Genre
Format
You can read this review in full in our print edition.
Our March issue, which is on sale February 15, features reviews of all the most important releases, together with in-depth Post Script articles, including Final Fantasy XIII-2, WipeOut 2048 and Star Wars: The Old Republic.
You can subscribe to Edge in print, on iOS via Newsstand and on Android, PC and Mac via Zinio.
--
Much has been said about Kingdoms Of Amalur’s 10,000-year backstory, concocted by fantasy author RA Salvatore to act as a springboard for 38 Studios’ future projects. The result of all his efforts is that the world of Amalur comes steeped in lore, with NPCs spouting out a wiki’s worth of info for even the most innocuous ‘kill x rats’ task. It’s certainly as comprehensive as any virtual history in recent memory, and yet arrives in a game intent on cutting through the RPG fat, presenting a more accessible take on the open-world RPG. How do you present an unforgiving fiction in a forgiving world?
What arrives on shop shelves is an epic RPG with a user-friendly pick-up-and-play ethos. This most obviously manifests itself in the responsive player character. If you’ve hacked and slashed a bloody path through God Of War, you won’t need any introduction to Reckoning’s combination of button mashing, evasive dodges and timed parries. That each weapon is limited to one button prevents complexity but welcomes experimentation – equip a new weapon and you’re only a few prods away from mastering it. Combat isn’t deep, but it is wide, thanks to multiple weapon classes and the mountains of loot within them.
That your barbarian/rogue/wizard wouldn’t feel out of place in a straight thirdperson action game is a real achievement, especially following Skyrim’s weightless avatars. The game it most closely resembles is Fable II – Lionhead’s own attempt to tame the excesses of the RPG. But in the light of this, Fable II lacked combat conviction; Reckoning is tougher and it hits harder. Amalur’s varied bestiary provides a blend of short- and long-range combat rhythms, and some suitably visceral feedback – the slow-motion clang of sword on shield, the gruesome hiss of arterial spray – that lends the game a full-blooded energy.
Of course, lowering the barriers to entry can also negate the gratification felt from the obstacles you overcome. Ranged combat, for example, employs an auto-aim that removes all the skill from the player. So while bows and projectile-spewing staves work well enough as secondary support to a stabbing implement, they are deeply unsatisfying in themselves. It doesn’t help that target switching is mapped to the right analogue stick, which is nigh-on impossible to reach in tandem with the face buttons. In a way, Reckoning reverses Skyrim’s dilemma: where the firstperson perspective struggles to mesh well with hand-to-hand duels, it is the true home of projectiles.
Reckoning never quite balances accessibility with the depth expected from an RPG either. Systems are present and correct – smithing, alchemy, sagecrafting (think: Elder Scrolls’ soul gems) – but are streamlined into neat little asides. There are too few collectible components to sell these crafts as organic parts of the Amalurian ecosystem. Where Skyrim’s alchemists have to root around in the countryside in search of mystic barks, their counterparts in Amalur need only walk up to shiny pick-ups dotting the world. This is roleplaying for a thunderously dull imagination.
Worse, this streamlining and simplifying is felt in the very geography of the place. Like Fable’s Albion, Amalur is a colossal landmass that’s been divided into manageable chunks. With its connecting corridors and invisible walls, there’s an artificiality to the world that simply can’t compete with the organic sprawl of locations such as Tamriel. At the same time, the self-contained structure allows the game’s artists to conjure a visual mix that would jar in one cohesive whole. Moving from murky bog to verdant forest palaces to lurid red desert captures a sense of adventurous scale, which is more important than pure acreage.
Amalur’s problem, like so many ideas in Reckoning, is its refusal to ask too much of the player. Clarity should be championed – in interface, control and item management – but not to the extent that the world is laid bare. Part of the appeal of RPGs is losing yourself in a virtual place, which is impossible if the entire game is a deliberately beaten track. For these reasons, Amalur is a very easy world to drop in and out of – if only Skyrim were so willing to share us with our real lives – but it is never a place where we can truly put down roots. And all this is a shame, since Salvatore’s encyclopaedic creation is something worth investing in.
Ultimately, it is the fiction most poorly served by the game. Could mechanical immediacy ever be a natural fit for an RPG of this size? Combat is mastered in an hour, but is tasked with holding the player’s attention for upwards of 50. So Reckoning’s appeal soon wanes, if only due to aching ligaments. And pushing combat to the fore is a disservice to the storytelling. Beyond a flimsy stealth attack, our hero’s vocabulary consists of ‘hack’ and ‘slash’, limiting the anecdotes he can tell. Slathering on lore and backstory gives killing a fun context, but no amount of preamble can freshen up another identikit dungeon with a texture reskin.
Tellingly, the game is at its best when questing serves the lore. Visiting the gnome capital, for example, shifts the focus to political intrigue as you serve the machinations of small schemers with big ambitions. An even better strand has heroes enacting famous elfin stories, ensuring their history replays as written. As each tale is completed you assume the character’s identity, slowly ascending the ranks of elvish royalty. At its heart, Reckoning is an interesting tale about disrupting cyclical fate – ironic, considering the game’s largely repetitive nature – and when the story gets to shine, 38 Studios and Big Huge Games’ friendlier design presents a welcome change of pace. [6]
Xbox 360 version tested.