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Betrayal at Krondor - overrated?

octavius

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 4, 2007
Messages
19,185
Location
Bjørgvin
Damned, this is annoying...Ugyne Corvalis is located in a spot you'll never find her if you stick to the roads. In fact she's located right off the road, so there no incentive to explore there. I only ran into her when I happened to turn off "follow the road".
Since I've done most of Chapter 3 I could have used her information earlier.

Annoying that you can't see NPCs. Unlike "monsters" they just pop up from nowhere.
 

Wyrmlord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 3, 2008
Messages
28,886
Damned, this is annoying...Ugyne Corvalis is located in a spot you'll never find her if you stick to the roads. In fact she's located right off the road, so there no incentive to explore there. I only ran into her when I happened to turn off "follow the road".
Since I've done most of Chapter 3 I could have used her information earlier.

Annoying that you can't see NPCs. Unlike "monsters" they just pop up from nowhere.
Same here.

I had done everything, everything in Chapter 3, but left the game for weeks or maybe months baffled about what to do.

Once I found Ugyne Corvalis, it was a two or three weeks before I finished the game.

That's when I learnt, "Look everywhere and anywhere".
 

octavius

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 4, 2007
Messages
19,185
Location
Bjørgvin
Damned, this is annoying...Ugyne Corvalis is located in a spot you'll never find her if you stick to the roads. In fact she's located right off the road, so there no incentive to explore there. I only ran into her when I happened to turn off "follow the road".
Since I've done most of Chapter 3 I could have used her information earlier.

Annoying that you can't see NPCs. Unlike "monsters" they just pop up from nowhere.
Same here.

I had done everything, everything in Chapter 3, but left the game for weeks or maybe months baffled about what to do.

Once I found Ugyne Corvalis, it was a two or three weeks before I finished the game.

That's when I learnt, "Look everywhere and anywhere".

If I had played the game blindly, withouth consulting your Let's Play, I would probably never had found out who Navon really was, and how he ended up with the Spyglass.

But apart from the annoyance of invisible pop-up NPC (and in the same vein: not being able to find known ambushers) I'm impressed by how large the story is in this game. I think I like it even better than the Riftwar books.
Usually I don't care much for stories in games, but in this game I actually care about the story, the characters and how it will all end. And when the CRPG mechanics (character development, exploring, combat, magic) also is fairly good, we have rare gem. I think it may end up among my top 25 after all.
 

abnaxus

Arcane
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Joined
Dec 31, 2010
Messages
10,849
Location
Fiernes
Ugyne Corvalis, is that Owyn's sister?

I never missed her, but is she even required to finish the chapter? AFAIK it's possible to finish without even finding the note in the ruins - there's an alternate way involving starving your party in some bizarre ritual for one of the many Midkemian gods.
 

Johannes

Arcane
Joined
Nov 20, 2010
Messages
10,487
Location
casting coach
Ugyne Corvalis, is that Owyn's sister?

I never missed her, but is she even required to finish the chapter? AFAIK it's possible to finish without even finding the note in the ruins - there's an alternate way involving starving your party in some bizarre ritual for one of the many Midkemian gods.
I barely remember any small details of the game, even overall plot sequence is really patchy, but I certainly remember starving myself to gain approval from some clergy and it playing a major part in advancing the main plot.
I think you were even told several ways you can get accepted as an initiate/whatever, but the starving was the simplest one.

This was one of the few games with some tougher puzzles, that I was actually able to fully finish as a kid. Or maybe it's just proof that the puzzles were not actually hard.
 

octavius

Arcane
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19,185
Location
Bjørgvin
Ugyne Corvalis, is that Owyn's sister?

I never missed her, but is she even required to finish the chapter? AFAIK it's possible to finish without even finding the note in the ruins - there's an alternate way involving starving your party in some bizarre ritual for one of the many Midkemian gods.

AFAIK, talking to her is not required. But it answers a lot of questions if you do. And having Navon confess before you kill him would have been much more satisfying than excommuncating him from the Temple of Kahooli, and not get an explanation.

Incidentally I first tried the "pray to Kahooli behind the curtain of water" solution. I thought there would be an altar in the cave behind the waterfall. Not sure if that was a deliberate red herring, though.
 

abnaxus

Arcane
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Fiernes
It seems it's possible to first kill Navon and afterwards meet and talk to Ugyne.

But what I liked about Navon is he gives you a bunch of pointers about chess which you can later use to gain lots of emeralds.
 
Joined
Dec 19, 2012
Messages
1,633
I've always thought a LOTR game done in the style of BaK would be a perfect fit for the source material. All those generic LOTR action games were such a wasted opportunity.
 

helpimarock

Novice
Joined
Dec 18, 2012
Messages
8
Is Betrayal in Antara any good? Betrayal at Krondor is one of my favourite RPGs, but I've heard mostly bad things about the sequels.
 

hoverdog

dog that is hovering, Wastelands Interactive
Developer
Joined
Jul 8, 2010
Messages
5,589
Location
Jordan, Minnesota
Project: Eternity
Imagine BaK with bad writing, boring plot, horrible voice acting and without the freedom that Krondor gave.

It's not a bad game, just mediocre. Definitely better than Return to Krondor though.
 

Telengard

Arcane
Joined
Nov 27, 2011
Messages
1,621
Location
The end of every place
Return to Krondor features:
  • 3rd person flip screen movement with bad controls
  • Laughable in engine cutscenes (notable for featuring some animations that you'll be very familiar with by now)
  • Laughable animations
  • Dumping of puzzles
  • Simplification of combat
  • Small scale plot in an epic scale game
  • Pointless skills
  • Lots of skill gains in a simple skill system, making for quick max-outs
  • Insta-win items
Essentially, it's one of the first modern RPGs. But it came out before its time. The graphics, immersion features, and romance options weren't quite advanced enough yet.

(There is a remarkable amount of C&C, though.)
 

PetrusOctavianus

Educated
Joined
Dec 20, 2012
Messages
98
I must say Betrayal of Krondor was a much bigger game than I anticipated. Subtracting the 10 days when I was without a computer I have already spent more than two weeks on this game (most games I finish before that) and I'm only in Chapter 6, which has been the longest chapter so far.
Getting a bit tired of those Wyverns, though. The "vanilla" ones are easy to kill since they take double damage from Flamecast, but the Grandsires are worse since they are immune to fire. Any good spells against them? Rage of the Mad God is good, but the mana cost is steep. And what are those Wyvern Eggs for?
I know Wyvernlord Wyrmlord hated the elven forest, but with the Spyglass it's not so bad. Still hard to see enemies, but you don't have to explore everywhere to find containers.
 

Wyrmlord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 3, 2008
Messages
28,886
PetrusOctavianus
I liked Elvandar. I am not sure if I disliked it back then, but thinking about it now, it was a whole new experience.

It's one of the few times I felt like I was travelling across a giant forest in a game, while not being able to see more than two feet in front of you. Like you were really wading through all the thickets of trees. Plus, there were cool spells (such as Firestorm) and interesting encounters to be found all over the place.

Apart from Spyglass, there are spells to see the overhead map with all nearby objects revealed. The developers must have intended extensive use of such spells to finish the game.

As for Wyvern Eggs, I believe they are usable in combat? For defeating Wyverns, I guess summoning Rusalki and using Gambit of Eight should do. I am guessing you got the Gambit of Eight spell right before entering Elvandar.
 

PetrusOctavianus

Educated
Joined
Dec 20, 2012
Messages
98
For defeating Wyverns, I guess summoning Rusalki and using Gambit of Eight should do. I am guessing you got the Gambit of Eight spell right before entering Elvandar.

Don't have that summoning spell. Where do you get it? Summoning is fun, so I cherish that horn that summons dogs.
Haven't found Thy Master's Will, either. But then I haven't explored every nook and cranny of the game.
Never tried that Gambit of Eight. I guess I don't feel lucky.
 

PetrusOctavianus

Educated
Joined
Dec 20, 2012
Messages
98
Interesting...the Flamecast immune Pantathians on the desert planet in Chapter 8 seems to get confused and/or demoralized if you cast one Fetters of Rime. The target will be frozen, while the rest of the lizards mill about like headless chicken, making it easy to kill them.
 

abnaxus

Arcane
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Dec 31, 2010
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Fiernes
Yellow wyvern -> use Fetters of Rime
Blue wyvern -> Use Flamecast

Also, Gambit of Eight + Invitation one shots everything.
 

PetrusOctavianus

Educated
Joined
Dec 20, 2012
Messages
98
So Makala is The Bad Guy in this game?
Wasn't he the brother of Pug's owner on Midkemia, and uncle to Kasumi?

And, from reading a bit too far ahead in Wyrmie's Let's Play, there's only one spell that can hurt him? Gee, I hope it's a spell I know, since not having explored everything I'm bound to have missed some spells.
 

PetrusOctavianus

Educated
Joined
Dec 20, 2012
Messages
98
Just finished this game!
The Six were disappointingly weak. The few times they got a chance to cast spells they didn't do much damage.
Makala was another matter. He seemed immune to most spells, but I spammed him with Firestorm spells till he dropped. I killed his two demon (?) allies with the Touch of Lims-Kragma spell.

All in all I'm glad I didn't explore eveything. Yes, it meant I missed some things, like the Ale quest, the Sack of Grain quest, all that happened on the main road to Elvandar, and more. But it also meant that my characters were not too overpowered, and that there will be more things to discover if I'm ever to replay this game.
Even so, the only really difficult battle was against the six invisible Moredhel spell casters. I had to reload a few times to win that one.

This is by by far the CRPG I've played with the deepest and most complex story line, even outdoing the Riftwar books (Silverthorn in particular was a very basic story). I can't think of any other game that has combined such a complex story with such an open world, and with proper CRPG mechanics, like character development, skills, items and a decent combat system. Usually in games with emphasis on story the story is on rails, there is no exploration and the combat is too simplistic.

And I like how many questions remained unanswered and that some of your protagonists were killed. I must admit I got a lump in my throat when Gorath died. I can't remember the last time a game had that effect on me.

Really a unique game, and very different from my other favourites.
 

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