Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

What a world, this fantasy kingdom of Amalur. A world in which bulbous-nosed forest spirits wear acorns as helmets and in which self-loving light elves make lofty speeches. A world in which adult topics about revenge and betrayal find just as much space as cuddly lovely things that almost hurt your teeth with the sugar sweetness.

It's just stupid that we're actually dead. Or at least it should be. Because at the beginning of the action-heavy role-playing game with the awkward name Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (in English »Kingdoms of Amalur: The Reckoning«) two gnomes push our supposedly lifeless body on a wobbly wooden cart towards the morgue. "It's amazing how intact it is," one of the Hutzelmanns is amazed, and immediately afterwards we find ourselves in the character editor. There, in addition to the appearance of our warrior, we also choose one of four races, each with its own advantages.

The Almani are reminiscent of the rough soldiers of Gondor from The Lord of the Rings and are particularly good smiths. As pirates, the Varani achieve lower prices when trading and pick locks in no time. As light elves, the Ljósálfar are familiar with herbal medicine and alchemy, while the dark elves Dokalfar prefer to assassinate silently.

Ultimately, the choice of race and the associated bonus are only relevant at the beginning. If you want, you can reinvent yourself over and over again in the course of the adventure, hang up all your talents for a fee and thus completely redistribute experience points that have already been used. In general, Reckoning always gives us every freedom to master the game as we want.

The prelude: (un) dead hero

Well, at the beginning of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning we are not dead at all. Or at least not entirely or only halfway.

In any case, this whole semi-deadness has to do with the mysterious stone of life, which we do not want to go into too much out of consideration for the plot.

Let's talk about the eponymous kingdoms of Amalur: The Tuatha Deohn, once peaceful dark elves, cover Amalur with death and ruin, the gnomes, humans and light elves have been fighting the overpowering enemy for ten years.

And only we (of course!) Can change the fate of the world and save the people with a special talent. So on into the fight!

The fights: action-heavy, but tactical

The feel of Reckoning is fast and snappy, a bit like the action hit Darksiders . If a huge troll storms towards us with a broad ax, we evade by rolling maneuvers, fire a few arrows in the meantime, confuse the cattle with quick changes of position, stab, pull us back again and let magic speak.

We also use keyboard shortcuts to activate special abilities that have to be recharged over and over again, but can be combined very well.

First we blow a horde of opponents out of the boots with a shock wave, then shoot razor-sharp spikes afterwards and finally finish off the stunned troop with a hail of comets.

So we cut our way through stone trolls, green-skinned ogres, goblins, fluttering fairies, mighty dragons or six-headed hydras, who alternately want to poison us, grill us with electric shocks or throw the offspring to eat. This is as whimsical as it sounds, because the fights not only look cool thanks to the chic animations and effects, they also play as action-packed as they are tactical.

However, the PC control has its pitfalls. While sideways rolling, shield blocks and the selection of special talents with a gamepad are very easy to do, beginners in particular will quickly knot their fingers on the classic PC combination of mouse and keyboard.

Although the control can be freely configured, you can still tell Reckoning at every nook and cranny that it is designed for gamepads.

In particular, the inventory, which is divided into ugly registers, even tops the fiddly Skyrim in that respect. Comparison statistics typical for the genre do not pop up automatically, but must first be selected with the right mouse button and then activated. And the icons for weapons and armor are so big that we have to laboriously scroll up and down when we are lugging around more than five pieces.

On the other hand, thanks to the precise mouse, we have far more control over the camera than is the case on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. An elementary advantage over the consoles, especially in the numerous fights.

The talent system: do what you want

With completed opponents and mastered quests, we collect experience points that we can freely invest in three talent trees (magic, power and sophistication).

Unlike in other role-playing games, we don't have to concentrate on one type of skill, but can also train a broadsword-wielding villain who likes to shoot lightning around him.

Nevertheless, planning is a must. And a detailed analysis of the talent trees. So magic doesn't necessarily come first in Reckoning; Attacks like the chain lightning or its upgraded variant called Stormwind are intended more to support. It's only very late in the game that we unlock really devastating spells like the previously mentioned meteor shower.

Upgrading the weapons in their own sub-talent trees is much more useful. Our chakram scythes, for example, can be poisoned or charged with fire and steered to the target as a boomerang in order to defeat snipers from a safe distance. Those who prefer to do arcs can fire several volleys, rely on a hail of arrows, poison the projectiles or set them on fire.

Hammers, broadswords and longswords can also be upgraded, although an unsightly balance weakness soon becomes apparent: With one-handed we strike so quickly that even large ogres with powerful armor hardly stand a chance.

Two-handed hands, on the other hand, are imprecise, we often knock on the wrong side and take a long swing, which makes it easy to block our strokes. So we have little choice; The one-handed tool is preferred, even if we actually want a large cutting tool.

After all, we can buy back and redistribute talent points that have already been invested. The risk of "killing oneself" is therefore comparatively low.

The storyline: great, if you get involved

In Reckoning there is not only fighting, but also talking. The dialogues are reminiscent of Dragon Age or Mass Effect , but without reaching their impressive staging.

Basically, we only choose a keyword-like thought from which the conversation (filmed lame and, due to the rigid facial expressions of the characters, always emotionless) results. In terms of the variety of answers, Reckoning is in no way inferior to its great role models. We can allow ourselves blasé starry airs, blackmail our counterpart, act helpful or give them the cold shoulder.

However, our approach usually only affects the amount of the reward; We are not loving or spinning enemies with any of the Amalur factions, and we cannot really influence history in this way either. But never mind, because the plot from the pen of bestselling author RA Salvatore (Forgotten Realms) feels like a well-written fantasy novel.

So we look behind the facade of the proud Ljósálfar, who actually see themselves defeated, and their high king Titarion, who no longer believes in salvation. Elsewhere we meet gnomes who have built the stately city of Adessa with temples and statues in the middle of the desert because they hope to be out of reach of the Tuatha.

However, you have to get involved with the game and the way it tells its story. Because a red thread that leads you from one dramatic event to the next, as in Dragon Age, is missing in Reckoning.

The game world: big, but tubular

Kingdoms of Amalur is huge. The landscape offers a lot of variety, and apart from the main quest, we can hire ourselves out with factions such as the Black Hand killers or the thieves' guild of travelers or help the inhabitants of the numerous cities.

However, Reckoning is nowhere near as exciting as Skyrim, for example. On the one hand, this is due to the harmoniously built, but relatively poorly detailed and tubular landscapes, which apart from a few hidden treasure chests and smaller caves offer hardly any worth exploring.

On the other hand, apart from the main plot, the program only sets us standard quests of the brand »Kill five bears« or »Break ten boxes«, which quickly gets boring. If we ignore too many hard-working tasks, but we lack important experience points in order to be able to clean up sufficiently among the opponents later in the game. Skyrim does this better too.

The technology: outdated, but consistent

Technically, Reckoning is as double-edged as our hero's sword. On the one hand, the role play impresses with its harmonious comic look, the fairytale lighting and elaborate character animations in the battles.

On the other hand, we look at spongy textures, landscapes with few polygons and the bland vegetation. As a result, Reckoning is miles behind the current genre competition like Skyrim or The Witcher 2 . There is hardly any reason to criticize the sound. The magic and combat effects pop properly, the music always fits what is happening, and the German speakers do a very good job.