Added to my journal.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

I played and finished this game, and I'm eager to tell you a little about it! Let's take a look at Wikipedia, hmm, what do we have here? "The game was released on February 7, 2012." It hasn't been 10 years yet, so the YOBA police can relax a bit for now. But not too much, because the malicious violators of the harmony of the universe are not asleep. The graphics are decent, not Crysis 3, of course, but pleasant. The physics (ha, let me copy your homework) is also pleasant, it doesn't annoy. What could I compare it to? Well, it's like some kind of MMORPG, only it doesn't make your eyes bleed. The style is unique. Not surprising, because on the same Wikipedia, I read that the project was originally conceived as an MMO.

What exactly is it about, sir? What is Amalur, we haven't heard of it.
In general, it's fantasy, as usual. At first, it seems that the world is just a backdrop, with two pages written for it while drinking beer, but as you explore it, you realize that a lot of work has been done. Despite the simple plot, the story is filled with some interesting details, telling amazing stories about the life of the world, its inhabitants, and singing ballads from the lore stones (these are things scattered throughout Amalur, telling snippets of stories), and shoving a couple of dozen readable books in your face. And NPCs can tell you all sorts of irrelevant things.
There is a race called Fae in Amalur, immortal guardians of nature and everything else, who, after death, go into a great cycle, reincarnate, and so on. All other races, humans and two types of elves, are mortal. The Fae call them "children of dust," or simply "dustlings." Their attitude towards them is about the same as towards dust, yes. And one day, one of the immortals had an interesting thought: "Why don't I burn all the mortals from the earth?"
What's the plot? You are brought in a cart, presumably dead, dumped in a pile of corpses, and you wake up. Ding! And somewhere there, in another part of Amalur, an evil villain has seized power, and now an army of immortal Fae is cleansing the world of the disgusting mortals with fire and sword. AAAH, WHAT A VILLAIN, WHAT SHOULD WE DO? WE GRAB AN AXE AND KILL EVERYONE. Okay.
What can we kill with? There are three branches: in one, swords are sharpened, in another, daggers are smeared with poison, and in the third, staffs sparkle with magic.
The first is Might, specializing in a lot of HP, heavy armor, hammers, swords, and very large swords. Just to chop up enemies satisfyingly without taking damage. The warrior doesn't approach the enemies, he pulls them in with a harpoon. The warrior can hold down the shift button and go have tea while the enemies beat themselves against his impenetrable shield.
The second is Finesse, the mother's killer, a dagger-wielding assassin, sneaking up from behind like a rat and slitting throats. There are also frost mines, poisonous daggers, bombs, smoke screens, poison, poison, poison, a little more poison, bleeding. There is also the possibility to feel like Illidan, taking Faeblades in your hands - an almost exact copy of his wonderful blades.
And the third, Sorcery, a mage with lightning and fireballs, waving chakrams, puffing with staffs. Just magic, basically. From what I've seen, I can say that he constantly teleports and throws chains of fireballs at targets. An unpleasant guy.
I played as Finesse, it's good, but towards the end there's nowhere to develop, the useful skills run out. And most of the assassin gadgets aren't really needed in combat, as the game is too easy, and I was playing on hard. Mines only make sense at the beginning, when a bear or troll can deal some good damage, but then it's easier to just stab anyone with knives or shoot them with a bow, which is overpowered here. Illidan's stuff looks fun, you jump and spin, shredding enemies to pieces.
The combat system in the game is quite poor, but it's fun and beautiful.


What else is there besides fighting? There are quests, even not that bad ones. Conversations with NPCs, searching for hidden chests scattered throughout the map, searching for lore stones, the collections of which give stats. In addition to combat skills, there are other abilities. Alchemy allows you to brew potions, blah blah, Lockpicking allows you to pick locks with lockpicks, Sagecraft allows you to craft stones. Standard. Mercantilism gives discounts in the store, allows you to sell for more, nothing interesting. Persuasion is also useless, it can be applied in about 2% of all quests, and even those 2% don't give anything special, it's a completely useless thing. Finding Hidden is more interesting, it reveals the location of hidden treasures, enemies on the map, and other magical things. More interesting, but still not a great skill. Dispelling is like lockpicking, only the principle is different. Objects in Amalur can be locked with two types of protection, a lock and this thing. This is unlocked very amusingly, a dot moves around in a circle, passing through signs that need to be deactivated by pressing. A miniature local Osu! The next skill is Stealth, one of the most useful and used by me. Even if we don't take into account stabbing someone in the back, the ability to sneak past NPCs helps to acquire many useful things, including quest items. Perhaps the most useful and interesting is Crafting, the ability to craft your own gear with useful stats. The question arises: what's so special about it? And the fact that here your own gear turns out to be better than what is sold or found. Therefore, high-quality parts are found much less often than purple items and are much more valuable. So, I put together a great set of items!


Also, in conjunction with leveling up skills from a certain combat branch, you have the opportunity to choose a fate. This is a thing that gives additional stats and abilities. For example, the dodge roll, available to everyone initially, is replaced with a blink for mages. And multi-class heroes have even more cool things, well done.
In the end, it turned out to be a game where you constantly fight, level up stats and skills, search for treasures, and pickpocket corpses. Oh my god, it's... THE PERFECT RPG...
I liked it, despite the fact that the game cannot provide any challenge. Except at the beginning, when the player has nothing, and in the middle, and even then I suspect that the damage from some strong enemies was high only because I was running around in low-level armor with bonuses to stealth. Pleasant, relaxing gameplay, atmospheric locations, beautiful. I wouldn't want to play it again, at least not now. It's too easy, there are practically no interesting alternative ways to develop a character. Perhaps it's a bit too long.

7/10.