PlayStation®3 Games Lounge

[sektanz]

Sounds promising Scunter. Have you explored much of the map yet? Just wondering how big the game world is. Would you compare it to something along the lines of Sacred 2 with the interconnected zones?

[Scunter]

From memory Sacred 2 was a more zoomed out view (you are quite close to your avatar in Amalur), but my gut feeling is that Amalur's sub-regions (each major area has about 8-10 sub-regions) are bigger than the zones in Sacred 2(except maybe that big swamp in Sacred 2. They are also far more visually appealing and varied...I am still only in the first major area which has the fantasy/elven forest sort of overall theme (but within each theme you get variation eg. Webwood is not a place to go if you are an arachnaphobe.), but I know from trailers there are mountainous, swampy and desert areas ahead.

There is a difficulty increase as you wander between sub-regions and some side-quests will span several at once so it is a quite neat design, generally as you get closer to the next major area the sub-regions have tougher monsters, which makes game progression sense I guess. There is no obvious load between the sub-regions but I think they are hiding the load by joining the sub-regions with narrow corridors/tunnels/valleys so you don't notice the next area loading in (or they may do it like Burnout Paradise did with a circle around you continuously loading) You do get a quick load screen when you fast travel.

I am really enjoying this game so far, as a fantasy world to mess about in after work it is great. It isn't the deepest, most challenging game I have ever played but I like it

If you are a reader I'd compare recent big action RPGs like this:

• Hickman/Weis- Dragonlance novels: Kingdoms of Amalur- Reckoning
• J. R R. Tolkien- Lord of the Rings: Skyrim
• Raymond E Feist-The Serpent War Saga: Dragon Age 2
• Brian Lumley- Necroscope Series: Dark Souls

[Scunter]

On Hard, 60 hours in and 80% through the story (and every faction/side quest I have found done) I still like it, but I think to 200 hour estimates Big Huge Games gave seems a little inflated. Though apparently that timing included getting all the armour sets... but really if they aren't suited for the class/style I am using why hunt them down?

[sektanz]

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Scunter wrote:

On Hard, 60 hours in and 80% through the story (and every faction/side quest I have found done) I still like it, but I think to 200 hour estimates Big Huge Games gave seems a little inflated. Though apparently that timing included getting all the armour sets... but really if they aren't suited for the class/style I am using why hunt them down?

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Thanks for the update Scunter. Have you come across the levelling issues that I've heard about......areas becoming level locked if you progress too far or some such thing?

[Scunter]

Not that I noticed. I did one area out of order...so it was a little easy, but I think that was my own error not an issue with the game.
All up it took me 70 hours to finish a play-through, all faction and story quests, and doing every side quest I saw. And there is a decent size DLC pack out at the end of March
One thing to note: Level Cap is 40 at the moment (I didn't realise until I hit it).