Kingdoms of Amalur Playtime: 228.8 hours Achievments: 61/61 Friends who played it: 0 Two times 100% playthrough I don't know why, but everyone around me hated it just from the reviews it got. I found the fate system insanely good, but it has it flaws as well. Upscaling in the lategame, the repetitive enemies and the not existing connection to the characters. But the lore was fantastic, so were the DLCs. Great review.

Just a clarification, it was 38 Studios and EA that lost money, not THQ. THQ bought the rights to franchise much later.

It’s been a while since I first saw this video, and I’m still blown away by the quality of your analysis. Wherever you are (whether that be working on another video or just focusing on life), I hope you’re doing well, and I’d love to see more stuff from you in the future. You have the potential to be one of the best creators in this genre.

Great job, i always love your work and how much effort you put to give an informative analisys. Hope you have a great 2022 :D

Another amazing video! The amount of knowledge you give us about every game is mind blowing. I really appreciate your level of understanding and hard work you put in your videos. The “narrative” structure is like documentary/movie I love to watch in the end of the day. Thank you. It would be amazing to see Fabel: The Lost Chapters or Gothic series. But those are just suggestions of course.

Oh boy. JBJett back with a 2 hour video. Missed your content man glad you are making some videos again. Will have more thoughts when I finish the video. Thanks in advance for the new video. After think about this video for a bit I gotta say that you hit a lot of the points I felt with the game. There is a lot of great content in it. All it needs is enough time and development to make something really great. I love the game regardless and hope something can happen with it to use the potential it has.

Absolutely one of the strangest experiences I have ever had in terms of RPGs. I never played RPGs before, except maybe a quick spit into the pond of my high school years dabbling with the onset of what would become Old School Runescape. Skip ten years, and then I was sitting behind my older brother watching him play this THING called Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Still didn't understand it then. Then I was unemployed for a short time and had sooo much downtime, and then I happened upon Kingdoms of Alamur in the back of my local Gamestop with a discount sticker on it (BUT WHY IDK). Spent close to 200 hours of about 2-3 profiles played. Loved every minute of it and thought it was the greatest game ever, and it really sticks to the back of my mind to this very day. I had no idea you could stack Damage Resistance. I pllayed honest-honest and had so much fun, but just imagine: 100% DR on every playthrough woul be overkill and a kill-joy for the experience. So very satisfied someone covered this topic again.

Just found your channel a few weeks ago, keep up the good work. Love your style man,your gonna go places

Thanks for all the effort you put into your work, it's a pleasure to watch.

Awesome video i love long formate critiques you definitely deserve way more subs!

Come back JBJett! We need more videos bro! I resonate with your critiques more than others

YEEEEEAAAAAHHHH!!!! Another video from our boy JBJett!!!! And about Kingdoms of Amalur no less, AWESOME!!! I'm barely at 0:55 and can't wait to watch the whole thing, I just wanted to let you know how excited I am for a new video. OK, I watched it. Wow, I didn't know you could just add Deflect Damage (or whatever the name was) and just avoid dying. I kinda feel stupid now, but maybe its for the best not to start the game for the first time knowing that. Also, I didn't know the lore was so expansive. I mean, sure, there was a lot of stuff going on and I saw that, but at some point the player becomes so numb to the story (or at least I did) that the last third I just skipped every dialogue I could to finish the game. This is one of the reasons I like videos like this, they make me see things I didn't (or wouldn't) see before. Very nice video, as always. This time I enjoyed it specially because it was a game I played. Thank you for making the video and for keep going.

I’m so happy I just found your channel I’m binging all of your videos now. I can see the effort and work spilling from the seems of your videos, thank you for your time and thank you for taking me away from the stresses of my life if just for a brief moment. You’ve earned yourself a new regular viewer

It's great to see you again, thanks for the video

I've started playing this game 2 separate times and lost interest after about 5-10 hours both times. This video really puts words to the way I felt while playing. Awesome video!

This game has such a solid fundation it is deserving of a developer that can see that vision. This is still one of my forever favorite games that I play (the original) once a year. Thank you for making this video

Damn looking forward to this one lad

Man....this game is so cool! Sure it has its problems but I loved just wandering. I love your channel btw

I finally finished a playthrough after 10 years, buying 3 copies and multiple quits partway through.

Incredibly inspirational channel, I hope someday to be similar

Jb came out of nowhere with the 2 hour documentary on one of our childhood game

Really excited to watch this, I played it for a good.. 30-40 hours on my steam deck and was starting to seriously burn out from the pretty tedious design of filler content and been playing other games, I'm really interested in seeing if this gets me to finish it or if I'm just fine with enjoying your analysis on it! I was pretty excited to find a "single player mmo", but I feel like it's a title you don't have to completely finish to get most of the experience it has to offer - I'm currently thinking of it as an okay 6,5/10 title that's pretty much average in all of it's design aspects and I feel like my opinion wont change with another 50 hours of stun locking enemies and spamming the attack button haha

The return of the King

I played this for about 110 hours back when it came out. The only other games I have this many hours in are Dragon Age Inquisition and Diablo III - so it's me, the single player MMO lover, I guess.

On the topic of emotional connection: One thing west that stands out to me because it's so early in the game is the quest where you run into a wolf turned into a human. To this day I wished that said wolf, once you finished the quest, could have then become some kind of summon or companion because playing through Amalur can be an incredibly lonely experience.

Sooo...are you alright since your last community post ?

Funny, I was just in the middle of a Kingdoms of Amalur playthrough and I must say - as you've also pointed in your analysis - the game can be fun in the first several hours. I've managed to cover half of the map and the Teeth of Naros DLC and, at that point, I was starting to feel the burn-out. I wanted to see where the main story goes, so I said to myself that would focus only on the main questline and the story bits that connect the story as a whole, but I realized I just wasn't having fun with the game anymore and would simply quit after 5 minutes of plying. I'm glad I've caught your review because it saved me from trying to force myself through this game, when I already had the feeling I won't be able to enjoy it to the end. Admittedly, the in-game lore didn't resonate with me enough to keep me going either. All in all, a very good critique 👍Keep them coming!

Arkes wasn't Secandra lover, but her father. She was his daughter. If you pass her Persuasion checks, then she reveals this information to you. Great video btw

Definitely issue, so many ways it could be improved, but I still very thoroughly enjoy this game quite a bit ever since it’s original release date till now. Good video tho

Regarding the mechanics part, the combat specifically, you're missing a big part of the MMO sphere that was prevelent back in the 00s up until the early 2010s, when the game released : Phantasy Star Online. It sounds stupid but the Fates are increasingly similar to the more early jobs in PSO compared to the later evolved classes and how they acted and most of all, the combat system it employed that was also what inspired Monster Hunter. A slow, heavy, no i-frames / no tells system with hitstagger instead of hitstuns, i-frames and attacks that have varying degrees of superarmour these days, back then it was more prevelent to have a slow system like that. Now, whether that's good or bad, especially given you bring Sekiro in the forefront which isn't exactly comperable given what the focus of the combat in it is(counters - punish - OHKOs via stamina deletion) compared to the action MMOs of 2000s and by extention, Phantasy Star - early Monster Hunter - Amalur(slow - animation commitment - chunky attacks), is subjective especially given how the latter method has nearly gone extinct by now. Monster Hunter and PSO have opted for far more loose, combo heavy systems, with tones of leeway and changing the way the games are played so revisiting this game now does feel antiquated compared to Sekiro. Which becomes weird when you mention how you getting prepared and learning patterns of a boss in the game, beating it with preparation and knowing patters despite being underleveld, yet you feel no satisfaction nor imporve in the game, yet your strategy has been exactly what players have been doing for years on games like Phantasy Star, other RPGs, Monster Hunter, Dark Souls which is as guilty as Amalur on that front if not more and finally, Sekiro itself. I can understand the idea of potion drinking being immidiate and having no animation makes it meaningless, which is fair enough since all the other games mentioned did have a way to screw a player over(PSO+expansions had the player shuffle items in real time to gulp a single potion which meant a lot of movement abilities had to be sealed while the enemies were raging but the recovery was instant with no animation, Monster Hunter and Souls-Sekiro have the player do an animation for the recovery) and that's fair, it does trivialize the combat a bit. I understand that a critique will inevitably draw comparissons to other games, which is fine, but research needs to be done if that's the case because not every game follows a narrow list of games the critic has played. It's why movie critics like Ebert would often say stupid or downright state false facts regarding genres and movies because they didn't know better, instead of trying to analyse and critique the product in a void. I say this because the selective contextual information gathered during the making of a comparisson is often what leads to false conclusions in a lot of ways and those are spread like wildfire, not just in games but in nearly every bit of human life. "Creating Context, the cardinals truths neither clash nor mesh" as they said. However, that's for the combat part only, the rest of the mechanics aren't wrong in their critique, especially with how a lot of key aspects towards the endgame trivialize a lot of player choices and end up becoming a samey, bland mess because of the build freedom and poorly balanced RPG mechanics for such a long game, especially one with action combat and such high exp thresholds for leveling that the player HAS to fiddle with the rest of the mechanics and inevitably breaks the game in twain. It's a shame as well but at the time, this was a limited way of adapting such wide staples of RPG combat when it came to classes and mixing elements but ultimately it failed because it diluted everything in 3 and put hard limits in spells, failed to make the magic - ability side of mechanics synergize with a combat system that at the time was regarded as common and good and didn't account for how much the player could break the mechanics simply because they didn't put a restriction to the kind of gems that could be slotted in each piece of gear, like other games do. The randomized and scalling loot in this game certainly didn't help either and the Gothic-like mechanic of skill trainers also fell flat in its face due to how limited it was and how much it tied your hands towards a jack-of-all-trades, despite the Fate system having glimpses of how to truly differentiate the playstyles in unique ways but they opted to have it as a passive multiplier item instead with 1 occasional unique ability like the Ice Blink. A shame. Things like this could only be fixed by a sequel or by the original devs reworking the entire game rather than an expansion or a remaster such as this, unfortunately.

I think what you do does actually change the game like when you investigate who you should throw in jail or Web Wood for example. I actually had the city overtaken by spiders but realised soon I just sacrificed a free player home early game. Web Wood is my favourite city I saved them instead, im not a monster or fan of spiders. The city has so much lore, depth and also death in it so it gives a spooky vibe. It’s a great fantasy game it even have fire staffs, protection bubbles and a skeleton named Sparkles or Buttercup… Okey the last part was probably just me. Chakrams that makes you scream like Xena. Swords that are bigger than Final Fantasy. With Sneak and Backstabbing more intense than Game of Thrones, which NPC should we sell out today. Lockpicking more intense than Skyrim. Wands to duel like Hogwards Legacy and Crafting more in-depth than Mine Craft. Lore Stones to actually tell history of what once was. Music more grand than Hans Zimmer. City’s filled with war, diseases, traitors, jails, inns and player homes that you won’t spend much time in. Fighting in the open, in a town, in a castle and in a cave did i already say cave than more caves hey don’t hate Skyrim okey. I love it, this game is the best fantasy game since i dunno. The list of things to do is so good for being so old and I find a charm in it. Almost like Skyrim big open spaces war torn land, caves and suspicious people who don’t like strangers.

Btw, Secundra is not Arkes' lover, she is his daughter.

I love this game flaws and all because of its gameplay, the cool stuff I can do and the music is nice

I love this game, played it for at least 4 hours today

You clearly played the game, but don't quite seem to have fully understood it. I guess your review is coloured by it not really appealing to you, hence the nit-picking. Ah well, each to his own. Personally I loved it AND I get the background behind it. I've played it through more than once, trying different builds/strategies.

Thanks for the entertaining video! Slight criticism is that im not sure the bloopers add anything to your videos, its usually great in comedy movies because you can see the actors out of character laughing and being silly, but instead your bloopers its just making mistakes and burping, which isnt very fun to listen to Also, please get a pop-filter for your mic

I managed to get this game for free with my psn+ membership and low kea got hooked for like 2 3 weeks it was a lot of fun it reminded me of a less inpresive skyrim with is not that bad for a game I never herd of before the psn+ free kame out.

You know the potion cool down was fixed in the new version right? Balancing as well.

Av yeh

Hello, I'm a new subscriber and i like your channel a lot. I'd like to request you do a video on age of wonders 3.

"i certainly wasn't stairing at any trees to appreciate the texture if thwie bark" Really bro? lol

I still play this game, and find it enjoyable, but it certainly has its faults. The main story is the biggest strength of this game.

THQ had nothing to do with the MMO dude

if you ran out of things to do after 50 hours then you’re either lying or you didn’t play the game right.

I'm trying to 100% the game right, and what I hate the most, is that I cannot make anything powerful with crafting, everything I make is much weaker than anything I find on the mobs. And the sets are all weak always. It makes sense only to wear them from the point of view of style, but practically sets are nothing.

to call the game average is a travesty

And then the new DLC came out and made all sort of stupid retcons, ruined the original ending and made a thematic 180. Fate is totally great actually and peons shouldn't even THINK about wanting better and should stay in their lane. 😑

Good vid. I think you might want a beta watcher to catch your… very consistently bad pronunciations.

Fought the final Fatesworn boss and I just gave up there one thing to be difficult and then there’s just BS lazy boss design this boss first you need a full set of the “low defense gate armor” you can’t fight him in unless you equip the armor forcing a nerf on the player and then when you fight him first you have to knock out this full purple shield and then you chop down like 25% his shield recharges fully rinse and repeat but here’s the annoying part he spams AOE spells covering the map while he floats in his aoe spells legit defending because if you step into the spells you take damage on and the boss and a crazy amount of super armor so your just dodging around playing rock paper scissors

The problem is that those crafting skills affect the quality of what components / reagents / shards you will FIND, and not the quality of what gear / potions / gems you can actually CREATE. So, you're a low-level blacksmith, all you're going to find is low-level components, and all you're going to be able to make is low-level equipment. This is easily the most "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" RPG I think I've ever played in my life. Because everything's made up, and the points don't matter.

way too much time on your hands spewing gibberish for 2 hrs amazing 😅