NAH YEAH!!!!!!!!

There is a lot to like about Kingdoms of Amalur, and it seems tailor-made for me. I love side quests in games. I'd rather engage with the core mechanics and complete tasks than sit through cutscenes and fight unique gimmick encounters like a lot of main story missions tend to be. This game has a ton of side quests, and they're good too. Not just pieces of paper on a notice board to go kill boars, but with their own stories and characters.

The graphics are extremely nostalgic in a way that evokes the best memories of the 360 era. Memories is the operative word here, because this game (the remaster on PC) looks the way you think 360 games looked. The well-aged semi cartoonish art style and the vibrant colors are here. The terrible frame rate, draw distance, load times, blurry textures etc. are not.

The amount of voiced dialogue is impressive, and it's utilized well. You can ask NPCs a lot of questions, and the important thing to note is that the game is not overwritten. Answers are usually only a few sentences in length so I actually end up listening to all of it instead of skipping to the point. Unlike a lot of games, when you complete missions people react to the changes you've caused in the world. Not just the quest giver with one line of thank you, but everyone in town. And when you return days later, they'll have new comments on how their lives have been since your last visit. If you've met new people or gone to new places, you can ask characters you've met before about that. It feels very natural, is incredibly immersive and makes completing quests feel worthwhile.

The UI is one of the best controller-centric RPG UIs I've seen. It flows very smoothly from one menu to the next, with smart QoL decisions to minimize unnecessary button presses and time spent in the menus, so you can manage tons of loot and quests without it taking up too much time to bother.

However there is a big problem: the combat. It's so unfortunately dull and repetitive, at least on a melee character. I might've done myself a disservice by playing on Hard, which seems to make the enemies tankier and hit harder. But it's not difficult either and I haven't died since the very early game, so I wouldn't want to make the game easier still. Even with a suite of abilities unlocked you end up mainly standing in place mashing the attack or ability keys and spamming mana potions while waiting for the enemy HP bars to slowly go down. It's pretty easy to stunlock enemies and even if they manage to attack it's coreographed 2 seconds in advance so failing to roll in time would require taking your hands of the controller.

I know it's cliche to bring up Dark Souls when discussing games not even that similar to Dark Souls, but I really feel like the past 15 years of Souls-likes have redefined what passable combat is in a third-person action RPG. Even stock standard AAA slop now has decently fun action combat. I guess that wasn't the case when the original Kingdoms of Amalur came out and I haven't read any old reviews, but according to Wikipedia this game was "praised by critics for its combat design" which baffles me. Maybe this was acceptable in 2012. It's not in 2025.

It's a game I would love to play all the way through for the world and the atmosphere, but actually playing it for more than a few hours feels like is a chore. I might come back to it from time to time on the Deck, on which it performs very well at 90fps on max settings, with the occasional stutter spike when loading new regions of the overworld.

PS. Remember to save any time you find a good item. The game autosaves when you enter new areas, but the overworld and dungeons can be huge and saving inside them sporadic. The game seems to re-roll items in chests when entering new areas (note: the autosave is placed BEFORE exiting the old area) and when killing enemies, so keep that in mind.

The game is great to play. Lots of fun and aggravation The only real gripes I have are the movement. The camera and movement keys are interlocked ( the same) so you cannot see the ground in front of you unless you stop. It takes some getting used to but it is manageable. The other is the max you can get is level 40. I'm quite a way from done ( I've just entered the Big area ( island) after Riffin and I'm already maxed in levels :(. But fighting, skills, spells everything is well balanced. I'm really enjoying it.

Not too shabby.

I love it

The real Fable 3!

Loved the original. Loving the remake. Having a blast.

Great old school style game with ton of options. Great music and graphics!

I love this game since I first played the original on the PS3. Thoroughly enjoying the new content so far, still have some stuff to do before I finish Re-Reckoning. Only other games I get this much enjoyment out of is the BioShock franchise and Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

played the old version from like xbox the only game i loved replaying