Come one, come all, I'll show you the byproduct of when I transform our MMO into a third person action game!

To your left you'll see many sights, underbaked writing with a bogstandard setting wrapped around the most Fable rip-off narrative of "the fate of the world is entirely up to you!" To your right, waltz by Warcraft-like models and tedious boring sidequests with spam click and dodge combat that is both slow, time consuming, and also bereft of much depth other than its card system.

As a bonus, I'll even toss in some base fantasy music and really sleepworthy aesthetics. Sound good? Nice. (5/10)

What happens when a retired MLB Pitcher uses his career savings to start a video game development studio? A story more interesting than the game itself.
Directly after retiring, avid World of Warcraft player Curt Schilling wanted to make his own MMO. Using his own funds in combination with a $75-million USD loan from the state of Rhode Island, 38 Studios was born. With an all-star cast of R.A. Salvatore, Todd McFarlane, Grant Kirkhope, & Ken Rolsten, the team began their work on their newest MMORPG. 38 Studios was eventually forced to scale back their premier ambition to a single-player RPG. Despite the change in priorities, Kingdom's of Amalur: Reckoning would sell over 1-million copies!... it needed to sell 3-million to break even. Unable to pay their debts (at one point an anonymous personal check was used to settle a company loan), 38 Studios filed for bankruptcy after only one game. Rhode Island was left with $75-million in debt. Schilling, bereft of his life-savings, left to go rant on TV shows about much he hates the gays and what not.

As much as I'd like to report Amalur was a gem of a passion project unfortunately doomed to fail, it's a pretty generic, monotonous game. Many notable talents worked on it, but there's an overall lack of focus. Everyone all did their work, tossed in their ideas, but no one moulded them into a cohesive vision. The original intent to create an MMO shows with how massive but sparsely populated expanses are with meaningful content. It's a protracted, boring, save-the-world from some evil on the other side of the world affair clearly aping other (better) games.
You'll find more entertainment watching a documentary on how Amalur was made than actually playing it.

When big new action RPGs come out I am very wary because it is very difficult to create a convincing believable world without forcing it onto the player. Amalur fails in this sense and feels extremely forced and weak in almost every way. The game is just too big for its britches and tries to do too much. There is too much game here that feels empty and boring and the game seriously lacks polish everywhere you look.

Let’s start with the story. The story, lore, environment, characters, all of it just feels forced and not memorable at all. Almost every aspect of the story is just boring and I could not care for anything even if I tried. There are too many unpronounceable names and just too much thrown at you early on. Games like The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Fable, and other action RPGs dole it out slowly, but also have names and lore that is just memorable. It just doesn’t click here and you will notice this about 3-4 hours into the game. I looked all over the place desperately trying to find that one quest or character that would make everything click but I just couldn’t. The story has something to do with Fey and a war, and yeah I lost track early on because there is just too much distraction here.


It doesn’t help that the game is so hard to navigate. There is a fast travel system via the map, but the world is just way too big and empty. There are no memorable landmarks and every place just starts looking the same after a while. The game forces level grinding on you so you are locked out of areas due to enemies killing you in one hit until you level up more. Leveling up takes so long in this game and forces you to do these side quests too and ultimately makes you want to quit playing. The menus are clunky and confusing and I still couldn’t really figure out the crafting systems even 10 hours into the game. There is just so much in this game that needs polish, but the game just needs to be seriously downsized.

There are way too many pointless and boring side quests. I could count 30+ side quests in my journal at one time that spread across the entire map. You feel completely lost and have no idea where to start, it also doesn’t help that the game is just way too long. That is fine in a game where you love the lore and characters, but here you just want it to end. Too many characters are introduced too fast, they have boring personalities, and all just look and sound the same after a while. I swear I was introduced to 50+ characters by the 15-hour mark and I felt my brain swim in the confusion. I got tossed to many names of races, characters, magical relics, landmarks, towns, buildings, weapons, and other things that my brain just imploded after a while.


The combat is at least decent because it relies on skill, but the level grinding makes the game really hard. You can use a secondary weapon and a primary, but leveling up your character is also confusing when you start. The tree skill is odd and lets you upgrade skills outside your class which I found pointless. If I’m a mage why would I want to increase my heavy armor and two-handed weapon skill? When the levels don’t come very often you can’t afford to deviate like that, so you just stick to your class skills. The controls are pretty good for combat with parries, counter attacks, dodges, blocks, and magic skills. The animations are fluid, and when I was in combat that was the only time I forgot about this huge confusing open world.

That is probably the only strong point in Amalur besides the pretty art style. However, the game is technically underwhelming and looks like it was made in 2006 or 2007. At the end of a session, you will sit back and not remember a single thing about the game’s story, characters, and you will be overwhelmed by the amount of pointless and seemingly endless side quests that give very little reward. Hell, even the looting system is odd with magic rune dispelling on chests and lock picking as well as picking wild plants. Sound familiar? Well, it would with one of the head guys having worked on Oblivion. All the mechanics around everything in this game are just so unpolished and they feel wrong.


After about 10 or so hours you will probably quit the game and not find any reason to go back. With boring pointless side quests of hunting animals, finding stupid items, and running around aimlessly around this boring huge open world you will call it quits. I had this game sitting on my computer for 10 months and I got in just under 20 hours and couldn’t find any incentive to go back. Even when I had no new games to play I couldn’t even load the game up. I thought about the level grinding, dozens of pointless side quests, and I couldn’t remember a single thing about the story or remember a single character’s name. The only redeeming thing about Amalur is the art style and combat. If you can stomach all this then go ahead, but most players will get bored quick.

So this is a game I had to try a few different times. When I originally bought and played this game back in 2018, I enjoyed it but ultimately dropped it after around ~20 hours. In 2020, I tried it again, only to drop it much more quickly (~3 hours). Recently, however, I once again decided to try this game again and I'm so glad I did.

Now, I don't think this game has the best worldbuilding ever made for the video game medium or anything, but I liked this game's world. Exploring and learning about the various regions, races, traditions, etc. was fascinating to me. I'd be lying if I didn't say my favorite part wasn't the combat and looting, however.

While the game was on the easier side (even while playing on the hardest difficulty), I still had great fun with the combat system and it's what made me want to keep giving this game more chances, and it finally clicked!

KoA is like a lower-budget Elder Scrolls game but with combat that's actually exciting. There are quite a few different weapons to choose from with unique movesets as well as spells. I've not played another game that really makes you feel like a battle mage as much as this one does. Cast a few spells til you're out of mana, jump in with your sword until it comes back, retreat, and fire off more magic. It's a very exciting and addicting combat system with lots of mobility and powerful attack options. You of course have your standard things like some enemies being weak or resistant to magic or physical damage, forcing you to change up your tactics.
The problem that I had with this game is that the fighting was too fun so I fought nearly everything I came across and was supremely overleveled by about halfway through the game.

Again, it's relatively low budget so there is a bit of clunk and some things that aren't perfect, but that just means it's even more disappointing that there was no sequel that could have improved upon this one's flaws.

The story concept was interesting but, to be honest, I didn't pay much attention to it. Haven't gotten around to it but I'll definitely pick up the remake at some point.

Kingdoms of Amalur is a game with a bit of a cult following that actually made a resurgence recently with the release of a remaster. Back in its day, though, you were more likely to get to know the game not because of reviews and such, but because of the controversy surrounding it -- specifically, the bankruptcy of its developer, 38 Studios. How they allegedly defrauded the state of Rhode Island out of millions to make a WoW-killer MMO that only ever saw a teaser trailer, and how Amalur was the only game they managed to put out.

If anything, Kingdoms of Amalur makes an incredible first impression. Far from the grittiness that plagued the generation it came out in, the game uses a lot of vibrant colors, which does a lot to further the fantasy setting and make every place feel wonderful and unreal. Environments are also highly detailed, whether they are indoors or outdoors.

It also plays in a fascinating way with the concept of Fate: every creature in this world has its destiny already decided from the start, and nothing they do will ever change it. Some people can actually look into the threads of Fate of others and can tell them when and how they'll die, and even that knowledge cannot save anyone.

This comes into play as a war begins right as the game starts. In this world, the races of humans, elves and Fae live in relative harmony with each other. Relative, because the immortal Fae dislike the mortal races, and vice versa, but isolation makes it so conflict is avoided. That is, until the Fae living to the east are corrupted by a usurper king, Gadflow, and become the Tuatha Deohn, or just Tuatha, for short.

Gadflow proceeds to lead these immortal warriors into a war to exterminate the mortal races and corrupt the remaining Fae. Humans and elves are screwed, because besides the fact that the Tuatha are immortal, the threads of Fate have been looked at: Gadflow is going to win this war, and no mortal creature is destined to live past his onslaught. That is, until you come in.

As the game starts, you are dead.

Well, not quite. You did die, but you awaken at Allestar Tower, to find that you have been resurrected by a magical apparatus called the Well of Souls. You're the first of the Well's successes, and also the last, since the Tuatha attack shortly after you awaken. After escaping the tower, you begin to realize that, because you were brought back to life, you are not bound to Fate -- everything it had in store it you only reached the moment of your death. You also don't exist in anyone else's Fate, so the moment you enter others' lives, their destinies can change.

This is the thing that stuck with me the most from the game, as it's a fascinating way to set up a chosen one type of narrative. It's not that your characeter is especially talented or has been named in some prophecy: much to the contrary, the reason they're special is exactly because they're nobody at all: a person that should not exist, and who now intrudes in their stories to change the ending. It's so good.

That said, it's just about the last time the game's story and setting feels remarkable, since most of what's left is painfully generic fantasy RPG lore. This game has a lot of lore and backstory around minimal details, which is quite amazing from a production standpoint, but I will admit, I skipped over a lot of it for finding it too bland.

This is a game from people who (purportedly) used to make MMOs. If you want to play a single-player MMO, Amalur is your game, in a good and in a bad way. The world is so vast, the character customization, deep, the lore, expansive, and the quests, so mundane. Every modern theme park MMO has its share of fetch quests, and they're certainly not missing here: useless quests that offer little benefit other than the dopamine hit from ticking a box.

Okay, that's a bit unfair to say: like the average MMO, some quest lines have more structure and wind up being very fun, like when you hunt an ancient witch who's possessing other mages, or free a Fae from a human prison, or craft items for a sleazy merchant who wants to scam people and who scolds you for making items of actual value.

Yes, I did say crafting, and in fact, there is more than one of such systems embedded into the game. You can brew potions, forge equipment, and craft gems to customize that equipment. The result of each will depend on the components used, their quality, and your skill level in that craft. There are nine skills in the game, and while you'll probably leave the crafting related ones for later, choosing what to upgrade next can take a few moments of your time.

This is but one of the facets of the character customization Amalur offers. Aside from customizing the character's race and appearance in the beginning of the game, you get to pick from several skills, and, most importantly, you get to mix and match their combat capabilities from the three skill trees. Amalur doesn't have a set-in-stone class system: it instead offers you three trees that you can spend points on at any time: Might, Finesse and Sorcery.

Yes, those trees do translate to Warrior, Rogue and Mage, which are the basic classes in every RPG ever, but Amalur's system has two advantages: One, you can make hybrid classes, with the game even honoring that choice by giving different perks depending on how your points are distributed; and two, the skill points can be reset for a relatively small fee at NPCs called Fateweavers, effectively enabling you to change your class whenever you want to.

It's hard not to be tempted to do so, too: the combat in Amalur is extremely satisfying. The same care that went into creating those detailed environments went into making fluid and great-looking combat animations. The fighting does a wonderful job at balancing a fast pace while still keeping the weight and the impact for each attack. Every weapon feels great to use, and the skills, especially the magic, feel really powerful.

Ultimately, however, the way so much of this game is just generic RPG elements -- run-of-the-mill quest design, theme-park like world, bland lore -- prevents it from forming an identity of its own. It's easy to remember the great combat and some of the plot, it's easy to enjoy the character customization, but everything else just meshes together.

Your enjoyment of the game will depend on how easily can you look past those unremarkable elements. Personally, I found it quite easy. There were moments where it felt like I was handling busywork, but after finishing it, I felt like going back and trying the game again, with a different class. Maybe I'll do that with Re-Reckoning, some time soon? Not if I ever want to move forward with my backlog, though.

I don't think I've encountered a western RPG that's quite as ... whimsical as this one? The art direction and atmosphere feel like something out of a storybook, it's just so fun and colorful and gives me the same feelings I got when I was a kid reading fantasy novels. Sort of Spiderwick wibes, almost? With the fae and the little critters that bite your ankles.

But the game's not wholesome, it's weirdly horny in spots, clearly written by male fantasy authors, so of course it needs to be horny and edgy and violent. And tbh you can tell that it was heavily inspired by thicc fantasy novels because the game is heavy on lore and worldbuilding but the actual plot is fuck-all and the characters are cardboard cutouts. It's the type of fantasy where the writers flex their imagination in terms of creature design but then turn around and put their female characters in leather belts instead of clothes, ya know? It feels very immature in spots, which adds to the sort of childlike feeling of it all. You're just a Cool Guy/Gal running around punching out bad guys and isn't that what you want? Look at this hot elf lady! Isn't she a hot elf?

Really fun combat, though! It feels and looks super fun and snappy, and it's unique in that it lets you have cool powers from the start, so you don't get that usual slog of having shitty and boring powers in the early game. It fully embraces the power fantasy of being the Chosen One. You get to upgrade those cool powers as you go (which makes them scalable and worth having even in the late game) and get even cooler ones (ye olde meteor summon), and take your character in whichever way you want across three different combat styles. Also, this game is the only one where you can effectively play as a battlemage, at least in my opinion.

Overall, I think this game is heavily underrated, has a really fun aesthetic style and fun gameplay, but the story is really boring and lacks any interesting characters to root for and the RP potential is weak to non-existent. It makes up for in style and fun-factor for what it lacks in storytelling. Defo give it a go if you haven't yet, but don't expect vintage BioWare levels of writing. It holds a special place in my heart despite its flaws simply because of how fun and whimsical and adorable it is.