Return to Krondor

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 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 cut away parts of the chest and disassemble the locks and traps in 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 rest and crafting.  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 and was a superior experience in basically every way...

Developer: 7th Level, Pyrotechnix
Publisher: Sierra Studios
Released: 1998
Platforms: PC

Betrayal in Antara

After Krondor proved to be a slow burn success for Dynamix and Sierra, they naturally wanted to make a sequel; unfortunately by the time the game had turned a profit they no longer had the rights to adapt the Riftwar saga, and instead had to make their own.  A pretty stock fantasy world called Ramar, with some equally tepid writing by Susan Frischer and Peter Sarrett; neither of whom worked on the original game, and the quality from it is sorely missed.  Our first scene is literally a prince and a young farmhand uniting, with the latter tossing out a lightning bolt out of the blue to showcase his magical talent; yes, I understand compelling world building is difficult, but surely you can try harder than this.  We've also got voice acting now (of a very mediocre sort) and the game isn't much better looking than Krondor was, despite coming out four years later.

Aside from a few small changes and improvements, this is basically just a bog-standard retread of Krondor in every respect.  Instead of the word-lock chests you now get lever chests, in which you pull a series of levers in the correct order to spell out the word for the puzzle.  There are also bead chests in which you attempt to create a sequence of colored beads through exchanges, though these are largely superfluous changes.  Lockpicking is now luck based (blah), and combat was used relatively sparingly in Krondor, making each battle feel significant; here it feels like blatant, boring filler as you're fighting the same handful of enemies almost constantly everywhere you go.  Spells are no longer learned through scrolls, but must be "researched" before they can be used, with new types found through certain environmental actions and research carried out very slowly as time passes.  On the upside, the game does autosave before battles in case they go wrong (and they will, a lot), and there are now touch-range spells, so you're not stuck if an enemy bum-rushes your mage (which they will, a lot).  Unfortunately the lackluster writing, dragging combat and overall slow pace make this a poor imitation of Krondor.  To say nothing of the bugs - the game crashes frequently and many mechanics simply don't work as advertised.  Krondor was a virtually bug-free experience, so having so many of them in what's supposed to be a followup game is a major strike against it.  And considering how subpar an experience it is already, there's just no reason to recommend Antara over its predecessor.

 

Developer: Sierra On-Line
Publisher: Sierra On-Line
Released: 1997
Platforms: PC

Betrayal at Krondor

Betrayal at Krondor is widely considered a PC classic - not just for its realism and eye for detail in every element of its design, but for its immersive narrative that strives to feel as close to a good fantasy adventure novel as possible in every detail.  But is this one adventure still worth undertaking today, or is it betrayed by the rose tinted glasses of nostalgia?

Dynamix is a PC gaming company that lasted from 1984 to 2001 and created a pretty wide catalog of games spanning a number of genres; most people probably remember them for their flight simulations (Red Baron) or their prevalent puzzle series The Incredible Machine or for kicking off the fan-favorite online FPS series "Tribes", but RPG fans remember them too, primarily for one reason - a little gem known as Betrayal at Krondor.

Krondor's goal, as stated in its manual, was to be something RPGs had never dared to be before - an immersive narrative experience above all else.  Fittingly, it was set in the same universe as Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar series, and while he didn't write the script for the game, he had final approval on what was written.  However, the developers did such a good job replicating his style that Feist changed very little from what they wrote; In fact, he liked it so much that he made Krondor part of his official canon, writing a novelization for it a few years later.  While it still has many familiar tropes of the genre including dungeon crawling, battling enemies, finding treasure and setting traps, these are worked into the narrative too, with quite verbose (and well written) text blurbs for even mundane interactions with enemies, treasures and objects.  Characters interact with even nameless NPCs on a familiar and personal level, making them feel like they're actually inhabitants of this world with histories and rich backstories even if you don't get to see much of them.  Even using items like potions and whetstones gives you a fun little text blurb, which helps you feel like you're there in the moment rather than doing mundane number crunching.  The world itself fits this too even in spite of the limited technology of the time, putting the player in a first-person 3D perspective and letting them explore the world as if they were really in it - no small feat for a game that shipped on a handful of floppy disks.  (A CD version was released later, but like many enhanced CD ports, it just adds a Redbook audio soundtrack and fixes a few bugs in the original release.).  Each leg of the story is referred to as a "chapter", with the perspective shifting several times throughout to different sets of protagonists, and even quicksaves are referred to as "Bookmarks".

Being an early 3D game also means that Krondor hasn't aged the best on a visual level. While the pre-rendered objects in your inventory and character sprites aren't bad (they digitized stills of actors in costume for them), the environments you wander through definitely look a bit rough - you walk on flat grassy ground with paths denoted only by brown or gray, and the world is populated by square buildings and triangular peaks with crude textures applied to give the appearance of hills and mountains. Dungeons are similarly in full 3D,  though design-wise they still feel much like Might and Magic or Wizardry, mostly consisting of large rooms connected by long, uniform corridors.  On the other hand, combat animation is rather good; well, aside from the chess-piece-like gliding each character performs while moving around the grid. Units will actually visibily swing their swords and hit their foes, load and fire crossbows, and visually cast spell effects, complete with some nice flourishes - when a fireball impacts on an enemy, it will explode and scatter particles across the screen for a few seconds. 

Betrayal at Krondor is one of the earliest examples I know of of an RPG to completely do away with a traditional experience system.  Instead, each character has an array of skills with varying degrees of proficiency at the start, and these can only be improved with active use, paying a trainer, or finding/buying skill books. However, you do have the option to focus on a particular skill to help it grow faster - focusing on just one will give it approximately a 50 percent bonus to growth, while adding more will result in a lower bonus, but still faster than an unfocused skill.  you can also reassign these at basically any time, so it pays off to focus only on one when you're doing a particular thing (like lockpicking) and set your combat skills as focused when you're wandering the overworld or a dungeon to get the maximum effect.  Not all skills are centered strictly on combat, either. Stealth can potentially warn you of an upcoming ambush or even let you turn the tables on enemies and get the first move in battle.  Weapon and armor smithing let you keep your gear in top shape - a very valuable thing as all but the most basic of equipment is very expensive. Barding - your characters' ability to perform with a lute in various taverns - is more useful than you'd expect for that same reason - a successful attempt will earn you cash. Not a great deal, mind, but often enough to afford some rations or a stay at an inn to top off one's health, which can make all the difference if a tough battle is coming up. 

Unlike many of its contemporaries, Krondor doesn't have completely free roaming - as mentioned, the characters you command are pre-generated, and though you can shape their skill growth to a degree, it's generally best to work on improving what they already have some skill in rather than trying to force them into different roles; there's little point in having more than one designated lockpicker, for example, and attempting to spread skill growth around the party would just result in all of them being unable to pick tougher locks. The world is a quite large and sprawling one, divided up into several distinct map areas, though during any given chapter you can only visit a handful of these. Thankfully, they are large and varied enough to hold your interest and give you plenty of opportunity to grow your team's skills and earn useful resources.  Not just enemies to fight, either - there are plenty of small villages to visit, characters to interact with, and scripted events with both good and bad outcomes - oftentimes, you must weight whether a potential reward is worth the risk (and many times, it isn't).  There are side-quests to undertake during each chapter too, and even those with minimal rewards are often worth doing for the potential skill level growth within.  Exploring off the beaten path frequently rewards you with one of the game's more interesting elements - wordlock chests.  Most chests in the game are open able via keys or a sufficient lockpicking skill, but these are inscribed with a riddle, which you must solve by unscrambling one or more words on the box's tumblers.  They often contain useful items (and are required to progress at some points), but all are worth seeking out to see some more clever writing. 

The experience manages to be just as engrossing on a gameplay level, too, in no small part because of its high difficulty level - it's a game thatr eally makes you feel like your tiny band of adventurers is pitted against a stark and hostile world.  Roads are frequently booby-trapped with some nasty obstacles which play out on the combat grid like something of a minigame, having you avoid them or trigger them without putting yourself in harm's way.  Chests you encounter are often booby trapped, so exercising caution before opening one is often wise.  Enemies (and unscrupulous NPCs) will often carry poisoned or spoiled rations, so checking the merchandise before you automatically dig into them while resting is always wise.  Enemies almost never fight fair - you're almost always outnumbered, and they know well enough to get in close right away to prevent your mages from casting spells, and will barrage your fighters with crossbow bolts or debilitating spells of their own while they're fighting in melee range; using magical items of your own to give yourself an edge is often necessary, especially early on.  As mentioned above, money is always tight and higher-end gear very expensive, so avoiding costly poison, illness and near-death cures as much as possible is paramount to keeping your equipment current. A big part of that too is managing your health and stamina; stamina essentially serves as an extension of your health, with every action you take in battle eating it first, then health once it's depleted.  Krondor is one of the few games I've seen that breaks the axiom of "the only hit point that matters is the last one" - as your health depletes your stats will also drop, making it extremely difficult (if not impossible) to even land hits on enemies, let alone perform other tasks.  Resting often, at inns whenever you can spare the money, and keeping yourself ready for whatever may come will serve you very well. As will the game's Bookmark feature - basically a Quicksave and something you should always use before doing anything even potentially dangerous. 

After playing it, there is now little doubt in my mind as to why Betrayal at Krondor is considered a classic DOS RPG. The game has definitely not aged gracefully on a visual level (and even for 1993 it was pretty ugly), but it stands as perfect proof that a well-written story and polished game design is timeless.  Its strongly written prose and dialog for even mundane interactions draws you into its world and makes you feel like an active participant rather than a spectator, and its gameplay pulls no punches either, with a vast and hazardous environment that requires you to carefully prepare for every obstacle you face and be utterly ruthless in combat; enemies will give you no quarter, so there's no reason to give them any.  Combat also does get pretty monotonous after a while and is extremely frequent in some parts of the plot, which can get pretty frustrating at times.  You'll also have to do a fair bit of skill grinding early on to stand much of a chance in later chapters, fighting as many battles as possible and repeatedly picking locks just to power up; particularly as traps are lethal and can completely wipe even a powerful party.  Still, Krondor is an engrossing game despite its technical limitations (and being built in a flight simulator engine), and its engrossing narrative style is something more modern RPGs should be taking cues from.  Really, the only major disappointment is that it doesn't have more of a legacy - there was a spiritual successor in 1997 called "Betrayal in Antara" and a proper sequel released a year later, though neither had the original team involved in development and the quality definitely suffered for it. 

Developer: Dynamix

Publisher: Sierra On-Line

Platform: MS-DOS, Mac OS X, (and an unofficial port for the X Window System for Unix) 

Released: 1993 (Floppy disk version), 1994 (CD-ROM version)

Recommended version: N/A