14 DAY TRIAL // Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning has been released last week by 38 Studios and Big Huge Games, with the help of Electronic Arts.
While we really liked the game, as you could tell from our review and some of these Gamer Diaries, there were parts of it that didn’t really appeal to us, including the annoying lockpick or dispelling mini-games.
Now, it’s time to talk about one of the game’s features that left us with mixed feelings: the inventory.
Like any good role playing game, Reckoning separates items into several categories, including weapons, armor, consumables, or other things. As you can imagine, given the fact that you’ll be picking up all sorts of loot throughout your adventures, expect to spend quite some time with the inventory.
While it’s a pretty decent experience overall, as you sink in more hours with the game, a few things begin to annoy you.
First up, there’s the unnecessary separation of the weapons section into two categories. As such, you need to open the menu, open the inventory, open the weapons segment and then open either the primary or the secondary section. This could have easily been avoided by letting you choose a primary and secondary weapon from all of your current ones, not by splitting them into two separate categories.
Secondly, there’s the fact that you don’t have shortcuts to actual inventory sections. Say you’re in the middle of battle and, after finding out that neither your primary nor your secondary weapons are effective against an enemy, you want to quickly choose other items. You don’t have something like a favorites list from Skyrim, so you need to open the inventory (for which you do have a shortcut, however) and then go into the weapons section.
There are some redeeming qualities to the inventory, however, chief among which is the Junk feature. Say you’ve just looted some new weapons or pieces of armor, but you just intend to sell them once you reach a town. Instead of bumbling through the trading screen and hoping that you don’t sell weapons or armor you need, you can just throw items from your regular inventory into the Junk bag.
As such, when you do reach a merchant, you have a button to sell all your junk, thus immediately getting rid of unwanted items.
While we didn’t like the weapons separation, the inventory does a proper job of keeping items organized, meaning weapons or pieces of armor are sorted by type, not by name. As such, you have all your swords in one portion of the weapons list, while things like daggers, Faeblades or Warhammers are separated from them. The same goes with your armor, as helmets are grouped together, as are chestpieces, boots or robes, so you can easily find and use them.
What did you think of Reckoning’s inventory? Share your thoughts below.