Betrayal at Krondor

The Good
The last ten years of the 20th century were, in my opinion, the Golden Age of video games - and role-playing ones in particular. Even though many people would only go as far back in their memory trips as the "RPG Renaissance" heralded in the second half of the decade by games like Diablo and Fallout, it is important to remember that the so-called "Middle Ages" - the years following the decline of Gold Box and gradual disintegration of Ultima - were blessed by some of the best and most interesting RPGs in history. The revolution of Ultima Underworld, the crystallization of Wizardry and Might and Magic, the future foundation of Elder Scrolls and King's Field, the peak of German RPG design at Thalion and Attic - all these great games, and many others, were released during those supposedly "dark" times. One of the most important ones is Betrayal at Krondor.

Betrayal at Krondor was developed by Dynamix. To my knowledge, this is the only RPG they have ever made. It is therefore particularly astonishing that a company with no experience in the genre managed to created one of its most fondly remembered representatives. Talent truly triumphs over everything else: even though it may seem at times that Betrayal at Krondor lacks some of the genre-related know-how of the established franchises, it conquers the hearts of the players with its wonderful personality and an intangible sixth sense for true role-playing that transcends the most meticulous and cleverly constructed gameplay mechanics of other games.

Betrayal at Krondor is not a "hardcore" role-playing game. It is a far cry not only from the mystically mathematical Wizardry, but even from the trigger-happy Might and Magic. It is not one of those games that overwhelm the player with sheer numbers and possibilities. It is a clear adherent of the late Ultima design school, in many ways similar to the monumental Serpent Isle, which was released around the same time. It also takes cues from the Underworld series with its implementation of real 3D and from older RPGs with its old-fashioned tactical turn-based combat. You can see that the game doesn't really care for whatever system it chooses; it liberally puts together some familiar elements of the genre to create something unique - but the uniqueness is achieved with its general design philosophy rather than with any developed and coherent gameplay concept.

Ever since Ultima started to focus more on the plot, and Japanese RPGs began raising their heads with their cinematic treatment of the material that was largely absent in the West, RPG designers have been preoccupied with the problem of balance between exploration and scripting. Everyone loves exploring, but more and more people developed a taste for dramatic scenes and meaningful questing instead of the formulaic "go to eight dungeons, find eight magical thingies, defeat the big bad guy" structure prevalent in most games of the type. People wanted better writing, more scripted events to spice up the plot, and controllable characters that would be more than generic half-orc barbarians - all that without falling into the trap of contrived linearity and lack of significant choices most Japanese RPG could never avoid.

Betrayal at Krondor is such a game. If you value writing, drama, and interesting characters in a believable world while rejecting the hand-holding of Eastern RPGs (or many later Western ones, for that matter), this is the perfect game for you. No other RPG I know dedicated so much care and effort to balancing those two extremes - the freedom to go wherever you want and the dominance of a tight plot. Right from the beginning of the game you can just rush to Krondor and complete the first chapter - or you can explore the vast wilderness on the way, visit half a dozen cities, and undertake sub-quests. The game opens with a strong scene that sets the tone for further events, complete with a conflicted tragic character, an urgent mission, and hints for a rich world with its own lore waiting to be discovered. You immediately feel that you are "in the plot", that the characters you control live their own lives and have their own agendas - and yet you can just wander around and enjoy the bliss of RPG freedom.

The game does more than that: it fortifies exploration, embellishes it with scripting. If you have taken the road opposite to your destination, you won't be simply put in a static world with treasure chests and enemies. You'll meet people, you'll chat with them, you'll visit towns and become involved in local affairs. People would suddenly confront you in the middle of the road, ask questions, force you to make decisions. Yet the freedom is so well-preserved that you can literally play for hours within the first chapter alone - and even if some of the later chapters can be a bit more demanding and restricting with their more detailed objectives, you never feel you are just being obstinately guided to your destination without the possibility to look around. Such is the genius of Betrayal at Krondor that you can equally enjoy both cardinal aspects of game design, witnessing them in a rare harmonious union.

This design philosophy further manifests itself in the remarkable blend of writing and gameplay features. The most mundane aspects of the gameplay are elevated to a spiritual dimension thanks to that. To illustrate, note how the game comments on everything you do in its own personal way. What other game delivers a short dramatic dialogue every time one of its characters' hit points reach zero? What other game allows us to read the actual thoughts of a protagonist when he is going through the unpleasant task of searching a dead body to procure a much-needed food ration? We've done those things countless times before in RPGs, but which one actually made us think about them? This is not just a pretentious attempt to overload a game with needless chunks of text: this is a way to build up atmosphere, to enhance immersion. You feel more connected to the game because it reacts to everything you do. Of course, after a while this astonishing novelty wears off, since you'll run out of new things to do and will be reading the same lines over and over again. And yet it doesn't get old; it keeps giving you the cozy feeling of belonging to the world you are exploring in a game, an almost odd sensation of identification with it. This is a step to gaming realism that was sadly ignored by most games to come.

But don't think Betrayal at Krondor is just some fancy scripted scenes superimposed on poor RPG gameplay. Even though it's by far not as complex as some of its contemporary genre brethren it still has enough "meat" to satisfy our role-playing cravings. You'll have to manage a party that needs to eat and sleep, pay attention to weapon and armor degradation, light torches in dark areas, get scrolls to teach your mages powerful spells, amass money for better gear, find and buy all sorts of cool items, and "focus" on skills of your choice for character development. Tactical combat is simple to understand, interesting, challenging, yet not impossibly hard or obscure; the absence of levels means you need to practice by repetition, which is a system I happen to particularly like. Sub-questing doesn't only add layers to the plot, but also provides you with various gameplay-related benefits which will certainly affect the future state of your party.

Speaking of plot - it might not be as twisted and dramatic as in the best Eastern RPGs, but it certainly has its moments, and overall it is a clear improvement even over late Ultimas, let alone the schematic stories most Western games were happy to have at the time. In this respect Betrayal at Krondor foreshadows the RPG Renaissance. If my memory serves me right, the guys at BioWare respectfully named it as a direct influence on their Baldur's Gate, and it certainly shows. Betrayal at Krondor teaches many lessons, and one of the most important ones is showing how a strong story and memorable characters can co-exist with flexibility of gameplay. Many games tried to follow this school of thought - some succeeded more than others, but few could emulate the great teacher with the same natural elegance.

Finally, while some people may wince at the game's blocky 3D, it is important to remember that at the time few RPGs dared to use that new technology in the first place. First-person 3D is more immersive than any other perspective, and Betrayal at Krondor chose it to make wilderness exploration more involving. And I loved the slightly goofy photos of real people used for the game's characters. This is one nostalgic visual style seemingly buried forever in the depths of early multimedia technology, and I welcome it as a proudly endearing symbol of the era.

The Bad
In order to enjoy this game to the full you'll have to accept the fact that Betrayal at Krondor is more of an experience than a methodical implementation of genre-related concepts. In other words, it surely feels like a marvelous role-playing game, but if you try to coldly analyze it you'll come to the conclusion it doesn't do that many things better than other RPGs, and doesn't even have some of their most commonly accepted features. There is no character creation, only two basic classes, and character development is pretty much limited to the same set of skills for everyone. Weapon and armor choices are fairly restricted as well: for example, all pieces of armor are lumped together as pre-made sets. It is a wonder the game manages to perfectly convey the feeling of growth, customization, and achievement under such limitations.

There is one downside to the game's heavy scripting: lack of choice in party management. Here Betrayal at Krondor behaves like a Japanese RPG, where you suddenly find yourself stuck with an obligatory character you never wanted to have in your party in the first place. In fact, the game is even less flexible than some of its Eastern cousins, as it always forces a prescribed party on you. I'd have no problem either hanging with the same three guys from the beginning to the end or at least get some cool and colorful companions later on in exchange for the less interesting ones; however, in this case you must give up one fairly generic nobleman for another, and then a reasonably powerful wizard for a much weaker one. It feels frustrating to build up a character only to have him taken away from you in the next chapter.

I can't say I loved the menu navigation in the cities. Only smaller towns can be physically explored, while the big ones are presented as still pictures with clickable separate locations. I'd definitely prefer to explore every location physically, no matter the limitations of the early 3D engine. An appropriately large 3D city with poorly textured buildings would still convey the feeling of actually being in it much better than the most splendid drawing. It's a good thing the game's spiritual successor avoided that kind of graphical presentation except for a few cases.

The Bottom Line
The perfectionists among us will surely find some small-to-medium flaws in Betrayal at Krondor, but even they will have a hard time resisting this game's sweeping charisma. You may find other RPGs with deeper and more refined gameplay, but very few of them would match the sheer amount of love and thought poured into Betrayal at Krondor, its brilliant balancing of exploration and plot, and its high level of immersion. Even if your mind tries to tell you otherwise, your heart will surely confirm that Betrayal at Krondor is one of the greatest role-playing games of all times.

The Good
Reviewing this game is a challenge for me, as it is one of those games that completely took me by storm while at a young age. For that reason, I thought it might be difficult to give it a fair review, and thus decided to do yet another play-through with a critical glance.

I remember my first experience with this game, sitting with friends on a rainy autumn afternoon in '93 or '94, I can still remember our screams of joy and awe as we walked into a shop in Questor's View and first beheld the Keshian Tapir. I brought the game home with me, and played it for hours and hours and days and (especially) nights.

The thing that most made this such a unique experience for me was the amazing freedom you had to run around and explore. It felt like a proper dice-and-paper-and-gamemaster-RPG. This freedom I had never experienced before in a game, and coupled with an enthralling main story, it created a hold over me very few games before or since has been able to do.

There are an incredible number of sub-quests, lots of areas of the beaten track to explore; lots of weapons to try out and aspire to get your hands on (like the aforementioned Tapir).

The view of the game, the combat system and the character development are all adequate. The graphics are good enough, but doesn't matter that much to me anyway. The music is absolutely fantastic, and creates a good atmosphere.

The world is based on the books of Raymond E. Feist (in my case, the game brought me to the books, rather than the other way around), and is a rich fantasy setting that feels as much as a second home as does Hyrule and Middle Earth.

A special mention must be made of the word-chests. These are chests that require you to solve a riddle in order to get at the treasure inside. In the dark pre-www-days of the nineties, I remember sitting into the early mornings of many a school night, my dictionary in my lap, trying to solve that riddle because you HAD to know what was in the chest.

The Bad
There are of course a few drawbacks:

-A quest log or similar would be very nice. Often, people will not repeat information they have already given you, so if you forget some piece of information, tough. This is mainly concerning the sub quests. When it comes to the main quest though, the game is a bit more helpful.

-Sometimes the perspective makes it very difficult or impossible to access certain objects when two or more objects overlap. After combat, it is sometimes necessary to run around the fallen enemy in circles in order to get the correct perspective that allows you to search all bodies. Other times, if an enemy is dead within a corn-field, attempts to search the body will be interpreted as attempts to harvest the corn, with a resulting "the corn is not ripe and cannot be eaten".

-Sometimes the outcome of a combat is determined by the choices made by the AI. If, for example, you encounter several spellcasters in an ambush, they may have the opportunity to incapacitate your entire party before you are able to act. When this happens, you have no other option than to load the game and try over until the enemy for some reason decides to cast different types of spells. This feels a bit unsatisfactory: you know that the enemy can destroy you if he wants, it feels sort of as if he "let's you win" when you finally succeed.

-The "rest" button in combat has a somewhat strange function when compared to the "camp" button on the map. Resting for a round in combat will restore a couple of hit points, while recovering on the map takes hours of camping and the consumption of rations.

-There is some friction in the flavour between the two great aspects of the game: freedom and story. In the first chapter for example, you are told by the leader of your company to rush to Krondor. But the freedom of the game allows you to run around and doing all sorts of things, like for example spending a fortnight learning to play the lute. The time you spend on sub-quests has no bearing on the main quest, so a bit of "double-think" is required on the part of the player.

-While there is a great array of spells available, in reality there are not that many that are useful, and only a handful will actually be used in most situations. A more even power-level between spells would have made combat more interesting as it would not be so obvious what spell to use.

-The player could have better control of movement in combat. You can only choose the enemy you wish to attack for example, not the square you wish to attack him from. This means that you cannot position yourself tactically between two enemies in order to prevent them from using spells or missile weapons for example.

-Patrus. This magician, joining your party in chapter 5(?), is so incredibly weak you'd actually be better off without him. He is so slow that he will never be able to move until an enemy has closed him down, making it impossible for him to cast spells. His combat stats are also so poor that he often gets himself injured or killed, forcing you to spend time and money healing him. His stealth is also so poor that it is important to ambush enemies and get the initiative. It sort of fits with him being an old man, but it is very annoying. It also feels strange from a story-perspective: Why on earth would the other members of the party go into combat with this old man? Just leave him safe behind a tree or something and call upon him when you need him to translate runes.

The Bottom Line
Despite the few drawbacks (and remember that this time I played actively looking for drawbacks, and that the game is an early example of its kind), this is an absolutely amazing game.

The world is great both in terms of size and quality, the story is good, the freedom to explore fantastic.

It will be on the top 10 list of games, all-time all-formats. I return to the game time and time again, and have done for twenty(!) years. If you enjoy adventuring and exploring in a rich world with a captivating story, this is for you. And be strong: try and solve the puzzle chests without cheating!

The Good
Understand that I loved all of the Sierra adventure games and I impatiently waited for each new release. I also dabbled with "true" RPGs - classics like the Forgotten Realms and AD&D, and while I liked them, I wasn't very good at them. I especially enjoyed Sierra's Quest for Glory Series games which attempted to introduce role playing elements to adventure gamers ... but not like their revolutionary game Betrayal at Krondor. If I remember correctly, this game was controversial within Sierra's own ranks and considered to be a risky endeavor for them at the time.

I wasn't prepared for the engrossing story presented in Betrayal. It contained the depth I was used to in adventures - an imaginary tale that evolved and deepened as you got further into it - characters with distinct personalities, unique backgrounds and histories - great interaction between the primary characters as well as with people they met. At the same time it was a role-player - stats that improved over time - more than one character to control - arms, weapons and spells to manage. It was also interesting when one of the "party" left temporarily to do something else before reuniting with the group again.

The graphics literally blew me away, especially during spellcasting. To watch a fireball fly out a character's hand and hit its target was visually awesome. The landscape and people were handsomely drawn and a pleasure to view.

You almost took for granted that Sierra's musical scores would be original and always excellent, bringing about emotion and suspense in their games. The music in Betrayal was no exception and was beautifully orchestrated.

The combat, for me at least, was easy to learn and use. I didn't find it to be awkward or quirky.

The Bad
I wanted more! What I didn't like was the long wait for the sequel - 5 whole years.

The Bottom Line
I thoroughly enjoyed playing Betrayal at Krondor. It accomplished what so many other games have tried to do and failed - combine adventure and role-playing in one game. I played this game when it was new, and that was 9 years ago. I would gladly play it again if it would play in Windows.

The Good
I loved this game. The characters and plot are very interesting, for one thing. The whole world that you are immersed in is very complex for a computer game. You really find yourself becoming interested in the fate of the characters. On to gameplay. The management of your resources is a challene in this game. Balancing your budget so that you have enough for bare essentials like food as well as less essential things like a better sword or suit of armor is a very nice touch to the gameplay. It's more realistic and it keeps your mind working when you are not fighting evil hordes. Another plus in the area of management is care of equipment. Once you buy that Dragon Armor, you need to hammer it back into shape after every battle or it won't be much use after a few encounters. Again, it increases the realism and keeps your head constantly busy. As well, you get the classic RPG element of characters talents which can be developed through experience (and through other ways which the smart gamer can find throughout the game). The graphics are very good, especially so for the time it was released, and the sound and music are both appropriate.

The Bad
There are two things I have to criticize. First and foremost, that the 3D first-person navigation is sometimes disorienting and is especially frustrating in puzzles that require you to find a certain item. It can really get you on the edge of your nerves. My second gripe is that searching the dead bodies of your enemies for equipment, while a very essential part of the game experience, can be tedious because you must click on EACH PARTICULAR BODY to see what the enemy has and sometimes the enemies' bodies hide each other.

The Bottom Line
An involving RPG adventure with a deep storyline.

The Good
Betrayal at Krondor was released in the summer of 1993, as VGA graphics were being pushed to their 2D, hand-drawn, sprite-intensive limit. This was also six months before id unleashed DOOM upon the world, beginning the push towards nearly every major game being produced in a 3D engine. As such, there is much in the way of imagination, storytelling, and overall artistry that I find most of today's big-budget, industrially-manufactured games to be lacking.

Perhaps the finest aspect of Krondor is that you can travel across the vast continent of Midkemia at almost all points in the storyline, doing as you please. Mostly, this entails traversing up and down mountainous valleys, searching out treasure caches (and attempting to open them, a joy onto itself thanks to half of them being protected by Moredhel wordlocks), battling dark elves, trolls, Brak-nur (rock-men), drakes, undead, and plenty of other sinister creatures. Then you can walk into one of the smaller towns and rest up at the local inn, play a tune for the local patrons (and get paid if you do a good enough job), sell any surplus equipment you've accumulated, have your armor repaired, and possibly take part in some other shenanigan (gambling, questing, solving mysteries, improving your combat or tradeskill abilities, and so on).

When you enter one of the major cities you are greeted with a wonderful hand-painted vista of the city and its environs, as a unique musical compositions sets the mood. This really helps create a sense of otherworldliness that allows you to sink easily into a magical fantasy mire. Great, great stuff -- just be sure you keep a window open so the odd breeze can remind you there's another world outside your house -- if you're interested in such trifling affairs.

The Bad
The graphics look dated in 2008 and were somewhat pixelated even when it was released in 1993.

When you've learned everything about the game that will give you an advantage over the armies of darkness, there isn't a whole lot of challenge inherent in the game. Combat is turn based, you can cheat in various ways (I will resist explaining here), and the storytelling is of high quality but not quite Lord of the Rings calibre.

The Bottom Line
A wonderfully deep and detailed adventure tale set in the charming medieval world of Midkemia. I'd count it among the four finest RPGs released so far, along with Ultima VII: The Black Gate, Baldur's Gate, and Final Fantasy IV.

The Good
I never read the books about Krondor, but the game itself is quite immersive with background music to set the atmosphere. It isn't a game that will suck you in, but you'll find yourself really trying hard to finish the game.

There are some nice differences with this game that set it apart from most RPGs. It had some really good ideas that were very well implemented, like improvements in skills. After a fight, you might need to hammer out your armor or sharpen your sword. Your ability to do so depends on your ability level, which occasionally goes up when working on it. Sharpening your weapon takes materials (which run out), as does hammering out your armor. It's a twist that adds some reality to the game. You also consume food (which can go bad or get poisoned).

I really liked the limited magic addition. It was very well balanced, and you didn't always have to cringe about fighting a mage (like you do in the Baldur's Gate series).

Personally, I liked the simpler combat-engine, but many people complained about it. I also like the multi-character use in the game. While you can't pick your partners, you can customize them a little bit, and they add some changes to the game (rather than just decking-out one character).

The Bad
The graphics were sub-par for the era. Backgrounds were trianglulated and straight lines were extremely jagged. Quake pixel-pushing freaks will laugh.

Many people didn't like the combat-engine, either. It was limited, and some may prefer that, but it really won't appeal to power-gamers. Power-gamers also won't like running all over creation trying to better their characters and take advantage of everything. You can spend days trying to do everything beneficial for your character before really carrying-on with the game.

The Bottom Line
A great RPG with some very well implemented things that just don't show up in any other games. Magic isn't so powerful it will cause you to save and re-load every five steps, but can be a real asset to your group. Beware trying to take advantage of everything in the game or of trying to find every nook and cranny. While the game isn't huge, it is big enough and sparse enough to make you really spend time.

The Good
I played the re-release of the game for Windows, with the Redbook music added, and the music was stellar. Rarely has a game's music matched the action so well. In addition, the storyline to the game was strong; you could tell a professional writer (i.e. Raymond Feist) had a hand in the production of this gem. The characters were fleshed-out, the events in the game were logical, and the game flowed evenly like a book, even organized into chapters like one. The chest-opening sequences were well done, with riddles that added to the charm of this title. Finally, the combat sequences were the perfect touch for a slow-moving story such as this one; the turn-based combat was very reminiscent of chess, and the challenges were neither too easy nor too hard.

The Bad
The graphics were pixellated, and the game's slow pace could become a bit exasperating at times. Also, the character of Pug looked nothing at all like the character was described in the book.

The Bottom Line
This would be a good game to those who truly enjoy a long rpg with strong story elements and turn-based combat. Also, if you are a Raymond Feist fan, you should pick this up. For those who enjoy hack 'n slash type games, however, or for those who prefer a more console-type action-filled rpg, they should not bother with this title. This is a true classic, and a textbook definition of what a true computer role-playing game is.

The Good
The spell system was out of its time, most other games of that time did not have these kind of features.

The game has a great number of spells, from the passive Despair Thy Eyes to the monstrous Mad God's Rage.

The Bad
A rather buggy game,I know of a number of bugs, but some of these bugs actually made the game more fun! =)

Graphical issue again...

The Bottom Line
It has some chills in this game (6 years ago i was playing this game and i got a little scared of the ghostly parts, now l'm still rather afraid of walking at night...)

This game has a free, full download, it is released by the kind folks from Sierra, go download it and have fun! (by search engine)

The Good
The open ended nature of the gameplay. The fantastic story.

The Bad
Some of the puzzle aspects that the interface really doesn't handle well. None of the solutions are counterintuitive, but the design of the game doesn't really mesh with some of the object based puzzles encountered in some chapters.

The Bottom Line
After the first battle, when you open your map and are basically told to get from your current location to the capital city of Krondor, you start to realize how ahead of its time this game was. Do I take the shortest path down the road directly to the city, or try to avoid the ambushes that are waiting for me and take the long way around? Should I detour off the road and search the forest, or keep going straight on? Some of the later missions were a little more linear, but in all you really have a sense of being in the game, struggling to save the kingdom. The storyline, penned by Raymond Feist, was also fantastic.

The Good
Krondor had some features that were very innovative for its time and I wish more games of today would use. The inventory system was simple and polished, with excellent descriptions for every item that could be found.You could move around using the helpful overhead map and use a yet larger map to see your position in the world.

The world was polygonal with sprites used for objects such as trees. For the time the game was made this was rather good technology, and although it is in no way passable by today's standards, it isn't all that jarring to have to play with.

There are no loading times anywhere in the game as you travel around the world, except when a chapter switches. This is a big bonus-- while loading screens from this era on today's computers would likely blink by in a second anyways, it is far nicer to simply be able to travel about the world unhampered by them.

Combat is fun and has a great system. Instead of the usual battlefield you will see appear in RPGs that don't have real-time combat, the game sets the battlefield as whatever area you encountered enemies on, which makes it seem a lot more realistic. The area is turned into a grid battlefield with the party at one end and the enemies at another.

The Bad
First of all, the artwork comes to mind. Instead of hand-drawn art, which is always the best, the characters appear to have been video captured, which never seems to work with a low-res game such as Krondor. Not only that, but the characters generally look horrible-- wizards look like farmers in bathrobes, knights like farm hands with pots over their heads, etc. It is often painful to have to see a character picture as dialogue progresses.

Furthermore, there are some problems with the game engine. The camera is 'drawn out' from the screen so that it takes two times as long to rotate 360 than it should. You can speed up rotation, but this only makes the effect more dizzying. It's very weird to see what looks like 720 degrees of landscape go by as you turn around.

The game's major strength was supposed to be that it was set in Raymond E. Feist's 'Riftwar Legacy' series. Personally, I am no big fan of his works-- I have read a few books in the series and found them to be devoid of character depth, lacking in intelligent narration, and set in an utterly typical fantasy world. The game is no different. The story for this game is no better than that of any other RPG, and it's no worse than any of Fiest's books-- which I think says a lot about the quality of the series. Enough on that point, however; put simply, the story for this game is nothing special, and I have encountered far better in the likes of Daggerfall.

Another minor issue is that the day passes too fast; one day seems to be equivinant of a natural game hour. If the designers needed it to take longer to get between places, they could have just streched the whole world making it three times as large, or made the character's steps smaller-- the way it is in the final product is totally unreal.

The Bottom Line
Since it was released as freeware by Sierra a long while ago, Krondor is worth the time to find and download. Unless you're a fan of Feist's work, however, don't expect anything special.

The Good
I love how easily you are immersed into the world of Midkemia and the lives of the characters. Gorath and Owyn are still my favourite characters from Feist's novels, years after I first played the game.

The Bad
The ending. Something bad happens to one of the characters I was very fond of.

There is a major bug - if you cast Final Rest on a dead Nighthawk/Black Slayer while another character or enemy is standing upon the same tile the dead enemy is on, the unlucky soul is sucked away with the dead Nighthawk and the game becomes frozen.

The Bottom Line
I loved the game. The storybook elements, puzzles and riddles, and the characters themselves make the game well worthwhile.

The Good
Set in fantasy novelist Raymond Feist’s world of Midkemia, Betrayal at Krondor (BaK) received great acclaim from the press. The game attempts to blend together storytelling, puzzles, and roleplaying into a cohesive whole.

Sales of the game were slow upon its initial release, but then picked up when the game was released on the then-new CDROM format. The game’s use of digitized photos of “actors” for the characters’ faces was innovative (if a bit cheesy) and even influential, given that Might and Magic VI would use the same technique a few years later. The musical score is appropriately sweeping and adds to the whole RPG-meets-Renaissance Fair atmosphere.

The Bad
Unfortunately, the graphic novel aspect of the game conflicts with the role-playing element, and thus the whole thing never quite comes together in a satisfying way. You get to control characters in combat and equip them as you go along, but this has a considerable downside: there is no such thing as starting out with a character of your own creation, nor do you have any idea which characters you will be using in future chapters. You may work extremely hard to bulk up Gorath, only to find out that he isn’t going to be a part of the story for a while, so you should have been working on boosting Owyn’s stats and inventory instead.

This game takes a long time to complete (easily over 50 hours, perhaps 100 or more if you explore everywhere and complete all of the quests), but very little of the time spent seems to be taken up by actual gameplay. Traveling outdoors is very tedious, and only by shelling out a pretty sizable chunk of your hard-earned cash can you use the jumpgates (found in temples) to move around the game world more quickly. Supposedly you can move around to the various areas in any order you want, but in reality the designers have made sure that you cannot do so. This would let the individual get too far off course from the storyline, so you are either blocked off by contrived plot devices (“Milord, this road is not passable until the snows have melted!”) or killed immediately by overwhelmingly powerful foes.

Losing even one member of your party in combat invariably means death to all, since you will almost certainly need to escape, but escape is only allowed when all members of your party are conscious (the need to keep characters in the story means no one is expendable) AND the way is not “blocked” by opponents. I say “blocked” in quotes, since I have not noticed the enemy ever doing anything in particular to achieve this tactic. Perhaps it is calculated by the CPU but not represented onscreen.

It is to Feist’s credit that Midkemia is interesting enough that some will want to plow through BaK to the end. It’s really just a blend of Tolkien, Dungeons and Dragons, and a bunch of other fantasy and science fiction conventions, although I suppose it’s fairly cohesive and believable as these things go.

The Bottom Line
Betrayal at Krondor is a failure as a coherent game, since its adventure/story portions ruin the fun of the role-playing/combat portions, and vice versa. I can only attribute this game’s sales success to its clever use of the CDROM format, the dearth of other CRPG’s on the market at the time, and to the prestige of its nominal author Raymond Feist. Feist has wisely turned the core of the Krondor story into an old-fashioned paperback novel, Krondor: The Betrayal. Gamers and Feist fans alike are advised to pass the CDROM up and give the book a go instead.