Review: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, by Big Huge Games
by
Stuart Holland
This review was originally a series of tweets, which is why it is structured as it is.
This review was a part of my “Back Catalog” series in 2020, where I went back and achievement hunted in games that I had previously started, but not completed.
Next up on #BackCatalog is Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning! Which is actually getting remastered at the moment. But I’m back playing my original save file from 360 on back compat!
There is loads to like about Amalur. There’s an impressive amount of voice acting for a 360 title! Not just for the main characters (like Mass Effect, which obviously has tons of VO for Shepard). But inconsequential folks, and it keeps changing!
Background chatter varies hugely and extremely appropriately based on your quest progress, which is extremely hard to balance well
I ran into several NPCs that cared I had finished a completely different quest line. And it made a lot of sense that they did, because in universe it was quite important (meant my character was in charge of an organization important to their people)
It continues the great tradition of “character you can name that no one ever says out loud and calls you by some title instead”
It plays remarkably like an MMO for a single player RPG, and I think it takes the better parts of that, rather than being a criticism
The “fateshift” finisher moves are very satisfyingly animated and they refresh often enough that you don’t feel like you’re wasting them on normal mobs
Definitely enjoying! And I would recommend the remaster (when it comes out) to anyone who’s interested!
The controls are also remarkably intuitive, because I was able to work out how to play after doing this again:
Something that keeps happening with these games is if I load my old save from 10+ years ago (back compat is awesome!) which is 5 hours into the game, then I’ll already be past the tutorial
But I absolutely do not remember how to play
My save is from 2012 this time! That was just yesterday! Or maybe it was some time in March?
Something that keeps happening with these games is if I load my old save from 10+ years ago (back compat is awesome!) which is 5 hours into the game, then I’ll already be past the tutorial
But I absolutely do not remember how to play
And of course, the Re-Reckoning was yesterday @ReckoningGame released the remastered/remade Amalur, reborn from the Well of Souls!
I’ll probably revisit Amalur through the new version some day - if you have liked what I said then try it out!
Back to the original Reckoning, I even hunted down all of the collectibles. Amalur’s Collectibles are the perfect balance of difficulty and respecting my time
There’s nothing worse than a series of collectibles that says you have 34/35, but you have no idea which one you’re missing
Amalur’s are divided up into well defined sets and the game keeps track of your progress for each one (because completing each gives you some stat bonuses). So you can find them at your leisure while playing the game and that doesn’t make a post-game cleanup into a slog
Plus, if you max out your character’s “Detect Hidden” skill, the collectibles you haven’t picked up appear on the map in-game! (In areas you’ve visited before.) So you can even find them without a guide!
So now that I’ve run through and picked up a bunch of achievements, I’m at 49/50! (I’m playing only the base game, don’t have the DLC.) That’s a great improvement from my original 10/50.
But what about that last achievement?
“Beat the game on Hard difficulty”
God dammit
…
If you insist
13 hours according to my save. Actual time will be a bit longer than that since it “loses time” when I die (“load last save”).
Turns out you can power through Amalur very fast if you do only the main quest! I did have to level up with a few side quests toward the end tho
Also
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
