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

[SeventhSigil]

I'm really enjoying it, but I have to say, it was probably one of the worst beginnings I could think of. Voice acting was kind of man, visuals uninspired, you're basically stuck in a thoroughly uninteresting cave with no idea what the hell is going on. It improved considerably once the first handful of quests were finished, but when the world out there is so varied and vibrant, it was just baffling that the intro was so freaking bland. That being said, there are also some things that persistently kept the game from being ranked any higher than just 'Pretty Good.'

-Jumping. It's a really minor thing, but the problem is is that it is a really minor thing that cropped up a lot during gameplay. Even worse than the lack of jumping was the fact that you couldn't so much as drop down a 2 foot ledge if it wasn't an approved jump point... Even though the jump points would often let you jump down 15 feet. It just became jarring that whenever I wanted to get into the action quickly, or get at something that looked interesting, I'd have to go aaaall the way around hilariously small obstacles, and every single time I'd think 'But It's Right THERE.' It gave the game an unpolished feel, because invisible walls can be bloody jarring if they're scattered around the interior of the level.

-The camera. I swear, whoever thought that camera was properly placed should have been fired, even if the studio hadn't gone under. I don't know whether it was just too close, but it just made it difficult to really appreciate the splendor of the surroundings. I think angling the camera upwards slightly, and pulling it back, would have helped immensely. But it wasn't something we had the option to change, and so every time I'd start playing, I'd be confronted with this thoroughly aggravating camera, and only gradually sink into enjoying the game.

Those two things, literally those two things, severely curtailed the quality of the game. There are other smaller issues, the difficulty and the over abundance of fetch quests, but an immersive setting generally compensates. But those two things just made it really hard for me to get immersed at all.

 

[darkcalling]

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

It's more a sense of them reincarnating faster than the mortal races could kill them. At least that's how I understood it.

As for why KoA didn't get the attention it deserved I think it has something to do with coming out on Skyrim's heels. Don't get me wrong I liked Skyrim quite a bit and put somewhere around 250 hours into it but for me it was all atmosphere and no fun. Combat was dull, the dragons were weakling drakes (I'm sorry but I HATE being told that something without four legs and wings is a dragon.) and the art style in general was very boring and generic for me all for the sake of "realism".

Realism is something i try to avoid in video games. I get enough reality in my day to day life thanks.

When Amalur released a lot of reviewers spent their reviews nitpicking it for things (like quest design for instance) that if you go back and read or watch their Skyrim reviews were praising it for despite them being almost the same. Gametrailers in particular seemed to me to WANT to hate it far more than their review allowed.

Amalur had a fun combat system, gorgeous environments and really interesting looking armor and weapon designs that really gave it a personality.

Also it gave an actual reason for your characters special abilities. Having already died your character naturally wouldn't be part of Fate's designs so it makes sense that they might have some power over it. In Skyrim you have the power of the Thuum (shouts for all three of you who haven't played it) because you're the dragonborn. Ok. Why am I the dragonborn? As far as I could tell the answer is somewhere between prophecy (yay i'm the chosen one... again) and because if you weren't there wouldn't be a game. And no one try to convince me that it's a genetic thing going back to Talos. I played an Argonian, my brother played a Khajiit. Nowhere in the lore is there any indication that they can breed with any of the other races. If the answer was genetics then they wouldn't be playable since there wouldn't be a game without a dragonborn.

 

[prpshrt]

The story. It was SOOOO boring. While I preferred KoA's combat much more than skyrims, I couldn't really immerse myself into KoA's world as much as I could for skyrim.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

KoA though is probably just about the same with story and characters as Skyrim, one probably only has a slight edge over each other.

And the story and characters in Skyrim were awful. What's next, are you going to praise it for having the same great level design as Dragon Age 2; and the solid core engine work of an Obsidian game?

KoA just has by far the best combat of probably any action RPG ever.

I highly doubt that anyone has topped Mass Effect 2/3 in the action RPG gameplay sense.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

He's looking for people to disagree with him so he can tell them how wrong they are. The joys of internet discussion forums.

Not at all. It's has to do with mainly that KoA has pretty much the same flaws as every other fantasy WRPG, yet KoA is nitpicked to death while Skyrim is the greatest game ever while having the same exact flaws. I read people said KoA is generic, it's art style is less generic than Skyrim or Dragon Age. I'm so fucking tired of every fantasy WRPG being set in basically the same world (Tolkien fantasy), with the same races, the same classes, the same enemies, etc. Not only are all these fantasy RPGs set in the same world but they have the same art style to boot. Yeah, KoA doesn't reinvent the wheel but at least it's a kinda different looking wheel in comparison to all the other wheels. The whole point of fantasy is that you can make up whatever world you can imagine, yet we keep getting games set in the same fucking world.

In short, my argument isn't KoA is so much better than Skyrim (or other fantasy RPG), but that it's basically the same yet gets all the shit it seems. It's a double standard thing. Bioware and Bethesda get away with doing exactly what KoA did.

When a game has you doing something for a majority of the game (like fighting monsters in an RPG), you better deliver on that aspect of the game. KoA does that and the Elder Scrolls series has never done that. I don't understand why people like a certain game so much when the thing you do the most in said game is done so poorly.

Also, mainly what darkcalling here said and probably said it a bit better than me:

As for why KoA didn't get the attention it deserved I think it has something to do with coming out on Skyrim's heels. Don't get me wrong I liked Skyrim quite a bit and put somewhere around 250 hours into it but for me it was all atmosphere and no fun. Combat was dull, the dragons were weakling drakes (I'm sorry but I HATE being told that something without four legs and wings is a dragon.) and the art style in general was very boring and generic for me all for the sake of "realism".

Realism is something i try to avoid in video games. I get enough reality in my day to day life thanks.

When Amalur released a lot of reviewers spent their reviews nitpicking it for things (like quest design for instance) that if you go back and read or watch their Skyrim reviews were praising it for despite them being almost the same. Gametrailers in particular seemed to me to WANT to hate it far more than their review allowed.

Amalur had a fun combat system, gorgeous environments and really interesting looking armor and weapon designs that really gave it a personality.

---

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.

Cool, I might check out the DLC if I still want more KoA after I beat it.

-Jumping. It's a really minor thing, but the problem is is that it is a really minor thing that cropped up a lot during gameplay. Even worse than the lack of jumping was the fact that you couldn't so much as drop down a 2 foot ledge if it wasn't an approved jump point... Even though the jump points would often let you jump down 15 feet. It just became jarring that whenever I wanted to get into the action quickly, or get at something that looked interesting, I'd have to go aaaall the way around hilariously small obstacles, and every single time I'd think 'But It's Right THERE.' It gave the game an unpolished feel, because invisible walls can be bloody jarring if they're scattered around the interior of the level.

-The camera. I swear, whoever thought that camera was properly placed should have been fired, even if the studio hadn't gone under. I don't know whether it was just too close, but it just made it difficult to really appreciate the splendor of the surroundings. I think angling the camera upwards slightly, and pulling it back, would have helped immensely. But it wasn't something we had the option to change, and so every time I'd start playing, I'd be confronted with this thoroughly aggravating camera, and only gradually sink into enjoying the game.

I'm guessing with jumping, they just didn't another free button open to use on a controller. It's not at all an issue for me. I even saw in Angry Joe's review he mentioned that. So it was in my head before playing it and yet there's only a few places where I've thought to myself, "I should be able to jump over that."

I agree the camera is a bit wonky. I think it feels too overhead because you are always looking down to pick up something or another and you just subconsciously leave it there. I played for a bit with that in mind and I couldn't figure out if the game actually angles the camera without your input to be honest.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

KoA though is probably just about the same with story and characters as Skyrim, one probably only has a slight edge over each other.

And the story and characters in Skyrim were awful. What's next, are you going to praise it for having the same great level design as Dragon Age 2; and the solid core engine work of an Obsidian game?

KoA just has by far the best combat of probably any action RPG ever.

I highly doubt that anyone has topped Mass Effect 2/3 in the action RPG gameplay sense.

I haven't played Skyrim because I can't stand the combat of the game. I know the story and characters aren't anything great so I don't know how bad they are. The point is that why does Skyrim get praised, perfect scores, and GOTY awards when yet KoA doesn't and is just the same. I'm mainly praising KoA for the fun combat, I actually feel like a badass rogue in a video game, that's quite a feat.

I agree Mass Effect 2/3 are better shooters than KoA is a hack and slash. However, what other action RPG has better hack and slash gameplay? I should've reworded that line as a shooter is very different gameplay-wise and I had in mind all the fantasy RPGs like Skyrim in my head when I wrote that.

 

[Gitty101]

As quite a few people have mentioned it wasn't really that good. I felt like an MMO which you could only play by yourself. Not to mention the easy combat and the fact it all got a bit repetitive very quickly.

 

[DanielBrown]

I had lots of fun with the game, but after 40 hours it got so fucking boring I just rushed through the last few zones and finished it. I love open world RPGs like crazy, but KoA felt so damn padded and, if my memory serves, copy pasted. It's a good game, but forgettable.

Also the camera is painful.

 

[Master_Fubar23]

People are biased and can't enjoy good games anymore once someone on the internet says something bad about it. I played it and loved every minute of it. The story, the voice acting, graphics, and the combat. It wasn't hard at all and I think I only died a few times throughout the game but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

[GundamSentinel]

While I enjoyed Amalur, there are some problems with it. My biggest one was that it was just too big a world for what was in it. Most of the areas were just filled with needless nonsense quests that seemed to be there just to distract you from the main story. That made the game very tedious. As people said, it felt like a single-player MMO. I quit the game for months before finally finishing it over the summer.

I thought the combat was decent (nowhere near games like Demon's Souls or Dragon's Dogma though), but too easy and it got very repetitive. Still better than the clunky Skyrim combat though, at least it was fast and colourful. In fact, I enjoyed that the entire world was very colourful and varied.

Amalur in my eyes is an underrated game, but it's really not a great game either. It's good, functional and looks okay, but that's it.

 

[RyQ_TMC]

I had fun with Amalur, I liked some of the lore and mechanics. Played it almost religiously for about 2 weeks.

But that's it. After those 2 weeks, I never came back.

I think the game's big problem was that the huge world had nothing to drive you forward besides exploration. The main plot was boring. At higher levels, the sidequests had zero challenge and useless rewards. I think a big mis-step in design was making the forest areas and desert areas in the same level-range. After you got through one, there was no point in going to the other except hunting down lorestones.

As it stands, I lost any motivation to keep pressing on once I reached the level cap and still had quite a bit of game left. I didn't feel any urgency to go after the main villain. And to be honest, the last few levels were just a scramble for points so I can get the ability that shows lorestones on your map. Being able to remap your entire character through Fateweavers was also a bad, bad idea.

OK, that may have sounded a bit negative, but I had fun with it. It's a decent game. According to metacritic, it has a 8/10 average review score, which I would say is about right. It's not original, but it gives value for your money. You can probably clock 30-40 hours of gameplay before getting bored, which is a lot nowadays, but you probably won't be coming back to it.

Captcha asked me "which one is a number?", then when I answered "banana bread", it replied "narrow-minded".

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

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

Because it was thoroughly bland, extremely tedious and uninteresting. The "amazing combat" that many suggested was great simply wasn't. There was nothing unique or well done about it whatsoever. I gave it 5-6 hours and every one of them was spent bored and disinterested.

I was tempted to have another go with cheats to see if a higher level character was more interesting to play, but the game was so boring I uninstalled it and moved on.

It wasn't even close to being in the same league as the aforementioned games. That answers why is wasn't as praised as them. KoA doesn't deserve it.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Because it's repetitive, it has some very outdated gameplay mechanics, and it feels empty. You can tell that it was supposed to be an MMO. It's still a fun game and I had a lot of fun with it. But everything about it is repetitive and the game completely lacks any sense of immersion. That's a terrible combination for an open world RPG.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

While I enjoyed Amalur, there are some problems with it. My biggest one was that it was just too big a world for what was in it. Most of the areas were just filled with needless nonsense quests that seemed to be there just to distract you from the main story. That made the game very tedious. As people said, it felt like a single-player MMO. I quit the game for months before finally finishing it over the summer.

I thought the combat was decent (nowhere near games like Demon's Souls or Dragon's Dogma though), but too easy and it got very repetitive. Still better than the clunky Skyrim combat though, at least it was fast and colourful. In fact, I enjoyed that the entire world was very colourful and varied.

Amalur in my eyes is an underrated game, but it's really not a great game either. It's good, functional and looks okay, but that's it.

Amalur needs two things on PC that would make it awesome:

1. Controller Support; button mash melee combat is shit with mice

2. Mods. I've seen games transformed into something wholly new with decent mods.

Other than that, it was the first Fantasy RPG I played in some time where the mood wasn't stuck up it's own arse and for that, I thank it. While a load of the small side quests sucked, the big ones like becoming a member of the Warsworn, were fucking awesome.

 

[JazzJack2]

once you figure out the game, it's a cakewalk.

You mean like most games?

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.

You're just making up bullshit, there are only two dragon bosses in DS neither of which you can just stand in front of it and hack it to death, you'd be killed in seconds.

 

[Twitchy Wyche]

once you figure out the game, it's a cakewalk.

You mean like most games?

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.

You're just making up bullshit, there are only two dragon bosses in DS neither of which you can just stand in front of it and hack it to death, you'd be killed in seconds.

Yeah, he's actually very clearly making up a lot of shit about Dark Souls; if you've played the game for any length of time you can tell almost nothing he's said about it true. I think he just wants to be a hipster by saying one game not a lot of people like is good and another game a lot of people like is bad.

 

[stroopwafel]

The gameplay in Amalur(atlease the melee combat) was pretty good. Eventhough I didn't like the artstyle I thought the world was varied and detailed. There is also no denying that they have put tremendous effort in the story(while being immensely boring). I almost felt guilty skipping it all when I could no longer stomach it. There is just lines and lines of dialogue that put you to sleep. But like I said the one redeeming factor was definitely the gameplay which was more similair to action games than your typical RPG. It filled a void until Dragon's Dogma came out which did what Amalur did but much, much better. Still it was a good first attempt of a studio that went under way too fast. Comparing Amalur to the likes of Demon's or Dark Souls(the best action-RPGs ever created) is ridiculous though.

Also apparently Todd McFarlane contributed to Amalur but I read Spawn for ages so I'm fairly familiar with his designs but couldn't find(recognize?) a trace of his influence in this game.

 

[hazabaza1]

...'Cos it's bad?
It felt like if Fable touched up on the combat but decided to remove any sense of charm of parody in the process. The camera defaulted to tilt downwards so no matter how pretty the game actually is you spend 75% of the time staring at the shitty floor textures.

Not to mention that it was easy as balls. On hard mode smithing is hardly needed, and potions dropped with such frequency that every battle devolved into "spam chakram attack, dodge to get range, spam chakram attack". Barely any of the attacks had a good feeling of impact or were even that useful since they either did so little damage or had so much wind up time the spam of 50 minor enemies would stunlock you to death for attempting to break away from the same repetitive dull grind.

Maybe the story and characters and dialogue make up for all this but after playing the demo and listening to the uninterested voice actors jabber on and on and on about "guuu destiny" and "huuur fateweaver" I decided I'd nip that one in the bud.

All my opinion of course. If you like the game then on your head be it but I thought it was kind of really shit.

So you just played the demo then? The demo didn't grab me either because I'm not in the mind set to really get into a game when playing a demo and you kinda have to do that to play an RPG. Plus, the demo was very glitchy. I don't think I've experienced a glitch yet in the game outside of the occasional graphical thing. I'm playing the rogue and the rogue's attacks are probably the least powerful (from a damage standpoint) and they all have a good feeling to them. It's the interplay between the attacks/abilities that makes it all work. The rogue gets attacks and abilities that give you that opening to pull off a longer charged attack. I'd say try the full game before righting it off, it's damn good. I would've actually bought KoA at release but Mass Effect 3 came out within a month of KoA's release I think.

No I played the full game, the demo just convinced me not to pay any attention to the story.

 

[irok]

Whaaat? it felt like a cheap MMO that couldn't afford servers so it decided to stick with single player instead, dark souls doesn't have the most complex combat in existence but it was a solid game regaurdless, I remember playing this nonsense for about an hour and going, this is weird, theres no other players here.