KoA: Reckoning - Retrospective @ The Rec Room

Couchpotato

Part-Time News-bot
Joined
October 1, 2010
Messages
36,179
Location
Spudlandia
The Rec Room has a short retrospective for Kingdoms of Amalur.

So what’s my point? Why am I wasting almost 800 words about a middling game that’s almost two years old? Well, there’s a lesson to be learned from Kingdoms of Amalur, one I hope all the developers who complain about the cost of making modern games pay attention to. 38 Studios proved to the industry that bigger isn’t always better and that constantly adding more often leads to less of a coherent whole. Amalur’s biggest failing is that it tried to do too much. It’s a sixty hour game loaded with crummy dialogue and frustrating crafting systems, burdened by a tedious interface and a presentation that feels incomplete. Had 38 Studios narrowed its vision and focused on doing just a few things and doing them well, we might remember this game and its developer very differently. After all, a new AAA game costs $59.99 whether it’s sixty hours long or twenty hours long, whether it’s written by a big name like R.A. Salvatore or some starry-eyed intern with an associate’s degree and a bunch of new ideas.
More information.
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2010
Messages
36,179
Location
Spudlandia
This guy's assessment of KoA is spot on. Combat was fun and the graphics were pretty, but the rest was pretty generic and forgettable. All of the big name people connected with the game definitely phoned in their work - there is nothing that a much cheaper artist or writer could have does as good or better.
 
Joined
Mar 7, 2012
Messages
190
This sounds spot on to the issues I'm having with KoA atm. This is the third time I'm trying to fight my way through the game, and again I feel the struggle to keep it up. There comes a point where an open world can become too open as well.
 
Joined
Jan 8, 2014
Messages
474
Location
in a figment of my imagination
KoA had one very fun major quest line and the rest of the game was just meh. Way too much grindy combat for a single-player game.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
8,821
Also the vanilla game was too easy. I have played the game over 200 hours with Heartcore Mod. I generally agree with the reviewer, this would have been a classic if they had adopt a more concentrated design approach. Main quest and main faction quests are fine, combat is enjoyable with different play styles for different weapons (and challenging with Heartcore Mod). Also loot, it's one of those few games which I searched for new armor and weapons. Because every new rare armor or weapon looks unique unlike for ex Skyrim. But too much filler content, that's sure.
 
Joined
Oct 30, 2006
Messages
1,181
Location
Sigil
I think the best description I can come up with for the game is singleplayer MMO. The worst parts of the MMO genre coupled with not enough of the best parts of a proper singleplayer RPG.
 
Don't get why some people still spend time talking about KoA 2 years later, considering how bad of a game it was. I guess it's like rubbernecking at a car wreck.
 
Joined
Sep 26, 2007
Messages
3,444
The little will I had to keep playing just turned into dust

Ah! Don't let us old curmudgeons kill your joy, little vamp. There is several hours of good fun in the game before it gets too bad. Of course, if you've done the House of Ballads quest line, you've seen the best of the game. It goes downhill pretty fast after that.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
8,821
It was a fair game that was one patch away from being a good game (but not great). It's rough when the legacy of all that work and effort is based on unpatched release code. They were taking lots of feedback and had lots of improvements planned for the first patch before the mothership had to shutter its doors...
 
Joined
Mar 10, 2009
Messages
255
I have it as I bought it on some sale for IIRC $5, didn't play it yet. Is it good, fair or blah, can't say. But from others I do remember saying stuff like this:
- it's a grinder evolution where not just mobs but also chests respawn on area transition
- the story/lore is lame/boring/uninspired/cliche
- quests are meh
- no (quality) puzzles
- combat animations are eyecandy
- instead of patching the core game, two DLC were released

I can only say this. Studio 38 went down the toilet? GOOD RIDDANCE!
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
Don't get why some people still spend time talking about KoA 2 years later, considering how bad of a game it was. I guess it's like rubbernecking at a car wreck.

It's probably because it was extremely hyped and a lot of people were excited about it, myself included.

Such a huge disappointment merits thought and reflection - and I think that's quite appropriate.

The same can be said of games like MoO3 and Outpost. Some games just need to stay in memory as a warning to future developers.
 
I have it as I bought it on some sale for IIRC $5, didn't play it yet. Is it good, fair or blah, can't say. But from others I do remember saying stuff like this:
- it's a grinder evolution where not just mobs but also chests respawn on area transition
- the story/lore is lame/boring/uninspired/cliche
- quests are meh
- no (quality) puzzles
- combat animations are eyecandy
- instead of patching the core game, two DLC were released

I can only say this. Studio 38 went down the toilet? GOOD RIDDANCE!

Monsters are respawn but not with area transition, at least not with every area transition. Also respawn with less monsters than before. Also chests don't respawn.
 
Joined
Oct 30, 2006
Messages
1,181
Location
Sigil
Yeah, I don't recall the area transition or chest thing happening, but joxer got the rest right. It's basically a low-budget MMO without any other players.
 
Joined
Sep 26, 2007
Messages
3,444
Well, I think that KoA: Reckoning looks and feels like a SP MMO because it was a test shot (or proof of concept) for an MMO.

Oh and BTW, in contrast to this retrospect, Scot's post about Dishonored is crap!
 
Last edited:
Joined
Jan 10, 2008
Messages
4,721
Well, I think that KoA: Reckoning looks and feels like a SP MMO because it was a test shot (or proof of concept) for an MMO.

Oh and BTW, in contrast to this retrospect, Scot's post about Dishonored is crap!
This one here right? Can't say I agree with him as I enjoyed the game.:mad:

Link- http://therec-room.com/to-play-or-not-to-play-dishonored/

Why gamers might want to skip Dishonored: The Unreal Engine has aged worse than Lindsay Lohan. Dishonored deals with some serious moral questions, but it’s hard to take any of them seriously because of how similar the game looks to a low rent Pixar movie wannabe. While important characters were busy yapping at me about important information, I was wondering why the hell their hands were so big.

Similarly, the environments feel like they weren’t fully realized. The setting looks less like a living, breathing city than an overly designed hodge-podge of set pieces. Do people live here? What are their daily lives like? What forces, commercial or cultural, shaped the city? It’s impossible to tell, and it’s all pretty ugly.

The silent first person protagonist doesn’t really work, either. Corvo’s got a distinctive look on the game’s box art and advertising that implies a tortured, complicated character, but nothing of his personality comes across. Many exposition scenes leave the player with serious questions, none of which Corvo ever asks. He’s lead around by the nose in a way not dissimilar to Bioshock’s Jack but without reason, and thus it doesn’t make any sense and becomes frustrating at times.
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2010
Messages
36,179
Location
Spudlandia
Back
Top Bottom