Amalur might have history, but a world requires culture, science, religion, and ecology to be worth spending time with. Lorestones dotting the landscape spout murky fragments of ancient legends and divine rhymes while townsfolk sound off on dozens of bland worldly topics. There’s no sense of deep time implied by the oft-quoted 10,000 year history. Reckoning lacks the immersive properties of better RPGs, and Amalur has no presence as a fantasy world. The same meandering incoherence that infects the story seeps into lore, setting, and characters as well. Curiously, player choice plays an infinitesimal role in the story, odd considering that the hero is the only character capable of choice. The plot becomes slightly more exciting after this halfway point, but it’s so devoid of drama that most players will likely forgo the main quest in favor of character building. When the story isn’t lost in a sea of side quests and tangents, a few important characters come and go, telling the hero what to do, which eventually culminates in a large-scale battle (after requisite fetch quests). Uniquely unbound by fate, the hero has the ability to change the world’s dismal destiny, but the Tuatha desire nothing more than to stop him.ĭespite this perversion of the classic destiny-driven hero, the narrative exists solely because RPGs are expected to have one. Mystery shrouds the details of the hero’s death, but everyone seems aware of his unusual rebirth, including the villainous Tuatha. That is, until the rebirth of the protagonist, resurrected by an inexplicable gnomish device known as the Well of Souls. In the land of Amalur, determinism is the only philosophy.
For better or for worse, Reckoning provides a mechanical, gamey experience for enthusiasts of the MMORPG and hack ‘n’ slash genres, and not a particularly memorable one. Story, setting, level design, crafting, and even combat are means to an end, a conclusion of amassed wealth and power that I’ve always found hollow when done for the sake of itself. The player rides a tide of disorganized quests, battles, and treasure chests from one semi-linear area to the next, progressing through a skeletal main narrative with mounting aspirations of becoming omnipotent. Reckoning plays like a single-player MMORPG with an incongruously action-packed battle system. Despite invoking some big names in fantasy, the developers created a totally functional RPG, but one everyone has played dozens of times before. The opportunities of an open world RPG were there, as was an entertaining and flamboyant battle system, but these are only as good as the foundation beneath. When I first played Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, I had two primary concerns – lack of identity and repetition.
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