Kingdoms of Amalur: Exciting gameplay, mediocre quests

There’s a lot that fantasy buffs and role playing game fans will find familiar in the world of Amalur. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning introduces you to the immortal Fae (basically elves), that were once divided into two harmoniously balanced courts of summer and winter, but which have now fallen into disarray with the winter court falling to the corruption of a dark new breed of Fae called the Tuatha, who have set out to destroy the mortal races.

You, an adventurer recently resurrected through a gnomish experiment, must forge not only your own destiny, but rewrite the fate of the entire world. Weighty stuff.

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In actuality however, the plot of KOA rarely achieves the grandiose heights that fantasy games aim for; it’s periodically hamstringed by the use of clichd plot devices and uninteresting characters, or by lazily written or voice-acted dialogue.

[caption id=“attachment_237642” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Screengrab of gameplay from Kingdoms of Amalur”]  [/caption]On the other hand, there are definitely moments when it strikes gold, such as when you’re dealing with the Summer Fae, who spend their years living out the ballads of their greatest heroes. There’s a lot of depth in areas such as those, and though things like ballads and drama might bore the average gamer at first, there’s a poetry to it that any true fan of the RPG genre will appreciate. Amalur’s poetry, to be sure, is different from other games; while Skyrim’s is closer to the epic mode and The Witcher has a palpably dark tone, what Amalur most closely resembles is a fairy tale, in all its simplicity and lightheartedness.

And a beautiful fairytale it is. KOA’s visual style might best be described as Warcraft with a hint of Avatar. You’ll spend your hours running through lush forests, picturesque villages or lavish Fae settlements teeming with vegetation, fairy lights, and bright, contrasting colours. The character models aren’t the most realistic, but the amazing colour of the world makes even the most mundane quest a little bit more interesting. There are, unfortunately, many of those.

KOA is a large game and there’s tons of quests to do beyond the main story arc, but a lot of those are unfortunately simple fetching or killing tasks. Other RPGs have quests where you interact with deities or kill kings. In Amalur you may be asked to find a potion for a man who’s lost his memory, or inform a woman of whether her husband has survived a battle or not. What makes it even less exciting is that you never have to do any searching or exploring; quest goals are marked clearly on your map so you know exactly where to go and what to do each time

The quests you do for various factions in the world are more interesting, but even here Amalur steers dangerously close to the clich, with generic factions such as a thieves guild, a mercenaries guild, etc. Though there’s a fair amount of fun stuff to run around doing overall, KOA could have done much better in this department.

What KOA does do well at however, is in its gameplay. You can wield a variety of weapons ranging from longswords and greatswords, to hammers, daggers, faeblades and chakrams (my favourite). You can select between them pretty freely depending on the situation or simply based on what looks the coolest at the time.

As you level up, you invest points in one of three attributes: might, sorcery, or finnese. Might basically maximises your physical damage, health, and prowess with swords. Finesse boosts your stealth skill and grants you debilitating powers such as those of poison. Sorcery allows you to throw around a bunch of powerful elemental spells, or summon guardians to fight by your side.

If you find that your choice of abilities isn’t quite working out, you can always visit a Fateweaver and reassign your points. It’s a well-crafted system and a lot of fun to explore. The makers of KOA definitely seem to have taken a cue from action-adventure games.

The combat is fast-paced, challenging, relatively sophisticated, and immensely enjoyable. You’ll find yourself furiously unleashing combos with your main weapons while using your various abilities and dodging attacks from a horde of enemies. When at its best, the combat plays out like a chess game on crack, as you keep a torrent of creatures at bay while isolating and defeating others, often exploiting their various elemental weaknesses.

The flipside is that battles against single opponents, even bosses, are usually ridiculously easy, and the ‘reckoning mode’, which allows you to slow down time once in a while, makes most battles a cakewalk. But I wouldn’t want to nitpick. The bottom line is that KOA is a game that any RPG fan is sure to enjoy. Its story may often lack force and its characters may want for depth, but Amalur remains a fairly entertaining and lengthy game with a beautiful world to explore, vicious battles to fight, and treasures to discover.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is out now on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.
Score: 7.5 / 10