Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (or Amalur, as I’ll be calling it from here on out) genuinely surprised me. It’s a game that’s been flying below my radar for months. I’d heard of it and dismissed it, though perhaps not consciously. Amalur simply never grabbed my attention.
We’ll start here: if you played the demo and formed your whole opinion about this game then and there, you’ve made a mistake. 38 Studios and Big Huge Games should be probably be banging their heads against a wall for releasing that buggy demo to the masses. It gave a taste of the game they delivered, but that taste wasn’t very accurate.
The demo build is buggier than the real game. It also doesn’t fully demonstrate the real game’s depth, quest variety, storyline and mechanics. It is, from where I stand, a bad representation of the final product.
The real Amalur is a gorgeous entry in the world of large and open RPGs. Its combat is wonderfully designed, its quests are inventive and its art style makes it a pure standout. It’s a stunner.
From the onset your greeted with one of the game’s best features: it’s an open-ended RPG from start to finish. You don’t select a class and stick with it, you are introduced to each type of weaponry and ability in the first area. From there, it’s up to you how you improve your character. You can try archery for a few levels before you make the wholesale switch to being a mage. You can do whatever you want when it comes to combat.
You will waste skill points in getting to that point, but that’s okay. You don’t need to start a new game to change “classes.” Instead, you speak to one particular character and spend money to reset all of your skill point assignments. You can hit like 20 and decide it’s time to switch to a completely new class and do so.
