Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning

It's a pretty visceral and really fun RPG lite thingy, one that I actually put about 50 hours in and finished the main quest. Last game I finished before that was Knights of the Old Republic in 2003, so take from that what you will.

If you play the Jeff Gerstman recommended way of plowing through the main quest, it's pretty good.

The combat leaves a room for trying a bunch of different strategies and you can use any weapon as any character, just not well to try it out. The three main classes play fairly differently and you can respec at any time for a fee which does a lot to extend the game. After you exhaust your interest in one of the combat patterns, switch to another. I started as a mage and switched to heavy swords warrior and it was quite fun.

Each class has some things unique to the game and since you can respec once you can basically fill the ability tree, you can experience the really cool unique bits right away.

I repeat, do not do any side quests!

Respecs are easy and once you have enough ability points you can also mix and match some interesting hybrid classes. I had a mostly rogue build but using Fae Blades/Chakrams which played really well, but you can easily do Might/Magic too.

I did plenty of sidequests. Not every one, but plenty, and I still had a great time.

TheGameguru wrote:
Grumpicus wrote:

I finally managed to pull the trigger on this one. $12 including DLC

killer deal considering I put 112 hours into that game...

Yah, I bought launch and the DLC and put 65 hours in. Great great game, what a shame there won't be a sequel.

I agree, I had a great time with this game on the 360. So much in fact, I am playing through it again right now on the PC.

It goes on sale tomorrow on Amazon for $14 or so for the game + DLC.

It was my top game of 2012, so I am little biased. I pretty much did all the side quests and the main quest, but I did not get the DLC. I also played on hard difficulty, which gave me a nice challenge.

The main flaw, in my opinion, is that when you enter a new zone, it gets locked into your level, with a certain minimum and maximum. It order to keep it interesting, I would not enter a zone until I had hit its maximum level. That took a bit more planning than I would have liked.

As for combat, with the ease of respeccing, you have a ton of options. I tended to play a jack-of-all-trades, but as I found spells or weapons that I enjoyed, I could respec and take advantage of the new toys.

If you liked the demo, I say go for it, since, in my opinion, it only improves from there.

This game must be played on Hard. Hard is normal, normal is easy, and easy beats itself.

I never, EVER play games on Hard.

ZaneRockfist wrote:

It goes on sale tomorrow on Amazon for $14 or so for the game + DLC.

And probably with the $5 off coupon if you bought something the last week or two.

Enabled. Got it on 360. Thanks

General consensus is that playing through at least the House side missions is a good way to play. I liked the world building, pacing, and plot of the House of Ballads side quest line. The weapons and armor set from the quest line is pretty cool, too. I'd recommend doing the main quest line, all the House quest lines, and the sides with cool weapon and armor rewards.

+1 House of Ballads. Super interesting story, imho. Deep.

My first thought is this is bad console port. I can't change resolution and it doesn't look like it was optimize for PC. Why do I need to sign into EA to play this game? I knew you had to do it with the console game but for some insane reason I didn't think you would have to do it for the pc version. Game play is ok so far. I'm playing with a 360 controller since I doubt the pc controllers will work.

For those of you that have both DLC packs do you see both of them when you start the game? I only see the teeth one listed in my game but the other one shows as installed on the orgin app.

You can change resolution.

Go to Options, then Resolution, and then change the resolution to the menu options given.

Keyboard and mouse works - some people prefer it that way, but I preferred the Xbox controls myself.

You don't need to sign into EA, but like the Mass Effect games you need to sign in for the DLC to work. Pretty sure that's what's going on.

I am really enjoying Amalur. I think that it's one of the more well written fantasy RPGs I've played in a while. I think that the side quests are more fun than the side quests in Skyrim. I'm enjoying the lore of the world too. It's also cool that you're not really locked into a class in that you can re-spec.

I hope another company picks up the IP and continues the world of Amalur.

Thinking of (re)starting this soon. I'm armed with Badken's zone level range maps. I have both DLCs - anyone know the levels for those additional zones?

No idea, this is my first time playing. I recommend widescreen fixer to change FOV though.

I have this sitting towards the middle of my pile for the ps3, I really want to find the time to give it a fair shot.

You guys who are playing this:
Can you post some other titles that are your favourites to I can judge if I think I'll like it?
Any comparisons too.

Oh, also, how is it on PS3? I'm looking for some couch time since my PC is also my workplace. I tried ME2 on PS3 and still can't get over the shooting.

I'll go back and start reading the thread.

I enjoyed this game and theres a part of me that would love to just go back to amalur once a week and just explore, but it just never happens. I also, so badly, wanted to get the DLC but I only have a 20gig xbox and I dont want to upgrade the HDD.

Kloreep wrote:

Thinking of (re)starting this soon. I'm armed with Badken's zone level range maps. I have both DLCs - anyone know the levels for those additional zones?

The DLC areas scale to your level, including the loot. As soon as you can get to the area where a DLC quest begins, you can start playing it.

The optimal time to do them depends on whether you enjoy playing parts of the game at maximum level, or whether leveling up is required to keep you interested. If you like playing at max level, the DLC loot is pretty impressive. The flip side of that is that you don't really need super loot to easily destroy anything in your path at max level.

Also, if leveling up is required to keep you interested, avoid side quests. There is WAY more content in this game than you need to reach max level.

Ghostship wrote:

You guys who are playing this:
Can you post some other titles that are your favourites to I can judge if I think I'll like it?
Any comparisons too.

Oh, also, how is it on PS3? I'm looking for some couch time since my PC is also my workplace. I tried ME2 on PS3 and still can't get over the shooting.

I'll go back and start reading the thread.

I played though the game on PS3. I had no real problems (it might have frozen up once or twice). I'm one of the silly people who prefer a PS3 controller, so I enjoyed playing on that platform.

I play many open world games, such as Dark Souls (Amalur is much easier), Dragon's Dogma (Amalur is much brighter), World of Warcraft (Amalur is more action-oriented), Skyrim (Amalur is much more colorful), and Far Cry 3 (Amalur has a more interesting story).

I'm not sure what your issue is with ME2. The combat in Amalur can be much easier than Mass Effect. If it is a challenge, play on easy, I played on hard, and while I had a few "oh sh*t" moments, and a boss or two that was difficult, for the most part it provided a good challenge.

Thanks for the advice BadKen. I'm happy to be max level for some fraction of a game - IMO, one of the bigger disappointments in some games is never getting to use the cool toys because they come so late - so it sounds like I don't have to be too worried about either avoiding or hunting down all the sidequests.

I've been playing around with the Widescreen Fixer. Looks like even the lowest possible setting of 50 has a big impact, at least on the camera position. Recommendations on settings long-term for when I actually get out into the world? Seems like as little as somewhere in 55-60 may be good.

Oh don't worry about that. Amalur gives you cool toys the first hour you play, and it never lets up. It's just a steady stream of cool toy after cool toy. And in case you think it's not giving you quite enough? Well, you can just melt down the loot you get and make your own cool toy. You even get to name it.

LarryC wrote:

Oh don't worry about that. Amalur gives you cool toys the first hour you play, and it never lets up. It's just a steady stream of cool toy after cool toy. And in case you think it's not giving you quite enough? Well, you can just melt down the loot you get and make your own cool toy. You even get to name it.

Also, if you don't like the way that you're spec'ed, just visit the fate weaver and re-spec.

Aristophan wrote:
Ghostship wrote:

You guys who are playing this:
Can you post some other titles that are your favourites to I can judge if I think I'll like it?
Any comparisons too.

Oh, also, how is it on PS3? I'm looking for some couch time since my PC is also my workplace. I tried ME2 on PS3 and still can't get over the shooting.

I'll go back and start reading the thread.

I played though the game on PS3. I had no real problems (it might have frozen up once or twice). I'm one of the silly people who prefer a PS3 controller, so I enjoyed playing on that platform.

I play many open world games, such as Dark Souls (Amalur is much easier), Dragon's Dogma (Amalur is much brighter), World of Warcraft (Amalur is more action-oriented), Skyrim (Amalur is much more colorful), and Far Cry 3 (Amalur has a more interesting story).

I'm not sure what your issue is with ME2. The combat in Amalur can be much easier than Mass Effect. If it is a challenge, play on easy, I played on hard, and while I had a few "oh sh*t" moments, and a boss or two that was difficult, for the most part it provided a good challenge.

Where ME2 goes: story, firefight, story, ship, firefight, story, firefight.... In the firefights, I feel like I should be able to get the reticle on the target. It either gets there too slowly, or shoots past, and I have to coax it back. It's my lack of experience with console controllers. I'm a PC guy normally. A mouse is as precise as aiming a gun. They just match. The PS3 controller feels like a foil in between what I'm thinking I want to do, and what happens.

Ghostship wrote:
Aristophan wrote:
Ghostship wrote:

You guys who are playing this:
Can you post some other titles that are your favourites to I can judge if I think I'll like it?
Any comparisons too.

Oh, also, how is it on PS3? I'm looking for some couch time since my PC is also my workplace. I tried ME2 on PS3 and still can't get over the shooting.

I'll go back and start reading the thread.

I played though the game on PS3. I had no real problems (it might have frozen up once or twice). I'm one of the silly people who prefer a PS3 controller, so I enjoyed playing on that platform.

I play many open world games, such as Dark Souls (Amalur is much easier), Dragon's Dogma (Amalur is much brighter), World of Warcraft (Amalur is more action-oriented), Skyrim (Amalur is much more colorful), and Far Cry 3 (Amalur has a more interesting story).

I'm not sure what your issue is with ME2. The combat in Amalur can be much easier than Mass Effect. If it is a challenge, play on easy, I played on hard, and while I had a few "oh sh*t" moments, and a boss or two that was difficult, for the most part it provided a good challenge.

Where ME2 goes: story, firefight, story, ship, firefight, story, firefight.... In the firefights, I feel like I should be able to get the reticle on the target. It either gets there too slowly, or shoots past, and I have to coax it back. It's my lack of experience with console controllers. I'm a PC guy normally. A mouse is as precise as aiming a gun. They just match. The PS3 controller feels like a foil in between what I'm thinking I want to do, and what happens.

It's pretty easy in Amalur to do something with the controller and look awesome.

Amalur auto-aims, there's no explicit aiming involved, so I don't think the (indeed awkward!) way shooters play on consoles is a reason to be worried.