When I first previewed Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, I wasn't blown away. It was shiny, fun, and suitably meaty for an action RPG - but the magic wasn't there.
Dragon Age caught me off guard with its strange style and charm - bringing something to the table that felt new, unique, and immediately exciting. Amalur surfaced without a fanfare: everything about it looked perfectly competent, but nothing about it seized my imagination. The name itself doesn't do many favours - we've spent the last six months referring to it as Kingdoms of Kahlua just to spice things up a bit. The spellchecker in Word seems equally grumpy either way, so for the sake of OXM consistency I'll continue with our version for the rest of this article.
The first hurdle it struggles with is the tone. There's an all-star cast of writers and designers behind it, and the aim was clearly innovation - but Kahlua's vibe is as vanilla as it gets, brimming to the top with old-school clichés. Combat puts me in mind of Fable at times, but mostly I'm reminded of World of Warcraft. Everything is shiny, brightly coloured and strangely plain. I've killed giant spiders like these before, and I've definitely seen this forest somewhere else. I've handed in quests, and collected loot drops. It's frighteningly familiar.
The characters feel wooden in conversation, but the ones I fought really sprang to life. Todd McFarlane's influence is clear - I only played for the first three hours, but the enemies were consistently awesome. Tiny masked tribal-things hop around and attack in a pack, the wild bears are beautifully stylised, and the giant ogre that eventually killed me was genuinely fearsome. Combat is clearly the main selling point, and the attention to detail is impressive.
There are nine weapon types to suit different playstyles, and you can swap between two of them fluidly in the fray. What wowed me the most was how differently they all handle - the developer hasn't simply copy-and-pasted attack animations for stuff like giant hammers and swords. There are unique combos and moves for each, which adds a tactical element to the combination you choose to use.
My favourite type is definitely the Chakra - twin discs of metal perfect for crowd control spin-attacks and medium range throw-attacks. Best of all, this is a mage class weapon - meaning players who favour fancy magic aren't restricted to waving their wands around like pansies.
And the more I think about Kingdoms of Kahlua, the more I think that might just be enough. It lacks the charm of the Fable series, but it nails at least one thing that Lionhead still hasn't - empowering battling that requires both strategy and fast reactions.
17 comments so far...
05mknort on 12 Jan '12 said:
No Coop for it though which is a shame http://uxns.wordpress.com/
CunningSmile on 12 Jan '12 said:
Despite the lack of publicity around this it has been on my radar for a time. I like McFarlane's designs, and the plot and script are written by R. Salvadore, one of the biggest selling fantasy writers in America, so the pedigree is good. Just not sure if releasing it in the same window as more anticipated RPGs like Skyrim and Mass Effect will do it any favours.
Plamsa wing on 12 Jan '12 said:
This has been on my day one purchase list for ages now. It just looks like a perfect mix of Fable: The lost Chapters and The Elder Scrolls.
Can't wait for the demo either.
msbhvn on 12 Jan '12 said:
The reason no one's heard of it is because EA are so busy screaming about Mass Effect 3 and all its associated hype and Facebook BS (If we get one million likes, we'll give you an in-game item! Oh and play our s***ty Facebook game to unlock in-game items! And buy this completely different title to get another in-game item!) that this title seems to have been drowned out in all the noise.
Also, given EA's track record with BioWare, I'm amazed an RPG has got past them without being turned into something else. Maybe the devs are keeping it quiet for that very reason?
If this turns out to be good, I'll give it a go, despite my massive EA prejudice. Good RPGs deserve to sell, otherwise we'll end up with none.
Bezza89 on 12 Jan '12 said:
Or maybe it was bioware all along. As much as I don't believe it, EA seem to be on the ball at everything other than marketing. Mirrors Edge, Dead Space were great new IPs of 2008, 2009 brought a few others, namely Dragon Age Origins (I only bought it because it had ME in game items, didn't know it was from bioware), 2010 not so much, 2011 even less (bulletstorm, both crysis'), 2012; looks to start good with this.
comabob on 12 Jan '12 said:
Grummy and i had a chat about this early last year around the time Skyrim was announced.
he fact that its Ken Ralston makes it a day one for me - the addition of Todd Macfarlanes art and design is icing on a very tasty cake..
SidTheSloth on 14 Jan '12 said:
I've been looking forward to this for over a year now, every time i see it i think it looks really impressive.
The OXM preview put a dent in my enthusiasm before xmas but i think this article is kind of a back handed apology for being too harsh on it?
Will admit my heart sank a little when i saw that EA were behind it the other day as it's the first i knew of it, so expecting 400 different item packs and armour sets from playing on facebook, pre-ordering etc. but might have to be a little fair to them in that some of these games wouldn't exist without their investment.
Fingers crossed this'll be a good title, certainly one im looking forward to!
Furie on 15 Jan '12 said:
Exactly the reason it's on my list and exactly the reason I'm waiting for a few rounds of patches before buying.
SidTheSloth on 15 Jan '12 said:
Be interested to see how like Fable it is. Fable introduced some of the best RPG innovations for me in a long time with the currency fluctuations, moral aspects and consequences of player actions etc, but since the first game they just haven't kicked on enough with that stuff and have put their focus on the wrong areas (multiplayer/dogs etc). It's the biggest thing missing for me from most RPGs, including the otherwise awesome skyrim, the sense of the world changing as you play through it.
It's a big ask for KoA to bridge this gap between the two, but it's the one area of RPG's i'd like to see explored much more. The overly criticised Dragon Age 2 (disappointing? Yes. Terrible Game? No) suffered from the fact that over ten years kirkwall hardly changes, but what it does do very subtly is it changes the characters default dialogue based on your choices throughout the game (so subtly most people don't realise it's happening).
Maybe this gen it's too much to ask to include all of these aspects, and until i play KoA im not sure entirely where it sits with regard the other RPG's, but if they aim for the storyline/characterisation of a Bioware title, morality, economy & cause/effect of fable with the freedom, scale, atmosphere and generally everything else from oblivion/skyrim then regardless of whether they nail it, it'd be a good starting point
hujiki on 23 Jan '12 said:
Can't wait for this to come out... Skyrim is awesome but i rather have a netter combat system...
Play the demo guys, free ME3 gear for the taking...
Clanger67 on 23 Jan '12 said:
When is the demo available to those of us not worthy of gold status ?.One day this week ?.
J Meiser on 23 Jan '12 said:
I played the demo for the first time last night and I was pleasantly suprised at how much I enjoyed it (in fact, I'm itching to get back on the demo tonight and actually play the 45 minute available). I'm seriously considering pickng this up in two weeks time!
I am a massive fan of the Fable series, but the (still haven't finished F3 yet) but I was not a huge fan of the dog and I'm still not. To me, this game feels like Fable, but a back-to-its-roots version with a much more fluid and dynamic combat system that makes you go "Oh yes, I pulled that off!".
It also looks like it has the potential to be very deep, with all of the customisation you can do with blacksmithing, alchemy, etc., which is the sort of thing that makes me tick. After all, if I'm going to play a RPG where the world changes around me, then I want to change the world my way and I want to make my own tools to carry out that change.
SidTheSloth on 24 Jan '12 said:
Completely agree, one of the most irritating additions to both Fable 2 & 3!! At least you could get rid in 2!
Pompey78 on 28 Jan '12 said:
Played this last night for the first time (demo) for around the full 45min available.
Quite impressed to be honest and a possible unexpected purchase.....
I liked the art style, nice and colourful which a lot of modern games lack (Enslaved being a great example along with Bulletstorm of great art style and shamefully missed by the majority of the gaming public)
Did notice on my demo that the graphical landscape did break up quite badly with massive smearing of what should be floors ,walls into a pixellated mess. As ever I'm sure that this kind of bug will be ironed out pre release.
Looks like there's quite a bit of customisation and character development with the various branching level ups which looks good. What I didn't think was very good and put me off a little was the fact your character doesn't speak, what's that about???
is he telepathic, a side effect of being brought back from the dead that isn't explained? or did EA just save £30K on voice acting the part which seems very strange as all the NPC's talk.
CunningSmile on 30 Jan '12 said:
I turned this on last night determined to get the full 45mins so I could get the DLC and as soon as I started it popped up telling me I had the ME3 stuff. Do I still need to play the demo as I'd rather just pick up the game and not have to repeat.
Connorgrffiths on 30 Jan '12 said:
Got the demo the day it came out, is a very nice looking game, combats very good and simple not everyone's slice of pie, I would recommend downloading the demo, before buying.
ridinglikesatan on 31 Jan '12 said:
After playing the demo on both PC and Xbox, I have to say that is was one of the worst experiences of my gaming life, the art style is generic, which is shocking after seeing who the lead designer is, the combat system was a less enjoyable version of the fable combat system (which isn't too good anyway), the menu system is too big, maybe of the options could have been combined, the character creation falls flat on its feet and the characters themselves were bland and boring. As far as demo's go, this has put me off completely.