Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

[delorean2200]

I said why in the last thesis text :P, its because somehow i forgot to get greaves before changing and afterwards i couldn't find a matching set,
(i didn't liked the results with another model), so i waited till i got a proper greaves model drop, but it did look good even without, kind of reminded me of lineage 2's blue wolf armor for humans .

[MeoTwister5]

Sorry was too busy... uh... gawking to read the rest of your post. "p

[Kyero Fox]

Originally Posted by MeoTwister5

Uh... any particular reason you're running around without Chausers?

possibly can't run windowed mode and stare at ecchi stuff while playing?

[delorean2200]

Originally Posted by MeoTwister5

Sorry was too busy... uh... gawking to read the rest of your post. "p

No worries i accidentally kept saying greaves when greaves mean boots >.< ...

[Meltyred]

So I decided to kill every NPC I could.
Found out guards respawned infinitely. (my 2 hours....)
Was so sick of killing them endlessly, and I didn't even take one hit....
Lesson learnt: only kill people inside houses, though looting is more fun.
I pretty much stole every piece of crap I could and salvaged whatever I could while junking the rest.
Still amazed that there isn't guards chasing me or whatever.
And that's without using a single smokebomb....

Got bored of the game soon after.

[Kameruka]

I just got to play this game and all I can say it is impressive though not masterpiece or groundbreaking of sort. It reminds me Dungeons & Dragons and of course Dragon Age.

My little brother complained to me why I bought this game instead of critically acclaimed and more popular Skyrim but I will get that game when its hypes cooled down little bit, maybe 2 or 3 months from now.

[delorean2200]

Well i can probably say that i finished Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning and here are my thoughts about it, but don't worry despite the wall of text there's no spoiler, so if i had to rate it, it certainly be above 9/10,. I haven't had such an experience since Freelancer, i was literally glued to the screen whenever i had time, personally i haven't had that experience of wanting to play so much in ages.

Okay about the game first of i gotta say this game is quite misunderstood, being called a sp mmo and all, not to mention that some don't even give it a chance, (for instance zeropunctuation most of his points are wrong and show he didn't even gave the game a shot), at its core the game surprisingly is quite similar to Diablo II, it pretty much uses the same basic system, thing which is obvious once you play it, but although it uses the same core they build upon it a new frame, a different perspective and a more attention to story (since quests can leave an impact on the world, another reason why calling it a SP MMO is wrong), a rich environment, detail given to wild life and more. Main quest though was a roller coaster ride, it starts up decent, gets DA:O level good, then goes down hill at a point due to some lack of attention given to details, luckily in the end it gets good again. The rest of the quests (faction and side ones) except one while on the second continent, where also quite great, some even managed to surprise me with their outcome and this hasn't happened in quite a while. AI like usually in WRPG's ain't nothing special, but thanks to enough safeguards it never got in the way, i never had a problem with an NPC getting in the way of doorways, narrow pats etc, also thanks to the awesome detail given to animation and the great detail given to the world they really succeeded in bringing the game to life. Gameplay was awesome, the second game where archer gameplay actually impressed me (though not near lineage 2's level but it still is the closest to offering me a good experience), the problem with an archer build though is that it sucks at lower levels, mainly to the problematic quiver limit, personally i think they should have offered it full from the start it really limited the game at first... Another thing that i found interesting was greatsword mastery, basically if you ever wanted to play an RPG with Ziegfried or Nightmare then this is the game for you , the moves remind me a great deal of him, i would dare say they are almost the same. Magic though needed more skills imho and just one summon when others could do a a lot more made me fill a bit limited regarding it... The loot in this game is awesome, and quite unique i still don't think i got to see every type of weapon and armor model lol. Bestiary awesome, quite a large diversity.

So basically:

The good:

-great gameplay, build on quite a solid system.
-awesome animations.
-While AI is simple there are enough safeguards and the animations make them bloom with life.
-quite good when it comes to voice acting.
- nice ost.
-imho one of the best archer sp experience.
-great quests, which do leave a certain amount of impact, not at the same extent of DA:O but it does it better then others for sure, with a nice balance of choices and rewards between right or wrong decisions, personally i haven't seen a game balancing them out so good usually only one is advantaged.
-loads of quests i've done 170 (without counting sidequests).
-outcomes for some quests can be unforseen at times which was a pleasant surprise.
-best lockpicking minigame to date, the only one game where i didn't hate it.
-interesting races some may appear like the usual, but they are different from the norm.
-character creation.

The bad:

-needed more variation for magic.
-simple AI
-quite limited storage, i mean wth, you mean to tell me i got all this expansive properties and i can't store more the 155 items ? ....
-main quest was kind of a roller coaster ride, at one point it turns great rivaling DA:O but not long after it kind of goes down hill and its not really cause of the plot or anything but rather some lack of details and a bit of a lack of focus along the way, but as i said it got good again.
-camera needed more work sometimes especially as an archer it can get in the way.
- i don't see those 200h of quests i'm at 74 hours i got only 12 task quests and some from the board at the house of valor... and i couldn't find another side quest out there...


Basically this game was a dream come true for me and the closest a WRPG got to making something i wanted.

[Paranoid Android]

I love the combat, closest thing to Vindictus in rpg action. Everything else was fairly average.

7.5/10

Severe problems:
- Camera angles. Too much automated zooming. It should be at most like .Hack//G.U. with the area lock. But everytime I take aggro, the camera fucks up and everything turns invisible and all I see is the ground.
- Dialogue. They're not continuous. They're often full of holes or simply don't connect with the previous sentence. While even an idiot can extrapolate what they mean, it's a pain. It's like read text in alternating caps. Understandable but gets on my nerves (but I have OCD). And I can't even begin to count the number of times an NPC repeats almost the exact same thing immediately when you choose to continue the quest conversation.

Minor problems:
- Random glitches like unable to loot a body with the lootable glow. The quest to kill Bloody Bones completely screwed up. bloody bones died in one hit from a fire staff but it doesn't say I killed him yet, and the guy I'm supposed to resurrect simply sank under the ground. I had to reload previous save twice. But compared to other games, the bugs in this game are miniscule. So not really a bother.
- Graphics. They probably didn't design much PC exclusive graphics for budget reasons but I wish the poly and res could be raised higher and have windowed mode. Not too big on eye candy.
- Difficulty. Maybe it's just too easy, or there's something about crafting and certain weapon types/skills that break the game. But there's never much of a challenge in the game.

Amalur exclusive things I like:
- Those exp stones that play some random voice recording. I love those, I don't know why.
- Companion pathing isn't retarded. They really keep their distance
- Two separate skill trees, no stat point system. Not original but there aren't many and this was done well.
- Ganking AI. Two mobs never hit you at once and cause a car accident. But the mobs aren't like Ass Creed where they simply just stand around staring at you. They cleverly time their attacks one after another so it's like a chain of extremely fast hits.

[delorean2200]

Yeah lore stones are great loved them as well, another thing i forgot to mention that i loved was fateweavering, the ability to change stats ingame, seriously more games should have this option. Personally though i was more then happy with the graphics.

[Kameruka]

One you filled up your fate meter, there is nothing to worry about when fighting bosses.

[GN0010 Nosferatu]

Originally Posted by Kameruka

One you filled up your fate meter, there is nothing to worry about when fighting bosses.

Not true. The final boss for the House of Sorrows quest has substantial resilience to it.

[Paranoid Android]

I just don't use reckoning at all, feel it needs to be more challenging for those that want it.

Fateweaving is noteworthy but only as an RPG. Most mmorpgs have stat reset. What would be gamebreakingly hilarious if fateweave also resets your race and player name.

[Stiletto]

I on the other hand, absolutely love to use reckoning. Surrounded by Bolgam and a couple of Barghest? No problem. I'll unravel them all and impale one through the chest before they even manage to blink twice. It's that kind of supernatural badassery that makes me realize how unstoppable I am. That is, most of the time. Fate has a way of not being available when I need it.

Also, I still want to know how to make an uber-longsword. Or at least super daggers. Does someone have a list of components I can use to make one or the other?

[Sageblink]

Trailer for the upcoming DLC !

[Firefly00]

Originally Posted by Sageblink

Trailer for the upcoming DLC !

And there's more in the hopper. According to this IGN article, a second content patch - Teeth of Naros - will be unleashed later this month (the 17th).

[Sageblink]

Originally Posted by Firefly00

And there's more in the hopper. According to this IGN article, a second content patch - Teeth of Naros - will be unleashed later this month (the 17th).

Great ! But this time I'll check first if there are sets you can miss because of a failed quest... Like the wonderful Children of Erathell set i missed.

[Flying Dagger]

My impression of KoA is that the game is horribly balanced esp in the later levels for warriors and mages - and that is without blacksmithing.

2 DLCs later, have they done anything to fix the balancing of classes and abilities? A google on "Kingdoms of amalur patch" does not yield any good info at a glance...

[Sageblink]

Originally Posted by Flying Dagger

My impression of KoA is that the game is horribly balanced esp in the later levels for warriors and mages - and that is without blacksmithing.

2 DLCs later, have they done anything to fix the balancing of classes and abilities? A google on "Kingdoms of amalur patch" does not yield any good info at a glance...

As far as I know : nope. They're not planning to fix that.

[Skane]

Not posting in this thread much because I'm spending most of my time in the official forums for matters relating to the game. Having a blast of a time though.

The first DLC, in terms of content, is what DLCs should be. Beefy. It is rare to see companies pump out a 10-hour content DLC for only 10 dollars. Heck, it's more like an expansion already.

Cheers.

[Skane]

One of the things I like about this game is that if you want to, you can basically go Kenshiro on the Bosses.

YouTube

http://youtu.be/yeTs2sQOiHE

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

Cheers.