Reviews// Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

All of the tools at your disposal in combat mean that you can settle into a style that works well for you early on. Healing potions are easy to come by and can be used with just one button press thanks to the customisable quick slots. On the off-chance that you start to get in over your head, activating Reckoning will always bring things back in your favour.

You can always adjust the difficulty at any point in the options, but with only three levels of difficulty there’s still not much you can do to make things more difficulty for yourself.

Levelling up itself is quite cool, and the unique class system helps give the game most of its depth once you start to get properly into it. Each time you level up you can choose one of nine skills to increase, covering all of your basic RPG crafting skills like blacksmithing, alchemy and enchanting as well as stealth, lock-picking, and other handy utility abilities.

Then you get three points to put into any of your Might, Sorcery and Finesse (essentially the good old RPG archetypes of Fighter, Wizard and Thief) abilities. These points not only allow you to unlock and power-up new spells and techniques (as well as increasing your damage with different weapons), but also control your class using the Destiny system. As you put more points into each class of ability you’ll unlock higher-tier Destinies, with each offering unique stat increases and other more unique bonuses.

Choosing to focus on one area, such as Sorcery, will unlock powerful wizardry-related Destinies that will increase your spell damage and Mana regeneration. On the other hand, dividing your points between two or even all three Abilities will unlock Hybrid Destinies that offer unique advantages of their own. You can change your Destiny at any time, essentially allowing you to switch classes as the situation calls for it.

The various crafting systems aren’t handled terribly well. Eventually they work well and can even create incredibly powerful equipment that stacks the deck even further in your favour. But to get to that point you have to put a lot of points into the relevant skills as you level up, and the game never really bothers to properly introduce you to crafting. The rewards are there in the end, but without any guidance it’ll probably take you a long time to start experimenting.

Outside of the great combat and interesting levelling up system nothing in KoA is particularly new or groundbreaking. It wouldn’t be a stretch to call the game a fairly generic fantasy hack'n'slash, and it’s easy to recognise where a lot of the game's elements have come from.

The dialogue system for example is very reminiscent of Bioware’s Dragon Age games, right down to the presentation. Fortunately as long as you can forgive it for a distinct lack of originality, KoA’s gameplay works so well that as long as hordes of enemies are lining up to meet your blade and the experience points are rolling in there’s a good chance you’ll find yourself hooked.

It might not change the face of RPGs forever, but Kingdoms of Amalur really delivers everything it sets out to regardless. The combat is brilliant, fast-paced and engaging with a good amount of depth thanks to the wealth of weapons and abilities to choose from. But while it’s definitely the combat system that makes KoA stand out, the rest of the game does its job too. The world is large and beautifully designed, and there are tons of side quests to keep you busy. KoA perfectly fits the gap between huge and deep games like Skyrim and flashier but shallow games like Fable. It’s big, entertaining, and highly accessible to newcomers.

Pros:
+ Lots of sidequests.
+ Great, fast-paced and engaging combat.
+ Large and beautifully designed game world.

Cons:
+ Too easy.
+ Too shallow.

SPOnG score: 89%