A third-person action combat adventure set in a high fantasy realm of great scale and boasting about as much total playtime as last year's grand open-world epic, The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, 38 Studios' Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning will inevitably be compared to that multiple 2011 Game of the Year award winner.

With bestselling fantasy author R.A. Salvatore at the helm of Amalur's staggering 10,000-year backstory, you're guaranteed an intricate and well-told tale. Your journey begins with tailoring the gender, race, and overall look of your character. Story-wise, you have already died before even taking control once, but luckily, you are mysteriously and magically revived through a Lazarus-like contrivance. Having rebuffed the concept of fate, you are allotted an extraordinary amount of power and potential, a pivotal element of the story that extends to gameplay. 

It is from that extraordinary attention to lore that Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning garners its strength. You will encounter a plethora of non-playable characters all searching for aid. Certainly, plenty of these side-quests amount to little more than collect this or destroy that, but it is the great narrative that pushes those regularly lackluster side jobs into exciting territories. If you have the time to listen, most NPCs have some neat tale to share and their need for X-item or the defeat of Y-foe has an engrossing story to accompany it. It took me nearly a dozen hours to continue on with the main quest after surfacing from the introductory sequence, due to the abundance of intriguing pursuits on offer.

Really, the only possibly off-putting element to this story's amount of detail is the amount of detail. It can become drawn out, overly complicated, or even daunting to those just interested in getting to the action. You‘re able to skip the details, but that would be a disservice to the tale of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. However, if action is all that interests you, you're in luck.

If there is one single thing that Amalur does right (and it does a lot right, mind you), it is the combat. For all of the praise that the previously mentioned Skyrim had for offering a wonderfully realized setting, supplemented with quality narratives, its combat system was inelegant; a blemish on an otherwise great game.  Kingdoms of Amalur's combat, thankfully, is just as good as, if not better than, the rest of its quality parts. With a fair focus on intense real-time action, Amalur embraces arcade-like combat. With plenty of combinations surrounding the various primary and secondary weapons (e.g. staves, Fae blades, and deadly chakrams), diverse skill sets (e.g. persuasion, stealth), and cost-effective magic (e.g. a devastating meteor attack), the combat is nothing short of invigorating.

Similarly,  Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning's setting is a refreshing change of pace from modern RPGs. While sporting stunning vistas, most of Amalur's contemporaries are woefully devoid of enemy variety, and while you will still have to take arms against gigantic spiders (a genre staple!), the distinct selection of colorful and hideous creatures you will come across in your trek is astounding. Likewise, the surroundings are geologically and architecturally unique in their own right (the seaside metropolis of Rathir is stunning in its verticality). Exploring the land, you will find that, while it's not as open-world as something like Skyrim, it's still very non-linear. The settings may feel a bit restrained, but that inhibited nature keeps the entire experience organized and consistent. Indeed, the art direction in character and setting design and placement is superb.

One of the most-welcome features that Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning brings to the table is the ability of respecification (or respec). Being able to respec, with the aid of particular characters called Fateweavers, allows you to change your customized character's abilities throughout the game. Are you focusing primarily on the brute strength of a warrior, but dozens of hours later you fancy the skills of an accomplished mage, or even a balanced mix of the two? Respeccing lets you do that. You‘re not locked into a particular type of character for the complete duration of the lengthy quest. For a game that can easily reach upward of 100 hours, this flexibility keeps gameplay from getting stale. Currency is surprisingly easy to come by, so paying the asking price is well worth the option to alter play styles dramatically.

Amalur certainly is not without its flaws. A few technical hiccups and strange design choices here and there can take you out of the experience (like ranged combat's unrewarding auto-aim feature), but they do not detract from the game's overall high quality. With days upon days worth of content, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning stands on its own as perhaps the strongest, most realized game to debut in this young year.

GameDynamo's Score for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (PS3)

	Score	Description
Graphics	85	Hugely diverse creatures are interspersed through beautifully unique settings. Some drops in frame-rate, but nothing substantial.
Sound	82	To complement the involved story, quality voice acting pervades the game, with most roles approached with a high level of polish. The soundtrack is appropriate, but unmemorable.
Gameplay	92	The game tackles combat with conviction. The various systems in place are executed seamlessly.
Play Value	95	Dozens upon dozens of hours of content top off the already 25-30ish hours long main quest.
Final Score	95	Its deep lore is only rivaled by its flexible character customization and advancement.

[View Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning images / screenshots +]
[Watch Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning videos / trailers +]
[View more Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning articles (news, previews, reviews) +]
[View Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning cheats / guides +]

Stories from around the web