The Boggarts were interesting creatures, they looked like something you would find out of Terry Gilliam movie, small creatures dressed in masks that resemble Zelda’s Majora’s mask. What was very neat about these creatures (there were five onscreen at one time, I believe) is that they had plans of attack. With every game you have a trigger that can set enemies running at you. Sometimes with groups like this you can set each character off individually, thus avoiding a gang tackle type of fight. Regretfully for the main character in Reckoning, the ‘trip point’ for the enemies sent them all attacking at once. Now you are probably imagining these five little characters surrounding our main character and doing repetitive hitting, kicking, etc.; that’s not the case. While certainly there were individual attacks, there were also special group attacks the Boggarts would set off during the fight. The challenge was to get them before they organized these powerful group attacks. While I can’t be for certain how powerful the creatures really are, Nelson assured everyone that the main character in this pre-alpha demo had been stacked with weapons and upgrades to survive the attack. During the fight with the Boggarts, the main character beat one of the poor creatures to the point where everything slowed down in the game and a ‘quick time event’ indicator popped up the screen. Before anyone could ask, Nelson shot down the notion that this was a QTE and explained that it was a ‘fate kill’ option. Basically, the fate kill is a really fun and creative way to kill a creature. During a fate kill the animation would slow during an attack, an onscreen indicator would pop up and request that the player push a button repeatedly. That button would correspond directly to a circular meter around the entire fate kill indicator. As they pressed the button in the demo, the meter would fill up and it would have to fill up before the character made contact with the enemy. Each creature in the game, as it was explained to us, has a different type of fate kill. It’s massively destructive and it can change small elements in the overall story when performed, though it was not explained how such a thing would affect the story (they were mum on things here and there). One point that Nelson did explain is that if a fate kill wasn’t successfully pulled off that it wouldn’t result in a disastrous situation.
After disposing of the Boggarts, the demo moved to another portion of Dalentarth, where you ran into some relics. At this point, R.A. Salvatore, the story creator, explained that the worn down relics have purpose for being in the game, though they may not affect the player in Reckoning. Nelson backed Salvatore up by saying that there was 10,000 years of history built by Salvatore for the story and that those specific relics (that looked like left over columns) had a reason/purpose for being where they were. It provided some depth to the world and another dimension that RPGs normally don’t carry with them, as most want to contain their world within the restricted time the player is exploring in the current game. Anyway, once beyond the relics, a second fight was started with a creature called a Banshaen. The Banshaen (pictured below) is a snake-like creature with a fish head.
(Banshean)
Sound effects helped this portion of the demo out before the fight even began, as we could hear the creature breathing viciously as it laid on a stone slab curled up. As soon as our main character got close enough, the trigger point was set off and the Banshaen awoke. The first thing everyone in the room noticed as with the scaly detail of the thing. The light reflected perfectly off it to show the greasy skin texture that it sported. Again, it’s one of those little things that visually give gamers a healthy idea of what type of creature this actually was. As soon as the fight started the Banshaen let out this gross gurgle and out of the thing’s mouth popped a grotesque, veiny egg that hated a warrior called a Murghan. The Murghan is like a skinny version of The Creature From the Black Lagoon (movie, google it) and it sported a trident. The Murghan in this demo came in a trio (three eggs, three Murghans) and if the main character gave them enough time they would work together to unleash powerful special moves. As Nelson explained during this fight, you’ll have two things to focus on; killing the Banshaen and fighting off the Murghan. If you don’t kill the Banshaen she will keep producing eggs, but if you don’t kill the Murghan (or at least defend against them) they will keep coming after the main character. It was, to say the least, a very interesting and difficult fight.
Shortly after the scene we were taken out of the beautiful world of Dalentarth and put into a third world called Urul-Tusk.
Urul-Tusk
The best comparison I can make when it comes to describing what Urul-Tusk looked like is to point your attention towards Bioware’s Dragon Age game. Inside of DA there is a level where you have to make it through a creepy underground mountain area. The walls in this area are worn, there are ruins everywhere and it just gives a horrible vibe of death all around. This is how Urul-Tusk looks and feels.
Getting back to the demo, our main character changed from a warrior class to a mage class for the Urul-Tusk stage. The mage class was interesting to see in action. When you picture mage class type characters in RPGs you always picture a lot of restriction to their fighting. Typically, they are the weakest link on the chain of characters and the hardest to complete a game with. Mark Nelson explained to us, as Curt Schilling reiterated throughout the demo, that the mage class can certainly do what we all expect it to do, but they could also carry around swords and be half mage/warrior classes. This was interesting to see in the demo, as it added a bit more depth to a class of character that generally didn’t do much expect heal people in the party and kill from a far. Seeing the mage in the pre-alpha demo actually sport a weapon not called a staff was refreshing to a genre that needed some refreshing to it. Anyway, for the majority of the time spent in Urul-Tusk, the mage was going around killing things with spells and two TRON-like discs, which were actually quite badass. The enemies during this portion of the demo were a race of creatures called Kobolds. If you can picture the dog-headed Egyptian gods then you get the idea of what the Kobolds look like in the game. In this portion of the demo we saw different types of magic, the warrior side of the mage, a virtual shield parry from the mage (it was pretty cool) and traps set on the floor for players/enemies to set off. Focusing on the traps, Nelson pointed out how artificial intelligence (AI) varies in enemies. He showed us the Kobolds’ reaction to the traps on the floor and how they were aware of them, so the main character couldn’t trick them into stepping on the triggers. It was neat seeing them avoid the traps, and how that would make you feel like, “OH! So close!” when the Kobolds narrowly avoided triggering them. It was more than interesting to watch.
The real fun for this portion of the demo was when the character got to go head to head with a very Todd McFarlane art influenced creature called a Rock Troll. It had an elongated face that permanently looked unhappy (see picture below), with a body shaped like a giant ape. The skin texture of the creature was covered with scales and small mountains of rocks and it just had the feeling of being perpetually pissed about life. It sported a giant club, which gave a thunderous ‘BOOM’ when it slammed into the ground (or the mage).
It was a brutal, gorgeous fight to end the Urul-Tusk portion of the demo.
So, how did I feel after the demo? Knowing that this game was in the very early stages of production I walked away feeling very good about what I had just witnessed. There was certainly some clear direction about what the developers wanted to do with this game. More importantly, the fact that Salvatore had laid out an extensive history of the world Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning resided in helped to establish purpose and atmosphere that every great RPG should have. What that ultimately means is that gamers will be sucked into the game before they even go into battle for the first time. What that will allow the developers to do is pretty much what they’re best at; creating weapons, upgrades, leveling, and pretty much whatever they want. In these three worlds demoed for us the story was established, the atmosphere was set, intrigue gave birth to ‘needing to know’ and the game already drew me in.
That’s only from a pre-alpha demo. Can you imagine what the full-blown game is going to be like? That’s why I’m excited about this game, and why I want to get my hands on it. I’m not going to crown it the best game ever just yet, but it certainly has done greater things with ‘little’ in comparison to some RPGs that are already out on the market.
Other things worth mentioning…
– There are four races in the game: Almain, Varani, Ljosalfar and Dokkalfar. Each race is unique and plays out differently in the storyline. Also, each race is treated differently in the NPC world.
– The world reacts differently during the day and night. The shift from day and night also changes how weapons react. Also, the time shift from day/night can be forced with a time lapse (which actually looks badass when it happens). - Certain enemies that you see will relate back to another part of history in the world that may not exist anymore. For example, there is a giant skeleton somewhere in the land that directly relates back to a pivotal point in the land’s history.
– Landscapes vary due to wind, rain and weather
– The creature leveling in the game is almost always even to the player’s, which helps keep player’s safely in check. There are onscreen indicators that will give a warning to players if a creature is out of their league.
– There are three difficulty modes in the game.
– There are tons of quests.
– There are upgrades to weapons through a ‘socket gem’ system. McFarlane loves fire, so we saw a fiery sword.
– Blacksmithing and Alchemy are available in the game.
– There is no leashing with creatures, as they won’t follow you everywhere. Once they hit a certain point they will go back.
– There is fast travel in the game (YAY!)
– There are tons of races in the game, but some are only part of the overall narrative.
– Mysteries in the game will be revealed in other games related to this world, even the MMORPG.
– There is a destiny system in the game.
– There is a well-established ability tree that looks more like a flowchart than something you would find in a Bioware game. It’s a bit more complicated and it spans different classes, which is interesting.