KoA: Reckoning - Preview @ VG247

[Dhruin]

It's VG247's time for a Reckoning preview, with a number of quotes from Ken Rolston:

We’re shown long-range chakrams – “glowing magical frisbees”, says Ken – that give mage players the same action-game combat thrill as a warrior’s swords. Rogues’ daggers are cool-looking dual weapons, and used in combat with teleporting and poison spells, they’re as flashy as they are deadly. Kingdoms of Amalur doesn’t restrict you by class, letting you flesh out warrior, mage and rogue skill trees concurrently, creating cross-over classes tailored to your playing style.
“Your skills should be customisable in the same way as your clothes,” Ken believes. “It’s not just about those three archetypes, it’s about making the hybrids inbetween playable. I think people’s role-playing impulses are to be someone somewhere inbetween those.”
“We wanted to win on the four basic things – exploration, narrative, advancement and combat – and we wanted combat to be our leader. We wanted that to be the sizzle that was better than anything else.”

More information.

 

[Fantasm]

In the comments section of that article is a 20-minute video of the gameplay presentation given at PAX East. My google skills must suck, because a previous search I did there didn't reveal any long videos from that.

Overall, it looks very nice, but the biggest thing that jumped out at me was how game-y the combat was. One second you're holding a big two-handed sword or hammer, and then when the enemy moves in, you hit the block button and instantly are holding a giant shield out in front of you. Once the attack is parried, you release the block button, the shield disappears and is instantly replaced by your giant weapon, and you move in for the kill. Likewise, you instantly switch back and forth between your big sword and your GIANT hammer, and can do so several times in the same battle if you want. I guess the weapons doing that aren't so bad (it's like hitting 'w' in Diablo 2), but the shield thing looks really video-gamish.

It kind of reminded me of how a side-by-side fighting game might be implemented if the characters were using weapons and shields to do their attacks and blocks. No attempt at realism, just make everything instantly happen to give you that action rush.

I honestly can't tell if I'm upset by this or not, right now I just find it an interesting design decision. All RPG's face tough decisions on how much to sacrifice realism for fun gameplay, or vice versa, and so far the realism appears to be pretty much thrown out the window for this game (that appears to apply to the art style as well, though it still looks great IMO). I guess that does fit in with all the nifty finishing moves and over-the-top spell effects. And I gotta admit, it does look kinda fun.

Using that shield sure does look weird, though...

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Misreading by me :

We’re shown long-range krimskrams