Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Previews

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Written by BuckGB on March 7th, 2011

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Amalur is divided into five distinct regions. What we've seen so far is a pretty colorful world, a bit like Fable, but just a touch grittier. It's not dim and ugly like Oblivion or most fantasy worlds. It's filled with unique-looking versions of well-known monsters (Kobolds, Trolls and the like). Big Huge Games is promising that everything in the world -- all the ancient ruins and any architecture -- exists for a reason. There's a story behind everything, some of which is told to you by non-playable characters, and some you can read in books found in the game world.

Combat is designed to be more interesting than the average RPG. It's very combo-heavy, somewhat like a hack-and-slash game. And there are special moves and spells which are easily accessible for quick use. Seeing the combat in action, there are some pretty spectacular moves. Mages can be bad ass.

As the two traded blows, the developers explained how they had integrated some traditional action game combat mechanics, such as launcher attacks and enemy juggling, into Reckoning. Each attack from our character was controlled with just one button, with variations in timing determining which attack was used. Our character opened with three quick strikes; then he performed the same series again and paused slightly after the second hit before attacking again. This triggered an upward slash that lunched the enemy into the air, leaving him vulnerable to more hits.

With the battle concluded our character collected some loot from the skeleton's body. As it turned out, the fiend had a bit of a leather fetish since he was holding a pair of leather pants, boots, and armor. These items could be compared against our character's current equipment and even equipped from the loot screen if we wanted. The developer made it clear that they wanted all of the customization options found in a traditional role-playing game, but without all the cumbersome menu diving found in other releases.

Reckoning's foundations are undeniably solid, but let's face it: most people don't play RPGs for the combat or the number-crunching. Those things no matter how promising are just gravy. The world and the story, meanwhile, are the creamy mashed potatoes in this mouth-watering analogy, and in that area, Reckoning raised more questions than it answered. On the upside, what we saw looked quite gorgeous, though nothing really popped out and took us by surprise. During the demo, we were shown a colossal, high-ceiling-ed cave, a forest that may well have contained every shade of green known to man as well as a few new ones a tiny rural village, and some crumbling stone ruins. The game's art style reminded us very much of a higher-fidelity, more detailed World of Warcraft. It still retained that cartoony slant, but we could definitely tell its console's innards weren't asleep on the job.

For all its size and majesty, however, Reckoning's world struck us as oddly empty and at this point, anyway somewhat lifeless as a result. It also didn't help that 38 Studios and Big Huge Games weren't talking story or character interaction just yet, though Dunn did note that it'll be (what you expect) from a game in this space. He was also a great deal more forthcoming with details about what was going on underneath the hood of the game's sleek, shiny exterior. For instance, (big) and (open) can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, but what's Reckoning's take?

Like in most RPGs, you will choose your race, with familiar racial bonuses (i.e., +5 to lockpicking), what you look like, ally with a particular deity which grants increased health, mana, critical hit damage, etc. but there is no class selection in Reckoning. Instead, 38 Studios lets players choose their skills based on their play style, a recipe that often has negative effects for players who spread their talents far and wide vs. specializing in one branch. That's where its Destiny system comes in, letting jack of all trades have a decent run alongside those who focus in one particular skill set. There's still a fair amount unknown with that system, but 38 seems to believe they have the know-how to take a classless system and have it suit players of all types.

Naturally, each style will play differently with those focusing on melee getting up close and personal, evading monsters with an acrobatic roll, while magic-users can act as a "glass cannon," raining spell-infused death from afar. If that's not your style, be a warrior mage, swinging an imbued magical staff at enemies while teleporting in behind them. We saw a few combat sequences with both class types, and the emphasis is definitely on real-time action. In most RPGs, the game pauses to let players tag enemies for spell attacks, but in Reckoning, the player issues them in real time. For example, in one battle, the player uses their "Mark of Flame" ability to tag monsters in real-time and then detonate them later as "living bombs." Expect lots of different types of attacks from wielding fiery chakrams (think Xena) to calling in mega Meteor area of effect attacks.

The developers claim that while most RPGs only pay out the best benefits if you max out particular areas of the tech tree, Amalur's system of "destinies" allows you to continue experimenting with untapped potential in, say, might and finesse, even if your core focus is sorcery. It remains to be seen how this works, but if it can be pulled off then it should be interesting.

Meanwhile, just in case the fact that this is an RPG isn't at the forefront of your mind at all times, whenever you kill an enemy a big XP bar pops up centre-screen to illustrate your progress towards the next level. You can also loot corpses, crates and so on for gold and randomly generated pickups.

Loot upgrades also contribute to the combat -- there's a dynamic gear system, complete with crafting and gem slotting, and adding attributes to weapons not only upgrades the behaviors, but their look as well. Even early game, the weapons look epic -- I saw a gigantic broadsword with ornate metal inlays, and a huge hammer with blue magical details. I asked Big Huge Games' Studio Art Director Tim Coman how he dealt with making high level gear look appropriately powerful when it started out so over-the-top, and he had a simple answer: "We worked with Todd McFarlane, that's all I'll say."

The visuals extend to the world of Amalur: Put simply, it's gorgeous. The concept artists must have had a field day, because every environment is sensationally colorful and dynamic, and faithfully recreated in the game world as light streams through forests and torches burn in dank caverns. There's a day/night cycle, and the environments look great in both, and because the world is full of ruins and secrets and magic, it looks like it's been capital-C Created. The Well of Souls is one of the first sights you see in the game, and so writer R.A. Salvatore's influence is felt right away. "In the early sketches of the well," says Coman,"we had all kinds of tubes, and one of the things we wound up going back on is saying that we wanted it to be more of a magical experiment." No steampunk, in other words, but definitely a coherent and well-built fantasy world.

Details on the game's various systems were tough to come by during this first look at Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. But one thing that immediately excited me was finding out that Ian Frazier from one of my favorite (and in my opinion, ridiculously underrated) games ever, Titan Quest, was in a Combat Designer role.

"The kind of loot system you see in a hack and slash but you never see in a hardcore RPG, we thought that was a shame so we put it in here," says Frazier. "We've got a system of prefixes and suffixes, sockets, collectible item sets that give you increasing bonuses, randomly generated stuff, but also unique items."

The approach 38 Studios and Big Huge Games are taking with Reckoning is that the game doesn't have to be the first to market, but the best. It was even mentioned that the team would be taking a Blizzard-like approach and not releasing this game until it was ready. Curt made it to a point to say that even though EA is publishing this game, the company is not going to release Reckoning until it is ready. That said, Reckoning is scheduled for a 2012 release.

That's not the only Blizzard-style spin this game is receiving, as the artwork and animation is bright and vibrant like Diablo III and World of Warcraft as opposed to the grittier-looking Oblivion. The game's character animations and spell effects all take the bright and visually engaging approach much like those titles from Blizzard. The talent trees are a nice improvement over locking players into one role, taking a lesson from World of Warcraft character specing, but without the class confinement. When I started earlier that this game's combat looked like the child of God of War and Diablo, I should add that it's easy to see some World of Warcraft in the lineage as well, but without the MMO trappings. And yes, those images on the side of this article are just like what it looks like in action.

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