Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning... almost

I really like Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. A lot. I like it more than I ever would have expected. I like it, but I don't love it. Reckoning has great combat for all classes and is absolutely beautiful, with color and vibrancy reminiscent of the recent Trine 2 [my review]. The leveling/experience system is well thought out, easy to use, and encourages experimentation with easy access to respecing. The story is interesting and the voice acting is great, much better than the often-compared-to Skyrim. There is a lot to love in Reckoning, but it fails at building character and personality, making me care about the story, or satisfying my desire for unique loot, all of which leave me only liking a game I could have easily loved.

More so than anything else, the lack of character and personality keeps Reckoning from reaching "of all-time" greatness. If the gameplay and visuals of Reckoning were mixed with the story and world (story) of Dragon Age, I'd be in heaven despite not believing in heaven. So many characters in Reckoning lack a personality and even the few who are interesting only stick around for a short time or aren't fleshed out to a satisfying degree. There are characters I've met and wanted to know better—much, much better— but the game never gave me a chance and it wouldn't matter since my character is an emotionless mute who is litter more than a pretty mannequin.

The lack of character and personality is so much more disappointing because the voice acting is surprisingly good across the board and trumps what many similar games offer. But when I don't care about hearing what they say most of the time, it ends up as a waste of talent as I read the text and skip the vocals. Reckoning has been compared to Fable III often and is better in most ways, but I remember more of my character interactions in Fable III than Reckoning, and I haven't played Fable III since 2010; I last played Reckoning about an hour ago.

The loot system is far more limited than I expected and reminds me of Borderlands with plenty of crap to find with different stats, but more often than not items look one of a few ways and there's not much in terms of variety—my character likely has many twins all over the world. Unique sets exists and are fine and dandy, but the majority of loot found often goes straight to my junk pile, waiting to be sold in bulk with all the crappy potions and worthless books for a decent amount of gold. It's not the biggest issue, but it's disappointing for a game where I have to look at my character all of the time.

I've put many hours into Reckoning and I regret none of them; I just look at my hours spent and imagine how much better they could be, how they could have been some of the best hours in years and, instead, leave somewhat disappointed. Reckoning is very much a "in the moment" game and I doubt I'll remember much of it in six months, which is sad when the game does so much so well. If you're still on the fence, I recommend the demo which is a great representation and offers a solid forty-five minutes to explore, battle, quest, and experience much of what Reckoning has to offer in its full-fledged form. The demo is available on all platforms (X360, PS3, and PC).