Friday 19 October 2018

Dealing with backlog: Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning

It took me way too long to play this game because of mixed reviews. But I finally did and I loved this game! It gave me strong Dragon Age: Origins vibes and as a whole I feel it's a mix between Origins and Oblivion, which is extremely high praise!

The only thing I feel like this game is missing is the opportunity to have deeper relationships with NPCs. I miss having friends and companions. Basically I just want a gang. Romance is secondary, but that would've been great too.

The fighting style is odd for an RPG, but it changes as you improve. I played as a rogue-like character and to begin with my character just did jabs with her daggers/faeblades, but as she progressed and got better at wielding her weapons it turned into launching enemies in the air and ferociously attacking them to ending with amazing jumping finishes.

Unfortunately the game was on the easy side, even for me. I believe it's all due to the fateshifting mechanic. I learned early on that if I save my fateshifting (which is basically an ult in MMO speech) then I can defeat almost any boss in less than a minute or even 30 seconds, which kind of undid the whole "omg it's boss battle time" feeling. The most obvious exceptions being Balor and Tirnoch, who did require something more than just bashing them while fateshifting.

The whole world is fascinating. Instead of having the obvious rifts between humans/dwarves/elves, there's a rift between the old race (the Fae) and the younger races (humans, elves and gnomes). The younger races are mostly scared of the Fae who are eternal beings that can't die, while the Fae mostly find the younger races fascinating - especially the concept of death. The Fae also look down on the younger races for being young, reckless and dumb. Having a much shorter and limited lifespan the younger races don't know and don't learn as much as the Fae.

The game has a wide array of creatures. I adore the cute little Brownies and Boggarts, and Niskaru were always fun to fight. But I hated coming against Banashae and Crudoks, they weren't difficult just annoying. Bolgan, Ettin and Jottun were interesting to begin with but soon just became a hurdle to get past, and Webwood made me permanently sick of spiders.
 Troll, Banashae and Jottun

The story begins with you dying and being brought back to life which causes amnesia. This somehow gives you the ability to fateshift and you're the only person in existence who doesn't have a destiny, which the game's Fateweavers are more than happy to point out. You're recruited to go to war against the Tuatha, a corrupt section of Fae that the younger races have been warring against for a decade. The main reason that the war has been ongoing for ten years is that the Tuatha are Fae and thus won't stay dead when killed. But you can change fate, the only person in existence with this ability, and the hope is that with your power to change fate you can change the tide of the war and actually permanently kill the Tuatha. Along the way you meet up with Alyn Shir, who knows your past from before you were brought back to life but she's reluctant to tell you. As you progress you find out bits and pieces about your past and towards the end you find yourself back where it all began. The game ends with a frickin badass boss battle that's totally epic.
 
The two DLCs were great. I especially loved The Legend of Dead Kel. Give me pirates and I'm happy! But the Teeth of Naros with all of its references to Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire was amazing too.

Kingdoms of Amalur proved one of the most underrated games I've ever played. If you haven't played it, do it.

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