Quick Look: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Demo (Gameplay Video Included)

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning wasn’t on the radar of a lot of gamers up until recently but, considering it’s coming from the minds of visionaries like Ken Rolston (designer of Elder Scrolls III and IV), R.A. Salvatore (writer of DemonWars saga or Star Wars: The New Jedi Order), or Seth McFarlane (creator of the Spawn comic books), it’s more than worthy of people’s attention.

Now, a free demo has finally been released across the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 platforms, so we decided to take a quick look and see if these great minds, plus the talent at 38 Studios and Big Huge Games, have resulted in a great experience.

It’s always hard to make a demo for an open world RPG like Reckoning, but the developers decided to give players a chance to play through its opening sequences and then spend 45 minutes in the first major area of Amalur doing whatever they wanted.

This turned out to be a great idea, as you can experience the story and then try out different play styles, from the offensive warrior, to the sneaky rogue or a powerful mage. All these three ‘classes’ are showcased to you right in the opening sequences, although you can freely switch between them just by selecting your weapons and armor.

This is Reckoning’s claim to fame, as your character died before the start of the game and, thanks to the Well of Souls, you’re revived, only without a fate that binds you to a predetermined path. As such, you can freely choose what you want to do and how you want to do it.

As you play and level up your character, you can spend experience points on attributes from three areas: Might, Finesse, or Sorcery, while choosing different Destiny cards that give you all sorts of bonuses.

In terms of gameplay, Reckoning is definitely an action RPG, reminding players of games like Dragon Age 2 instead of grittier titles like Skyrim. The moves are stylish and acrobatic, with an art style reminiscent of World of Warcraft or Fable.

The inventory system is a bit awkward, as you need to jump from menu to menu to menu until you get to see your items. What’s more, you can’t select by clicking your mouse, as you are required to press Enter or the Space bar instead.

Besides the inventory, however, Reckoning is looking like a pretty great title, so you can’t go wrong by trying out the demo. You can check out the first 20 or so minutes in the video below.