Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

When Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was announced by EA last summer, the biggest problem it faced was its title. Many gamers – members of the Game Informer staff included – were skeptical of yet another open-world fantasy game with a generic name. I went in for my first look at Reckoning sharing these concerns, but when the demo started, my worries faded away.

The most important thing to know about Reckoning is that though it’s an open-world RPG made by some of the folks who worked on the Elder Scrolls series, the game focuses heavily on combat. Big Huge Games’ goal is to create battles as fast and satisfying as the average action game without giving up the depth expected of an RPG.

Reckoning’s main character – a male or female selected from four different races – performs fast-paced, third-person combat similar to God of War and Devil May Cry. Stringing together combos in Reckoning depends on timing and stance; if you pause just long enough between attacks, you’ll perform a launch and move into air attacks. If you attack out of a block, you may rush forward or do a wide swipe, depending on what weapon you have equipped.

Speaking of equipped weapons, no matter what character you’re playing, you can have two different weapon types equipped at the same time. Each is mapped to its own button on the controller. For example, a warrior might have a powerful sword and a hammer. The warrior can open combat against an enemy with some quick slashes from his or her blade and then finish the opponent off with a powerful hammer blow. Being able to switch to a second weapon on the fly multiplies your options even if the moment-to-moment button tapping is relatively simple.

One of the other face buttons on the controller is devoted to magic and special abilities. Thankfully, all of the spells I saw have interesting spins that take the speed of combat into account. The mark of flame spell reminds me of my mage’s living bomb spell in World of Warcraft; you can tag multiple enemies with a firebomb that damages them over time. Whenever you decide the time is right, you can detonate the marks, unleashing a cascade of area-of-effect explosions.

A harpoon spell allows you to grab enemies and drag them over hidden environmental traps. High-level magic users can call upon meteor, a top-tier spell that rains flaming rocks, devastating a whole room of enemies. Magic-focused characters also have a range of abilities and weapons that help create distance between them and their opponents, freeing up time to cast these powerful spells.

Reckoning does not stand apart from the crowd in combat alone. The wider universe of Amalur is being shaped by a talented brain trust at 38 Studios: founder and former MLB pitcher Curt Schilling, fantasy writer R.A. Salvatore, and Spawn creator Todd McFarlane. Although this group is not directly involved in the day-to-day development of Reckoning – 38 Studios is currently developing an unnamed MMO set in the Amalur universe – their impact is evident. Amalur is not as generic a fantasy setting as it seemed upon first impression.

Reckoning’s dark beginning finds the main character waking up buried in a pile of corpses near a bizarre device known as the Well of Souls. In the Amalur MMO, this powerful machine will be the in-game explanation for why players can die and be reborn over and over again, but in Reckoning you take on the role of the first person successfully brought back to life using the Well of Souls.

Reckoning’s world is going for a colorful vibe like that found in Fable rather than the dark and gritty style of Dragon Age. One of the goals Salvatore has given the team at Big Huge Games is creating a “world worth defending.” If players are going to be tasked with saving the world, he reasons, it should be a world that they actually want to save. From grassy meadows to sun-specked ruins, Reckoning is not afraid of color. Expect to breathe in bright and beautiful settings as you slash through legions of bad guys.

The various monsters of Reckoning also have a singular look to them – something close to the cartoonish proportions of Warcraft’s style, but with unexpected twists on traditional fantasy opponents. One recurring enemy from the demo, the banshaen, is a large serpent creature that looks like a medusa or the naga from Warcraft. She begins combat by belching out a bunch of eggs that hatch smaller reptilian nuisances called murghan. Each time you encounter a banshaen, you need to choose between taking her down first or getting rid of the lightning-summoning murghan while avoiding the banshaen’s attacks. Savvy players will destroy the murghan eggs before they hatch.

As with any good RPG, gear and customization play a major part in Reckoning. Big Huge Games promises a Diablo-style loot system full of thousands of awesome weapons and pieces of armor. The studio is working carefully to craft a console-friendly UI so that players never spend too long staring at menus. When gathering loot from defeated enemies, you can immediately compare and equip items from the loot menu, and even send items you plan to sell directly to the junk section of your inventory for clearing out when you visit a vendor.

Level-ups flow quickly in Reckoning. The game features a level progress bar that pops up any time you gain experience points, urging you toward the next milestone. When you level, you receive talent points that can be placed into one of three trees: Finesse, Sorcery, or Might. Rather than choosing a single class at the beginning of the game, players are allowed to develop the character down whichever path (or mix of paths) they want.

As you progress, the game will auto-assign a destiny – essentially a class title that it gives based off your chosen talents. Specialized destinies receive unique stat and combat bonuses. A player who devotes enough talent toward magic skills, for example, will find their dodge move turned into a magic teleport.

Much to my surprise, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning has all the early signs of a game worth watching: satisfying action combat, the depth and customization that RPG lovers want, and an interesting world and art style that could capture the imagination of jaded gamers burnt out on the seeing the same fantasy trappings used ad nauseam. For a more in-depth look at the game and the studio behind it, check out my six-page feature in the April 2011 issue of Game Informer.