Posted by zeroinitiate on Feb 22, 2012 in Commentary, Reviews |

What’s Good:
Let’s get the obvious out: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning’s strongest point is its combat system. If you’re a fan of action games like God of War and Devil May Cry you’ll find that there’s a lot to love. You can fight as a warrior, mage, thief or any combination of the three. You can shoot with bows and spells. If fighting up close is your preferred method then you can hack with swords, hammers and daggers. It’s easy to switch from one style to another.

What fighting and action game aficionados will appreciate is how fluid combat is. You can attack, cancel your attack, roll, block, shoot, cast spells and then some. Your weapon of choice and character’s skills mostly determine how you fight, and with at least two weapons per class you can do the math and count the ways you can kill your foes. Reckoning does an excellent job of combining an RPG with a solid, satisfying combat system. You don’t sit back and let auto-attack do the fighting for you. You have to get in there and get your hands dirty.

What’s Bad:
The camera is annoying. The default view is a little too close and zooms out too slowly or too late to show that you have an opponent behind you. When you’re playing the game on Hard difficulty that annoyance becomes life-threatening. I mean, if I’m going to get hit let it be because I was reckless or inattentive, not because I couldn’t get a good view. I’m already fighting multiple monsters. I don’t need to fight with the camera.

Final Word:
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is a great game that does a lot of things right. And all that is outdone by the battle system. If you love fighting games or RPGs with solid combat then this title will provide an excellent experience.