Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Previews

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Written by BuckGB on June 14th, 2011

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In a world in which every person's fate is already decided, the player character awakes upon a pile of corpses you're back from the dead, the first person successfully resurrected by an unnamed group. Because of this resurrection, you have a strange connection with fate, or lack thereof, as your fate has clearly already played out. And now that you've returned to the living, you can fully customize your character with everything from facial piercings and tattoos to elf ears and haircuts. Then figure out why it is you're alive again.

The world of Amalur is massive and includes more than 120 handcrafted dungeons, no two being alike. Hundreds of items lying around the world can be crafted into hundreds more items using alchemy, blacksmithing, or sage-craft, all of which create different objects ranging from swords to enchanted crystals. Along with crafting, your character can learn nine different non-combat skills.

And although the skill trees seem to fit into the traditional warrior/mage/rogue trinity, mixing and matching is encouraged. The character in the demo was a combination of all three trees: His main attacks involved quick slashes with a bladed weapon, he would often duck behind his enemies to stab them in the back, and he also summoned bursts of sharp rocks from the earth to perform juggles. Combat, based on timing and combos, looked quick and fun -- almost like an action title or a beat 'em up.

Then again, you don't usually get loot drops from beat 'em ups. The typical RPG gamer should find plenty of gear and crafting in Reckoning to suit his tastes, including stripping down armor and reforging it or distilling essences of wild flowers. Gear also comes in sets, with stat bonuses for completing your outfit.

KOA: Reckoning looks like a more interesting version of God of War mixed with the looting and collectibles from all of the PS2 role-playing games we came to play and love. The developers didn't want us to take their word for it however and showed a ton of different loot combinations; for a minute I swore I was in heaven. It's incredibly difficult to showcase a role-playing game in a 20-minute span; however they did a marvelous job of showcasing it and even provided live code after the trailer.

After showcasing how the loot system worked we got a little taste of the combat. Like other RPG's the combat system is directly related to how the player invests in the skill trees. Perhaps you want to be more magic oriented, or more forceful and direct? KOA: Reckoning allows the player to choose how they want to approach the universe by offering several pillars of gameplay. The really great thing about this system is that you're never forced to only place skill points within one class. The combat looks unique; despite inviting the God of War comparison. Everything is quick and fluid and there are even some finisher animations that rival some of the best action adventure titles.

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