The Beauty of Kingdoms of Amalur

One of the editors over at Venturebeat has cranked out a retrospective-of-sorts for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, calling 38 Studios’ first and only project “freaking amazing” because it features “awesome amounts of content”, among other things. While I think the team’s debut RPG was good, I think the author might be taking things a little too far:

All the quests are unique. After almost sixty hours of playing, I can’t remember a single quest that was the same as another. Sure, you collect items here, kill some enemies there, but the stories are all different. Not only that, they are also interesting! The lore in the game is vast; it amazes me.

Another thing about the NPC’s and their dialogue, you have the choice to get straight to the point, or learn more about them as an individual, and the town’s they live in. Your first dialogue option is always about the quest they are offering, or finishing. The rest of the dialogue offers insights to who they are, what they think about the kingdom they live in, the land around them, the villains of the land, or even what they think of other NPC’s. The lore is all optional. It’s also very deep.

On top of that, even when you ask about the lore, it’s almost always straight to the point. It’s pretty awesome how quickly you can learn about foe’s, kingdoms, and the world in general through just a few lines of dialogue. Some of it does go a little longer than others, but for the most part everything you learn comes quickly. There are some repeats. In general if you ask about a specific enemy, most of the NPC’s say the same thing, but maybe with a few different words on the matter. It basically always comes down to, (they’re evil). But, if you really want some insight into the characters, they do offer up a bit of flavor with their own words on the same subject. Some do offer up more information than others.