Kingdoms of Amalur: I have never actually played this game

I’ve uncovered some unsettling truths about this game, or rather, the original version of it that I played when it came out in 2012, and then again a few years later in 2016.

I was pretty sure I’d made it to near the end of the game in my first playthrough, and then had made it quite far in the second playthrough before again getting distracted by a new shiny.

Both of these are false memories. Having gotten to the actual halfway point in this playthrough, I can now tell some truths:

1. In my first playthrough, I played a Finesse-tree rogue and quit soon after reaching the first city, Rathir — about thirty hours in.
2. In my second playthrough, I played a Sorcery-tree mage and quit after the Windermere castle quest.

I know these things because I loaded up the original version of the game and could look at save files.

My fictions were that I’d played a rogue in the first playthrough — up until the final area, which I never actually came anywhere close to reaching — and then a rogue/mage hybrid the second time.

Since I have the attention span of a bluejay, in this third playthrough with the remake, I’ve been distracted by the various DLC they’ve included along with.

The Idylla Kollosaie adventure takes place in a giant land with an imposing city — Idylla — floating above it. As the Fateless One, the player is seized upon by the goddess of the Kollosaie stone giants, Ethene, and becomes the Beckoned, the one to reconcile these peoples with their goddess and become whole again.

This is a really incredible expansion. I’m either too stupid or the game is too bugged and I can’t finish the plotline, so I’ve set that aside.

I just looked at the map just now and thought maybe I could find a way in from the back… I’ll try that eventually.

I can’t try it now, as I left Idylla behind to focus on heading to Rathir, a place I was sure I’d remember — and I did! I don’t have save files from my first play through, so I’m not sure exactly how far I came, and I’m just relying on my known-to-be-imperfect memory to guide me. I may have taken the ship to the next area; I won’t know until I get there.

When I went to look into that ship, I met an engaging ship captain who quickly made it clear that she had no business being a captain or anywhere near the sea at all. Her banter was hilarious and we laughed together while I climbed aboard, expecting a good time.

We shipwrecked, of course, on Gallows End, the home of notorious dead pirate Davey Jones Dead Kel. My usual trick when coming to someplace new is to fast travel back to one of the earlier hubs and clear out my inventory. I quickly found out there was no leaving Gallows End. Once here, you’re here until you take control of Dead Kel’s pirate ship and defeat the notorious pirate and all his scalliwags.

This expansion has some compensation for keeping you locked up. You get a castle! One of the first quests on the island has you clearing out an old, decrepit castle just past the protected starter village.

There may have been one or two previous tenants to evict.

Gravehal Keep gets upgraded during your adventures, as you retrieve items of interest from around the island and bring them back to your castle. Your gnomish castellan is always fixing up the place. After cleaning up the hall and the lawn, the gnome sets up a bedroom where you can stash your stuff and fix your hair and makeup.

He also attracts local merchants to the place; the last time I checked in, I saw he’d found someone to start a general store, and he’d brought in a beast master to begin rustling up some beasts. I got a notice from him while working on the “getting a pirate ship” issue that he’d finished the next stage of the renovations, but I haven’t been back yet.

The pictures look a little blurry as I’ve been streaming all my gameplay at twitch.tv. This frees me from having to always having my finger on the print screen button or trying to figure out when something worth making a movie of is coming up. My slow internet connection means that the video quality is pretty poor, but that’s the tradeoff for the convenience. I can send the best bits over to YouTube to keep.

So, if you’re a Twitcher (is that the word? For someone who uses Twitch?), and want to watch me stumble around a game in real time, give a follow. I don’t have a webcam, I am not narrating the game, I have a family and there’s always stuff going on right behind me in real life. I’ve been trying to stream whenever nobody else in the house needs the bandwidth.

In the past few days, I’ve streamed KoA:RR, Fall Guys, Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, Townscaper and last night’s static DC Universe Online group run. Watching is just like playing without having to deal with keyboards and controllers.