Thursday, June 25, 2015

Platinum Watch #57: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning


PSN Level 28 - 38%

A couple years ago, I platinumed Ni No Kuni. I ended up loving all 85 hours I spent with that game. It was the first RPG I completed in probably a decade, since Pokemon Crystal. I tried picking up other RPGs (both Japanese i.e. Final Fantasy VII and western i.e. Fallout 3) during that decade, but they never appealed to me. But I picked them back up after Ni No Kuni, and slowly I am liking them more and more.



My first trophy in the game Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was on 8/1/2012. I played about 5 hours and put it down. I remember liking the combat, but RPGs were still a bit overwhelming for me back then. Nearly three years later, I picked it up where I left off, put another 60 hours in, and got the platinum trophy. And there are still many side quests that I did not complete. After about 50 hours of any game, I am usually satisfied; any time spent over that is usually monotonous and boring for me. Though I enjoyed it thoroughly, this game was not different.

The combat was really fun. It played like a good action game which I am always fond of but added in all the RPG elements I am starting to enjoy. It really is to bad the developer went bankrupt and never got to make the MMO this game was supposed to introduce. The pacing of the experience growth was perfect, never needing to grind, and (playing on hard) was fun and never frustrating.

In every RPG with inventory management, I always end up constantly being full or encumbered. I stopped playing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Fallout 3 solely for that reason. I have to pick everything up to keep or sell, and always keep redundant weapons. This game started off the same, so I hunted down inventory expansions until I maxed it, and leveled up a skill that let me part of the cost of an item or weapon when destroying it that way I didn't need to visit the shop to sell my junk so often. A neat feature this game has, (I've seen it in Borderlands too), is send an item as junk and sell or destroy all junk at the same time. Unlike in Borderlands, there is not an option to set an item as a favorite, which would have made item management even easier. The player shared stash is in one of 4ish player houses, but it would have been more convenient to have a stash in more places, even if I had to buy the house. By the end of the game, I didn't know what to spend my $2,000,000 on. Another positive was the unlimited saves the game lets you make, and it always keeps a recent auto-save, one after the tutorial, and one after the final boss.

Some negatives are the environments and dungeons often use the same layout re-skinned (or maybe even exactly the same) and could get confusing. Also, better quest management would be good. After so many side quests build up, 50+, there is no recommenced level, though they are in the order received or updated. Also, having the map up while selecting the quest so you can pick something close would also be preferable to switching between the 2 menus.

But all in all, it was a fun game, and a pretty easy platinum trophy if you have 65 hours.

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