14 DAY TRIAL // 
R.A. Salvatore is a name with deep roots in the minds and hearts of many D&D fans. When Kingdoms of Amalur was announced, EA made sure to create a big chunk of hype around the fact that the famous author will be involved in the development of the story. Moreover, the game was developed with the participation of Grant Kirkhope, the legendary composer, and Todd McFarlane, as artistic director. The result was a solid game, but not the blockbuster everybody hoped for. Still, the splashdown was enough for THQ Nordic to include it in its avalanche of remakes based on the IP’s it managed to snatch up.
And thus, the RPG was dusted off, it got a nonsense re-release title and was thrown again at the owners of PC and consoles from the current console generation. If at first, second, or even third look you do not discover major updates it’s not your fault, not even your system’s fault, but the result of the fact that very little has changed compared to the original game.
As expected the story is the same, the characters are the same, with a bit of tweaking to the gameplay, but most surprisingly the graphics are almost the same. From a remaster you would expect above all else updated graphics, that in this case seems to have been lost in the middle of a nostalgia-driven cash-grab attempt. But let’s see what you get exactly if you revisit the lands of Amalur to trigger the re-reckoning.
Despite being written by Salvatore, the story of the Kingdoms of Amalur felt generic even in the original release, lacking the appeal well known from the novels of the famous writer. We got ourselves a hero, who mysteriously returns from the dead with the help of a devious contraption devised by some pesky gnomes, the Well of Souls. After being declared the Fateless One, we are given a carte blanche about how we want to shape the world of Amalur. This endeavor helps a lot the fact that you can actually change the fate of your enemies, in spectacular special combat moves. This cool new power compensates fully that you cannot remember anything from your past.
You leave behind the destiny that was originally dealt with you and forge a new one. Of course, every good RPG needs a villain that wants to conquer and/or destroy the world. And thus you embark on your journey not just to decide the outcome of the war between humans and the magical creatures known collectively as Fae, but also to decide the fate of Amalur after trashing the big bad guy.
Next to the main quests, you have plenty of side missions trying to bring the game world to life. Unfortunately, most of these quests follow antiquated patterns that imply you killing a certain number of enemies, retrieving certain items, or checking on different NPCs that will ask you to kill certain enemies or retrieve key items. Although not completely boring, the quests succumb in no time to an almost daily routine.
The structure of events follows the path laid down by illustrious ancestors such as The Elder Scrolls series, in which you will have factions to prove yourself to, houses to acquire and renovate, and other larger or smaller objectives that you have seen countless times already in other RPGs. This was quite archaic in 2011 when the game was launched and feels even more dated now.
As you may have noticed, Kingdoms of Amalur deals heavily with the topic of fate, up to the point that it derives its entire class system from this idea. Although dressed with a complete and lengthy story, the game always felt more like an action RPG where the focus was on combat. Nothing changed here as well. After you have created your avatar to represent you in the game, you will have access to a very well thought out and fluid character development system, that does not impose on you the restriction of a specific class but encourages to mix things up until you find a build suitable for your playstyle. Three major skill trees depict the three major classes: warrior, rogue, and spellcaster, each with a specific set of abilities. By investing points in all these skill trees, you can create intriguing combinations such as rogues that rely on bows and spellcasting, or warriors that dabble in the art of subtlety and poison making.
The only negative aspect of this approach is that the stealth system is clunky and highly unreliable, making the assassin build highly useless. It did not work back in the day and is completely useless now. Even so, there are numerous abilities, both passive and active, in the rogue’s repertoire that make it worthwhile to invest in.
By following strictly a class or mixing up the different abilities you can unlock different destiny cards. Although they remind you somewhat of Fable, these cards have a different purpose: they represent different builds, with certain bonuses, that further enhances the abilities you prefer to use. Despite this touch of finesse, the up to eight skills you can map to different buttons and the presence of a secondary weapon, the combat system relies only on mashing buttons until you reduce your enemies' HP to zero. But this straightforward approach is what makes the combat so fun. It is rather enjoyable to be able to best your opponents without having to pull off lengthy combos.
The depth of the system is given by the special fate attacks that can be pulled of once your meter is full. These spectacular attacks are quite useful against boss-type enemies, taking a big bite out of their hit points. Still, the outdated impression persists when it comes to combat, one of the main reasons being the lack of a lock-on option. The combat remained rather chaotic and it can be a challenge to hit your opponents also because of the camera system.
Since this is a remaster, we expected an up to date visual representation of the game. Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-reckoning manages to look almost the same as the original, despite the updated resolution. The visual differences are so subtle, that if you do not put side by side the two releases, you will fail to notice them. The characters suffered no visible changes, the environment is made up of the same blurry textures, and things are not made better by the updated framerate.
The old bugs have not been fixed, despite the publisher’s promises, but have been joined by new ones, that have to do among other things with a very imprecise collision detection system. The audio issues of the original release are still present as well, taking away from the overall experience. So what is new in this remaster if even the graphics are almost the same?
First, there is a new difficulty setting: Very Hard, meant to address the criticism towards the original game, that even on Hard was not a real challenge. On the new Vey Hard mode, you will have more spawning zones of the enemies, points that will spawn more opponents, that will prove to be more resilient to damage. The enemy levels themselves have changed on all difficulty levels, scaling to the level of challenge you have chosen. while they may have no new abilities, they hit harder than before.
There are also some new options to tweak the camera controls, reducing the time you will have to struggle with this feature. Still, you will get a lot of situations when the battles will be presented from weird angles. The new tips shown on-screen are meant to ease the learning curve of newcomers, offering useful hints in various situations. Also, they tweaked the loot system so you get more often equipment usable by your character.
The Good
- Fun and straightforward combat system
- Well-thought character development system
- Plenty of content with over 100 hours to play through
The Bad
- Very long loading times
- Old and new bugs aplenty
- Outdated quest system and visuals
Conclusion
For all these reasons, if you have already played the game, Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning will offer nothing new, and will prove to be only a minor improvement over the original. However, if you missed the original and you are looking for an action RPG with fun combat, you might want to give it a chance.
