When we created Betrayal at Krondor, we really weren't sure what was going to happen once we kicked it out the door. We knew we had something good…all the beta testers seemed to love it…but when you're that close to a product for that long, its impossible to make any objective value judgements. Within a few months of its release, it was raking in award after award, and once it went to CD-ROM, they literally couldn't keep the software stores stocked with them. Dynamix had a money making machine on its hands, and in the long term, it became one of their top all-time bestsellers.—Neal Hallford
This game is usually rated very high, but I never got the grip of it. It feels awfully slow, has way too much text and the battle system is confusing.
There are no levels, there are no experience points. You do something, you get better at it. In comparison, Daggerfall abandoned experience points, but not levels, while Shadowrun did it the other way round.
You can put things into them, too. This kind of realistic interaction with the surroundings was completely uncommon at the time, I didn't see it again until Fallout and Siege of Avalon. In an added touch of realism, unless the box has a lock, the items you put in might be gone when you come back.
You find their weapons, armor, some food, and so on. Many later games like Diablo and Daggerfall still had random drops. Here again, Fallout is the next game I know to have this feature.
Having day and night in a game is not a big problem, but how do you implement the need for sleep? Fallout simply didn't, while Daggerfall used a stamina bar; later, The Sims would feature a similar solution. Betrayal at Krondor used a different approach. First, it gets so dark at night that you simply feel the need to rest instead of going on; second, at midnight you will get a message that you have to rest. This may be crude, but feels far more realistic than the stamina bar.
You can pick three skills for each character that will develop faster, and change them any time. Needless to say you will always pick the skills you are going to use next. It's a completely useless flaw in the otherwise very good skill system.
I'm not saying bad graphics, that is something different, and the graphics aren't bad. The game has three views: Walking around is done in first-person 3D mode. You can switch to a top-down map view, but then you miss out all the details, like treasure chests. Combat, which is turn based, is done in a sort of isometric view. Dialogs, shops, inns, and many towns resemble a point-and-click adventure game.
The 3D view is the ugliest I've ever seen. It resembles crude cardboard cutouts. Nor does it serve any useful purpose. Combat is turn-based and uses a different view anyway, and map design is similar to classic console RPGs with impassible mountains, everything you can walk is completely flat. Daggerfall isn't always eye candy, either, but at least there are good reasons why it's 3D.
There is a notion floating around that games with a lot of text are "deep" (Planescape: Torment was another victim). This makes about as much sense as saying that a silent movie with lots of title screens is deep.
If you are looking for something different in roleplaying games then Krondor just might be it. Here you can lose yourself in the story, really 'live' in the land, drink, gamble, and socialise with the locals and learn how best to survive. The graphics are a little 'old fashioned' these days but the engrossing gameplay easily makes up for this. I'd certainly be in line for playing any sequel, but I'd hope that there was at least one female adventurer -- surely this isn't too much to ask.
One of the best RPGs ever made, Betrayal at Krondor is a classic example of games that get rave reviews yet do poorly in stores (at least until it was re-released on CD-ROM). Flat "paper-doll" digitized graphics is just about the only criticism you can level at this classic, which features an excellent plot written by best-selling fantasy author Raymond Feist (who also had considerable input in the design process), memorable characters, cool spellcasting interface, and an abundance of optional sub- quests and riddle chests. Sierra made the game freeware in 1997 to promote their own sequel Betrayal at Antara (which, without Feist' s input, is a pale shadow of its predecessor). Suffice to say that noone can claim to be an old-time RPGer if they have never set foot in Krondor :)
Betrayal at Krondor is quite possibly one of the greatest RPG's ever, on any platform, period. It features excellent game mechanics, a good combat and magic system, and most importantly a storyline and dialogue written by the fantasy genre's most popular authors, Raymond E. Feist.
Betrayal at Krondor is a strange kind of game. It's designed by the best-selling author Raymond E. Feist and is designed to be like a book itself. When I first played the game, I'd never heard of Raymond Feist and I wasn't the biggest fan of fantasy role-playing games either. However, it took only a few seconds for me to fall in love with this one. It was a game like none I'd ever seen before and soon I was hooked.
