Preview von IGN:
Losing Myself to Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
Amalur's world is rich with lore, and richer still with choices.
I have a hard time getting into role-playing games that don't let me make interesting choices. In essence, my character doesn't end up representing me; I'm just playing through an adventure that someone else designed for me to play in a very specific manner. Thankfully the upcoming action RPG Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is full of choices. From what character you play to how you play them and where you choose to go, your life is yours to lead. I thought Reckoning's fantasy setting looked interesting, if uninspired and forgettable, before, but playing through some of its loosely structured content for myself has me completely hooked. I'm ready to lose myself in Amalur.
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The initial linear area sets up the premise, and teaches you the basics of the elaborate combat system. Unlike many other RPGs, Reckoning does away with traditional classes. You don't pick what sort of hero you want to be before you're able to make an educated decision; you start playing and adapt your hero to your playstyle. For instance you might figure out through the course of the first few hours that you really like casting spells instead of swinging a sword or hammer, so you equip a staff and some robes and start wailing away with the winds of magic. If you eventually change your mind again, it's no big deal, just reset your skill points and do it all over again.
The skill trees in Reckoning also offer a wide array of choices. You can play one of three archetypes: the warrior uses a lot of melee weapons; the rogue uses dagger and ranged weaponry; the wizard uses staves and casts a lot of spells. Each archetype has a uniqueskill tree, leaving it up to you to decide how to allocate points gained by leveling up. If you want to specialize you can throw them all in a magic tree, or you can create an elaborate hybrid class that gets a little bit of everything, while specializing in nothing. You can further specialize your character by setting his "destiny." Each destiny has stats associated with it, and as you level up you unlock new ones that help solidify the type of class you're playing. For instance a melee hero might take a warrior destiny, giving them increased defense, while a mage hero might take a caster destiny, giving them increased magic damage. Like skill trees, you're given the option to change these regularly.
In a RPG the choice over what powers you choose is important, but far more important is what you do with them. Running down what amounts to a virtual treadmill takes away from the uniqueness of your character, so Reckoning instead tosses you into the world and leaves you to find your way. If you want to pursue the main story immediately you can, or you can develop your character's backstory through side quests. Perhaps you're the explorer compelled to venture into every undiscovered cave, the saintly type who has to save those in need, or the bastard who is only out to service selfish needs – you can be any and all of those people in Reckoning, depending on what sort of story you want to tell. Like most games, the main quest line is pre-determined to a large extent, but the life you lead outside of that is yours to live.
From what I've heard, the main quest line is long, but Amalur's abundant distractions significantly extend playtime. The minute you step out into the forest harvestable plants twinkle in the sunlight, you run into villages to explore and obtain lore from, and you're introduced to a number of side quests. I played it for more than two hours, and in that time scarcely touched the main story. The side quests were well-written, interesting, and enveloping.
I have to wait until February of 2012 to finally release my character upon the world of Amalur, but the short session I played showed me a world developed with love, full of life, and rich with lore. I'll satiate my fantasy game needs in 2011 with Skyrim, but in 2012 I'm looking to Reckoning for my fix.
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