Return to Krondor - Should be on GoG Thursday

Return to Krondor $5.99 at GoG thursday.

The story revolves around the disappearance of the Ishapian Church's most sacred relic, the Tear of the Gods. A band of ruthless pirates - in the employ of Sidi, a shadowy, half-mad sorcerer - attempt to seize the Tear from the Ishapian treasure ship; but in the process, they sink the ship accidentally, sending the Tear to the bottom of the Bitter Sea.

Your efforts to recover the Tear inadvertently draw you and your group into a violent, three-sided battle over the relic. Your quest leads you from the dizzying heights of Krondor's Palace, through the twisting tunnels of the sewers beneath the city, and into the haunted depths of a temple dedicated to an evil as ancient as the gods themselves.

More information.

Man, what an awful letdown this game was. Imagine going to get PS:T 2, and finding Space Siege.

I kinda liked it, but gave up when in a difficult dungeon encounter I got repeatedly shot at by a (goblin?) archer around a corner through more than ten feet of solid rock…
It features my all-time favorite lock picking minigame, though.

I can barely remember this one, but I vaguely remember enjoying it somewhat and being primarily disappointed with what I felt was the extreme brevity of the game. Combat seemed somewhat innovative (although I could be misremembering) for the time but tedious. Seemed they gave up quite a bit in pursuit of graphical presentation.

I hate that they replaced the excellent BaK skill-based system with vanilla ad&d style class-based system.

Passed it when it first came out. One of the few I couldn't stop playing. I guess it helps that I'm a huge Feist fan.

One of the few complaints I had about the game was the alchemy system was implemented too late in the game. I believe it was chapter 3 or 4 before that skill had any use at all.

Alchemy aside I'm grabbing this one as soon as it becomes available. The only way I could play this game on my current rigs was through Virtual PC. It would be nice to not have to jump through a ton of hoops the next time I want to play this game.

Originally Posted by Santos
Imagine going to get PS:T 2, and finding Space Siege.

That comment struck me as really funny. Shot coffee out my nose. Thanks for that.

Originally Posted by skavenhorde
Passed it when it first came out. One of the few I couldn't stop playing. I guess it helps that I'm a huge Feist fan.

I dunno if it's just me, but it seems like most CRPGS based on some author's novels never really deliver.

On a side note, are these older games available on GoG, such as return to Krondor, updated to work on modern PCs? Or are they largely just the original code and it's up to you to get them to work in DOS Box?

Not as bad as a game as it was made out to be at its release. Everyone just wanted BaK2 and they got a totally different game. Totally different!

The combat was decent but occasionally frustrating if you knocked someone out of screen when you killed them because then you couldn't loot the body. If I can recall it had a horrible font problem, everything was nearly unreadable. The alchemy was an ok idea but it was a jumbled mess. A clean interface and a rotatable camera would have taken this game a long way.

To me the real kicker though was I don't think they took advantage of Feist's world. Being limited to a couple of anchored camera screens within Krondor and little exploration outside of it there wasn't much other than the occasional reference to tie this to the books. That and the vampires at the end. WTF? Vampires? There's no vampires in Feist's books.

That being said, it was a decent game with some fun (if unmemorable) moments. If this had been called "Super Fun Adventure" and didn't make a single reference to Feist's work I think the game would have been much better received.

Originally Posted by LuckyCarbon
That and the vampires at the end. WTF? Vampires? There's no vampires in Feist's books.

You sure? He did write books later on that were based on the two games and one game that was never finished. I think he still had the vamps in the book based on this game.

They did put in an innovative for its time mechanic into this game: you could "farm" enemies in this game and eventually they would start dropping cool unique weapons/armors. But yeah, the game should have been a lot better cosidering how brilliant BaK was. Too bad both this and the "clone" BaAntara managed to screw up the formula somehow.

I'm a little surprised BaK was never reproduced as a mod for a newer engine somehow. It was just such an awesome game and it would seem like the fight engine and game mechanics were very simple.

Good game. Not the masterpiece BaK was, but really solid entertainment with excellent production values. It's a rather short and easy game. Good for a newbie, nice fast food for a pro.

Originally Posted by TheMadGamer
On a side note, are these older games available on GoG, such as return to Krondor, updated to work on modern PCs? Or are they largely just the original code and it's up to you to get them to work in DOS Box?

The DOS era games are bundled with a pre-configured Dosbox which has been optimised for each game. So it's pretty much just click and play. The only problem I've had with any GoG game (running 64 bit Windows 7) is Gothic 1 & 2, and that is due to problems with Nvidia drivers which also affects the boxed releases.

I know I played Betrayal at Krondor, was Return to before or after that? I really dont remember much about it, was Betrayal the one with Owyn as one of your characters? Ah yeh, there he is in a screenshot.

Originally Posted by Santos
Man, what an awful letdown this game was. Imagine going to get PS:T 2, and finding Space Siege.

even joke about a PS:T 2… PAIN!

It is sad that neither Betrayal at Antara nor Return could capture the magic
again. After Antara, I just didn't care anymore.

Originally Posted by Ryder
I know I played Betrayal at Krondor, was Return to before or after that? I really dont remember much about it, was Betrayal the one with Owyn as one of your characters? Ah yeh, there he is in a screenshot.

BaK was the 150 hours long game with fugly 1st gen 3D graphics. RtK was the game with up-to-date visuals when it came out. It's also really short.

I found the graphics rather awful, but the voice exting really excellent, and the overall game a lot of fun.

The German-language hint book can still be found on ebay in quite some numbers. It was sold very cheaply, then.

Originally Posted by Sergius64
I'm a little surprised BaK was never reproduced as a mod for a newer engine somehow. It was just such an awesome game and it would seem like the fight engine and game mechanics were very simple.

Someone works on a mod for NWN 2; no idea if or when they finish it:

http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view….Detail&id=412

Originally Posted by Fenris
Someone works on a mod for NWN 2; no idea if or when they finish it:

http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view….Detail&id=412

Ooooo! Thanks.

I remember playing this game but the only thing I can remember about it was that it was very short.

Originally Posted by countingdown7
even joke about a PS:T 2… PAIN!

It is sad that neither Betrayal at Antara nor Return could capture the magic
again. After Antara, I just didn't care anymore.

Ditto. Almost as big of a let down as the Wheel of Time game was. I am actually surprised that more people on here didn't hate it.

I liked the game system as much as the game so I liked antara too.