I’m a busy guy, and lately I’ve been even busier than I thought I’d be in September of 2020. My intentions were to play a whole bunch of Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning and wax poetic about my thoughts and feelings on the game. But that hasn’t happened. Not really.
THQ Nordic was kind enough to provide a review copy, so I’ve actually had the game for about a week now, but I’ve only managed to put in 23 hours so far. Kingdoms of Amalur is a massive, massive game, and 23 hours isn’t enough to see even the highlights of what it has to offer. For example, I haven’t started any of the Faction quest lines yet. I’m trying to finish up the main story first, and I think I’m maybe halfway through that.
Anyway, due to my busy schedule, I’ve only been able to play Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning late at night, after I’ve put in a hard day of writing and editing work. And this means I’m a little bit spacey and more than a little bit stressed out before I settle into a good Amalur session.
However, this actually feels like the ideal way to play this game.
I’m playing on Hard difficulty, so there are occasional combat encounters that require some focus, but for the most part, I’m sort of just dreamily wandering around the game, hacking at monsters and bandits, and stockpiling loot.
There’s so much to do in Kingdoms of Amalur, but very little of it feels essential. Sure, there’s the occasional NPC who rushes to me with blood gushing out of their neck, begging for my assistance in some machiavellian revenge plot, but even those things can wait. In fact, there’s a sick Fae in Gorhart who needed my assistance toward the beginning of the game, yet I left her to writhe on the ground in agony for days and the game never punished me for my negligence. I did finish that quest eventually, by the way. I’m not a monster.
And, I don’t know, I guess there’s something relaxing about that. Some might argue that it’s immersion-breaking, and I guess it is, but I also never feel rushed. I can just sit there absentmindedly and soak of the beauty of the game world while enjoying its incredible score.
And that, after a hard day’s work, feels like the right way to enjoy Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning.
