Without a doubt, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is the most disappointing game I’ve ever played. As you’ll see from the score below, it’s not a bad game by any means. It’s just that it is the dictionary definition of disappointing.
When I first heard about this game, however long ago it was, the first thing that the marketing team behind this game made sure we knew was that it was being led by a trio of fantasy genre elite: The dude that drew Spawn into existence, the dude that came up with one of the most popular fantasy characters ever (Drizzt Do ‘Urden, go read the novels if you haven’t), and the dude that directed Morrowind, the greatest western RPG ever.
So, when I got to playing the game, I could see the collective genius ticking along behind it. The plot kicks off with an exciting twist on the JRPG convention of having the hero start his/ her adventure in a bed. Here you’re dead, and somehow come to life. Early conversations immediately have you intrigued in finding out more, thanks to some wonderful, intelligent dialogue. Thanks for that, R. A. Salvatore.
Then comes the tutorial dungeon, and immediately you’re introduced to a world that looks a bit like an MMO, but better. As bright and vivid as the colours are, there’s a real sense of darkness and menace to the visual style. Which is, incidentally how the best comics work, so thanks for that Todd McFarlane. Characters are universally interesting and it’s nice to finally be able to play a hero who isn’t entirely ugly (yes, I’m looking at you Dragon Age and Skyrim). Every new environment is capable of throwing new wonders at you, and there are times where you will just want to sit back and admire the scenery.
Then comes the combat and skill trees. Right off the bat, the combat succeeds in being nuanced and customisable. Whether you want to play a magician, and brutal warrior or a lithe rogue, the game enables you on that, and a deep skill tree promises a world of customisation.
After the introductory dungeon, I wandered down a path (there was water nearby, but my hero couldn’t swim, so I was forced down this path, what the heck Ken Rolson?) and quickly hit the first village. There Rolson’s influence really hit home. This town was almost a carbon copy of the opening village of Morrowind, right down to the style of subquests and its branching structure – as you complete existing subquests new, related ones open up to you, but the town is so small that that doesn’t feel overwhelmed either.
The problem is that right at that point, you realise that these three visionaries have all failed somewhat in the overall package, and it sets the tone for Amalur to be a game of simultaneous brilliance and disappointment. With that wonderful dialogue, if you progress conversations in an alternative order to the default, then the NPCs will give you the information in the wrong order. A number of times I was told a “good” guy was a “bad” guy before the game had been designed for me to find that out thanks to these dialogue trees. Further, there’s a lot of repetition of important facts through the dialogue system; it’s as though Salvatore was worried people might miss some of his clever ideas. It’s actually worse than how the dialogue works in Skyrim; the overall plot is so gorgeous that it’s easy to forgive these individual moments but there’s some massive breaches in the suspension of disbelief here that really hurts the game’s credentials as an immersive RPG.
McFarlane’s failure is in visualising a world that is far, far too complex for console hardware, and you’ll need a hell of a PC to even get a sense of what he was aiming for. Textures pop in just a few steps away from the player character. Looking at a distanced further than that is a generic mess of PlayStation 2-style 3D visuals. So those few metres are stunning, with highly detailed textures and colours. The rest is uninteresting splotches of indistinct colour.
Rolson doesn’t escape criticism either. He’s envisioned a big world, but a world of corridors. The massive open plains of Skyrim are almost non-existent. The room to deviate from the beautifully cobbled pathways is limited. There’s a lot of sidequests, but they’re almost always glorified fetch quests, and I’d argue they’re anything but “sidequests” – a slow levelling system means you’re going to have to complete a lot of them if you want to make it through the more difficult stuff later in the game.
The character moves at a rapid pace, which means any impression of distance between locations is almost non-existent. The Elder Scrolls games have always done a good job of keeping character movement slow to make the distance between cities and teams somewhat believable. Amalur feels more like a caricature where each new location or experience is just a few seconds away. More exciting for some, less of an open world for others.
The combat, too, creaks under the strain of ambition in the longer term. It likes to present players options, but then demand they use just a few of them to solve every combat puzzle. It then tries to make the puzzles more challenging by preventing the use of the more interesting strategies. See an enemy in the far distance? If the bow auto aim can’t reach him, then you can’t snipe him down. If you’ve decided to play a sneaky rogue, you’re going to encounter far too many instances where the enemy sees you before you can pull off a stealth kill, and even if you achieve that, enemies tend to come in swarms, and taking down one immediately reveals you to all the others. There’s also no reward whatsoever for avoiding combat, so martial classes tend to dominate (magic users suffer from a significant casting time in a game this fast).
Amalur has also adopted a few traits from the world of MMOs that do more harm than good. There’s no need to buy ammunition – you’ve got unlimited arrows which is balanced by only having a handful of shots before you need to wait a moment for the imaginary quiver to reset. Switching between weapons is automatic, with no downtime. When you’ve got a game that is plotted by R.A. Salvatore, “believable” fantasy is what you should be aiming for. Superhero fantasy doesn’t gel that well with the deeper story within the game.
Not a single one of these criticisms makes for a bad game. Amalur is still the product of three visionaries. But it’s not a visionary work itself. It’s a highly entertaining and enjoyable RPG. For these three, that’s just not good enough.
its just a better game than skyrim in almost every way. This is quality over quantity, in which skyrim is the opposite. I take this over skyrim any day. Combat is way more fun, so are the quests and so is the lore. Skyrim is the COD of rpgs, noob friendly and accessible to everyone and it is praised for those two factors as much as COD is praised for the same things. Amalur is just a much better game and more thought out. I rather have 30 hrs of this intriguing story line and lore than 400 hrs of mundane fetch quests that always culminate with a boring conversation with an npc just so he/she/it can send you on another fetch quest. Amalur has amazing dungeons and great design. Enemies flank you ,surround you and you have to be tactical and not just go in there with the hack and slash mentality.
its just a better game than skyrim in almost every way. This is quality over quantity, in which skyrim is the opposite. I take this over skyrim any day. Combat is way more fun, so are the quests and so is the lore. Skyrim is the COD of rpgs, noob friendly and accessible to everyone and it is praised for those two factors as much as COD is praised for the same things. Amalur is just a much better game and more thought out. I rather have 30 hrs of this intriguing story line and lore than 400 hrs of mundane fetch quests that always culminate with a boring conversation with an npc just so he/she/it can send you on another fetch quest. Amalur has amazing dungeons and great design. Enemies flank you ,surround you and you have to be tactical and not just go in there with the hack and slash mentality.
Ehhhh….RA Salvatore is involved with this game, not Feist …
Ehhhh….RA Salvatore is involved with this game, not Feist …
Whoops. That made my face red. I apologise, and have amended it in the review – thanks for picking it up!
Hi El,
I don't think it's fair to really compare the two games. Sure they share some similarities, but at the end of the day Skyrim is a very different game to Amalur.
I have been having more fun with Amalur too – I like that it's bug free and has a stronger art style than Skyrim.
I'm in no way saying this is a bad game (my review mentions as much a couple of times). What I'm saying is, given the creative intelligence involved in the game, it should have been even more than it is. Merely "good" does not satisfy what I know was possible for this team.
Hi El,
I don't think it's fair to really compare the two games. Sure they share some similarities, but at the end of the day Skyrim is a very different game to Amalur.
I have been having more fun with Amalur too – I like that it's bug free and has a stronger art style than Skyrim.
I'm in no way saying this is a bad game (my review mentions as much a couple of times). What I'm saying is, given the creative intelligence involved in the game, it should have been even more than it is. Merely "good" does not satisfy what I know was possible for this team.
What's with the cant swim part. Yes you can.
What's with the cant swim part. Yes you can.
I think criticizing Salvatore and MacFarlane might be a bit harsh; while I'm sure they were the masterminds behind the overall plot and art direction, respectively, blaming Salvatore for shoddy dialogue options and MacFarlane for texture pop-in isn't fair to them. Neither have made video games before, as far as I know, and they more than likely worked with a team of writers (for Salvatore) and graphic artists (for MacFarlane) to translate their respective visions into a video game format.
I mean, it's not like MacFarlane created the in-game landscapes and creatures; all the models would've been based off his drawings, sure, but a graphic artist would've translated those drawings to a video game medium. Same goes for Salvatore; he came up with the lore and the overall plot, but I'm sure another writer was behind the dialogue options and other such in-game mechanics. (At least I'd hope so.)
Even the criticism directed at Rolson seems minimal. Sure, his design sounds more JRPG than Western RPG but lots of people criticized FFXIII for similar reasons: linear maps and ridiculously simple sidequests. And I seem to remember you quite enjoying FFXIII. 😛
Don't get me wrong; I don't disagree with your assessment. I just think it'd be much more fair to criticize 38 Studios for being behind a lacklustre translation of the original ideas to the video game medium. And, really, I'd say for a first attempt at a big video game like this, they did pretty decently. There are plenty of worse games out there by studios that have been around for far longer.
That being said, I played the demo and could barely pull myself through it. It was a beautiful world, sure, and the story was somewhat interesting, but nothing caught my attention enough to want to play the full game. It seemed very… same-y, I guess. Nothing special; just another RPG in the sea of other RPGs. Glad to see that it managed to stand up to other games in the long run!
I think criticizing Salvatore and MacFarlane might be a bit harsh; while I'm sure they were the masterminds behind the overall plot and art direction, respectively, blaming Salvatore for shoddy dialogue options and MacFarlane for texture pop-in isn't fair to them. Neither have made video games before, as far as I know, and they more than likely worked with a team of writers (for Salvatore) and graphic artists (for MacFarlane) to translate their respective visions into a video game format.
I mean, it's not like MacFarlane created the in-game landscapes and creatures; all the models would've been based off his drawings, sure, but a graphic artist would've translated those drawings to a video game medium. Same goes for Salvatore; he came up with the lore and the overall plot, but I'm sure another writer was behind the dialogue options and other such in-game mechanics. (At least I'd hope so.)
Even the criticism directed at Rolson seems minimal. Sure, his design sounds more JRPG than Western RPG but lots of people criticized FFXIII for similar reasons: linear maps and ridiculously simple sidequests. And I seem to remember you quite enjoying FFXIII. 😛
Don't get me wrong; I don't disagree with your assessment. I just think it'd be much more fair to criticize 38 Studios for being behind a lacklustre translation of the original ideas to the video game medium. And, really, I'd say for a first attempt at a big video game like this, they did pretty decently. There are plenty of worse games out there by studios that have been around for far longer.
That being said, I played the demo and could barely pull myself through it. It was a beautiful world, sure, and the story was somewhat interesting, but nothing caught my attention enough to want to play the full game. It seemed very… same-y, I guess. Nothing special; just another RPG in the sea of other RPGs. Glad to see that it managed to stand up to other games in the long run!
Hey Nick,
Good to hear
Hey Nick,
Good to hear
I definitely understand the sentiment and would have to agree with you on the whole, but I think (especially) the criticism of McFarlane is perhaps a bit unfair. I mean, there are plenty of games these days that have absolutely gorgeous graphics and a fantastic art direction all the while staying away from texture pop-in and the like. To say that McFarlane's vision is better suited to future consoles and that he should have perhaps scaled things back is a bit unfair; if anything, that just speaks to the inexperience of the graphic artists on staff at 38 Studios. There are plenty of studios out there that could've turned McFarlane's vision into something spectacular right here and now, it just turns out that 38 Studios couldn't do it.
Regardless, I'm mostly just playing devil's advocate. I completely agree that as a team lead, these Hollywood-big stars should've insisted on a spotless product, and thereby have the responsibility of making sure such a product is released. Perhaps we'll see future projects that involve Salvatore and McFarlane, and perhaps they'll be even better than this first — admittedly good — attempt! That would certainly make me very happy!
I definitely understand the sentiment and would have to agree with you on the whole, but I think (especially) the criticism of McFarlane is perhaps a bit unfair. I mean, there are plenty of games these days that have absolutely gorgeous graphics and a fantastic art direction all the while staying away from texture pop-in and the like. To say that McFarlane's vision is better suited to future consoles and that he should have perhaps scaled things back is a bit unfair; if anything, that just speaks to the inexperience of the graphic artists on staff at 38 Studios. There are plenty of studios out there that could've turned McFarlane's vision into something spectacular right here and now, it just turns out that 38 Studios couldn't do it.
Regardless, I'm mostly just playing devil's advocate. I completely agree that as a team lead, these Hollywood-big stars should've insisted on a spotless product, and thereby have the responsibility of making sure such a product is released. Perhaps we'll see future projects that involve Salvatore and McFarlane, and perhaps they'll be even better than this first — admittedly good — attempt! That would certainly make me very happy!
Absolutely. I'm really hoping this was just a "trial run" of sorts, and a sequel can realise the vision properly, because it's a real winning combination, those three 😀
Absolutely. I'm really hoping this was just a "trial run" of sorts, and a sequel can realise the vision properly, because it's a real winning combination, those three 😀
Hi Lashes,
The specific instance I referenced above was talking about my experience at the start of the game. I was given no indication that I could go swimming, and when I left the tower, there was water in front of me. There was no jump button (obviously) and I couldn't just walk into the water, which effectively meant I felt blocked. There were a lot of other things to do anyway, so I just left.
Compare to Skyrim, where, if you see a body of water, you just walk into it and go swimming. Amalur didn't do a good job of making some of the freedoms you have clear from the start.
Hi Lashes,
The specific instance I referenced above was talking about my experience at the start of the game. I was given no indication that I could go swimming, and when I left the tower, there was water in front of me. There was no jump button (obviously) and I couldn't just walk into the water, which effectively meant I felt blocked. There were a lot of other things to do anyway, so I just left.
Compare to Skyrim, where, if you see a body of water, you just walk into it and go swimming. Amalur didn't do a good job of making some of the freedoms you have clear from the start.
You are an idiot.
You are an idiot.
Rolson, Salvatore and McFarlane – "Hollywood-big stars"?
I dont think any of those guys are connected with Hollywood. You seem to be confusing a writer, artist and game director with some one else.
Rolson, Salvatore and McFarlane – "Hollywood-big stars"?
I dont think any of those guys are connected with Hollywood. You seem to be confusing a writer, artist and game director with some one else.
Fair review, though I think perhaps your criticisms seem in contrast to the score, which is good, but it seems like you spent more time airing the parts that annoyed over the parts that lend themselves to the 4/5 rating.
I have heard rumors about this series going to an MMO for quite some time now, so I think your opinions on the MMO-like elements may be quite close to the truth and by design, whether it's a good design choice or not.
I'm still into my playthrough, but my initial feeling is probably an 8/10, but that could change as I am only a fraction of the way through the title at this point.
One note that I found interesting was the corridors comment, and the limited range of movement. This is one aspect of Final Fantasy XIII that a lot of people were annoyed with, but I don't recall it being so much of an issue for you with that title. Is it because Amalur feels like it should be more wide-open due to the visuals?
I found the PC graphics notes to be particularly interesting as I'm playing it on my 360 and there are certainly times it struggles with some elements that pop in, and the weapon skill clips through shoulder armor when sheathed across the back (seriously, almost no one gets this right in games), but performance wise it handles really well – I haven't had any slowdown yet at all.
Thanks for the review!
Fair review, though I think perhaps your criticisms seem in contrast to the score, which is good, but it seems like you spent more time airing the parts that annoyed over the parts that lend themselves to the 4/5 rating.
I have heard rumors about this series going to an MMO for quite some time now, so I think your opinions on the MMO-like elements may be quite close to the truth and by design, whether it's a good design choice or not.
I'm still into my playthrough, but my initial feeling is probably an 8/10, but that could change as I am only a fraction of the way through the title at this point.
One note that I found interesting was the corridors comment, and the limited range of movement. This is one aspect of Final Fantasy XIII that a lot of people were annoyed with, but I don't recall it being so much of an issue for you with that title. Is it because Amalur feels like it should be more wide-open due to the visuals?
I found the PC graphics notes to be particularly interesting as I'm playing it on my 360 and there are certainly times it struggles with some elements that pop in, and the weapon skill clips through shoulder armor when sheathed across the back (seriously, almost no one gets this right in games), but performance wise it handles really well – I haven't had any slowdown yet at all.
Thanks for the review!
Thanks for the long comment 🙂
With regards to the corridor thing, I think you're right – it did annoy me far more in Amalur than FFXIII because the game felt like it should have been more open. The story was as traditional as western RPGs come, there was dialogue trees, the lead designer came from Morrowind.
I appreciated that FFXIII was linear, knew it was linear, and didn't pretend to be anything but linear. Amalur was a game that pretended it wanted to be Morrowind, but it was quite surprisingly linear in execution.
But yeah, while I'm critical of the game, it's only because I honestly expected to pull out a 6 star rating for it. It should have been the perfect game. This is one of those rare times where 4/5 is just not good enough.
Yeah, I'm hearing this a lot…thankfully, though, I didn't expect much out of it, and in the end, I probably won't get much out of it, either.
I think the biggest factor that we are all forgetting is that this game was meant to be an MMO from the get go, but the idea got chopped at the last second and decided to move to a single player platform which still retained the MMO feel. Unfortunately it didnt carry over as well as they were hoping. So in the end I think the idea was to get the lore, art, combat, play of the game out there into the mass public so they can get all the feedback that they can muster as so to put it into a – imo – beautifully crafted MMO. Just my thought but I could be wrong but it sounds rather reasonable to me. 🙂
I think the biggest factor that we are all forgetting is that this game was meant to be an MMO from the get go, but the idea got chopped at the last second and decided to move to a single player platform which still retained the MMO feel. Unfortunately it didnt carry over as well as they were hoping. So in the end I think the idea was to get the lore, art, combat, play of the game out there into the mass public so they can get all the feedback that they can muster as so to put it into a – imo – beautifully crafted MMO. Just my thought but I could be wrong but it sounds rather reasonable to me. 🙂
I didn't actually know that! Thanks for the info, my friend; that certainly explains a lot of my concerns with the game!
I didn't actually know that! Thanks for the info, my friend; that certainly explains a lot of my concerns with the game!
You're welcome. 🙂 Yeah that's one of the reasons why they had annouced that they're working on mmo even before koa: reckoning had released because reckoning was supposed to be it but like I said "last minute chop". If you would like to find more info in the future about the mmo its project name is called "Project Copernicus". Not much info on it now but i'm sure in time there will be details floating around the net.
You're welcome. 🙂 Yeah that's one of the reasons why they had annouced that they're working on mmo even before koa: reckoning had released because reckoning was supposed to be it but like I said "last minute chop". If you would like to find more info in the future about the mmo its project name is called "Project Copernicus". Not much info on it now but i'm sure in time there will be details floating around the net.
I'm so disappointed in this game. I had high hopes that it would grip me – the game had some pretty high end pedigree after all. Off the bat I was still excited since the user interface was easy and even simple things like the fantastic looting system had me smiling. I could see elements of all my other favourite RPGs but instead of feeling like "oh this again" it was more of what I love.
But unfortunately, the plot line has been so lack luster that I'm just not pulled into the game. It's interesting, but I feel not connection with it. I've set it aside for almost two weeks now without missing it. Life gets in the way, but when I was doing my first Dragon Age play through, busy life or not, I found time to pick it up because I was jonsing so bad that not playing wasn't an option. I was hoping this would be the same but unfortunately not for me.
I'm so disappointed in this game. I had high hopes that it would grip me – the game had some pretty high end pedigree after all. Off the bat I was still excited since the user interface was easy and even simple things like the fantastic looting system had me smiling. I could see elements of all my other favourite RPGs but instead of feeling like "oh this again" it was more of what I love.
But unfortunately, the plot line has been so lack luster that I'm just not pulled into the game. It's interesting, but I feel not connection with it. I've set it aside for almost two weeks now without missing it. Life gets in the way, but when I was doing my first Dragon Age play through, busy life or not, I found time to pick it up because I was jonsing so bad that not playing wasn't an option. I was hoping this would be the same but unfortunately not for me.
Hi Kilyra, that's exactly how I feel. Since finishing the game I've never felt compelled to come back and play it again. I do however keep coming back to Dragon Age (what a brilliant game).
Hopefully a sequel improves on the potential of the franchise 🙂
Hi Kilyra, that's exactly how I feel. Since finishing the game I've never felt compelled to come back and play it again. I do however keep coming back to Dragon Age (what a brilliant game).
Hopefully a sequel improves on the potential of the franchise 🙂
considering peope likes to compare this game with skyrim (idk why), well, let's compare them, for real.
what KoA does better than Skyrim:
-Combat (not even a challenge)
-Sidequests (the majority of them is interesting, in skyrim most of them were really boring and with almost no story or background)
-Voice acting (some of skyrim voices were really out of place)
-Crafting (armor repair, getting materials from weapons to make new and better weapons, gems to create and put into armors and weapons with slots)
-Glitches (there's nearly no glitches in this,while skyrim is full of them)
-Loot (loot actually means something in amalur)
-Leveling up/Classes (classes in KoA are cool and fun to play, and there's plenty of ablities and special moves to learn, also if you are not happy with your creation you can re-spec your character from scratch)
-Monsters (there's more monsters types, and they are less stupid than skyrim)
-Sneak (if you have your stealth maxed out, if you stand in front of an enemy he's gonna spot you anyway, you know, you are not invisible)
what Skyrim does better than KoA:
-graphics (skyrim's world is just more realistic and epic, and you can go anywhere pretty much anytime)
mmmm, anything else? nope