Recent reviews by Tony

Kingdoms of Amalur might - unfortunately - be a western RPG that many people have never heard of. Why? Probably because the western RPG market is mostly paying attention to the Elder Scrolls series. But I can highly recommend this game to anyone who enjoys to play open world RPGs.

First of all, and that might sound ridiculous to some of you, one of the things that I like most about this game is the fact that it is colorful. Yes. It doesn't try to imitate Europe in the middle ages with pine forests and foggy pale landscapes. The world is designed more towards a fantasy setting and strong colors.

The story is alright. It is nothing too spectacular but it definitely isn't boring or makes you stop playing the game. The world's setting is pretty atmospheric and reminded me of games such as the first Divine Divinity.

Another very strong point of the game is its battle and combo system. You have a huge variety of available weapon types, ranging from swords, daggers, bows, staffs to huge two-handed hammers and broadswords. Each weapon type comes with a slightly different play style and as your character levels up, you learn combos and intense moves for the weapon type you like to play with. While leveling up, you also invest points in several skill trees. The way you distribute your skill points - you can focus on one tree or split your points up to different skill trees - grants you access to dozens of classes which will then award you with several status and skill boosts. In the beginning, you might feel weak and have to think about where to put your points, but as the game progresses, the battle and skill system will get more exciting and intense!

The overall content of the game is - in my opinion - comparable to any other enjoyable western RPG. Out of my 60 hours of playtime, I finished the first DLC, played a little bit of the second DLC, finished about 60% or 70% of the main storyline and did some side quests now and then. If you would just play through the main story without doing anything else, it might take you around 30 hours, I guess.

Last of all - this was one of the reasons I got interested in the game - the soundtrack was made by the amazing Grant Kirkhope. Some of you might know the guy from the N64 era and games such as Banjo Kazooie, Banjo Tooie, Donkey Kong 64, Viva Pinata, Goldeneye or the most recent Civilization game.

Let's sum this up:

+ beautiful visuals
+ tons of content + 2 DLCs with separate storylines and side quests
+ combo-driven (hack and slay) battle system that gets better with every level up
+ amazing soundtrack
+ visuals and gameplay might appeal to fans of western RPGs and JRPGs alike

- difficulty (pretty easy most of the time with some crazy spikes)
- some side quests / quest item descriptions can get pretty confusing at times

All in all, this game is in no way inferior to other western RPGs. It came out in 2012 and still looks and plays super smooth. If you enjoy games like The Witcher, Skyrim, Diablo or the Gothic series, give it a try!

Okay, I only played the first 2-3 missions - maybe I'm going to finish that game some day - but the invested time so far was definitely enough to get an opinion. The N64-like graphics were definitely nice to see in the beginning, but after some minutes into the first mission, the game didn't even try to be good at all. Let's get this clear - I DO enjoy listening to Avenged Sevenfold and the music in the game is definitely a huge PRO for the game itself, but other than that, it's really poorly designed, in terms of everything. The story is not simple, it's close to absurd. The battle system doesn't feel good at all. The first bossfights made me smile, because - A simple way to kill them is to just run in circles around them and attack them, meaning pressing one button. You don't even need magic, though it's powerful. It's not declared to be an RPG but still it lacks some kind of character progression or anything similar to that. I mean, you collect coins and some other collectables to unlock pictures and such, but the only progression in this game seems to be purchasing new weapons. You can correct me if this changes at some point in the game. I don't mean to spread hate in any way or to just mindlessly bash this game - But even as a fan of their music (which at first made me ignore some of the game's weaknesses), I couldn't get into this game at all.

+ Soundtrack is definitely worth listening
+ N64 and PSX era fans might enjoy the graphics / design

- No feeling of progress
- Game mechanics (Battle System) are very poorly designed
- Dull story
- Inconsistent difficulty level (even during the first missions)
- Gamepad compatibility doesn't work for all actions

If you like the game, I'm fine with that. This is just my opinion. Not everyone might agree with this, but please only comment on this if you are not trying to convince me that this game is good. It might be - in your opinion.

Ich spiele ja in letzter Zeit wieder viele viele Spiele an, alles durcheinander, so wie ich Lust habe, selten mal eins bis zum Ende. Aber mit TWW konnte ich einfach nicht mehr aufhören. Die Story ist ungaublich gut, vom Anfang bis zum Ende. Die Musik ist Klasse. Die Charaktere sind allesamt unglaublich überzeugend und sympathisch. Wer auf Point & Click Adventures steht kommt an diesem Spiel eindeutig nicht vorbei. Die relativ moderate Spiellänge von knapp 8 Stunden ist eigentlich ein bisschen kurz, aber man ist nach dem Durchspielen auf jeden Fall mehr als begeistert, behaupte ich. Und ganz nebenbei: Spot ist wohl mit Abstand der coolste Sidekick ever!