Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is such a lousy name

I dunno, man. I’ve played some games with truly horrible UI designs and I have to say this isn’t one of them. It’s got some minor inconveniences, sure, and it plays like a game from 8 years ago but I’m not having any problem with it.

YMMV, of course, but the inventory system that requires you to navigate through multiple lists/menus, the lack of double-click actions where there should be such things, the way your inventory is (not) displayed, the lack of a “drop” rather than a “destroy” function (and the fact that to destroy something you have to drag it off of a specific area onto another specific but unmarked area), the wonky consumables wheel, the inability to use a consumable from the chest or container from which you are looting it (thus getting value from it when you have no space), the inability to move stuff from your inventory to a container in the world, the way crafting works (some things get a button, some don’t), the lack of mouse-over support, all sorts of things. These bug me. They may not bug you, which is cool.

I just started playing this after buying it for 13 bucks at Epic. Having a blast with a staff so far, so I’ve been leaning pretty heavily into the magic tree. Since gear has stat reqs, is it best in the long run to diversify a bit? Don’t want to screw myself over.

At least in the original version you could respec pretty freely, it wasn’t really possible to corner yourself IIRC.

By the way, there are functional stashes where you can offload items now. I got a house and it has one.

Cool. I put the game aside a while back but certainly will fire it up again in the future.

You know, it doesn’t seem like a great game or anything, but I am having fun with it. After bouncing off 4-5 other games in the last week, I’ll take it.

Yeah, it’s a darn good RPG in the traditional mold, really.

I found it somewhat different from a typical RPG and more of a slavish WoW clone but offline.

As I recall from like 10 years ago, the trick with KoA is to skip most of the sidequests-- there are way too many of them. If it doesn’t seem interesting, don’t do it.

Well, typical WoW era RPG, yeah; it’s very much WoW-inspired/ripped off.

Re-Reckoning had a free weekend on all platforms this weekend. So I downloaded it on the Xbox and played it between other games.

I did not enjoy myself. Their free weekend backfired! I guess back when this originally came out I didn’t mind playing an action RPG like this because they weren’t many out there. But in 2021, after Diablo 3 and Grim Dawn, I just can’t see any reason to waddle in mediocrity like this.

This will not be going on my wishlist.

That is an… unusual comparison. Are you sure you downloaded the right demo? This is not a DIablo-like in any sense. It’s an open-world free roaming action rpg, more closely related to an Elder Scrolls game or a Souls game for people that don’t hate themselves.

None of which means it’s for you, of course. Personally I enjoyed the world and found the combat to be some of the most fluid, best-feeling “dodge and strike” I’d ever played.

That’s fair. I just found it to be not as good at any of those elements as other games. The story didn’t draw me in. The quests are basically cookie-cutter fetch quests or excuses for dungeon running. The open world is not pretty, and therefore not that fun to explore. The combat using a controller is not as satisfying as ARPGs like Diablo and Grim Dawn while using a controller for those games, but you’re right it does have a more of a dodging or shield element to it. But again, it’s not as satisfying as Souls-likes for my tastes.

Sorry, I usually phrase my criticisms a little more carefully so as not to ruffle feathers. I’m sure there’s people for whom each of these elements is better than their counterparts in other games, but not for me.

It’s Mac and Cheese gaming for me. That and the Chakrams dance is beautiful. I like to play in small spurts when the mood strikes. I will never finish it as like a big bowl of Mac and Cheese it just gets a bit old by the bottom. Still a few weeks later; there I am spoon in hand.

I played this for a while (15-20 hours) and it was ok, but Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was far more fun for me.

I remember thinking it was lovely at the time, but it’s been awhile. At the time it was also much harder to find something brightly colored in this genre, everything was brown and gray. I wonder if it will hold up for me. I kind of wish I’d caught that free weekend.

This is a big source of the disconnect, it would never cross my mind to play those games with a controller (I’m surprised its even possible in Grim Dawn with all the targeting) so these seem like games with wildly different gameplay to me.

Nothing to apologize for, you enjoy what you enjoy, I just thought it was a peculiar comparison and wanted to bring that up in case a third party read the thread and got the wrong idea about what kind of game it was.

That is exactly the right description. It’s pretty insubstantial but it’s light, fun, and feels great to me. I’m planning to pick up the deluxe version that includes the upcoming expansion when I have some time to play it, if only because I enjoyed it so much the first time around and “light” is exactly what I need right now.

I’ve been replaying this lately (not re-reckoning, just the regular version) and it’s kinda what the doctor ordered. It’s still generic as all get-out, which is probably why I stopped playing it back in the day, but it’s also kind of a perfect zone-out-beer-n-pretzels RPG that ticks off a lot of WoW-era nostalgia boxes with its cartoony/low-poly graphics, preponderance of no-brain quests, and combat that’s not too hard but where you still have to pay attention or you’ll die.

And in its way it’s a class act. Nice art style, smooth animations, lots of voice acting even in minor quests, lovely score. Plus, you can actually walk into houses. Doors aren’t generally ‘painted on’. I really like that in an RPG.

I think I tried to play it with mouse and keyboard the first time around, which was a mistake. It’s designed for a controller and I’m playing it that way now, which makes it easier to remember the various move combos and such.

Dunno if my attention will hold out long enough to see it all the way through, and I still couldn’t tell you one damn thing about the story if you put a gun to my head, but I’m glad I picked it up again.

It really is a fun pick up and play RPG that doesn’t ask much of the player. I just wish it didn’t waste my time with so much running around. It’s like they spaced stuff further apart to draw shit out, which irks me.

This is mostly made up by dealing with anything with chakrams though.

You can fast travel all over the place, though, so I don’t mind it. The thing about sizes in these kind of games IMO is that if everything is too close together the world doesn’t really feel ‘large/epic.’ I suppose they could have had higher density of points of interest.