Kingdoms of Amular

So here's a game that kinda went under the radar.
Kingdoms of Amular: Reckoning is the single title from 38 Studios, and for those of you who know anything about 38 studios this might make you skeptical that it could be polished (38 studios didnt actually do the majority of the work on it either--that was Big Huge Games)

In fact, there are parts of the game which dont feel polished at all. most of the time this lends to the charm of the game and the errors and bugs are small enough that they never really take away from gameplay.

But anyways onto describing the game
Kingdoms is basically a single player MMORPG. It is everything good about fable 1 combined with a lot of the good things about WoW.
Combat is surprisingly fun, being fluid as well as appreciative of tactics and skill vs. just button mashing whatever your ability lineup is

there is a lot of customization that goes into "who" your character is (at least in a combat sense -- I haven't played far enough to see whether your choices significantly alter the story)




the world is pretty and interesting

and best of all: the game is smart.

Both the premise to the game and the dialogue are really stimulating. the core of it being: what happens to the web of causality when something exists outside of it? And of course being the self-centered people that we are, you play as that something.

The scope of the game is both good and a bit discouraging. Its like when you suddenly get 20 new quests after just finishing an area that had 20 quests and you suddenly dont want to do any of it. I wouldnt be able to play this game for hours and hours, but in intervals of a few hour blocks--its definitely one of my favorite games.

Its readily available on tpb

I played this last year, when it came out
I actually finished the main story and all but 1 of the guild stories (i still have the game installed and i intend to play that last guild story, as well as the DLC, eventually)
I skipped most of the side quests after awhile because like seren said you get 20 at a time in every new area and i never wouldve finished the game if i kept doing them

I only ran into 1 bug when i played, which was 1 quest wouldnt complete even though i had the items for it (it took the items as if i handed the quest in but i didnt get a reward and i still had the quest in my log)

I wouldnt compare it to WoW, it is like a singleplayer mmo, but not like WoW
I guess the skill trees are like WoW, but they are just skill trees so i wouldnt count that

I played as a mage, with chakrams (the coolest weapon ever) and a staff as my secondary
By the end of the game i almost never actually used weapons though, i had enough mana regen to cast any spell 1 after another (meteor followed by the giant electrical aoe was enough to kill any standard enemy)

The combat is action orientated, left click attacks with your weapon, right click uses your equipped ability, you could switch abilities with the number keys at the top
You can air juggle enemies with your weapons, and you weapon has combo moves based on the timing that you click and/or the direction your moving in
You can block and dodge as well
So fighting stuff is really fun (the mage is probably the most boring since 2 spells eventually beat everything, but i still liked the combat when it threw mini bosses into the mix which it does alot near the end, also the mage's dodge is a teleport which is fun to use)

You eventually gain access to a house (theres more than 1), my favorite is the house you get in the big main city because it has everything in it
And you can also own properties that can generate money for you and that can be upgraded
You have to pay to upkeep the workers but normally it makes money (you have to collect it manually by going to the property to collect it)

The crafting system works based on leveling up, the 3rd pic seren posted shows the skill screen which shows the different crafting you can do
Everytime you level you can put a point into 1 of those skills, so if you want a lot of stealth you have to pass up on blacksmithing or sagecrafting
Youll notice that some of the skill squares have symbols on them (like the first 1 in alchemy and the 3rd one in alchemy) those have bonuses where as the ones without symbols dont really help you (other than getting you closer to the next symbol or tier)
The tiers (basic, advanced, master) unlock more stuff that you can do (like with blacksmithing you can put more parts into your armor/weapons)

Sagecrafting is gem making, gems can be socketed onto items for bonuses or used with blacksmithing to put the effect of the gem directly into the item you make

Detect hidden will show you hidden stashes of items, as well as doors, these hidden doors usually just lead to a chest, but sometimes they lead to new areas with lore related stuff

Dispelling is like lockpicking but its used on magically sealed things (sometimes things are magically sealed, and locked)
You dont need dispelling or lockpicking to dispell or lockpick, the skills make it easier (i never leveled either of them up at all and never had trouble lockpick anything, even very hard stuff)
If you fail to lockpick you break a pick, lock picks are cheap so its no big deal (theres no point in leveling lockpicking), but if you fail to dispell you get a curse put on you
These curses can be devastating, and sometimes will straight up kill you
You can retry dispelling as many times as you want if you fail, but failing over and over again will keep stacking curses on you
Dispelling is much harder than lockpicking, i very often failed on very hard stuff (since i had 0 level of dispelling), but because i was a mage i was able to negate the effects of the curse and the damage most of the time

Your actions in the game dont really effect the story
The NPCs will act differently to you depending on what youve done, which can make certain things easier or harder, but the overall story plays out the same
The story itself is really good, like seren said, fate in this world is something that can be read by certain people, most people know what they are doing is fated to be done, some want to rebel against it, others follow it strictly, your told very early on that you have no fate
There is a ton of lore in the game, you can talk to characters for hours just learning about the lore of this world


I dont want to spoil anything, but i do have to say that i was disappointed in the ending
I like the game, and everything leading up to the ending is good so its worth playing, but the ending itself was, well lets just say i hope theres a kingdoms of amalur 2 (which probably wont happen unfortunately)

The rest are some pics i took of some of my stuff just cause i was bored


General info about my character


This is the main weapon i made with blacksmithing, i made it for the +17% magic damage and a bit of regen, the actual damage it does in combat is pretty low


This is the chest piece of the armor set i made, all the pieces have + elemental damage on them


This is my character with the staff i have


My skills, at the end i started putting points into dispelling because the curses that you get from the high level stuff are crazy


My spells, i have stuff that give + skill, which is why they are higher than the max
The skills im using (which you can see at the bottom of the screen in the 1-6 slots) are
1: Lightning aoe, you dont have to use it as an aoe (holding left click makes it an aoe), but i always do because its just effective that way, it does take a second to cast when used as an aoe and if you get hit during that cast time you wont cast it
2: Meteor, it takes awhile to cast and has a long cd so you cant spam it, it costs a ton of mana but my mana regen is so high that its regened to full by the time the meteor hits, it deals massive damage (about 3k with the magic damage stuff i have)
3: Elemental blast, it was the skill i was using before i got meteor, the first attack is lightning, the 2nd is fire, and the third is ice
4: Summon skeleton, it summons 1 skeleton to fight with you, he kindve sucks, but he can steal hp and act as a distraction so you can cast stuff without getting hit
5: Heal, this heals 20% hp right away and if you hold it down you can heal another 30% i think, it heals about half your hp, my hp regen and damage resistance is high enough now that i dont actually use this skill that often anymore (except in boss fights) but it was really helpful before i got that powerful
6: Shield bubble, it gives physical damage resistance and will spawn 4 balls of energy that rotate around the character and hit enemies that come near me, it reserves 33% of your mana while its active


My class


The world map with all the locations you can fast travel to, i couldnt fit the whole thing on screen so the bottom right is missing a bit
The world is huge


The meteor spell i was talking about, it looks badass when you see it in motion



The lightning aoe i was talking about, im in the center of it



One of the many weapon combos, this one is my favorite because it keeps them in the air repeatedly hitting them



This is the standard attack of the staff, it makes a cone of aoe in front of you




I was just messing around here, you can attack NPCs if you want, i never did during the game
I killed 12 people before a guard was able to get to me, the fine is 65,855 gold, so apparently a single life is worth about 5500 gold in this world
Also it didnt even give me the option to bribe the guard, which ive never seen before, i guess after you kill a dozen people they just wont accept bribes

I HAVE THAT GAME!