Kingdoms Of Amalur Thoughts

[Morgoth]

On a related note: do we really need more action RPG's?

Action RPGs are the new RPGs. What do you mean, "more"?

[Tale]

I'm really hoping for the rise of princess dating sim RPGs.

[Morgoth]

You mean JRPGs?

[entrerix]

i miss good jrpg's, i don't think we'll ever see another jrpg as good as FF6, FF7, chrono trigger or chrono cross ever again

 

kingdoms of amalur looks exactly like fable - i'm definitely going to want to demo it before buying

[Drowsy Emperor]

On a related note: do we really need more action RPG's?

Action RPGs are the new RPGs. What do you mean, "more"?

 

More as in after ME, JE, DA2, KOTOR, Gothic/Risen, Divinity, the upcoming Diablo rehash and every other button mashing action game with levelling you could name

 

The concept has worn thinner than the sole of a miser's slippers.

[Tigranes]

Just tried a fair chunk of the demo. It's very... up and down.

 

Most importantly, there appears to be the basics for a fun and enjoyable game, though it's unlikely it'll be memorable or innovative in any way. There's a decent enough character development system, a decent array of auxiliary features and things-to-do a la real shops, thieving/pickpocketing/gotojail/etc mechanisms (even attacking friendly characters, though I haven't tried this properly yet), alchemy and reagants, blacksmithing, etc., etc. The combat itself is pretty boring at the moment but at least some of that is due to the tutorialness of the whole thing. The writing is better than I expected (i.e. not terribly boring and retarded), though that's even harder to tell, yet. I don't think it's a Day 1 buy unless I'm really bored, but perhaps later on.

 

More specifically, combat is the number one since it's an ARPG, right? Your character is pretty responsive, though actually attacking things is not so fluid. I think it will improve once players get more comfortable and you learn more skills and combos - right now as a Level 1 dude you're just smacking left button. Bows are really boring though, as you stay in third person view where you can't aim anything and you simply autotarget. I've never seen the point of that, from memory Div2 did this too and it didn't work there either. A lot is going to depend on just how dynamic the combat gets once you get some levels and have more options. The enemies are far too weak and far too stupid (mainly lumbering around really slowly), but you can only play Normal and it is the tutorial, so that's not conclusive. There appear to be some interesting features - i.e. some kind of special state you enter into when you take enough damage (or do enough?), essentially the same as TW2 but from earlier levels.

 

The writing seemed to have enough there for me not to start skipping stuff, yet. Voice acting is a bit up and down, and equally, the writing slips between rather well composed lines and awkward ones, almost as if the script is still in draft stage or something. The concept of being revived and having no predetermined fate is cool, but who knows where it will go from there. It's hard to tell how lively towns are and how many quests you get, though... I was trying out thieving, got sent to jail, got caught escaping and died, before I could really look into the town. It's also impossible to tell how big/open the world is yet - the tutorial dungeon was obviously a series of corridors.

 

The visuals aren't as terrible as I thought from the videos, but again.. I have no idea how to put the finger on this, it feels really weird. Technically speaking, the game looks dated by several years; washed out textures, etc. I don't really care about that so much, but here that combines oddly with (1) there's clearly some sort of HDR/Bloom going on in here, but it looks different from Oblivion's superbloom; (2) they tend to go for really bright, really distinct colours; (3) characters get a very crisp, even leathery/plasticky, kind of treatment while the rest, especially the ground, is a washout of bloomy bright colours. So everything just doesn't look stable, and it doesn't help that your character skates around the ground as well. So I guess a kind of washed out Disney fantasy land. But I was a lot more impressed once I left the opening dungeon and came outside - it's still washed out and bright, but with more space it manages to achieve a more coherent and better looking landscape.

 

The UI/usability is pretty terrible. It has 'blocky' turning, similar to problems some people had with Alpha Protocol's mouse smoothing, where you don't really turn/rotate camear smoothly, it goes in big blocks, and so you're always swiveling around. Combine that with the fact that although you can move the camera, really, there's only one camera angle that's playable - it's much worse than Dungeon Siege 3, where you could at least choose from 2 views. Here you can't zoom out to any degree, and essentially you have to play in the KOTOR-view to see anything. Sometimes the game zooms out the camera a bit for you, but only when it wants to. So restrictive close-up camera + lurchy turning + washy visuals = not good. Moving on, the interface is OK. Looks-wise it looks pretty bad, mainly black background and white text and it just feels like someone forgot to make half of the UI; you need to click a lot of buttons to get to some things (Menu -> Inventory -> Primary Weapons -> Equip); but for the most part it won't get in the way, and works fine.

 

All in all rather mixed, I'll probably wait for impressions once it comes out. I guess big plus is that it seems to have a solid core that it might build on, and the big minus is that it's pretty clunky and the blurry bright mess is sometimes hard to look at.

[Chippy]

THanks for that detailed first impression, I might just wait for this title to go down in price before a purchase. I certainly wont be installing Origins to play a demo.

[Tigranes]

You can get it through Steam. It still wanted me to log into the EA crap, but I discovered you can just opt-out and play anyway (something they don't tell you unless you actually try to exit the window. Idiots.)

[Tale]

I liked it. The big negative for me is that the sound is really weak. I was afraid of that back in the preview videos and it looks like it carried forward. Rocks falling all around in the intro and they sound like they're always in the distance, even if hitting right next to you. Monsters don't sound impressive.

 

Combat was fun enough for me, but I don't think I'm used to it yet. Can not dodge as I'd like to. Only made it to level 2 before it crashed. But I probably only had a few minutes left of demo time anyway. Plot didn't really catch me. Neither did the setting. But I didn't really see much of it in the short time I had. Visited only two dungeons, a tutorial boss, saw one small town of three buildings. The customization options look good for character builds.

 

It's very action oriented. If you don't work on dodge or block timings, you will get creamed.

[Maria Caliban]

I like it. It was exactly what I expect it to be save for the sound being a bit off. The tutorial character is behind you several times while you're running around the first dungeon and I had to swing my camera around to understand him when he started talking. There was also a time when I was in a fight with dramatic fight music playing, right afterward, a character began a conversation with me. The dramatic fight music boomed and blasted while he spoke, drowning out his words.

 

It's very action oriented. If you don't work on dodge or block timings, you will get creamed.

 

I went Might, got a Smoldering Longsword, and sliced my way through everything.

[Tale]

Okay. Maybe being a Finesse/Sorcery with Sorcery gear isn't the best place to generalize about everyone. But I can't imagine fighting those wolf packs without dodging them.

 

Did you use KB/M or gamepad? I used gamepad and am wondering how the KB/M is working out for people.

[Tigranes]

Gave it another go before uninstalling, generally improved opinions but still mixed.

 

It does get better once you get out and go around exploring and questing, though it seems pretty similar to Div 2- run around, kill things, do some quirky quests - just without Div2's difficulty. In fact, apart from the cool charging the wolves do, the combat remains far too easy (even for Normal) and downright broken. As a level 3 guy wearing pretty much starting armour and some quest reward daggers I took out the entire town with no difficulty, mainly because (1) they slowly lumber around then might decide to attack you one by one, (2) they get stunlocked if you jsut sit there and mash attack.

 

Environments also look better and better outdoors, but still retain some terrible draw distances and other oddities.

[Morgoth]

A game that starts where you wake up on top of a pile of dead corpses definitely deserves a bit more attention. I'm gonna play through this bugger in the evening, but the first 10 mins I tried last night were neither inspirational, nor a turn-off.

[C2B]

This is the most generic thing I've ever played. That said nothing about it seemed to be outright bad and the game mechanics are fun and the side quests were interesting enough.

 

It's pretty much what I expected it to be.

[WDeranged]

I played for an hour or two last night, it's a really mixed bag for me, I hate the chunky Warcraft art style but appreciate the slightly more mature direction, kinda enjoyed the combat but hated the weird delay before objects and monsters register the hit.

 

The story barely registered with me but I suppose the old amnesiac corpse route is tried and true, the only thing I really like is the use of skills and character progression, it's definitely an RPG but I think I'll wait for a year of patches and DLC.

[Hurlshort]

Isn't this game being developed to pave the way for an MMO?

[Tale]

Isn't this game being developed to pave the way for an MMO?

Copernicus, yes. I'm not sure on the intimate details, but they're in the same setting and same developer.

[Maria Caliban]

Isn't this game being developed to pave the way for an MMO?

 

Yes. In fact, the premise of Reckoning - that you're the first person to come back from the dead - is basically an explanation for a common MMO mechanic. That being the ability to die and then run back to a shrine to be resurrected.

 

2,000 years in the future, when Copernicus happens, it's a standardized technology, so thousands of adventurers will be able to die and come back.

Edited January 18, 2012 by Maria Caliban

[WorstUsernameEver]

Actually they're not being developed by the same team, or at least weren't until recently, considering Reckoning is essentially Big Huge Games' baby (now they've been bought by 38 Studios).

 

As for the demo itself: with a good art style, better dialogue and an actual professionally-done UI this could have been a killer. Can't really judge on the quest design, since this is really early on, although it seemed nothing impressive unfortunately. In the state it is right now I think I'll wait on a deal. Comparisons to Divinity 2 I think are pretty apt, although comparing the two demos, I think Reckoning's combat is much better and the mechanics in general seem more solid.

[Blarghagh]

Not bad, I quite enjoyed it. Nothing mindblowing, but everything just seemed to work for me. I quite like the art style, it's nice and colourful. I seemed to have some slowdown issues (crates wouldn't burst until a second or two after I hit them, speaking animations moving at half the speed of audio), dunno if that was just me.

[Chippy]

You can get it through Steam. It still wanted me to log into the EA crap, but I discovered you can just opt-out and play anyway (something they don't tell you unless you actually try to exit the window. Idiots.)

 

 

Thanks, got the steam demo. First impressions of this are that the art reminded me of dungeon keeper, so if I play this I'm gonna keep looking out for the humour because it strikes me as meant to be funny.

 

Combat is crap, Severance Blade of Darkness is 10 years old and this plays very much the same - (I prefer Severance) although try killing an enemy in that by mashing the left mouse button. Unless hard difficulty changes that, what's the point in levelling and getting various other powers?.

 

I backstabbed 1 enemy, then face on attacked another by button mashing and there was only a few econds in the time it took to kill the latter. Ugh.

[Tale]

Typically leveling is to allow you to approach harder encounters and make them easier, not necessarily to fight the tutorial enemies all over again. I encountered some enemies that seemed drastically harder than the tutorial guys. The starting daggers I had were worthless pretty quickly. The staff was useful though.

[Maria Caliban]

Tale had a snarky reply up for all of two minutes. It's a sign of his maturity that he changed it, and a sign of my immaturity that I miss it.

 

Okay. Maybe being a Finesse/Sorcery with Sorcery gear isn't the best place to generalize about everyone. But I can't imagine fighting those wolf packs without dodging them.

 

Did you use KB/M or gamepad? I used gamepad and am wondering how the KB/M is working out for people.

Keyboard and mouse. I've played so many console ports, I think I'm used to a bit of clunkiness.

 

I wanted to rebind a few keys, but couldn't. I'd like to stick health potions on my hotbar, but couldn't. I prefer Batman:AC's scheme where you double tap a key to use an ability ([1][1] to quick through a batarang) over using the hotbar to select an ability and then RMouse to use it.

 

It's not bad, and it's easy to adjust to, but I would have liked a pit more optimization.

 

Replayed with a rogue character. Had to hop around much more.

Edited January 18, 2012 by Maria Caliban

[Morgoth]

Okay, nice demo I guess.

 

Gonna probably pick it up at some Steam Holiday for 10-15 EUR, because there's no way I'm gonna pay full price for a WoW SP game.

Edited January 18, 2012 by Morgoth

[entrerix]

people commenting on difficulty: isn't this a tutorial dungeon? most new school gamers would immediately return a game that they couldn't even get past the tutorial without dying...

 

unless the game is dark souls, but for that game everyone was given plenty of warning.