPTIONAL. I found myself doing too many sidequests and stopped doing them as I noticed I became overleveled and I wasn't really advancing the story so I stopped doing them (I'm just doing faction and story quests now).

 

[Zhukov]

Because it was a bit shit.

It didn't have the exploration of Skyrim or the characters of Dragon Age.

All it had was a half decent combat system that got boring less than a quarter of the way into the game and many, many incredibly boring and repetitive quests.

There a worse games out there, sure, but I'd struggle to a better example of mediocre.

 

[Diablo2000]

Dark Souls is all about the combat, and KoA beats Dark Souls at what Dark Souls is supposed to be all about, KoA is even a harder game to boot. That's why I brought up Dark Souls.

Wut? No it most certainly isn't.

And Dark Souls is NOT all about the combat. It's all about the ATMOSPHERE. Every single bloody thing in that game goes to service the main strength, which is the ATMOSPHERE. It gives Pripyat a hard run as one of the most atmospheric games of all time. The combat, frankly, is more than a little janky.

All that said, to answer your OP, KoA did not receive the same acclaim as Skyrim, Dark Souls or Dragon Age: Origins because it's nowhere near as good as any of those titles. It's a fun, slightly underrated action RPG with lots of polish and flair and a lamentable amount of bland flab...a casualty of Curt Schilling's everlasting hard on for Everquest and inability to keep MMO mechanics from slipping into a single player game (where they really have no business being). If it was a tighter, more focused experience it might have been received better. But it wasn't, so it wasn't, and now Curt is broke, and Amalur is a footnote in history and a cautionary example of how not to run your business.

The only good thing about Dark Souls was atmosphere, I'm not sure if I would say that is what Dark Souls is ALL about. The game really tries to sell itself as having a great combat system (which it doesn't) and being hard (which it isn't). Gameplay-wise KoA succeeds where Dark Souls fails. A game needs more than atmosphere to be good especially when you spend so much of your time fighting enemies. Now if Dark Souls was like survival horror instead, then it would be a different story.

It blatantly steals its mechanics from other games, the fighting is Fable, the lockpicking is Skyrim/Fallout and the story is... well, it just feels pointless.

Not really, the fighting is way better than Fable. Before I even downloaded KoA for free, I watched Angry Joe's review as because just because the game is free doesn't really mean much; he literally said KoA is Fable 3 if it didn't suck.

Dark Souls combat is far from worse than KoA. KoA is more action base combat than Dark Souls, it's a stupid comparision just because has swords in both of then. And thought I agree that Dark Souls isn't "hard", it's just hard if you are a dumbass and decide to rush your way throught on your first playthrought.(Like this dumbass exact dumbass who writes)

That being said, I liked certain things in KoA, both the Ballads quests which bring a very good discussion of fate (I felt extremely sorry for the Maid when I killed her, so much I didn't had any other choice but to reload the game and don't kill her) and such in the game and the Sorrows quest which is a little depressing are amazing.
The main quest and the other quests are kinda forgetable.

It's sad that the game didn't sold well, I won't say it was "good" but it was a IP with true potencial.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Are you really saying KoA is better than Dark Souls? Fuck, I mean that's your opinion, but JESUS is it misguided. Dark Souls combat is MEANT to be simple and slow, it's not about jumping around spitting sparkles from your magic sword. It's a methodical, more realistic boxing match between you and the enemies/environment, COMPLETELY different from the combat in KoA or any of those games you mentioned. It also takes brains and planning, not just mashing each ability as it comes off cooldown. And no, the game isn't as hard as it is hyped up to be, but in a market of games for dipshits that hold your hand through everything it's still a refreshing breath of air, and worth talking about.

If you think the atmosphere is the only good thing about Dark Souls you are very misguided. It's fantastic in its gameplay, aesthetic, design, amount of depth, the bosses, the enemies, locations, the characters and story. Far better than anything else I've seen in the past few years, and many would be inclined to agree with me.

I know what Dark Souls combat is meant to be, but it horribly fails at that. I shouldn't be doing the exact same thing I did in my first hour in my last hour of play, there's no depth at all. All you have to do in Dark Souls is block and light attack, that's it, and I was playing a thief with no armor. Regardless if the combat is slow or fast, it should evolve over the course of the game, KoA does that, Dark Souls doesn't. I just explained how Dark Souls is shit in the gameplay department. Also, Dark Souls doesn't have a combat system that allows for fighting several enemies at once whereas KoA does. What is the difference between waiting for a cooldown (which I don't even do in KoA) for an ability vs waiting for your stamina to fill back up? The stamina is Dark Souls' cooldown. Dark Souls is only hard because it doesn't tell you a damn thing, once you figure out the game, it's a cakewalk. I'd rather have the game explain its mechanics to me and be legitimately challenging than fake it like Dark Souls.

The bosses are a total joke in Dark Souls, I beat most on my first try. I literally beat a DRAGON just standing in front of it meleeing over and over without blocking or dodging once with nothing but rags on and I wasn't overleveled either.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

All it had was a half decent combat system that got boring less than a quarter of the way into the game and many, many incredibly boring and repetitive quests.

Name an action RPG with a better combat system. KoA's combat is far from half decent.

 

[Zhukov]

All it had was a half decent combat system that got boring less than a quarter of the way into the game and many, many incredibly boring and repetitive quests.

Name an action RPG with a better combat system. KoA's combat is far from half decent.

Huh.

Y'know, I can't think of a single action-RPG with decent combat. Not off the top of my head. (Well, ME3, but that's a different kind of combat.)

That doesn't make KoA's combat any better. Complete button mash. LMB LMB LMB LMB LMB LMB LMB victory! Maybe throw in some dodges if you're feeling super duper fancy.

At one point I was able to win fights against multiple enemies on hard difficulty with my bloody eyes closed. Literally. Just mash both mouse buttons a lot, hit the health potion button whenever you hear the low health warning sound. Best game ever.

Actually, I think you're right. It is far from half decent. It's actually pretty bad. Also very boring.

 

[Windcaler]

I got the mage's dodge as my rogue for a bit as I went rogue-mage (then went full rogue now) but the dodge was just fine for me, it was like the Asari's dodge from Mass Effect.

My friend that beat it said you can make awesome stuff just fine as we were talking about the game the other day as I was saying I didn't put anything in blacksmithing because I was finding great stuff anyways, he said he made even better stuff than what he found. I have dabbled in it myself yet.

The fey are immortal in the sense that their souls are immortal.

That was not my experience. The delay on the mage dodge made the game nearly impossible to play because it couldnt dodge anything. You quite literally have to have precognition to use it

If the fey are immortal in the sense of the soul then why do they have some concept of death? Thats revealed in that same quest I mentioned if you dig into the lore enough. Not only that but if the body can die why did we need nigh immortal fate defying ultra soldiers in the first place? The lore is very contradictory on what kind of immortality the fey have and as far as I played the game they never committed to any kind of immortality explanation

 

[default]

Are you really saying KoA is better than Dark Souls? Fuck, I mean that's your opinion, but JESUS is it misguided. Dark Souls combat is MEANT to be simple and slow, it's not about jumping around spitting sparkles from your magic sword. It's a methodical, more realistic boxing match between you and the enemies/environment, COMPLETELY different from the combat in KoA or any of those games you mentioned. It also takes brains and planning, not just mashing each ability as it comes off cooldown. And no, the game isn't as hard as it is hyped up to be, but in a market of games for dipshits that hold your hand through everything it's still a refreshing breath of air, and worth talking about.

If you think the atmosphere is the only good thing about Dark Souls you are very misguided. It's fantastic in its gameplay, aesthetic, design, amount of depth, the bosses, the enemies, locations, the characters and story. Far better than anything else I've seen in the past few years, and many would be inclined to agree with me.

I know what Dark Souls combat is meant to be, but it horribly fails at that. I shouldn't be doing the exact same thing I did in my first hour in my last hour of play, there's no depth at all. All you have to do in Dark Souls is block and light attack, that's it, and I was playing a thief with no armor. Regardless if the combat is slow or fast, it should evolve over the course of the game, KoA does that, Dark Souls doesn't. I just explained how Dark Souls is shit in the gameplay department. Also, Dark Souls doesn't have a combat system that allows for fighting several enemies at once whereas KoA does. What is the difference between waiting for a cooldown (which I don't even do in KoA) for an ability vs waiting for your stamina to fill back up? The stamina is Dark Souls' cooldown. Dark Souls is only hard because it doesn't tell you a damn thing, once you figure out the game, it's a cakewalk. I'd rather have the game explain its mechanics to me and be legitimately challenging than fake it like Dark Souls.

The bosses are a total joke in Dark Souls, I beat most on my first try. I literally beat a DRAGON just standing in front of it meleeing over and over without blocking or dodging once with nothing but rags on and I wasn't overleveled either.

Again, your opinion my friend. I'm flabbergasted that you find KoA so compelling then turn around and basically call Dark Souls shit, but that's your choice.

Dark Souls isn't so much about evolving as a character (in terms of gameplay) as it is compared to other RPGs. It's a hack and slasher at heart. It's not about stacking abilities or filling out a toolbar. It's about timing, learning enemy tells and knowing how to play to the strengths that your character has while covering their weaknesses. It's both deeper and shallower than many other RPG combat systems. It's different. I found it compelling and exciting the whole way through, far more, may I say, than any other RPG combat you've mentioned here. I quickly grow tired of cast systems. I want to be directly in my characters shoes, controlling their every action where a split-second of indecision will mean my death.

Secondly, do you want a medal? Well done, you beat a game that isn't really that hard to begin with, good job. It's still a hell of a lot better than most games out these days. Try NG+ and tell me the game has no depth when you're desperately analysing every aspect of your character to squeeze every possible point out of them when a boss has destroyed you over and over. The stamina system is also NOT comparable to cooldowns. It's engrained into your every action. If you overuse or use it unwisely you'll find yourself in a bad situation when a black knight staggers you at the beginning of a combo or you can't dodge out of the way of a spell. Totally different from waiting for some numbers to tick down so you can shoot a fireball again. But you clearly don't appreciate what Dark Souls is as a whole, so I don't know why I'm bothering.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Because it was a bit shit.

It didn't have the exploration of Skyrim or the characters of Dragon Age.

All it had was a half decent combat system that got boring less than a quarter of the way into the game and many, many incredibly boring and repetitive quests.

There a worse games out there, sure, but I'd struggle to a better example of mediocre.

This pretty much sums up my feelings on Amalur, along with th efact that I felt the game seemed like it was designed with an MMO (with all those oversized areas) but only ever contained my character.

I'd also posit that the Witcher 2 had a better combat system for an action-RPG, because it was a system that actually rewarded player skill and tactics.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Y'know, I can't think of a single action-RPG with decent combat. Not off the top of my head. (Well, ME3, but that's a different kind of combat.)

That doesn't make KoA's combat any better. Complete button mash. LMB LMB LMB LMB LMB LMB LMB victory! Maybe throw in some dodges if you're feeling super duper fancy.

At one point I was able to win fights against multiple enemies on hard difficulty with my bloody eyes closed. Literally. Just mash both mouse buttons a lot, hit the health potion button whenever you hear the low health warning sound. Best game ever.

Actually, I think you're right. It is far from half decent. It's actually pretty bad. Also very boring.

The main/faction quest battles have had their difficult moments so far, I just finished the House of Battles faction quest (the Fae quests), and the last 2 fights in that one were challenging, I had to retry several times. Most normal enemies out in the world though are simple enough. KoA is the first game that actually makes me feel like my character is a badass rogue, you can do the stuff you imagine your DnD rogue doing basically.

Yeah well they could at least create quests that weren't boring, ya know? At least I felt like I was doing something in a sidequest in Dragon Age. In KoA, it was pointless. See how you had to stop doing them because you were getting TOO powerful? That's bad design right there.

Every RPG I've played I feel like the sidequests are boring, you got your standard fetch quest stuff and some better ones like ridding a town of spiders, which was decent. The main/faction quests are interesting enough. Bioware is definitely the better writers, which make for better quests.

Becoming overleveled is a problem every RPG has. Same thing happens in them all. I wish developers would just level the enemies to you at all times. In Borderlands, for example, you have to look up the order and the level you are supposed to be at to play the freaking DLC or it'll be too hard or a cakewalk.

To me, it seems like everyone's complaints about KoA are the same complaints you can level at every RPG yet KoA doesn't get a pass while others do, it doesn't make sense.

That was not my experience. The delay on the mage dodge made the game nearly impossible to play because it couldnt dodge anything. You quite literally have to have precognition to use it

If the fey are immortal in the sense of the soul then why do they have some concept of death? Thats revealed in that same quest I mentioned if you dig into the lore enough. Not only that but if the body can die why did we need nigh immortal fate defying ultra soldiers in the first place? The lore is very contradictory on what kind of immortality the fey have and as far as I played the game they never committed to any kind of immortality explanation

I'm playing a rogue and the dodge is important, I don't have much trouble with it. Sometimes my character will roll in the wrong direction though. I do notice a bit of a delay, it's not hard to adjust to it in my opinion.

I haven't beat the game so I don't know the ins and outs of the lore.

I've seen you in Souls threads before so I already know your thoughts about it. (edit: not meant that you dislike it, but that you find it easy)

I got KoA on PS+ recently as well and stopped playing out of sheer boredom after a few days. Played as a Rogue on Hard and had absolutely no trouble whatsoever (the game is piss easy). The combat is in no way better than the Souls series and to even mention that is laughable. KoA TRIES to be God of War but ignores the all important quick/ heavy buttons and instead opts for an overly simplistic mash one button/ pause system. KoA is mind numbingly repetative with every single encounter playing out in the same exact fashion. Square, Square, pause, Square, Square, roll, rinse, repeat - *yawn*

Dark Souls is lure one enemy, dodge (or block), kite, backstab for many encounters, I'll give you that.
You could also lure, parry, riposte (already more complex than KoA).
Each swing has weight and you must use your head to survive. Meanwhile, KoA is a mindless button masher.

Let's face it though, Souls and Amalur aren't even remotely similar.
A better comparison is Dragon's Dogma. And Dogma absolutely wrecks KoA in every single way.

I wasn't impressed with Skyrim, but played to a Platinum trophy and never looked back.

I think Amalur is better than DA:O, but that is because DA:O is a broken mess of a game that was a boring disappointment from start to finish (played through 1.5 times as I thought I might have missed something but realized that it was just bad). Easily the biggest disappointment for me in this gen as the hype made me expect much more.

Played Demon's and Dark Souls to a Platinum (each) and still play them quite often (best games of this gen with Valkyria Chronicles).

Might finish KoA someday, if I'm really bored, but since I just got the Last of Us, Disgaea D2 and Muramasa: The Demon Blade, it'll be a while (if ever).

KoA is a mediocre game at best IMO and a dull slog at worst.

Demon's SOuls > Dark Souls > Dragon's Dogma > Skyrim > Kingdom's of Amalur > DA:O

God of War has a horribly simplistic combat system. I think the only hack and slash game that has less depth than GoW that I've played is Nier. I enjoy KoA much more than GoW. I'm not even trying to say KoA has great depth or anything, but GoW has like no depth to me. Heavenly Sword was immensely better than GoW3 in my opinion, the game actually forced you to use certain combos on certain enemies.

I only played the demo for Dragon's Dogma, it didn't grab me, but I should give it a full try someday. It seems like it would be a sorta midpoint between KoA and Dark Souls as it has a stamina bar like Dark Souls, but it is more arcade-y from what I could tell. Dogma just has that standard fantasy setting that I hate so much, at least KoA is colorful and vibrant. I want RPGs with new worlds, new races, new enemies, etc. It's like going from one fantasy RPG to the next is going from one pop (just cola flavor) to another, I want new flavors, not slightly different colas.

KoA has a riposte. Dark Souls there's no point in using the riposte anyways, it's just too risky over strafing around for a backstab.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Again, your opinion my friend. I'm flabbergasted that you find KoA so compelling then turn around and basically call Dark Souls shit, but that's your choice.

Dark Souls isn't so much about evolving as a character (in terms of gameplay) as it is compared to other RPGs. It's a hack and slasher at heart. It's not about stacking abilities or filling out a toolbar. It's about timing, learning enemy tells and knowing how to play to the strengths that your character has while covering their weaknesses. It's both deeper and shallower than many other RPG combat systems. It's different. I found it compelling and exciting the whole way through, far more, may I say, than any other RPG combat you've mentioned here. I quickly grow tired of cast systems. I want to be directly in my characters shoes, controlling their every action where a split-second of indecision will mean my death.

Secondly, do you want a medal? Well done, you beat a game that isn't really that hard to begin with, good job. It's still a hell of a lot better than most games out these days. Try NG+ and tell me the game has no depth when you're desperately analysing every aspect of your character to squeeze every possible point out of them when a boss has destroyed you over and over. The stamina system is also NOT comparable to cooldowns. It's engrained into your every action. If you overuse or use it unwisely you'll find yourself in a bad situation when a black knight staggers you at the beginning of a combo or you can't dodge out of the way of a spell. Totally different from waiting for some numbers to tick down so you can shoot a fireball again. But you clearly don't appreciate what Dark Souls is as a whole, so I don't know why I'm bothering.

My thief build shouldn't be able to block boss attacks or the knights' triple sword attack. What's the point of learning tells when you can block everything with a light shield? How is NG+ supposed to be better, I'd still be doing the same boring-ness of pulling enemies one-by-one and 1v1 fighting. You know what hack and slashers allow for? It's fighting multiple enemies at once, which Dark Souls' combat fails at. Buffing enemies to an extreme to make for a challenge is only fake difficulty, you can to that to any game.

I don't want a medal, I want a good hard game with a solid combat system. That is what Dark Souls was billed as and that's not what I got.

Also KoA only has cooldowns on a few abilities, you can spam them as much as you want until you have no mana left. Dark Souls stamina is such a joke. You have basically a never ending supply of stamina, all you have to do is release block between enemy attacks and you regain stamina super fast. The only thing the stamina does is limit how many sword swings you can do at once.

 

[Another]

I liked it for a while. But the game started to really drag on as I played it, too many fluff side quests combined with a pretty stagnant over world just made it boring to play after a while. Frankly my feelings were more or less the same about Dragon's Dogma, a poor main story but with interesting side lore, really good combat, and an overworld and padding that bored me to tears.

But what really broke me on Amalur was the camera, good god that thing is the set at the crappiest angle imaginable. It's somehow not broken (doesn't get stuck, isn't hard to rotate), yet it still doesn't do a good job at all. It's either angled up my characters ass, or is angled so i can't get a good look at the scenery or combat.

 

[lapan]

I know what Dark Souls combat is meant to be, but it horribly fails at that. I shouldn't be doing the exact same thing I did in my first hour in my last hour of play, there's no depth at all. All you have to do in Dark Souls is block and light attack, that's it, and I was playing a thief with no armor. Regardless if the combat is slow or fast, it should evolve over the course of the game, KoA does that, Dark Souls doesn't. I just explained how Dark Souls is shit in the gameplay department. Also, Dark Souls doesn't have a combat system that allows for fighting several enemies at once whereas KoA does. What is the difference between waiting for a cooldown (which I don't even do in KoA) for an ability vs waiting for your stamina to fill back up? The stamina is Dark Souls' cooldown. Dark Souls is only hard because it doesn't tell you a damn thing, once you figure out the game, it's a cakewalk. I'd rather have the game explain its mechanics to me and be legitimately challenging than fake it like Dark Souls.

The bosses are a total joke in Dark Souls, I beat most on my first try. I literally beat a DRAGON just standing in front of it meleeing over and over without blocking or dodging once with nothing but rags on and I wasn't overleveled either.

Maybe if you only play one weapon and don't use any magic Dark Souls combat might be very simplistic. However it offers a pretty big arsenal of weapons and spells that play completely differnt.

You can fight several enemies at once, it's just not always wise.

 

[Xdeser2]

Personally, I think it comes down to brand recognition. (Well, aside from general dislike from some people)

Dragon Age had the benefit of EA's Marketing and Bioware's clout with the gaming community, Skyirm had the Benefit of Bethesda being able to shell out the ass for marketing and the general goodwill of gamers

KoA had some names attached to it, but not an already established world to draw from, or the benefit of Bioware's old writing team, so as far as recognition was concerned, it had to work alot harder. It also had the problem of releasing just a few months after Skyrim, (no mater what you think of that game) a Commercial and Critical juggernaut of a title. (Might I digress a bit here, it always amazes me that it was able to release within a few days of CoD, stare Activision straight in the face, give a nice "Fuck You" and make Millions of sales on its first day) By that point people were either burnt out on high-fantasy or, well, still playing Skyrim.

Personally, I picked it up a few months ago and think its a pretty solid, fun title. I liked it enough to put about 70 hours into it. Its not a "perfect 10" by any means, but considering it was 38's first (and unfortunately only) release, its pretty damn fantastic.

 

[VoidWanderer]

As a fellow fan of KoA, I agree with the MMO complaint. The sheer volume of quests can get quickly overwhelming, with little sense of achievement for some of them. If they got rid of the clutter quests and the camera guy had better back support, the game would've been much better received.

Still, I really enjoy my time with the game, and it's DLC Legend of Dead Kel, is still one of the better ones. I am a sucker for 'build your own house' quest lines and I found that it was well implemented.

The main reason why it wasn't as well received, is it was the first game of a company wanting to make an MMO first (One of the world's dumbest ideas) and the game getting pushed out with more polish to it.

Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda.

 

[Laser Priest]

Well, if I had to guess, it's probably because everything it did, another RPG did better.

It wasn't awful, but it certainly wasn't doing anything to beat any other RPGs.

Then again, judging by your responses, you're looking less for actual reasons here and more hoping that somebody will agree with you.

Basically, KoA is less of a game and more of a distraction with a price tag.

To bring up a concept I'm sure any gamer is familiar with, if you have a strategy that's guaranteed to win, you'll probably use it. In KoA, I completed everything by putting a demented fire spell on my targets and then running around while their poor AI attempted to figure out how to actually attack. So all of the combat is a dull experience.

And they could make up for that with atmosphere or story. Do they? Of course not. The story is admittedly at least trying to do something with the fate bullshit, but it neglects actually using that towards anything interesting. Then we get various side quests that are simply cliched or flat out terrible and a main storyline that's just entirely devoid of motivation or interest.

Everything about the game is forgettable. Maybe if the developers had time to continue the series, they might have been able to make something out of it, but that's a pretty big if. The game altogether amounts to the single most average RPG in recent memory. It doesn't have the characters of Dragon Age, the atmosphere of Dark Souls, the expansive, yet interesting world of Skyrim. It just has bog-standard everything.

 

[Jandau]

KoA just has by far the best combat of probably any action RPG ever. It's the first game I ever played that I feel like an actual rogue. Skyrim can't even touch KoA. Even though I haven't played Dragon's Age, I've seen it played for a few hours by a friend and it definitely is going for a different type of experience so it's not really that comparable (Dragon's Age 2 is all action-y but people don't like that game for many other reasons). The combat is also way better than Demon's/Dark Souls, which was really disappointing for me as the game never made you do anything other than block and attack, the combat system was so simplistic and didn't have much depth at all. Not that KoA brimming with depth but you get quite a few new moves and abilities to really spice up the combat. You spend so much time fighting enemies in RPGs that if you don't do that well, the game just isn't fun, which is why I don't play many RPGs (WRPG or JRPG) because the combat usually sucks, JRPGs are mainly stuck in crappy turn-based combat while WRPGs have boring real-time action. If you are going to make me spend so much time in a game doing something, you better make that damn good. It's also why I don't play a game like GTA because the shooting is very lacking and you spend so much time shooting.

You are both right and wrong at the same time. Yes, the combat feels fresh at first. However, it blows its load early on, so to speak. KoA is a long game and the combat, while fun at first, lacks any real depth and you get most of your tools early on, with little to do later in the game.

Now, you mention that it blows Skyrim out of the water. Of course it does. Almost anything does. Elder Scrolls combat is terrible and outdated. It's also not the main reason people play ES games. On the other hand, KoA is pretty much all about the combat. As a result, the lack of any longer-term variety makes combat tedious as the game wears on.

Other than that, the game wasn't bad. It just didn't really function all that well. It dragged on too long, with too much filler content, the plot doesn't really go anywhere, the world is a barren wasteland that's too big for a linear game, but also too lacking in points of interest for an open-world exploration game. And so on and so forth.

And almost all the negatives of the game come from the fact that it's a retooled MMORPG. Somewhere during development, someone decided to go with a single-player RPG. However, a good chunk of the game was already done, so that's why the zones are too big with too little in them - they were meant to accommodate a larger number of players. That's why the story doesn't really go anywhere - it was meant as an MMO story, which can't be too obtrusive. And again, so on and so forth.

It's not a bad game, I had some fun with it, but it doesn't do anything particularly well. Skyrim has its awesome open world, Dragon Age has tactical combat and interesting characters. KoA is just kinda OK...

 

[BloatedGuppy]

It doesn't have the characters of Dragon Age, the atmosphere of Dark Souls, the expansive, yet interesting world of Skyrim. It just has bog-standard everything.

That sums it up pretty nicely. Aggressively average game that failed to distinguish itself in any meaningful way. It's nicely put together, but lacks a soul.

Then again, judging by your responses, you're looking less for actual reasons here and more hoping that somebody will agree with you.

I'm rather getting the opposite vibe. He's looking for people to disagree with him so he can tell them how wrong they are. The joys of internet discussion forums.