What is it like to die and what happens after? Do we watch the ants of humanity from above or burn in eternal torment wishing less time spent on selfish goals and pleasures of the flesh. The story of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning takes a look at life, death, and rebirth in ways that many games shy away from. The age of immortals is coming to an end and the time for the mortal races has begun. This RPG from Big Huge Games and 38 Studios starts the player off as a dead body being carted off to the furnace. From there you go through the typical character creator and select a race, your look, and a name. There are four races to pick from and each comes with their own racial perk. The Almain and Varani are your human races while the Ljosalfar and Dokkalfar are the elves. After selecting whom you will be playing for the next 20+ hours you will finish the tutorial area and then dropped into the vast open world of Amalur. Amalur is broken up into zones and areas that range from swamps to the desert.
The developers spent a lot of time crafting each area to look unique and have a lot of visual style. When you get to a new area it really does look completely different than the place you just left. With that said the big open world is kind of empty all things considered. Unless you invest in the skill “Detect Hidden” you will mostly spend your time running to new zones and just picking up herbs or finding a random treasure chest in your travels. There is fast travel in the game and much like the Elder Scrolls and Fallout games you have to discover the place you want to fast travel to. So, I literally spent the entire game holding down the A button to sprint (which you never run out of) to travel across the world. Towards the back end of the game you will find yourself running to opposite ends of a continent with no fast travel options. At this point I wish there was an option to buy a horse or improve my sprint speed. Gameplay in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is your standard Action-RPG combat. Of course, combat is decided by which skill tree you decide to put ability points into. Once your points have been allocated to your designated class you'll use those skills to combat foes. That last sentence is kind of generic because the abilities in Reckoning are just that... generic. Melee gets the MK Scorpion “Get over here” move. Finesse get stealth, backstab, and bombs/traps. And sorcery allows you to cast fire, ice, electricity, and summon a skeleton, which you'll encounter as an enemy throughout the entire game.
The Might tree is where you'll be swinging a sword, a giant sword, or a giant hammer. The finesse tree is where you'll be a rogue using daggers, faeblades, and bows. And finally the sorcery tree is where you'll find your magic, staffs, scepters, and chakrams. The chakrams are these mid-range magical weapons that you throw around and are great for when you have a group of enemies around you. Just a fun weapon to use and I had them equipped as my second weapon the entire time no matter the class I was playing. You can also visit a fateweaver and for a sum of gold completely change your class if you like. Music always plays a big part in the RPG genre and it certainly made the epic moments in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning feel more grandiose. When you take part in combat the music adds to the experience unlike in Final Fantasy XIII-2 where I felt like it jumped the shark into a late 80s heavy metal show on the sunset strip. When you enter the gnomish city of Adessa you get a sense that you just walked into the epicenter of science and creativity. Visual style is something that the game has in droves. Take World of Warcraft and mix it with Fable and then throw in some mature fantasy tropes and you have a world that doesn't look like any other.
The particle affects the glow from your weapon and radiate from your hands as you weave magic that cripples your foes never get old. If you are a fan of games such as Wind Waker, Okami, and El Shaddai then this game will visually be your cup of tea. It took me around 20 hours to complete the main storyline of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. There are also side quests Elder Scrolls style. What I mean is there is side quests for the Scholia Arcana, Warsworn, Travelers, House of Sorrow, and House of Ballads. Each faction has their own quest line and will have you solve their problems and in some cases become the ruler of said faction. I feel a seismic shift coming in the industry when it comes to the single-player RPG genre. With each year we are seeing more and more companies inject elements such as loot, branched dialogue options, and skill/talent trees into their franchises. Not to mention we are seeing less single-player story driven RPG titles released with the amount of content and story that Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning has. If you are looking to fill the void left after you completed Skyrim then I can refer no other game than this one. It has everything you expect from the Elder Scrolls series and the combat is really good beyond its minor flaws.
