I was really worried when I played the demo for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning that there was quite literally no penalty for death. I’d heard it compared to the Fable series quite often, but surely they wouldn’t make the mistake of removing failure? The combat system is far deeper than the Fable series and death is possible. Unfortunately, the deep and responsive RPG combat is not enough to carry the experience.

I’m about eight hours into Amalur, enough to offer some thoughts on the final game versus the experience available in the demo. Before I get to the combat I’d like to talk about the setting. The art direction is very colorful, with the vibrant forest colors of the first zone transitioning to a lovely pastoral setting the second zone, but those worried about too much color will find some bleak locations later on which contrast nicely. Many places in the game are visually impressive, like Helmgard Keep or the Well of Souls, though I’m not sucked into exploring the way I was with Skyrim. The visual effects in play during combat are nice, particularly the way chakrams slice through the air (and enemies), but the monster design is not as inspired as Todd McFarlane’s name would suggest.

I purchased the game on the Xbox 360 because my wife was also interested in it and I think it’s much better-looking on that device than, say, Skyrim, in large part because the bright colors and bloom effects of the art still look nice on underpowered hardware. On the other hand, unless the PC graphics improved substantially from demo to retail code, the engine falls way behind Skyrim on the PC. Aside from poor lip-syncing in dialogue, the graphics engine isn’t bad, it’s that the level art is so good that I wish the assets could be ported into CD Projekt’s RED Engine (used for The Witcher 2). In fact, it’s one of the few games which makes me want to invest in an Eyefinity triple-screen setup just to soak in more of the ambiance.

Combat improves considerably over what’s available in the demo. Playing it, I’d dismissed ranged combat because of how weak the default bow is, but within two hours I acquired a rather powerful bow than makes it useful but certainly a secondary weapon. A little bit later, I discovered chakrams, which trade some range but are considerably more powerful. One of the nice points to Amalur is that your secondary weapon doesn’t need to be ranged. Want a giant hammer as your secondary? Go right ahead!

Melee was very button-mashy in the demo (and still is), but pressing the attack with a certain rhythm allows the player to chain combos together – often with enemies flying in the air the whole time. Thankfully, the timing is nowhere near as strict as The Witcher, but it’s rewarding and a very fluid experience once you get in the groove. Switching between primary and secondary weapons, as well as pulling out your shield, occurs with no delay so combat is about moving in and out of range quickly rather than standing and banging like Skyrim.

I’m still not quite sure what to make of ‘Reckoning’ mode. Unlike the special moves in Fable II, it doesn’t unleash one super-attack. Instead, killing an enemy in that mode and then mashing a QTE rewards the player with an XP boost. It seems gimmicky and not terribly useful.

This is where Amalur begins to fall apart.

It feels like the designers looked at every recent action/RPG title, grabbed a bunch of game mechanics, and just threw them into the game. There’s a rather interesting alchemy and crafting system in place but they seem rather useless early on. Lockpicking likewise feels rather useless, with an interface that feels like a poor attempt to copy Bethesda’s formula in Fallout 3 and Skyrim with none of the fun or challenge.

The culprit, I suspect, is that Amalur is just too easy. I’m playing the game on Hard mode and I’ve died only a few times. Despite having a combat system that initially reminded me of the aforementioned Witcher 2, it has none of that game’s brutal learning curve. The troll-like Jottun are the lone challenging enemy because they can damage you quickly but are rarely lethal because of easy counters to their attacks. I’ll fully admit, however, that people who play Amalur aren’t looking for a Witcher 2-style experience. Compare it to Skyrim’s crafting system: on Adept difficulty (the default), crafting is a nice diversionary experience but on Master crafting is absolutely necessary to ensure you have the best gear possible without grinding. The same necessity just isn’t there in Amalur and so it feels ancillary to the main game.

For all I know, though, there’s a reckoning ahead for my Fateless One.

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