Return to Krondor: A real gem

[Jasede]

The combat is great, turn-based and everything, on a tactical grid...

Linear? You can go everywhere you like. Sure, the story is linear, but the game-play is not. If you wanted to you could explore the dreaded forest in the center of the map in chapter 1 - and actually get to see content you wouldn't see otherwise.

I suppose most people like the highly above average writing? It's not good writing by any means, but so much better than nearly every other game.

 

[afewhours]

So, why is it that everyone likes it so much?

Because it's fun.

OK, honest question. I played the first couple of chapters of Betrayal and hated it. It was distressingly linear and the combat was bloody terrible.

Ja, there is one big MQ to follow, but there are plenty of sidequests to dig out if you look for them. As for the combat, well... I quite enjoyed it myself. I especially liked tying in magic to Health/Stamina. It was an interesting move. The game was rigged so you got fucked quite easily if ran into a difficult fight at less than full-health and Owyn didn't have enough Health to Dragon Skin everyone at short notice. I also like the fact your characters get weaker all-round when your Health drops.

And it is worth giving it another chance if I wasn't too pleased with what I played already?

Well, it took me a while to get into the game properly, so maybe there's still hope :D

However, if you hate the combat, it may keep you from persisting. Also IIRC The combat breaks in one of the later chapters. You can find this well that boosts Owyn's and Gorath's strength scores endlessly. Then you give Gorath the Guarda Revanche and laugh, laugh, and laugh.

EDIT: What Jasede said about the writing.

 

[Lord Rocket]

Well, I do recall the magic system being pretty interesting. I might give it another crack when I'm finished with Natuk, since dull combat doesn't make or break a game (I got up to the final castle in Final Fantasy VIII before giving up in frustration, after all. Weep for me and my wasted youth). Thanks.

 

[Suchy]

Yeah but said free roaming was basically an illusion; everywhere looked exactly the same.

Illusion or not - it worked for me.

 

[Andhaira]

Oh the game was great, and fun. But what I'm saying is that I will take a beautfiul, well defined city with plenty of things to do over a generic world where each place looks the same as the other any day.

 

[elander_]

I liked this game but it's not a game i would play if i wanted to role-play. None of our character gen choices influence the story in any way. Whatever the character we build we can do every quest be it a side quest or a main quest in the same manner.

Besides the bulk of the game is the main quest. I would guess 90% of the writing was to tell a story that doesn't depend on the charcater you build.

Still it's a great game with above average writing and not very different from the Witcher i would say. You play with a limited and mostly pre-generated character in both games and in terms of side stories they are both limited.

Edit: I never played the Witcher. I'm judging it from the gameplay descriptions i read in the inet.

 

[nik2008ofs]

Oh the game was great, and fun. But what I'm saying is that I will take a beautfiul, well defined city with plenty of things to do over a generic world where each place looks the same as the other any day.

So, a computer generated "beautiful, well defined city" is not an illusion? I should sell my apartment and go live in Stormwind.

 

[Andhaira]

What kind of a stupid comment is that?

'Oh the game was great, and fun. But what I'm saying is that I will take a beautfiul, well defined city with plenty of things to do over a generic world where each place looks the same as the other any day.'

This is what I wrote. Do you see the word illusion anywhere in there? Please stop putting words in pplz mouths, kthxbye.

 

[PorkaMorka]

Should I beat betrayal at krondor before I start playing return to krondor, in order to "get" the plot?

I haven't read any of the books, and I only got to chapter 3 in BaK back in the day and don't remember any of it.

 

[afewhours]

Should I beat betrayal at krondor before I start playing return to krondor, in order to "get" the plot?

Well. Nah, not really. I'd focus on BaK first because it's the better game, you don't really need to know that much backstory.

If you want some kind of background... well... Feist's books are the best starting point. The games don't presume knowledge, but the game's more fun, and makes more sense if you have prior knowledge of Seigneur James, Pug et al.

My memory is foggy, but I believe the primary charactes of BaK: Owyn and Gorath, don't show up in the books. RtK focuses much more on canon characters, like James, William, Arutha etc. but you won't get a huge amount of insight into them from BaK. IIRC Only James, Pug and Locklear are major characters in BaK, and Locklear's a minor character in the canon.

 

[Suchy]

After the games were made, Feist wrote Betrayal at Krondor and Tear of The Gods which described events from the games. I only read BaK and I liked it a lot, after all Feist worked on the game story too. It was nothing like that crappy Baldur's Gate book that popped up after the game...

 

[Andhaira]

Aye it was good. ALso I suggest you play RtK first, because the story ismore defined, the plot iws way better,and the characters are much much more fleshed out.

 

[burrie]

Gorath got a few mentions in one of the "Tales of the Riftwar" saga(Honoured Enemy, I think), but I don't recall if he showed up.

 

[Andhaira]

Hey it him...Burrie.

Anyhow, locklear also died in a very cheap way in one of the books (porinces journey or something). lol it wasn't even on screen.

 

[PorkaMorka]

ugh, after having played it, you left one big con off the list:

The interface.

It's from that annoying time period where developers thought it'd be a good idea to forcibly move the player to another camera angle every 5 steps and to make matters worse, you have to hold down control to make your guy move at a reasonable pace. The interface really pissed me off very quickly. That camera, it's like something out of a really bad adventure game, with the constant angle switches, oh you're walking away from the camera, now towards it.

Feels like BaK's interface held up a lot better, since it's just wandering around in a classic first person view, then third person fights, although the lack of a way to mark stuff on the map made it certain quests extremely annoying in the end.

 

[Suchy]

Hey it him...Burrie.

Anyhow, locklear also died in a very cheap way in one of the books (porinces journey or something). lol it wasn't even on screen.

The games's action happened soon after the Rift War and Locklear died quite some time later. As well as James in one of the later books.

 

[Andhaira]

James died a heroic death defeneding the city from an otherworldy horde/ancient evil

loclear died with his pants down and his dick in a married woman.

 

[Suchy]

And that's why i like reading Feist :D

 

[nik2008ofs]

loclear died with his pants down and his dick in a married woman.

Which is the way I 'd like to go.

But if having your guts ripped off by a demon sounds like fun to you, please endeavor to achieve this goal ASAP.