Zero Punctuation: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

[Ashendarei]

it was an excellant game. Played it through the demo, and bought it on release.

Don't regret it at all, it's not as deep as Skyrim but is more fun IMO for it being less drawn out.

 

[Vault101]

I actually welcome the resurgence of "standard" fantasy settings in games right now. For a long time I've been left cold by games with alternate settings that just didn't move me, like the settings of Mass Effect, Fallout 3 and NV, and Fable 2 and 3. But I agree that the way the game drowns you in incomprehensible lore terms pretty overwhelming at first. I'm starting to get a hold of it now, but it seems they could have made it a lot easier than they did.

personal taste I guess..I fucking LOVE fallout, it has to be one of my absolute favorite settings ever,

and Mass effect is hardly "alternate", thats 100% classic sci fi..and its AWSOME

as you can tell I just dont get fantasy....it feels so bland and lifeless half the time

 

[Loethlin]

Well, I'm glad this happened.
Mostly because this vid just validates my opinion on this shitty game.
Maybe now, people will cease yelling at me for daring to say KoA sucks big floppy donkey dick.

 

[BroJing]

But it goes deeper then that, since Skyrim's Baby's First Oblivion, which is Baby's First Morrowind.

But yeah, that makes sense, because thats basically what it is, a singleplayer MMO.

I disagree with Skyrim being babys first Oblivion but agree that Morrowind was better then both.

Really I like Skyrim and Morrowind better for the same reason, uniqueness of setting.

Skyrim could of done more to go completely away from standard medieval fantasy and really embrace the Viking aesthetic but the bits they did go for were brilliant and I had a blast playing around in the surroundings.

Morrowind of course is so strange as a setting that it can 100% be described as fantasy and I loved that too (except for the floating prison...damn that place).

Oblivion though? Meh.

Oooh, standard english countryside yippee...and look! Paved highways! Let me get my adventure socks on!

Just hated it, and it only got worse with the cookie-cutter repetition of the oblivion gates.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I tried the demo and it just felt like Dragon Age with a dodge button. Still am not interested in it.

I am of the same mind here. Kind of surprised there weren't any Dragon Age references (except for the one at the beginning of course). Then again, it felt like Origins to me, more so than DA2. Not picking this up until the price drops if at all.

 

[Versuvius]

I bought it, i'm enjoying it. It's less babby's first skyrim, it's closer to world of fablecraft with a bit of Gothic thrown in, don't judge it against Skyrim though...Skyrim will always win. Since i've wanted a good Fable game after Lost Chapters this is filling the niche nicely, the price could have been lower, but the map is effing huegmongous, the combat on Normal is challenging to a degree (As a finesse type some monsters are just too tough and heavy hitting to stunlock easily and if you try you will be steamrolled) though the sustained damage buffs do make the game a cake walk with a competant weapon (Protip, once you get purples/named purples from fetch quests, you can just not take them back to the owners like a thieving prick and cause obscene amounts of damage, so don't stop using purples).

And that is what i think of Amalur. Yhatzee is for the most part right as he always is, though.

 

[Latinidiot]

I am playing it now, and it's fun. I just don't really care about anyone or anything. I walk around handing ass like it's christmas, and occasionally meet someone who i just as enthousiastic as i am in ass handing, and then we have a problem.

 

[Strazdas]

yeah i go for sci-fi more than fantasy now too but a well done elves and dwarves story can be good if done properly (see TES SERIES). As for camera being tilted down - THANK GOD FOR THAT. i cant count how many games i kept putting camera down because for some reason developers think that watching the sky is more important than where your walking.

 

[Ryan Noh]

Love him as always, tearing a new one out of games that deserve it.
I would say these guys seemed to be really trying though, if maybe there was a difficulty slider so you just couldn't two shot everything, and you could use your various movement abilities with your crowd control spells or movement+burst damage spells with some tactics, it could be rewarding gameplay. Seemed like it could be that way with that troll fight, if they would just get a bit harder, and if the dodge button wasn't spam-able.

Also, I never see much the point about complaining about using common "medieval" fantasy staples in a fantasy game. It's clearly a fantasy game, if you were tired of the genre (I mean did trailers tell you any less of it?) then pick another genre, go pick up some Mass Effect, Evochron, X3, or what have you. You go play a war FPS and complain about their being the same old assault rifles we see in every game? Er, play Borderlands (another example that applies to the first list as well )

 

[Ryan Noh]

yeah i go for sci-fi more than fantasy now too but a well done elves and dwarves story can be good if done properly (see TES SERIES). As for camera being tilted down - THANK GOD FOR THAT. i cant count how many games i kept putting camera down because for some reason developers think that watching the sky is more important than where your walking.

It's not like you have to be forced to watch it all the time, but they built a world, when I'm not spamming dodge I'd like to get a good look at it, I didn't even find a look or camera option in the controls

I for one go knowingly into fantasy genre because it's fantasy, the story and then world matters to me, particularly as modern games go I like to stop and get a good look around.

 

[veloper]

I bought it, i'm enjoying it. It's less babby's first skyrim, it's closer to world of fablecraft with a bit of Gothic thrown in, don't judge it against Skyrim though...Skyrim will always win. Since i've wanted a good Fable game after Lost Chapters this is filling the niche nicely, the price could have been lower, but the map is effing huegmongous, the combat on Normal is challenging to a degree (As a finesse type some monsters are just too tough and heavy hitting to stunlock easily and if you try you will be steamrolled) though the sustained damage buffs do make the game a cake walk with a competant weapon (Protip, once you get purples/named purples from fetch quests, you can just not take them back to the owners like a thieving prick and cause obscene amounts of damage, so don't stop using purples).

And that is what i think of Amalur. Yhatzee is for the most part right as he always is, though.

So I'm not the only player who cannot get away with merely spamming 2 attack buttons.

Although I wouldn't say the game is difficult even on hard mode, I'm not getting the easy mode other people are claiming here.
My first careful conclusion is that certain mage builds and some dagger users are stronger (than the pure fighter build that was my first early build) and that crafting can make a difference. What does surprise me is that you get something while still in normal mode.
It's almost like there's different versions of the game.

 

[Versuvius]

That is a very good point Yahtzee. Why are most games dealing with fantasy genre take place in the medieval times? Fantasy should be more then that, to Mass Effect or Final Fantasy standards. But that's just me, you never know..

This review was also pretty hilarious I must admit. Job well done man, got me laughing a couple of times with your clever timed jokes.

Strictly speaking the Iron Swords and Horsey Knights style fantasy is 'Low fantasy' while MAGIC AND DRAGONS is 'high fantasy'. A fantasy is whatever your brain is bubbling away but the genres i've just mentioned are categories for games/books and such.

 

[LauriJ]

You rock Yahtzee, you really do! As for the game, I don't see anything special in it really.

 

[Thyunda]

That is a very good point Yahtzee. Why are most games dealing with fantasy genre take place in the medieval times? Fantasy should be more then that, to Mass Effect or Final Fantasy standards. But that's just me, you never know..

This review was also pretty hilarious I must admit. Job well done man, got me laughing a couple of times with your clever timed jokes.

Fable does a good job of avoiding the medieval part - British Empire era fantasy was what I'd wanted for a long time.

 

[Frostbyte666]

Though Yahtzee does make several good points about the game it is still enjoyable and not quite as generic a fantasy (being based on celtic and irish mythology) as others since I had to look up some of the monster types and actually getting a little freaked out by them, the Leanashe springs to mind, after reading which getting a bit more freaked out by them. The last time I did that was for The Witcher.

 

[somonels]

Fantasy is elves and dwarves and the good old days and a wizard. What he did was confuse fantasy with fiction.

 

[Whytewulf]

The reason why you have "traditional" sword and sorcery dominating so much of game design is that it's probably the only real genere where the tropes reinforce relatively deep game design and progression.

More words go here...

Brilliant post. It's a shame that science fiction works like this though; As much as I enjoy the medieval fantasy games, I would still like to see more science fiction enter the fantasy genre. Mass Effect did this particularly well, Mass Effect 2 did this alright but not as good as its predecessor (I don't expect ME3 to do much better).

You might almost think Kingdoms of Whatever It Was was at some point planned to be a MMORPG but chickened out when they saw all the skulls piled up outside World of Warcraft's cave.

It's funny he says this, because Kingdoms of Amalur is the "prologue" for an upcoming MMO, codenamed Copernicus. It's still in the works and is now being developed by 38 Studios (who also worked on KOA: Reckoning).

Source: http://38studios.com/products/copernicus

That however, doesn't justify the repetitive and tedious quests and general progression that KOA: Reckoning provides. Just because it's the precursor to an MMO doesn't stop it from being a singleplayer now. Being a singleplayer it should've aimed to please the group of people who play singleplayer games, not those who play MMOs, since the latter would be playing MMOs right now anyway.

Overall, KOA: Reckoning isn't an entirely bad game. I mean, I've played much, much worse. It's just not particularly "good". I felt that gameplay wise, games like Skyrim were much better (though honestly, Skyrim is just as easy as KOA is - the difficulty sliders only increase health and damage, as well, not the actual AI mechanics) but story-wise, KOA kicks the crap out of Skyrim (Skyrim's story had so much potential that it never used).

Only real issue I had with KOA's story was the whole paradoxical effect of being separated from Fate. You have this whole thing about your character NOT being driven by Fate, yet obviously Fate had to decide that you would be reborn and your powers unfolded in the first place (this is implied about 30-60 minutes in, in fact).

Thank you. I am glad someone else pointed out this history. Check out the plans for 38 studios and it's history. 38 was Curt Schilling's number (American Baseball), and has Todd Mcfarlane (Spawn) and R.A. Salvatore (Drizzt/Icewind Dale Trilogy) behind it. They all became friends and wanted to do something in the genre (announced 5+ years ago). Schilling is a big MMORPG fan, in fact he got me into the genre 10+ years ago, as in an interview he was describing how pissed he was at Doug Glanville (another Phillies player) who kept getting him killed in Everquest.

The plan is to do several thing based on this setting and an MMORPG is one of them. Salvatore doing the writing (I believe their are books planned too), McFarlane artist and Schilling inspiration, money, spokesman. I am paying attention.

Also note.. the Demo is not like the game.. the game has about 30% better graphics, sounds, movement etc. I think it shows a bad side.

 

[svenjl]

Been playing KoA for about 15 hours. Really enjoying the action component of it and the faction quests. The world is a little contrived, but the visual style is a refreshing change for me. I don't think it's a great game, but I'm having fun and right now that's what I want. For a greater challenge I'm playing Divinity II The Dragon Knight Saga. And somewhat on topic, KoA has some eerily similar gameplay and RPG components to it...hmmmm...

 

[triggrhappy94]

Now that you say it, I am getting pretty freaking tired of "generic" fantasy.

I want to see a game about two rival space factions battling it out economically with some minor violent conflict breaking here and there. One faction being an allegory for Indian/Hindu mythology and the other being an allegory for a mix of Ancient Somerian and Thia mythology. With absolutely no recognizable alien races, and humans neither being considered a power or the most balanced race. No recognizable planet themes, or ships, or anything. I want everything about this game to make the player wonder about it's practicality.