Back in 2011 I, like a lot of people, was utterly obsessed with The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim. It wasn't the best of the Elder Scrolls games in my opinion, but it was still decent enough to spend hundreds of hours in, mod to hell and back, then spend many more hundreds of hours in.
Open World RPGs are my thing, even better when you can make your own character, and even better when you have multiple paths and options available for quest completion so you truly feel like you're role-playing your character and achieving different goals and playstyles.
Thus, in 2012 when Kingdoms of Amalur was released, I was excited! A new RPG to play, Penny-Arcade seemed super stoked about it, and people were comparing it to Skyrim. Obviously I was disappointed once I got my hands on it. It was hardly the open world thing that I was desperate to explore and I cursed everyone who dared claim it was even close to Skyrim.
I never really gave it a proper chance.
The game has since been bought by THQ and remastered, and was released today.
I only found out about this remaster a couple of weeks ago and endeavoured to give it another try now that I was no longer blinded by false hopes, this time determined to actually play the game and enjoy it for what it is.
First off, character customisation! Which is one of my favourite things in games. I love making people. I decided that I was going to make a rogue-ish character, so decided to go all femme fatale with her and gave her black hair, dark eye shadow, and shiny red lips. There's no new character options from what I can tell and what is available isn't overly exciting but it's better than say, Andromeda, where you can't even customise the presets properly.
If there was one thing I remember actually liking from the non-remastered edition so many years ago, it was that the combat was fun.
Turns out the combat still is!
Lots of colours, zoomy zoominess, flashing weapons and weapon effects. Just the type of thing that attracts the eye and entices you to keep on finding things to attack.
Loot isn't disappointing either. There are chests everywhere, at least half the bodies you murder can be looted, and as you invest level-up points into a particular perk you can find even moar things.
I'm also pleased that the Special Deliveries Cache is still available. One of the things I was excited about back in 2012 was that if I played the Mass Effect 3 demo, I'd get some goods in Kingdoms of Amalur. In this remaster, I still have those goods!
Not that I'm going to be wearing them... on this character anyway. This lady shall be a rogue and the N7 gear is bit more warrior-y. It's still nice to know that they're still there though, amongst other special goods.
It's important to note though that the moment you take the special items out of the chest, they scale to your level. So don't grab everything all at once.
Not that you'd even have the inventory space to grab everything all at once. 😜
The graphics seem nice, though I'm going to be completely honest here and say that I really don't see that much of a difference from the original Kingdoms of Amalur compared to this remaster? It looks a bit darker maybe, more contrasting, but overall I'd say the textures and graphics are pretty much exactly how they were before.
Which makes me wonder just what, exactly, was "remastered" here?
To verify my thoughts on this, I found a video on IGN that compares graphics from the 2012 version and today's version and it looks exactly as I just proclaimed -- it's darker with more contrast and that's about it. Maybe a tiny bit of sharpness sharpening things up, also. Not a great overhaul.
You can see for yourself here:
https://www.ign.com/videos/kingdoms-of-amalur-re-reckoning-graphics-comparison-2012-vs-2020
It's still a pretty game though.
I think my main incentive in playing it, however, is finally giving it the chance that I failed to give it so many years ago. From my initial impressions, there is really nothing drastic that's changed and I might as well have just gotten a texture pack to dress the old version with.
🤷♀ shrugs ~ idk 🤷♀
I keep in mind though that this is the attempt of another company trying to breathe some life into this old game, and if successful perhaps it will get a sequel, or something. At least it's not money-grubbing EA.
At the moment, I'm intending on keeping on playing it. To finally experience and finish the game after stashing it away, forgotten amongst the hundreds of random things in my Steam library. It's just... I'm now wondering if buying the remaster was really worth it.
At least with the Fate edition, new content will be released at some point next year. Probably not worth the $40 AUD I just spent though.
You can find it on the steam store here
Until next time...
Thank you for stopping by! 🙃