Well I took the plunge and freed up a bunch of space on my dismal little 4 Gig Harddrive on my Xbox 360 (A belated Christmas Present).
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is based on some RA Salvatore’s story’s and fans of the Drizzt Novels will most like be drawn to the game. On the Xbox 360, the game controls and playability is fairly decent and pretty common for the Xbox Style even though I do not play many of them.
The games graphics are good, however I feel they are on the cartoony side – Kind of like the Fable Games and several other games, especially of the oriental style – Big Swords, Action packed game play and amazing moves.
So, what is the story?
Well, I aint going to reveal that but it is a really good one (from my point of view) and the story captures you from the beginning. It is the classic good vs evil, and you are there to save the world!
Races
Roleplaying games are sometimes put on a pedastel, and the choices available to players is a big thing to many. For me, I usually prefer humans, but the choices in Amalur are fairly decent.
It looks like two different types of Humans and two different types of Elves. Whether the full game or PC version gives you other choices is unknown as I was playing the Xbox Demo.
Classes
Well you actually don’t choose a class, not right away. The game is tied to the threads of Fate, and you been the hero get to decide what your fate is – well in a limited way anyhow. Essentially this means that after the intro/tutorial you get to choose a class or not. The choice is yours.
In the beginning there is a choice of Deity Types that grant different bonuses or you can choose not to worship any and get a small increase in Experience.
Combat
As mentioned above, combat is fast and action packed. In the demo you get a sword quite soon – a rather big one, in the game its a long sword (I think). And the moves are awesome.
You also get a shield and can actively block – and you NEED to block, and block often! If caught in the middle of a combination of attacks by a foe, you have to step back and hold the block down to break the combo.
Of course, you can do combos and the like as well. And they vary depending on what kind weapons you have.
Archery is great as well, you can shoot damn fast as well. The game seems to limit how many ‘shots’ you have in a combat, but you can always pull it out again and carry on attacking. Also, if you hold down the attack button (X?) you can make harder shots. Perfect if surprise attacking someone.
Speaking of surprise attacks, you get to do sneaking around and all – including sneak attacks, providing you have daggers equipped. Sneak attacks, if successful are generally instant kills too. Just remember to push the right button 🙂
Other Comments
Ok, throw reality out the window here. The weapons are big – very big. The action and combo is inhumanly fast sometimes. And you can chop and change weapons/blocking instantly. This only applies to primary and secondary weapons and blocking however, to change your main weapon you have to go into your inventory and swap it out – at least the game pauses there but it is annoying.
The hot points – where you can assign items to different positions – seems to only be for consumable items like potions.
Healing potions you need. When you fight bosses (for want of another word….) you have to heal and also make wise choices. The troll I fought had me running around like mad, shooting and using my spells on the little guys before taking him on. I think I went through 10 or so potions! But then, not surprising since the Troll was about 3 times my size…
The Demo doesn’t seem to have a save position. Would have been cool if you could play the demo, save, get the full game and continue playing.
Level Up
You earn XP and Thus you earn levels. Levels increase your combat ability and hitpoints but also grant you skill points to improve existing skills and gain special enhancements – some of which might be new moves for your attack combos and the like.
Conclusion
If you want a fast, action packed RPG then this game won’t disappoint.