Finally! An RPG that allows you to just shut up and kill stuff.
Kingdoms of Amalur has now solved all of my problems with RPG's. I'm admittedly only a level 10 in the game, so I'm really just starting out, but already I can say it's my favorite RPG EVER. (Spoiler Alert sort of) I just finished a mission where I got set up by some condescending jerk who thought he was better than me and tried to feed me to his demons. The options for dialogue were pretty lame as far as retorts go, as they usually are in these kinds of games, but after the dialogue was finished and I got my reward for fending off the beasties, I simply walked over to the jerk that just set me up and pressed the up arrow on my controller ,(making it so I can attack "friendly's") completely eviscerated him, looted his dead body, and left.
The point I'm trying to make is this: I can kill anything I want in this game, I can skip any boring dialogue I want, I can go anywhere I want and do anything I want to do. This is like the GTA of fantasy worlds. The combat system is by far the best I've ever encountered in an RPG. Think Jade Empire but with more options. The leveling up system is also much better than any I have encountered. I can put points towards any type of character attributes I want, every time I level up. No more picking a Barbarian or a Rogue or some combination of the two. This game allows you to fully customize your character. The chances of any two people having the same character stats is virtually impossible. You can pick anything. I have a character that is optimized with the longbow, can shoot lightning bolts at people from his hands, has huge bonuses to shield defense and can perform stealth kills on unsuspecting villains. What classification is that? Who cares! It's awesome.
The review on here states the story feels generic. Maybe I haven't played all the super great story line RPG's out there, but if you take a step back they're all generic in a sense. They all send you out on loot this or rescue that missions. That's the whole point of the game. I personally like a lot of the characters I run into in this game, and think the fact that any of the ones I don't like I can just skip the dialogue with them (or kill them) and move on is fantastic. This game is definitely more focused on combat mechanics than anything else, and it absolutely excels. My favorite part of the game though has to be the leveling up system. The whole "chose your own fate" concept is exactly what I've always wanted to do in role playing games. Many of the RPG's I've played have attempted to make the leveling up feel more personalized, but they always end up restricting something I want to do. I can't wear this because I'm a Warrior, not a Mage, or I can't open this because I'm a spell caster not a thief. Well now if you can't do something, you just go to a "Fateweaver" and change all your stats around to make it so you can. It's really a game changing concept for RPG's in my opinion.
In the end, it really just comes down to what you want out of a game. If you just want to watch a movie that asks you to press a button every now and then to progress the story how you want, this probably isn't the game for you. If, however, you want to run rampant in a huge fantasy world and discover new and exciting ways to kill monsters and men alike, then I would highly recommend adding this amazing game to your library.