Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning - Review

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was originally released way back in 2012 on the PS3, 360 and PC. It was developed by Big Huge Games and released by 38 studios (owned by former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling) the one and only game released by them before they went bankrupt. KOA was originally slated to be an MMO before the reality sunk in that this was more of an ambitious project than the team could handle.

The story and lore for the universe in Amalur was penned by R.A. Salvadore with the art being created by Todd McFarlane, a dynamic duo if you will when it comes to the fantasy genre. Unfortunately, the original game even though it was reviewed well by critics didn’t exactly set the world on fire with sales mostly due to its lack of budget for marketing. I certainly loved the original game when it came out back in 2012 and have always thought that it should’ve sold way better than it did, THQ Nordic obviously shared my feelings as they have now bought the rights and decided to release Kingdoms Of Amalur : The Re-reckoning, quite a mouthful don’t try to say it 10 times in a row after a couple of alcoholic beverages. Will this open the game up to a new audience that never played the original or will the new version also fade into gaming obscurity?

KOA:RR is set in the Faelands one of the many kingdoms of the world of Amalur, the Fae are an immortal race of human-like creatures, Fae can die even though they are immortal but upon death they are transplanted into another body to live again, a kind of reincarnation of sorts. The Fae race is set into two different factions, summer and winter, both of them have a certain arrogance and believe themselves superior to other races (they are very similar to elves in most other fantasy universes), the summer Fae are content to generally co-exist with the inhabitants of the world going about their business and traditions, the Winter Fae, however, thanks to the evil reign of their usurping Gadflow seek to destroy the other mortal races in what is dubbed by the game as the crystal war.

It is amongst this chaotic scenario that you step into the game and create your character from a variety of different options and find out you are known as “the fateless one” a person who has apparently died before the events of the opening scenes but is resurrected by the power of what is known as the Well Of Souls. Waking up with no memory of where you came from or your history you set off to work out exactly what is happening in the strange world of Amalur.

This game is big, over 100 hours big if you decide to take on all the freely included DLC content and side quests. The stage is also big with over 5 vastly different regions to visit on your travels as you explore and seek to uncover the mysteries of the Faelands. As per most action RPG games as you travel about the Faelands you will meet various different people who of course all want something from you so they will send you on quests to help them out. Complete the quests and you will gain experience, this experience can then be used to improve your character, rinse repeat whilst picking up some armour and loot along the way, standard formula for a fantasy action RPG.

Meeting people brings you into a dialogue screen, not unlike the Mass Effect series where you can ask various questions about the history and lore of the land and even use the persuasion skill to get people to help you out without having to do something to help them out first. The voice acting in these sequences, and there are a lot of them, is of a very high standard and because of this it is very easy to become immersed in the history of Amalur and its various races. Unfortunately, the quests in the game are not very varied and rely on the age-old formula of collecting items and going to different areas and killing a certain amount of enemies, given the age of the game though I can overlook this flaw, as even though the quests are repetitive, the game world is interesting and the writing is absolutely top-notch.

Combat in the game is very simplistic but also very fluid and responsive. The face buttons control melee, ranged and dodge attacks while the right trigger modifies these buttons to cast magic attacks. There is also a “fate” meter that slowly fills up as you attack enemies, once filled you can trigger reckoning mode that sees you dealing out more damage but taking less from attackers, this adds another layer to the combat as using this at the right time can turn the tide of battle. AS you dispatch enemies you will also gain experience that can be used to gain new skills.

One of the great things about Amalur is that you are not tied down to one class or playstyle, the game has three attributes Might (warrior), Finesse (rogue/ranger) and Sorcery (self-explanatory) you can choose to put stat points all into one of these attributes or distribute between all of them thus making a hybrid class of your liking, the system though not overly complex does allow for a diverse range of character builds. The game also has a tendency to shower loot on you and put you into inventory hell but personally I like games that do this, it is probably why I am such a fan of games like Diablo and Borderlands.

Graphically KOA:RR is a massive disappointment, not much work has been put into remastering the game at all and I dare say all that has been done is to give some of the textures a 4K makeover and even this has not been done particularly well, the HUD and menus are also quite jarring and appear to not be changed at all from the original game. This might not be a big deal to you but honestly, I expected much more than this from a remastered game at this price. The music from the original has not been changed, nor did it need to be as the original soundtrack is absolutely outstanding and really gets you immersed in exploring the strange and mysterious world.

If you have never played the original game and can look past the last-gen graphics there is definitely a lot here to entertain you for well over 50 hours especially if you are an action RPG fan, it is just a shame that for a remake that not much has been done to enhance this from the original release as it would have been great to see some new fans to the critically underappreciated original game.

The Score

7.0

Review code provided by THQ Nordic

The Pros

+Fluid and fun combat

+great class and attribute system

+excellent story, voice acting and soundtrack

+Comes with all DLC from the original game

The Cons

-Repetitive and bland quests

-Graphics are decidedly last gen