Kingdoms of Amalur : Reckoning

[Lucrece]

Has anyone tried the demo that came out yesterday? I know most people will try to compare it to Skyrim, but really it's much more comparable to Dragon Age and Fable as an action RPG with several sandbox elements and not an entirely aiming based combat system. I'd say it has DA2's fun combat with a nicely fleshed out world, except without the whole companions mechanic. Action/adventure RPG.

The demo's on Steam and Origin for PC, and XBox Live and the PSN store for download. Personally I've tried it on the PC but since I have small hands I find the game much more suited for console controls in my case as the demo doesn't let you re-bind keys like the release version.

reckoning.amalur.com is the official website. I personally liked it, though it seems so strange to me why PC games are now fucking costing $60 whereas before I could swing with the $50 at most.

[Obby]

I personally liked it, though it seems so strange to me why PC games are now fucking costing $60 whereas before I could swing with the $50 at most.

Because people will still buy it.

[SecondTalon]

Short version - Games have been $50 New for about the last 15 years. I can't think of anything else that's the same price as it was 15 years ago.

Long Version - TL;Economics

Moving on

If I can tear myself away from Skyrim long enough to grab the demo (I played Saints Row 3 for two hours last night.. I'm.. actually surprised I didn't play Skyrim) then I'll check it out.

[Xeio]

If you're really unhappy with the $60 price point you can always wait a few months (or until a sale) when they're priced a lot cheaper anyway.

Hadn't heard of this before today though, maybe I'll download the demo when I get home.

[Lucrece]

The thing is that Origin gets me $20 off the final price, but it doesn't have the pre-order bonus items =/

Decisions, decisions.

[Xeio]

Woo terrible first impressions.

Apparently the camera is (or at least for me was) bugged, and would only pan up and to the left, or down and to the right. Tried to exit and enter again but it wouldn't let me login again so... maybe I'll try again later.

[Lucrece]

If you got an ATI card remember to disable post-processing as well. A statement said the demo had to be released on a build about 2 builds behind the planned release build since they're still iterating and felt the release build merited more attention.

[VectorZero]

Played it for the ME3 unlocks; unfortunately the game kept crashing on my laptop before I could finish it (probably due to overheating as much as anything else.)

It's ok. (Good, not great. I shall not destroy your development house, but nor shall I share my secret of immortality.) Very reminiscent of DA2 in terms of the character set up, controls and perhaps the overall vibe, though I haven't gotten past arriving in the town. I found the targeting frustrating, kept swinging and missing barrels I was standing in front of and archery lock-on targeting was hit and miss (no pun intended.)

The skill trees and fate cards could be interesting or just a gimmick; haven't decided yet. Might pick up the game on steam during a sale but not any time soon.

[Obby]

Played it for the ME3 unlocks; unfortunately the game kept crashing on my laptop before I could finish it (probably due to overheating as much as anything else.)

It's ok. (Good, not great. I shall not destroy your development house, but nor shall I share my secret of immortality.) Very reminiscent of DA2 in terms of the character set up, controls and perhaps the overall vibe, though I haven't gotten past arriving in the town. I found the targeting frustrating, kept swinging and missing barrels I was standing in front of and archery lock-on targeting was hit and miss (no pun intended.)

The skill trees and fate cards could be interesting or just a gimmick; haven't decided yet. Might pick up the game on steam during a sale but not any time soon.

You get ME3 stuff for playing this demo, too? I thought you only got ME3 unlocks for playing the ME3 demo, and you got Amalur unlocks for playing this demo.

[Lucrece]

Nope, that's the whole purpose of the cross--promotion effort. You do the KoA demo and get a pretty neat looking armor on ME3 alongside a chakram launcher and a helm I believe.

You do ME3 demo you get the omniblade daggers and N7 armor on KoA.

In addition, you get KoA and ME3 items from each one's own demo respectively.

[Xeio]

Hrmmm, tried it again and my camera didn't bug out this time. I like it better with a controller than keyboard/mouse though. Not quite interested enough to pick it up as a pre-order, but I think I'll watch out for next month.

Also, being allowed to turn on friendly fire is totally a trap.

[Lucrece]

I really need to build up a new PC -- my laptop plays like an oven on it, and I need a new system for Guild Wars 2 anyways.

Here's how it looks on my laptop. Medium settings.











All I need is a blindfold and Warglaives of Azzinoth to be blue Illidan after he went to the barber.

[SecondTalon]

Aaannnddd on your third image I lost all desire to have anything to do with this game. Because what the hell is that? Dual wielding unstrung bows with sharpened edges? What the fuck?

[Obby]

That's pretty much how the demo looks maxed out anyway, Lucrece. The graphics leave something to be desired.

I got a good solid hour and a half or so playing the demo. The story was mildly interesting, if not a bit generic. The writing and voice acting were, by and large, pretty terrible. The graphics aren't that impressive, looking like they're approximately 5 or so years out of date. I realize that graphics aren't everything, but I figured I'd mention it anyway because some people really care about that stuff. The leveling system isn't really that in depth, either, and the item system is exactly the same as every other RPG ever. And you can't move the goddamn camera further back from the character, which was really annoying.

The only really interesting thing about the character advancement is the card-type system they have going on, where you can choose your specialization (wizard, rogue, warrior, or any combination of two of these) that will give you bonuses to skills relating to those specializations. You can pretty much switch to any kind of specialization you want at any point in the game, with the only limiting factor being whether you have the gear to support that spec or not. That's kind of nice.

The combat feels a lot like God of War, to me. Find enemy, attack mercilessly until it dies. Dodge and block occasionally if necessary. I hear a lot of people comparing it to Fable, also, but having never played Fable I can't really comment on that.

Really, I don't think it's worth anything close to $60. If it ever goes on sale for $10 or so then I'd probably grab it to play on a rainy day.

[Lucrece]

Aaannnddd on your third image I lost all desire to have anything to do with this game. Because what the hell is that? Dual wielding unstrung bows with sharpened edges? What the fuck?

Ha! Faeblades (think of them as Warglaives like the WoW ones). Those and the chakrams are my favorite weapons.

When I'm using the chakrams on my mage I go all out Xena The Warrior Princess wailing.

I have little trouble with the graphics. I'm really fond of the game's palettes. I'm fucking sick of photorealistic dark/grey mundane palettes that, if anything, do very little to convince me to save a world anyways since the world looks like shit.

I really hate the $60 price tag, though =/. Games are getting expensive as hell. But I blew the money on Skyrim, so what the hell. The demo's a defect anyways since it's a 3 month old build that the studio was forced by EA to turn over to a third party for demo release, and that's how the bugs made it out.

It's also the introductory area of an RPG, and if I judged RPG's by their introductory areas, I would've dropped Skyrim in the first 20 minutes of gameplay as the game didn't take shape for me until I was done with the Windhelm College questline and was nearing level 25. Now I'm level 72 in Skyrim and the game's a lot of fun.

[Belial]

I really hate the $60 price tag, though =/. Games are getting expensive as hell. But I blew the money on Skyrim, so what the hell. The demo's a defect anyways since it's a 3 month old build that the studio was forced by EA to turn over to a third party for demo release, and that's how the bugs made it out.

If they fix the bizarre-ass bug that makes dialogue suddenly start zipping past unreadably, I'll be happy. I had to play the demo twice because it kept happening at important moments

I like the world they've created, I like the combat, I like the system, and I like their scenery so very much. Enough so that they've already sold me a copy of the game, despite my reservations.

From what I've seen of the game itself (outside the well of souls) I'm a bit perturbed by how uncustomized the dialogue is. If I can play an Alfar, and ask everyone I meet about the alfar, and not one of them ever seems to reference that I am one, I find that a bit troubling. It causes flashbacks of the NWN2 plot wherein the new party member, a druid, tried to explain to my PC, also a druid, the mysterious world of druids, ultimately concluding that my character, still a druid, would never understand it the way she, a druid, did, because it was too much of a druid thing. Just totally breaks immersion for me. I would prefer that they not give Player Characters certain racial or character choices if they aren't going to change the dialogue to support those choices. Like, I'd rather be limited to playing human than have the option to play an alfar and have everyone jarringly act like I'm still human.

[Endless Mike]

I played through it and didn't run into any bugs other than some geometry getting weird for a second. It's okay. I might grab it when it gets cheap, but I don't see myself paying full price.

[Okita]

I tried this last night. I think that some of the controls could use some work for the PC. Inventory controls for example were a pain to work through. It would be fine if I didn't pick up a lot of equipment but this game was originally designed to be an MMORPG. So I get decent amounts of loot that I need to sell and manage with no easy way of doing it.

The fighting controls themselves aren't that bad although I often found myself trying to back away from an enemy and then lob a fistful of lightning at them...only to fire it at the wrong direction.

I didn't run into any of the bugs anyone else did but what you get down to is a game designed as an MMORPG (and it shows) changed into a single-player game. I think a lot of the dialogue and quest-lines probably could have been reworked to better reflect this instead of showing its MMORPG roots. Maybe there's a lesson to be learned here from the .hack series...

Is it worth $60? I think that entirely depends on how much content they shoved into the game/ how long it is. The character progression certainly seems long enough but this is one game where I definitely will wait for reviews to come out after complete playthroughs so I can get an accurate judge of how much stuff is in there. Otherwise, it probably goes into the "wait until it's on sale" bin.

Edit: Strangely enough, just after writing this I got an e-mail from EA thanking me for trying out the game.

[It Should Be Real]

So has anyone managed to tear themselves away from Skyrim long enough to play the full version of the game?

4 or 5 hours in, my eyes have just about adjusted to the colour scheme after several years of being locked in Bethesda's basement to sort out the persisting Molerat/Skeever problem. Overall, I like it; I prefer the combat to Skyrim, mostly because I occasionally have to get out of the way rather than just whacking something with a hammer until its soul falls out. So far the main plot seems a bit beige, but I've not really explored it much so the only big criticism I have is that after stabbing someone in the eyes with your glowing fate sword of destruction, there's the 'MASH BUTTONS!!!11!' pop-up which really breaks the immersion for me.

[Belial]

As far as the main plot, I'm really happy with the way you keep running into "mystic seer" tropes, and then suddenly breaking them.

Also, the combat makes me intensely happy. The stuff they showed you in the demo was the least ridiculous of the combat.

[Mumpy]

Just got this yesterday,It's already loads of fun. The only irritating thing about the start so far is packs of wolves. You have to perfectly time a dodge or an attack to block the charge, but with 4 or 5 wolves, the time between attacks is too small to actually hit back.

[Belial]

I actually rather like that wolves are the best at working together out of...the whole game.

It means that someone did wolves correctly.

[Chen]

I've found the game becomes a lot better if you apply an FOV fix from widescreengaming forums. Even with only a single monitor applying the fix pulls the camera out that little bit more that makes it much easier to handle combat with. I can't access the link here, but searching for FOV fix for the game in google will find you it.

The starting DLC gear you find seems to be quite powerful, though perhaps its just because all my other stuff is generic white gear. I was going to go the rogue way, but magic seems SO much more powerful than my stupid dagger/faeblade attacks. I can wail on something with a dagger for a good while before it dies. Or I can hit it once with that shock spell and take off 4/5 of its health bar. Also shooting with a bow seems pretty terrible compared to the Chakras which are in the sorcery tree for some reason. I'm not sure if hybriding it is worth it, or if I should just focus on one tree completely.

Is there some place to respec your talents/skills? If so, how far in is it? I'm debating starting over but if there's a quick and easy respect thing somewhere I may just stick it out.

[Belial]

Any fateweaver can respec you. The nearest one to the starting area is probably up in the House of Hallads, on the north-ish side of the map. The main plot fateweaver might be able to do it too, I haven't checked.

I've been hybrid-ing finesse and sorcery (daggers as primary weapon, chakrams as secondary) and it's entirely worth it. The daggers and faeblades really shine when you start pouring points into that skill tree on the left side that gives you more varied attacks. Both weapons give you a lot of ways to just deny your foe the ability to attack (either by knocking them down or juggling them up) and the sheer ridiculous speed of the things mean that you hit first.

Also, I didn't know that I wanted high fantasy games to have more Tenchu: Stealth Assassin in them, but apparently I did.

[Nylonathatep]

You can buy Kingdoms of Amalur, or you can watch Sean "Day[9]" Plotts, and Felicia Day play the game!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MngZF7uq ... 3A02A67188

[Mumpy]

I actually rather like that wolves are the best at working together out of...the whole game.

It means that someone did wolves correctly.

Oh no! I love it, it's just hard.

Don't get me wrong, hard is good, as long as it isn't the "Well, you miss-stepped once, so start again. Totally again." but it does get really punishing when the fast fast wolves with stagger, team up with the ridiculous two headed giant lightning shaman things. Reaaally unpleasant. Again, I like this, because it means you have to think about each group you go up against, and can't just jump into 20 enemies and hope to survive.

Plus feyblades are so good. They are absolutely the best thing about the combat here. I would say chakrams, but for the long cool down at the end of the main combo move. And you can't stealth kill with them.

EDIT: forgot why I came in here. EVERYONE IS SO POSH. All the accents are ridiculously posh unless they're scottish. And if they're scottish they're murder to listen to. Argh.

[Belial]

Plus feyblades are so good. They are absolutely the best thing about the combat here. I would say chakrams, but for the long cool down at the end of the main combo move. And you can't stealth kill with them.

's why I like the primary/secondary system. Keep a stealth kill weapon in one slot, and a medium-ish ranged weapon (staff/bow/chakram) in the other.

And yeah, the wolves get better if you can get something area-effect-y because they also die really easily if you can put a decent amount of damage at them. Mark of Flame or Shadow Strike are good on the sorcery and finesse trees. Mark of flame has a tendency to just peel off all the smaller enemies in any confrontation I get into, and leave me to shank the big one to death.

[Vapour]

I got it this weekend after playing the demo.

Loving it so far, I've gone down Finesse and Sorcery. Faeblades and Chakrams with the Arcanist Fate Card. I have two "blinks" and a constant 10% damage reduction shield, with a 30% chance to stun electric ball.

Making steady progress, most creatures don't pose much of a problem, but if I'm not careful. They can kill me in three of four hits.

Hard difficulty is rather...hard

I struggle on some of the bosses, mostly the ones that summon other creatures. Or troll bosses. For bosses with multiple creatures. I tend to either "stunlock" with Faeblades, because they get knocked back. I can kee moving and avoid the incoming fire from the other creatures. Or I pop reckoning and burst down everything with Chakrams.

The only thing I don't like about Chakrams is that isn't a better combo for them, (Not one that've found) and at the end of the combo, Im left vunerable for a second or two, and unable to move. And on hard difficulty, I can't afford to get hit.

[Mumpy]

Chakrams seem to be fantastic against smaller numbers of opponents, or for at the start of the fight when all the enemies are infront of you. After that, it's faeblade faeblade faeblade.

I'm quite tempted to start another file and be that hammer guy, but I want to see how much replayability your choices give you later on, otherwise I could just respec and have done.

[Lucrece]

55 hours into the game; and while the loot system is broken alongside blacksmithing, I'm loving the game. The combat and visual department are just amazing -- love what Todd McFarlane has done with this IP.

I'm a pure Finesse build, just 1 level away from t6 destiny. Really curious about trying Shadowcaster (finesse/sorc) or Archmage, though.

The bow might start weak for pure Finesse, but it becomes so stupidly good once you invest points on it. A pure Finesse build is bascially tearing things apart with the bow, laying some traps with Gambit/Frost Trap to wear groups down, and finish them off when they make it to melee with faeblades/daggers.

They're working on getting a patch out for the camera, and I'm sure they can also patch the loot system/blacksmithing being OP. Plus the upcoming DLC.

As far as racial reference, that has bothered me as well. They say your race wouldn't change dialogue since they don't want people to feel like they missed out, but that's a design decision I disagree with because it marginalizes racial identity in favor of generalizing experience. Definitely a negative for me, but I'll just submit feedback on that.

Whta I'll say is that I'm really impressed with the amount of participation Curt Schilling, the chairman, puts into the official forums. An owner of a company actually invested and interacting with the community, explaining their reasoning and the behind the scenes regulations affecting them. It gives some perspective and makes you feel like your feedback is going somewhere.

[Amnesiasoft]

They say your race wouldn't change dialogue since they don't want people to feel like they missed out

That's a blatant lie. What's-his-face-Fateweaver-guy said something about my race being untrustworthy, "present company excluded of course," when Reminds-me-of-Fable-1-Belt-Lady showed up.

[Lucrece]

I got that line as a Ljosalffar, supposedly the stick up their ass elf race.