Review by: William Abner

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning embraces the more is better philosophy of game design. It’s as if the developers pulled out a pad of paper and started a list of things that all role-playing games should have – and then in workman like fashion dutifully checked each box. Open world design? A metric ton of loot to hoard and sell? Socketed items? Crafting? Lines and lines of dialogue? A new world to discover with a lot of backstory – most of which is told via load screens? More side quests than you know what to do with? It’s got it all!

Here’s the problem: Amalur is only really, really good at one thing: combat. This is an action game dressed up in tattered role-playing clothes. The fighting is reminiscent of games like Fable, Darksiders and even God of War; it’s fast, incredibly well-animated and it takes a long time for it to get a bit stale – only losing some luster when level progression slows down and you get fewer and fewer new powers to play with. Amalur is all about the next fix – the next power, the next cool weapon, the next set of armor. If you’re looking for character development, colorful NPCs that you’ll remember after the game is over or a story that will stick with you after the credits roll then you are simply playing the wrong game.

There is actually another area where the game succeeds and that’s how you shape and craft your character. Progression is nicely done as it allows you to steer your avatar down any road you like. A dash of mage, a sprinkle of warrior, maybe a taste of rogue? Maybe you want to focus only on one class? You can create any type of player character you want, which is a nice touch, especially for an action game.

Everything else in the game is middling. The “open world” is a bit of a misnomer. Yes, you can go where you like but Amalur wears a mask that hides the fact that it’s really a corridor game. This is no more an open world RPG than Mass Effect is an open world RPG. Just because you aren’t doing pre-set missions in a particular order doesn’t mean a game is “open world.”. Just picking which side quest to fast travel to doesn’t count. This isn’t an Elder Scrolls game or even Saints Row where you can wander into a new location and find new stuff to do that you didn’t intend. It’s a matter of semantics, sure, but this is a terribly rigid “open world” design. It’s not necessarily a negative trait but those going into this game expecting total freedom to wander the countryside and finding a living, breathing world in which to interact with will be disappointed.

Amalur’s main story -- a tale about fate, hints of Calvinism, and how your actions can change the future-- is lost inside a quest system that throws every contrived role-playing side quest at you. Everyone in this world has trivial nonsense for you to do. It’s clearly influenced by generic MMO design. The side quests are terribly constructed and are obviously there merely as experience point sponges. People need items found, husbands rescued, cats removed from trees (okay, not really) and every other boring, stale, and tired RPG plot point you can think of; in fact with the game being shockingly easy on Normal difficulty it’s strongly suggested that you ignore a lot of these ridiculous side quests and focus only on the main quest thread as well as the faction quests. Leave the other garbage for people with less important stuff to do. Find your own damn family ring.

Ignoring the staggering number of side quests also helps you zip through the game at a better pace and increases the difficulty level. I made the mistakes of trying to cross off every quest that came my way, which is something a lot of role-players like to do (no one likes seeing unfinished quests in their log, right?) and since this is designed to be much like a solo MMO, I “outleveled” the area I was in and everything became nothing but fodder. It took a good 10 hours to realize that I needed to move on – to wander into a new area and even then the fights were rarely a challenge. So, while the combat is great fun to watch in action, Amalur needs some re-balancing to make the most of it. It doesn’t need to be Dark Souls but the threat of death needs to be there.