Betrayal at Krondor
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Betrayal at Krondor is a DOS computer role-playing game developed by Dynamix and published by Sierra Entertainment in 1993. It uses a mixture of 3D and 2D graphics in a large game world based on Midkemia, the world of Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar series of fiction books.
Betrayal at Krondor is richly detailed, with a rather large amount of items, maps, and subquests. In addition, it is almost totally open-ended in places. It also has well developed characters plot.
Sierra released Betrayal at Krondor free of charge in 1997 to promote the game Betrayal at Antara. Contrary to popular belief, Vivendi Universal Games has stated that the game is not free to be redistributed by others. [1] (http://www.liberatedgames.com/forums/index.php?t=msg&th=7&start=0&rid=3)
Feist later wrote Krondor: The Betrayal, a novelization of the game and first in a series of new Midkemia books called The Riftwar Legacy.
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Game Details
The Overworld
Much of the game takes place on a huge overworld map. The player is free to explore this map in almost any way he or she desires. For example, in the first chapter of the game the player is told to head to Krondor, in the south. However, the player is free to go wherever he or she wishes. The player can go to the northern border of the Moredhel; the player can go to the far east end of the map; the player can explore the central Elven forest. Scattered throughout the map are plenty of enemies to fight (see Combat below).
The map is not just a vehicle to get from point A to point B; it is filled with content. There are villages, some of whose inhabitants the player can interact with. The player can stop at the local tavern and earn some money playing the lute in the corner. The player can get some supplies at the store, whose merchandise is always different from that of the last store visited. Or the player might find him- or herself involved in a subquest or two. There are also some cities and towns that take the player to a screen with a city- or townscape, from which business can be gone about.
There are also many farmhouses throughout the countryside, usually with quest-related content about each. There are graveyards with graves from which the player can dig up items, which sometimes means disturbing the undead occupants. Dead bodies and chests can be found, sometimes trapped. But most famous of all are the Moredhel word lock chests, each of which is inscribed with a riddle. To open them the player must figure out the answer by putting together the letters given to form the word. The riddles are of varying difficulty, with some being very difficult.
There are some underground areas to explore as well. These are typical dungeons filled with monsters and winding passageways. The game provides a map for these areas, as well as the overworld.
Skills and Inventory
Every character has a large list of skills showing how proficient they are in it, expressed as a percentage. Skills can be accented so that they grow faster. Unfortunately this allows it to be manipulated so that only the skills wanted improved at the moment are highlighted. Some skills include swordsmanship, whetstone and armorer skill, lockpicking, haggling, lute playing, and spellcasting.
There is also an extensive amount of items in the game, ranging from weapons and armor to food to books. Right-clicking on an item will show background info for it. Every item has very detailed background info, often entertaining to read.
There are many different weapons in the game. Most of the characters use swords. Each sword does better with a certain race. Each sword also has modifiers on how well it does in combat with either thrusting or swinging. There are also many kinds of armor as well. After combat weapons and armor must be kept in shape with a whetstone or armorer's hammer, respectively. How much it improves depends on the character's skill.
There are many items which can be used on swords and armor, with the effect depending on which you use it one. For example using poison on a sword will make it poisonous, while using it on armor will protect the character from poison. Items range from blessings to fire attributes.
Books can be read to increase a characters skill in one area. Perhaps the most memorable skill-increasing item is the lute, which features "This Kingdom Mine" being played, the character slowly getting better as his skill increases until finally it sounds quite beautiful. There are also rare scrolls which will teach wizards new spells.
Food has to be managed; whenever you make camp to sleep or regain lost health and stamina, food is used. There are several different kinds, from average rations to very tasty but pointless one-day's rations to alcoholic drinks which will indeed get your characters roaring drunk. Some rations found are even spoiled or poisoned.
Combat
Combat takes place on a grid, similar to game such as Final Fantasy Tactics, only with a viewpoint closer to the ground. The objective usually is to kill all the enemy, though occasionally the game goes to the battle screen when a magical trap is triggered, which entail moving your character through series of magical traps to the other side without getting killed.
In combat there are several options. You can move to a different location on the grid. If you can reach the enemy you can attack in the same move. Once next to the enemy you can attack with your weapon. There are two options: a thrust and a swing. The swing does more damage but has less chance of hitting, depending on the character's swordsmanship skill. If a crossbow is equipped the character can attack from a distance. If the character is a wizard he can use a spell. You can defend as well, or rest, which regains health and stamina.
Once heavily damaged enemies will actually try to run away, and they will likely succeed unless you can cut them down in time or freeze them with a spell. After battle killed enemies remain on the ground in the map, and you can loot their corpses.
Plot
The plot in the game, not surprisingly being as it was written by Feist, is pretty deep, especially for games of that era. The characters are all very developed, with extensive backgrounds that help bring them to life. The game is divided up into several chapters. Each one starts off with an mood setting intro written by Feist. Then usually there is a cutscene with a picture of the character, the background being the current locale, with the dialogue underneath. Sometimes there is motion as well. Your party of three, sometimes less is then introduced to you. Usually it is different in each chapter. The chapters usually conclude in the same fashion.
Graphics
The game mostly uses a quirky 3-D engine. It represents both the overworld and dungeons in 3-D in a pre-Quake era so the result is sub-par. The overworld has many hills which are represented as polygonal projections which, combined with the low-res textures, are unimpressive. Movement is somewhat clunky, especially with turning. The game view is altered so thoroughly on each turn often the player can become totally disoriented. Most of the objects except for houses are represented by sprites, which have a pretty limited draw distance. This makes finding treasure chests pretty burdensome.
Most of the humanoid characters are not drawn but actual captured images of people (similar to the first Mortal Kombat). In combat idle, attack, and death animations are captured, but not character movement: characters' feet don't move; they just float across the board. The animation in combat that is captured is also pretty jerky. Environments are a mix of captured images and hand-drawn. Inventory items are all hand-drawn in excellent quality. Unfortunately due to the low resolutions of the times today things look pretty pixelated on the whole.
External links
- Betrayal at Krondor at "Home of the Underdogs" (http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=116)
- Betrayal at Krondor Patch (http://www.sierra.com/downloadfile.do?gamePlatformId=1764&mediaid=12229)
- Extensive guide and walkthrough to Betrayal at Krondor (http://www.hi.is/~eybjorn/krondor/krondor.html)nl:Betrayal at Krondor