A Short Review of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

I've written this short review as a challenge for the Decision Based Gaming Union in Gamespot. 

  

After wading through the near realistic graphics of Skyrim, the cartoonish graphics and heavy emphasis on fast paced battles in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning came to me as a pleasant surprise. Initially, the contrast was a bit shocking, but I quickly got hooked in to the beautifully refreshing fights and intriguing story.

The game started off with an interesting story, which I soon discovered to be a multi-faceted one with many side quests and a long main quest. Just like Skyrim, there are factions and completing their quests gives the player a lot of XP and some unique armor sets that cannot be obtained otherwise. 

I was having a great time jumping from one quest to another, but soon, the number of side quests became overwhelming. I started forgetting why I am doing these quests, and I started skipping all dialogues frantically. The battles also got stale after I unlocked some powerful moves.

It was possible to enlist the service of a "fateweaver" to redistribute skill points and abilities on the fly to alter between a warrior, a rogue and a mage. However, in reality, this is not too interesting as the rogue class is extra powerful, and you really don't need to yield anything other than the faeblade and daggers to win most of the battles. 

The game started with a lot of promise, but ended up being a somewhat bland game with repetitive quests and boring battles. It took me a lot of willpower and effort to go through the final hours of the game, and the ending was even worse.