Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Previews

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Written by WorstUsernameEver on June 30th, 2011

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Along with a series of combat based abilities there are sixty variations of Might, Finesse and Sorcery there are a selection of non-combat skills from which to choose as you progress your character, and which serve to spice up gameplay considerably. Detect Hidden, for example, will unveil any hidden treasures as well as secret doors or traps, and display them clearly on your mini-map while Dispel lets you disable magical traps which, if you fail in your attempts to dispel them, will curse you or blow up in your face. The Stealth skill allows for more than just pickpocketing and trespassing, as Joe demonstrated by pulling off a beautifully executed sneak kill from behind. As you add more points to each skill, they become more powerful and easier to perform, with less chance of failure.

As someone who adores collecting legendary weapons and is forever trying to better whatever weapons are currently being carried around in the neverending backpack, it was music to my ears to be told that Reckoning featured (eight gazillion items that can be generated as well as hundreds of hand-crafted items), which meant I would likely spend another hundred or so hours on top of questing time doing nothing more than looting and comparing weapons. It's also worthy of note that it's not necessary to equip an item in order to compare it with whatever you already have in your inventory, as this can be done simply by looking at the item's stats prior to looting, although not in the same at-a-glance sense as Borderlands with its convenient popups.

The inclusion of weapon and armour sets is also a welcomed addition, whereby each newly acquired item from a set will provide a cumulative bonus until all pieces are collected and equipped, at which point a further bonus will kick in. The loot hound in me, which isn't exactly hidden, started to perform somersaults as I sat on my themed bench, itching to take hold of the controller and pore through the inventory like an excited schoolboy with his first Penthouse.

As the main protagonist descends further into the dungeon, it becomes clear where these Niskaru are coming from, with a group of mages summoning them into cages. From here all hell breaks loose as our main man takes on the Niskaru Bloodhunters wily creatures with blades on their hands and the mages simultaneously, dealing out fierce and fast blows.

(Your success in combat isn't going to be predicated upon by how fast you can press buttons or whether you can memorise long complex combos,) says Nelson. (RPGs are about choice and your success in combat is going to be based on choice. The choice on how you invest in your skills and abilities. What kind of destiny you choose to equip. The choice in what kind of gear you choose to equip. Then your moment to moment choices like combat strategy.)

After sending the Niskaru and the mages to hell and back, we proceed further into the dungeon, using the (Detect Hidden) skill to detect new paths, find secret treasures and even see traps. If you invest more points into your Detect Hidden skill, you can even disarm traps and use the pieces for blacksmithing later on. Using the Detect Hidden skill to navigate a series of traps and find a warded chest, we dive into the dispel mini-game a game that was a little baffling without any sort of explanation from 38 Studios. From there 38 Studios continues to show us the importance that stealth can play as the main protagonist sneaks up to a couple of isolated bandits and manages to perform a silent stealth kill.

We were then shown the War Sworn one of the six playable factions in the game who are mercenaries at this time in their history, originally created to battle against beasts of chaos who have plagued Amalur for thousands of years, but had recently gone unseen and been considered myth for several hundred years. Until now, naturally. It was under the War Sworn character that we got to see a little gameplay.

To over simplify my feelings about what I saw would be to say simply that this game looks freakin' awesome. The fluidity with which the characters move is astounding, which makes watching the combat, all combat, a terrific treat. Sure, they've integrated quick time events which I, as a gamer, am personally getting a little bit tired of, but was blended so well (seemingly, because I didn't get my hands on it) into the combat, that it didn't seem to have the disengaging tug on your attention span that they so often do. The animations were beautiful as combos were executed to great success, in glorious Zack-Snyder-esque moments of slow motion, exploding in a wave of violence. The world was rich and full of life, every cave wall or cavern floor was a treat to see because of the importance that was placed on a memorable visual experience within the game, and the RPG elements are both intriguing as a new game and yet familiar, expanding on the good things laid before them by other RPGs of this type, like (the inevitable comparison) Oblivion.

The real meat of the game, though, is its open world. And this thing is enormous. Reckoning has over 125 dungeons, 4 major cities, and countless smaller villages scattered across its five regions. No matter which aspect of role-playing games you enjoy most, you're going to have a lot of content to play with.

Of course, with such a large area to explore, there will be vast amounts of loot to collect. This will translate to some elite gear, and we were even told there would be armor sets that give players set bonuses. Having multiple pieces of armor in the same set will give you various stat boosts.

The combat in Reckoning is action-based, with a heavy emphasis on hack and slash. We saw some of the common hack and slash elements, like juggles, dashes, and slow-motion finishes. If hacking and slashing aren't necessarily your thing, there are also chances for stealth kills. In fact, we were shown a couple stealth kills in action, and they are absolutely brutal. The game character snuck behind a guard, grabbed him around the neck, and quickly stabbed him repeatedly in the side as blood spurted out. It was a little bit over the top and hardly what you'd call silent but still very satisfying.

There will be crafting as well. Some of your options include blacksmithing and sagecrafting. (Apparently sagecrafting has to do with collecting gems, and it sounds like these gems can be slotted in your gear to give it additional enhancements.)

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