After five years and a very underwhelming offshoot game, the Riftwar series returned to the world of gaming, albeit with a different studio taking the helm. Two, actually. One is 7th Level, a company mostly known for subpar adventure titles and licensed interactive software; and the other is Pyrotechnix, who have exactly one other game to their name - a long defunct online-only tank combat game. That doesn't bode well right off the bat, but you can definitely see the former's influence as the game now has fixed camera angles and *sigh* tank controls in addition to point-and-click movement. There's also some pretty underwhelming voiceover and no subtitles, so get used to hearing a lot of school play caliber acting. Combat is essentially the same grid and turn-based system, though now much slower, and progression is extremely linear with very little opportunity to explore and do side missions. Rather unintuitively you can't just walk between areas anymore either - you have to bring up the map via the "Krondor" menu and then click to go to a new area, which isn't great. Even less great is that room exits aren't always apparent from the fixed camera angles you're given, so you often have to press the bracket keys to rotate to a new angle in order to progress. There's random encounters in various rooms and passages though, and unlike the original game (and the offshoot), there's now a traditional Experience system, awarded for winning combat and completing both story and side quests. Opening locked chests is no longer a simple skill check or a roll of the dice, but now a full-blown minigame where one basically must "dissect" the locks and traps on it using various tools. A clever idea, though it mostly seems to come down to luck and savescumming since there's no discernible logic to using any tool on any parts, or at least, none that I could find. There's an alchemy system too, though in practice it mostly just clutters up your inventory with useless items until you find one of the rare spots where the game allows resting. A considerably better game than the previous attempt, but still a far cry from the quality and depth of the first Krondor. There's a reason you never hear anyone talk about this game, and that's because Baldur's Gate came out one month after it and was a superior experience in basically every way...
Developer: 7th Level, Pyrotechnix
Publisher: Sierra Studios
Released: 1998
Platforms: PC