Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

[liolio]

I noticed that this game development is going completely stealthy on this board and most media but to me it looks like it's shaping up as H&S fan wet dream.

While it may not be a graphically/technical gem The footage I watched I've convinced me about the choices made by the artists. It looks "consistent". They don't try to achieve unbelievable things but they do what they do well, frame-rate seems solid.

The combat mechanic looks nice (not too simple not too complex) and the rpg side looks deep. I really hope the game will deliver, it could be my game for this gens
This is catching my attention more than Dungeon siege III, Dark souls or the Lotr game.
Oblivion is not in the same category imho.

The official website

 

[liolio]

Damned I didn't expected this thread to be that unsuccessful

Plenty of vids for those interested:
Official youtube channel
An interesting interview
And my favorite a gameplay vid that a real good overview of the combat system.
a long one that shows character creation on top of gameplay/game mechanic.

I'm really surprised that the game doesn't get more attention, it seems to got all it takes to be win, deep rpg elements, dynamic combat system, crafting, big world. And they are plenty of bright people working on the project (see the trailer for the game). I like the look Mac Farlane gave to the world and characters

 

[patsu]

I can't watch the YouTube video now. It would wake up my kid. What's unique about the game ?

 

[KKRT]

I can't watch the YouTube video now. It would wake up my kid. What's unique about the game ?

Its an open world aRPG with god of war like combat with 3 classes and enormous amount of skills. There is sneaking, crafting and randomized loot. Also, quite famous devs are making this.
I'm really looking forward too this, because it could change how we perceive combat in fantasy RPGs.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Just tried out the demo for this (on 360), made it through the tutorial section which unlocks some digital content stuff for the release (and for ME3). It seems decent enough. Graphics have sort of a World of Warcraft feel. I did have an issue with the voice overs cutting out in sections, hopefully they'll have that fixed up for release.

I probably won't pick it up till I can get it for a discount as I wouldn't have time to play it for while, but worth checking out if you like RPGs.

 

[KKRT]

My demo impressions from neogaf

Game is amazing, i was pretty excited earlier, but this demo just settles it.

Demo is a little bugged, mostly graphically and from optimization standpoint.
Graphic is better than i thought it would be and i actually dont mind art style! and i hate this type, its actually quite balanced. I love particles effects and texture work, though its a bit repetitive. I like lighting shaders from light sources, but global lighting is really underwhelming for 2012 game.
Game runs mediocre, it sometimes drop to 40 in strange situation on i5 2500k, gtx560 in 1920x1536@1280x1024 and it shouldnt, but as a build is 3 months old, i hope its just a demo, otherwise i feel sorry for console versions

Gameplay:
Its great, combat is fluid, fast and very responsive. Camera its not great, it not that bad like in Ninja Gaiden series, but its still missing many times good spots, mouse camera movement is horrible, actually controls are bad designed, but manageable.
I dont understand bow complains, its actually pretty good, at least on m&kb, but sometimes can be hit and miss with targets.
Loot is awesome, this is what i always wanted in open world RPG games, rich, deep and rewarding ;p
I like menus a lot and whole customizability of character, but i dont like there is no summary of buffs from items, it should be in Effects tab, but its just not there ;\
I dont like letterbox in dialogs, maybe its only 5:4 resolution issue, but box is too small.
I also love secrets, the game is full of surprises and hidden chests and boxes

My video from beta:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0QekAXQvb0&hd=1

Screenshots
http://i.imgur.com/zbT7t.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/zzoa9.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/6mYJA.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/gsy3C.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/PPDxd.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/3uxpK.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/iTq4C.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/wfj11.jpg

More here: http://imgur.com/a/2uAk4

 

[Brad Grenz]

Yeah, I really enjoyed the demo. Combat's a lot of fun (best way to test that out is aggro everyone in the first little town. You'll get a bunch of waves of guards to play with!), and I like the look of the monsters and environments. Writing and voice acting also seem promising. Seems very much to be the game I was hoping for.

 

[ERP]

I hated the art style, but overall I though the game had promise. I was getting over this by the end of the demo.

Combat felt really good, but I'd like to see how the depth progresses with more skills, it was a bit guard/mash button in my play through of the demo.

Bows were kind of week in the demo, but I don't think you're intended to use any one weapon exclusively.

I'm interested in how "open" the world really is, it's difficult to gauge from the demo.

I'll pick it up when it ships.

 

[Cornsnake]

I like the demo. Most of the gameplay was pretty good, with the exception of the camera. It never really shows the best possible angle.

The story is also presented a bit poorly. Some of the voice acting is terrible, especially the narrator. And in normal conversations with the NPC's their faces seem to be locked in a single expression. It's probably too much to ask this kind of game to properly animate all that. So I'd rather they keep that in gameplay instead of zooming in on it.

I am going buy the game though.

 

[Sigfried1977]

I hated the art style, ...

Same here. I also don't see any signs of Todd McFarlane in it. (not that I'm a big fan of his work, but still)

 

[Cornsnake]

I've been playing the demo way too much. Trying all the different races, abilities, destinies, and upgrade trees. I'm probably going to end up playing a Dokkalfar rogue, focusing on stealth using the Dagger's and Fae Blades. I had very nice combination going on my last play through of the demo with the Envenomed Edge skill and Smouldering Dagger's.

There is a nice feature that let's you skip the tutorial and get right to exploring the open world. There are quite a few side quests available as well.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Seems good. I don't mind the art style. Not a fan of McFarlane, so I'm happy to see it isn't anything like his signature style. Combat is God of War like, with a bit of Fable 2/3 thrown in, where you can access your ranged, magic and melee very quickly for stringing interesting combos. I like the conversation elements they borrowed from Mass Effect, but I'm not fan of the long strings of questions. I'd prefer if these RPG games figured out how to condense information and not waste so many words. Tell me the important stuff quick, and let me handle only the important questions decisions. These long 20 questions games really kill the pace of the game. Not that this one is anywhere near as bad as a lot of other titles. The upgrades, skill trees, "destinies" and everything seem to work out great. There looks to be some good crafting, alchemy mechanics on top of that. Overall, they pretty much touched on everything. Graphics aren't the best, but they're good enough. The only thing it doesn't have is maybe as strong an atmosphere as Skyrim or Fable. Looking forward to this one, but I have no idea how I'm going to finish all of the rpgs I currently own (Skyrim, Dark Souls) plus Mass Effect 3 and then this one.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that got a Fable 2/3 vibe from the game. It feels like they used the Fable style of gameplay as the base and then built upon that. If so this should be pretty engaging. The Fable series if one of my favorite casual RPG-ish type titles.

As to the long conversations. I like those. I miss the days when voice acting was non-existent and you'd have these extremely long text expositions on things giving you great insight into the world as well as heavy character developement of NPCs.

As long as I have the ability to turn on subtitles (to read the dialog) and the ability to skip spoken dialog (I read much faster than they speak), then long dialogs don't impede the flow of the game for me. It's only when I can't skip spoken dialog and can't enable subtitles to read dialog that long winded dialog annoys the crap out of me.

Regards,
SB

 

[BadTB25]

I will probably pick this one up--the animation and combat looks to be fun, although the environment looks kind of sparse.

I still have an brand new Fable III to get to as well.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The demo is pleasantly engaging. Works well as a simple mechanics RPG you can blow hundreds of hours on. The demo's jolly bugged though. At my friend's house, the camera got pretty rough in places (irregular framerate), although on my PS3 last night it seemed much smoother. But then I also had graphical glitches with the floor not being drawn at times, some tiny fragments of barrel being MASSIVE, and finally in the last 20 minutes, the sound stopped and NPC dialogue auto-skipped so I couldn't talk with people.

I'd wait for the final game to release fixed, although sadly I decided last night this'd consume too much time so I won't be getting.

 

[Prophecy2k]

The demo is pleasantly engaging. Works well as a simple mechanics RPG you can blow hundreds of hours on. The demo's jolly bugged though. At my friend's house, the camera got pretty rough in places (irregular framerate), although on my PS3 last night it seemed much smoother. But then I also had graphical glitches with the floor not being drawn at times, some tiny fragments of barrel being MASSIVE, and finally in the last 20 minutes, the sound stopped and NPC dialogue auto-skipped so I couldn't talk with people.

I'd wait for the final game to release fixed, although sadly I decided last night this'd consume too much time so I won't be getting.

I had the EXACT same issue Shifty, in the exact same way you were discribing. I was really enjoying the demo before then.

The game felt like a Dragon Age Origins type RPG but with God of War style combat. Very enjoyable. I also rather enjoyed the voice acting too Will look to pick this up if it reviews well.

 

[Rodéric]

The demo has a lot of rough edges, but is enjoyable, I ticked the game off my list of games to watch though, missing something to make it memorable.

The fact my character didn't speak felt really odd.
The game couldn't remember any setting besides graphics, trying to make me deaf everytime I started it!
Also post-processing leads to a black screen on ATi drivers... Release a demo with such a problem is surreal...

 

[Brad Grenz]

I've played through about 3 times now. The "wanna skip the tutorial?" feature is sweet for playing with different builds. People who think the combat is bad must not have aggro'd the first town and people who think the art is bad must not have found the Summer Court.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The art isn't bad, but it does lack idenity IMO. Feels very MMO-ish to me, the whole game. The open area and mobs and stuff in bright colours gave off a very WOW vibe. I've only played the demo two-ish times, finishing before the time ran out. Trying a 'rogue' wasn't working because the mobs were never such that I could sneak up.

The game's definitely enjoyable, but it lacks a personality. Basically it's "RPG 101, well made". Nothing wrong with that at all.

 

[AlNom]

I hated the art style, but overall I though the game had promise. I was getting over this by the end of the demo.

Combat felt really good, but I'd like to see how the depth progresses with more skills, it was a bit guard/mash button in my play through of the demo.

Bows were kind of week in the demo, but I don't think you're intended to use any one weapon exclusively.

I'm interested in how "open" the world really is, it's difficult to gauge from the demo.

I'll pick it up when it ships.

Pretty much had the same thoughts, though I'll probably wait for it to drop in price.

Something just didn't sit well with me regarding character designs. Too... cartoony?

The demo's jolly bugged though.

I noticed similar graphical glitches, but other than that, it seemed fine on 360 (framerate-wise and no audio issues).