Long story short. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was one of my favorite RPGs during the PS3 era.
I first got it as a review copy from the website that I was writing for, but then I just fell in love with that game and I finished every bit of content and DLC associated with the game. I was looking forward for more expansion and DLC as the lore was expansive and there were still a lot to learn about this world. However, financial and other troubles with the development studio at that time eventually led to the untimely death of the game. I was quite disappointed but then that’s the business world I reckon.
Fast forward to 2020 amidst the pandemic, THQNordic suddenly dropped the re-mastered version of the Kingdoms of Amalur: RE-Reckoning to the market. Since everyone is supposed to stay home still and social distance, I reckoned it is a good chance to rekindle with the game.
RE-Reckoning, for me basically is the same game. There was a bit of graphic overhaul but apart from that I didn’t see much change. The good thing is you have access to all the DLCs associated with the game without the need to buy them separately.
I remembered when Kingdoms of Amalur was first released, a lot of people criticised the graphic novel type of art style and compared to the realistic art style of Skyrim. I have played both, for me I always feel Skyrim is too gloomy in terms of art style and preferred to the graphic novel style of Amalur. At that time, I did not understand what was the fuss as it was basically the same type of high fantasy style that World of Warcraft (WoW) that millions of people were playing. For me WoW was even more budget in terms of graphics. But people love it. So, I still maintain that people were just being critical of Amalur.
In terms of gameplay, Amalur offers all your standard RPG stuff – you do main and side quests, level up, assign points to abilities and skills and move on until you finished the game. However, for me what makes the game interesting was the lore that ties to every single quest. You learnt a lot more about this brand-new world as you performed each quest and interact with each character. Seemingly bad characters at the beginning could become characters you sympathised with when you started to understand why they became who they are now. The moral shift and plot twists with even side quests made it more engaging when you were seemingly just doing those quests to get the necessary points to level up.
The other aspect of the game that I liked, and still like, is the flexibility of character development. The game offers 3 simple traits – Might (warrior), Finesse (Rogue), and Sorcery. But you are not limited to one trait, the mix and match of different abilities would eventually open up different destinies that offers different stats and skill boosts, helping you to craft your own character and own playstyle. If you at some point didn’t like what you have done to the character, you can go to some NPCs and have your points reset. You might think, that is not very committing, but that non-commitment came at a high cost to your pocket, so every decision still counts if you don’t want to lose a huge chunk of hard-earned cash.
If you want to save up cash for the rainy day, crafting is the way to go. Crafting is a huge aspect of the game. However, the collection of materials and the crafting of items are largely determined by certain skills you learnt throughout the game. The more proficient in Blacksmithing, you higher chances to get better materials through salvaging. Want to save up money for the potions (that are extremely important in this game), you better work on your Alchemy so you can create all the necessary potions to survive the adventure when time gets tougher. Only through better alchemic instincts that you can harvest better reagents for your potions. Want to customise the abilities of your armours and weapons, Sagecraft allows you to create gems to create your own unique set of armours and weapons.
For me the flexibilities offered by Kingdoms of Amalur is one of the main reasons that I was so attached to this game. Also, the vast lore of the world that tied everything together to your main quests through even the smallest of the side quests made doing every quest more meaningful.
The re-master itself personally I do not think offered a lot more than the original game. Even the so-called graphic upgrade was limited and you can’t really feel it was a drastic upgrade from a game of 8 or more years old. And that loading time man, I thought a re-master of the game on a much more powerful hardware would improve the loading time, but nah, you can still make a cup of tea and finish it every time you went through a door.
It was said that THQNordic intends to continue to expand this world. I hope they do. But, please, please, please do not take the cult followers of this game for granted as you will just end up killing this great experience for everyone.
