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 It's possible that some folks might have realized that Return to Krondor is the sequel to Betrayal at Krondor, but I thought I'd just get that one out of the way right now, before we had any confusion on the subject. It never actually references Betrayal at Krondor, but it's set in the same world and we'll see all of two recurring characters. For now I'll leave it up to everyone's imagination just who they might be. Some of you might also go: "Hm, this isn't made by the same people and... wait a moment, this is was made five years later?" And while the story of that got related in the Betrayal in Antara thread as well, I'll recap it. The thing was that Betrayal at Krondor's original floppy release was a pretty big bust, so Dynamix sold back the Midkemia rights to Feist. Then the CD version hit, and it sold well enough that they wanted more of that action, but didn't want to re-buy the rights, so instead they made Antara, in their own original setting which was intended to be as Krondor-y as possible. This one was originally developed by 7th Level, a developer most known for making some completely garbage loving games, a number of which I've played, but then it got taken over by PyroTechnix, a developer that seems to have only existed to complete Return to Krondor and then vanished so hard they don't even have a Wikipedia page, which is one hell of an accomplishment. If the first release of BaK had done better, then Dynamix had their own sequel lined up, "Thief of Dreams," of which I've only found a vague outline that it involved Jimmy & Co travelling south into Kesh and dealing with a religious cult related to the Crawler, tying up that dangling plot thread. Also apparently the engine for Betrayal at Krondor was originally a flight sim engine, which is kind of amusing. Anyway. Like BaK, Return got a novelization(Krondor: Tear of the Gods) and in between the two, to neaten things up between cosmic-tier events, was Krondor: the Assassins. I, happily, have read both, and so I can tell you when things deviate and what things you're lucky not to be dealing with in the game. [img]https://lpix.org/4257246/2022-03-23 21-40-19.mkv_snapshot_00.51_[2022.03.23_21.42.33].jpg[/img] Also check out these sweet 3D models and super awesome pre-rendered backgrounds. The technology of the late 1990's, baby! Thanks to the wonderful and lovely user Hel, who put up with me being a moron luddite who doesn't understand technology good, these issues have been banished to the nether zone. The game is also no longer a first-person blobber, we can actually see the party now! Interactivity Unlike Betrayal, Return is a comparatively linear game, so I'll be taking all of the limited chances to gently caress around that the game gives me, but there sadly aren't many. This also means there isn't really an awful lot of anything to vote on. PurpleXVI fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Mar 23, 2022 |
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Mar 23, 2022 21:30
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Update Index Update 1: What Goes Between Update 2: Welcome to Krondor Update 3: A Yellow Streak Update 4: The Sewer Chapter Update 5: Mysterious Mysteries, Part 1 Update 6: Mysterious Mysteries, Part 2 Update 7: Road Trip Update 8: Property Damage Update 9: The Spooky Chapter Update 10: Dungeons & Krondors Update 11: Finally Free PurpleXVI fucked around with this message at 01:31 on May 6, 2022 |
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Mar 23, 2022 21:30
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Ground floor, looking forward to this being a better mess than Antara. At least it's unlikely to make the same mistakes.
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Mar 23, 2022 21:44
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Hel posted:Ground floor, looking forward to this being a better mess than Antara. At least it's unlikely to make the same mistakes. 
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Mar 23, 2022 21:55
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Hel posted:Ground floor, looking forward to this being a better mess than Antara. At least it's unlikely to make the same mistakes. Can't wait to see what all the new and exciting mistakes are, instead!
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Mar 23, 2022 22:12
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Psion posted:Can't wait to see what all the new and exciting mistakes are, instead! Hah, took the words right out of my mouth. I mentioned in the other thread that I played this a couple times through, but that was so long ago now. So many bits where they were trying to do something that was ultimately rather beyond them to really do well. Eager to have my memory refreshed on what mistakes I've forgotten, too.
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Mar 23, 2022 22:17
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It's certainly prettier and less browny, so it has that going for it.
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Mar 23, 2022 23:27
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I can’t wait to see how Jimmy The Hand is yet again the greatest person at literally everything ever.
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Mar 24, 2022 00:14
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This game...gently caress.
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Mar 24, 2022 00:45
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MagusofStars posted:I can’t wait to see how Jimmy The Hand is yet again the greatest person at literally everything ever. He doesn't really do a lot of that in this game iirc. Not sure he did much of it in the last one other than the Silden drug incident, but it was hard to pay attention to James or Locklear when you've got Gorath hanging out being Gorath and Owyn/Patrus taking on the comic relief role.
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Mar 24, 2022 00:46
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MagusofStars posted:I can’t wait to see how Jimmy The Hand is yet again the greatest person at literally everything ever. Honestly, once we're past the books where Jimmy's a kid/teenager, and he's into his twenties, he becomes a lot more tolerable. He's a lot less annoyingly cocky and perfect at everything. In fact, the Krondor trilogy features Jimmy getting his rear end kicked so much it's hilarious that he's still alive. About the only thing he's really the greatest person at in those three is surviving abuse that would have most strong men making GBS threads out their guts and lamenting their broken bones. Guildenstern Mother posted:He doesn't really do a lot of that in this game iirc. Not sure he did much of it in the last one other than the Silden drug incident, but it was hard to pay attention to James or Locklear when you've got Gorath hanging out being Gorath and Owyn/Patrus taking on the comic relief role. Yeah, if there's anything who was the perfect OC in BaK it was Gorath. His only weakness was the one time he accidentally decked Owyn in Kenting Rush, and otherwise being Delekhan's unwitting pawn. Anyone who goes up against him in a fight gets hacked down by his literal centuries of combat experience. Not that I minded, dude was just cool. Some of that may be leftover from playing the game as a kid and reading the book like a decade ago, but I still think Gorath's cool. Also having recorded the first two hours of gameplay I've already encountered one softlock bug necessitating a reload! Hooray!
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Mar 24, 2022 01:45
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Be honest, Purple... are you payed by the LP? Blimey I actually have a suggestion for a set of decent looking, decent playing, low-jank, low-bullshit games that you could do after this that are also among my personal favourites, if you're keen.
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Mar 24, 2022 02:38
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Gorath is the best, no shame in liking a grumpy bearded tank elf.
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Mar 24, 2022 03:04
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I don't know why the hate for young Jimmy. The novel 'Jimmy the Hand' was awful to me after how much I enjoyed 'Murder in LaMut' and 'Hono(u)red Enemy', but I liked him as an actual fun, witty character when everyone else around was deadly serious and grim most of the time.
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Mar 24, 2022 03:10
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JustJeff88 posted:I don't know why the hate for young Jimmy. The novel 'Jimmy the Hand' was awful to me after how much I enjoyed 'Murder in LaMut' and 'Hono(u)red Enemy', but I liked him as an actual fun, witty character when everyone else around was deadly serious and grim most of the time. But I haven't read more of his 'adult aged' books, so I'll take Purple's word for it that they did find a better balance for Jimmy later in the series.
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Mar 24, 2022 03:31
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I do remember owning and playing this game to completion back in the day -- and the 3D models are certainly ... something ...
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Mar 24, 2022 04:26
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Yeah, I never really had a problem with Jimmy as a character either. I got rather less keen on him over time since throughout the rest of the series his descendants show up constantly and are all just clones of him again. Feist is usually pretty good at writing distinct characters, but nope, all the Jamisons are the same drat man.
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Mar 24, 2022 08:23
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JustJeff88 posted:I don't know why the hate for young Jimmy. The novel 'Jimmy the Hand' was awful to me after how much I enjoyed 'Murder in LaMut' and 'Hono(u)red Enemy', but I liked him as an actual fun, witty character when everyone else around was deadly serious and grim most of the time. For me it's kind of been a personal evolution. When I was in my teens, I would've loved him, because it was all: "ha ha yeah the adults don't expect A KID to be smart and competent, he sure showed them, just like I'll show them  ." But as I've grown older I've just kind of grown to roll my eyes at his smarminess and how he just keeps thinking of, and knowing, things that the adults don't. He's just a bit too perfect, is the thing, like, I can think of all of two situations where Kid Jimmy gets himself into a problem that he needs adults to get himself out of, rather than being the one who gets adults out of trouble.For all that the books insist that Jimmy looks up to and respects Arutha, there's never really any... point where Jimmy actually learns anything from Arutha or takes any lessons from him, except for, off-screen, learning how to use a rapier and play chess. Still, I do earnestly like him in this trilogy of books/duology of games. Part of it is that he's an equal member of whatever team he's in, rather than the hyper-genius who knows everything, other characters occasionally knows things he doesn't and puts him in his place with some superior knowledge or their own clever comments when he underestimates them. The other part is that he still plays it like Young Jimmy, and while those tricks aren't stupid or bad, now the people he's using them against aren't terminally idiotic either, and sometimes they deploy their own counterplays that (almost) get him killed. JustJeff88 posted:Be honest, Purple... are you payed by the LP? Blimey Nah, I'm just a sucker for attention and I hate my own voice, so this is a nice compromise between becoming a vtuber and not getting attention. Also, I'd be curious to hear the suggestions once I'm done with Return to Krondor, because it's either that or getting Birthright to run so I can show that off. PurpleXVI fucked around with this message at 10:08 on Mar 24, 2022 |
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Mar 24, 2022 09:45
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Update 1: What Goes Between It's a bit of an unusual update 1, but there's no real good space for it otherwise, it's time to talk about Krondor: the Assassins. Nothing in the game Return to Krondor references it, but in the book Krondor: Tear of the Gods, it's relevant to a good number of things. It picks up where Betrayal ends, with literally no break, Jimmy and the rest are riding back from the Dimwood to Krondor. In the morning, Locklear is heading back to La-Mut(no mercy from Arutha for having just helped save the world again, he's still banished until summer), while Arutha tasks Jimmy to get back to work immediately on arriving home. Jimmy is all beat to poo poo at this point. Remember how we used restoratives to patch everyone up in Betrayal at Krondor? In the novels it's magic meth, it doesn't heal people, it just makes them feel healed and invincible, and after almost dying on the battlements of Northwarden, Arutha's personal medic juices Jimmy and Locklear up with it, and now they're feeling all the pain and aches of: Fighting and barely surviving a siege, riding for close to a week with no rest, fighting Moredhel through the Dimwood, fighting Moredhel and Tsurani mages through the ruins under Sethanon, and the final furious battle around the Lifestone where Gorath saved them all. That is to say, Jimmy is more bruise than man at this point. But he still salutes when Arutha tells him that he needs to get to work digging up the Crawler and setting up a proper intelligence network in Krondor to prevent them all getting caught with their pants down again. It's a bit odd that the Kingdom prior to this has no intelligence network, not even an amateur one, when Kesh is repeatedly described as having a super-elite intelligence network(we even meet its chief commander, Hazara Khan, a few times). Jimmy is a bit put off in these tasks when it turns out that someone's been hard at work murdering every Mocker in town, something that's also caught the traitor Abbot Graves at Malac's Cross in the crossfire. He expected to skip out of town with his younger girlfriend(ffs Feist) and Limm(hey, another known name!) by sailing to Kesh, but all captains either ran off early or stayed in the docks until the violence ended. Jimmy gets his rear end kicked from every angle for a while as he blunders into ambush after ambush, but manages to survive just barely. In the middle of all this Pug's son, who hasn't been relevant at all until now, has also grown up into William, a member of Arutha's guards who rejects his magic-using heritage(though he has a wild talent that lets him empathically talk to animals and understand them) and just runs around with a big two-handed sword. He gets into a romantic thing with a local barmaid, Talia, at the Rainbow Parrot Inn(something that gets him into a bit of trouble with his commanding officer when he stays up late with her). Talia's dad, Lukas, is also a side character because his inn hosts a back door into the sewers where Jimmy spends a lot of time. The fighting in and under Krondor comes to a head when a bunch of assassins including mages try to murder some visiting nobles. With the help of Abbot Graves, Jimmy learns that they're a band of Keshian assassins, called Izmalis, related to the Nighthawks, who have a fortress in the no man's land near the border between Kesh and the Kingdom. Jimmy and William then travel there as the second wave of scouts to try and find their hideout, with actual troops to kill the assassins some days behind them. What they find is that the first wave of scouts got captured and are being sacrificed to summon a demon because of course the Izmalis are demon-worshipping assassin cultists, rather than just assassin cultists. While attempting to sabotage the defenses and saving the last scout, who's yet to be sacrificed, Jimmy gets himself captured, his rear end kicked, stripped to his underpants and almost gets to be the one sacrificed to the demon, who slips its shackles because he fucks up the last stage of the summoning by not letting himself get stabbed and eaten. At the end, Arutha comes riding in and, with forewarning from William and Jimmy that there's a demon to deal with, manages to kill it. The novel ends as James and Arutha discover from the Izmali documents that the visiting nobles were, in fact, all trying to pay to have each other assassinated. What's relevant to Return to Krondor the game in this? Surprisingly little, frankly. It sets up some of the decisions that start off the book and game, like Arutha recruiting a new court mage(the Izmalis have a hail mary attempt on his life that involves a magical booby trap, and he decides that having a wizard close to hand would be useful), but other than that the main relevant aspects are that William exists and that he's dating Talia.
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Mar 24, 2022 10:04
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I played the poo poo outta this demo as a kid hell yeah RtK
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Mar 24, 2022 10:39
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One of the reasons that Krondor: the Assassins feels so disconnected is actually that it was written and released after RtK. I don't know how (or if) it matters all that much to Feist's novelization of RtK (Tear of the Gods), but a decent part of Assassins was just backfilling that space in the timeline and helping set up a few things that come into play with no real background outside of RtK.
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Mar 24, 2022 19:55
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disposablewords posted:One of the reasons that Krondor: the Assassins feels so disconnected is actually that it was written and released after RtK. I don't know how (or if) it matters all that much to Feist's novelization of RtK (Tear of the Gods), but a decent part of Assassins was just backfilling that space in the timeline and helping set up a few things that come into play with no real background outside of RtK. The Assassins is kind of necessary to give William any kind of characterization in the books before Tear of the Gods, it also gives some more background for a certain side character we'll meet later(no spoilers on that one, please) and it makes Talia a bit more of a character(again, no spoilers), but outside of that Tear of the Gods can stand pretty well on its own, both as the book and as Return to Krondor. But I'd say they both definitely benefit from having read Assassins first. My main issue with Assassins is that it feels like you've got twenty minor plotlines that don't weave together particularly gracefully and the last third or so feels like it comes a bit out of nowhere and is a bit of an unexpected escalation considering how everything else so far has been comparatively "street level."
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Mar 24, 2022 20:05
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The Kingdom actually does have an intelligence network, but it gets no billing. There is a scene in... Silverthorn? (Arutha's wedding pre-tragedy) where Hazara-Khan, who is a great minor character, reveals that he among about 4 people knows that Lyam is about to wed a princess of Roldem, a nearby Kingdom, and Kesh fears loss of territory or power. Arutha is stunned, but then he asks Khan about Kesh building ships in Durbin that violate treaties that they have with the Kingdom, and Hazara laughs out loud. I really like the scene.PurpleXVI posted:For all that the books insist that Jimmy looks up to and respects Arutha, there's never really any... point where Jimmy actually learns anything from Arutha or takes any lessons from him, except for, off-screen, learning how to use a rapier and play chess. There isn't much, that I grant you. There is one nice scene in Magician where Arutha is showing him to use a rapier while Anita watches, and Jimmy is very self-conscious because he has a crush on Anita. Apart from that... now that I think about it, there's not much. You all have a point. I have not read the later Feistverse, but the book where Jimmmy disappointed, for lack of a better word, me is in Prince of the Blood. It's 20 years on and he's an Earl, and while I really like the emotional arc at the start of the book involving a certain lady, Jimmy is very mature and serious in the rest of the book. I missed the cocky, brash smartarse. Kevin in Servant of the Empire might be a stereotype, but he's an irreverant, funny, charming bloke through the whole novel despite being a slave.
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Mar 24, 2022 23:15
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PurpleXVI posted:Also, I'd be curious to hear the suggestions once I'm done with Return to Krondor, because it's either that or getting Birthright to run so I can show that off. My vote is for Birthright, even if I'm getting way ahead of things. The game is notable for having nothing in it that is depicted on the back of the box at all. The strategy portion is lightweight, the tactical portion is broken and mind-numbing, and the less said about the adventuring portion, the better. Yet I still play now and then, despite it being quite a strange, janky, and disappointing game. The "It's your turn" voice clip will haunt me for the rest of my life.
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Mar 25, 2022 01:44
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lol, remembered this was in my gog library and installed. 15 min in and I've blown up at least 6 chests due to trying to figure out exactly where you have to click for the click to count and just straight up failing at timing/tool selection.
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Mar 25, 2022 02:21
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raifield posted:My vote is for Birthright, even if I'm getting way ahead of things. The game is notable for having nothing in it that is depicted on the back of the box at all. The strategy portion is lightweight, the tactical portion is broken and mind-numbing, and the less said about the adventuring portion, the better. Yet I still play now and then, despite it being quite a strange, janky, and disappointing game. I actually want Purple to play a game that is fun and enjoyable, to some modest degree. Asking him to play another piece of shite seems somewhat sadistic and risks to burn him out.
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Mar 25, 2022 02:56
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I played the hell out of this when I was a kid, looking forward to reliving it without having to suffer the systems jank myself.
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Mar 25, 2022 04:41
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raifield posted:My vote is for Birthright, even if I'm getting way ahead of things. The game is notable for having nothing in it that is depicted on the back of the box at all. The strategy portion is lightweight, the tactical portion is broken and mind-numbing, and the less said about the adventuring portion, the better. Yet I still play now and then, despite it being quite a strange, janky, and disappointing game. Getting slightly off the thread topic, but the thing about Birthright is that it's actually a very true to the books adaptation of the game systems... for the most part. The strategic and tactical layers are lightweight because they're glued on top of 2e AD&D, not their own standalone system, and the dungeoneering... the thing I remember most is that you have, of course, a four-person party. And some members of the party can be wizards, but the thing is that there's no positioning. Either the party is moving as one long line, or they're all charging into melee and whacking away with whatever they have. This means that friendly fire with spells is not just a possibility, it's a guarantee if your mage is not at the front of the party, a place where you never want them to be. I can't count how many times in that game I've accidentally vaporized, incinerated or turned to stone a friendly character. JustJeff88 posted:I actually want Purple to play a game that is fun and enjoyable, to some modest degree. Asking him to play another piece of shite seems somewhat sadistic and risks to burn him out. I do get slightly fuelled by playing bad games if they're energetically bad, like with Wizards and Warriors. It was absolutely a dogshit game, but things were happening and moving. There were colours, there were creative fuckups, there was new dumb stuff to laugh at with every update. It's more the slow grind of low-grade incompetence like Antara that gets to me.
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Mar 25, 2022 08:38
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JustJeff88 posted:I have not read the later Feistverse, but the book where Jimmmy disappointed, for lack of a better word, me is in Prince of the Blood. It's 20 years on and he's an Earl, and while I really like the emotional arc at the start of the book involving a certain lady, Jimmy is very mature and serious in the rest of the book. I missed the cocky, brash smartarse. Kevin in Servant of the Empire might be a stereotype, but he's an irreverant, funny, charming bloke through the whole novel despite being a slave. The Tsurani trilogy was imho just simply better written than the rest of Feist's novels, which might have something to do with the fact that he co-wrote it with another author. I actually don't think anybody in positions of authority can maintain early Jimmy's antics and still be a credible character, and later on Jimmy would be like among the top 5 most powerful nobles in the Kingdom, so that tracks. So I don't mind him turning more serious. What got tedious were the Jimmy clones introduced later, that got tiring pretty fast, imho. Especially when he split the archetype into two, to distribute among his grandsons.
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Mar 25, 2022 09:05
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Torrannor posted:The Tsurani trilogy was imho just simply better written than the rest of Feist's novels, which might have something to do with the fact that he co-wrote it with another author. I haven't read more than the early stuff, but I consider Magician, both parts, to be my favourite fantasy novel. The Empire trilogy had a tough act to follow. I started to read the third one but what happens in the very first pages was so contrived it turned me off and I have not gone back. As for Jimmy... again, I haven't read the late books, but while what you say is very sensible I would point out that Amos, even after he enters into a very important position, is still an irreverant pirate. He's serious when he needs to be serious, but he still has personality. I felt that Prince of the Blood James lost so much of what made him Jimmy.
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Mar 25, 2022 14:24
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JustJeff88 posted:I haven't read more than the early stuff, but I consider Magician, both parts, to be my favourite fantasy novel. The Empire trilogy had a tough act to follow. I started to read the third one but what happens in the very first pages was so contrived it turned me off and I have not gone back. Personally, with regards to Magician, I consider most of it mediocre, but the parts with Pug/Milamber on Kelewan are interesting to me. I did want to learn more about the Tsurani, even if they were formidable assholes for a large part.
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Mar 25, 2022 20:27
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PurpleXVI posted:Personally, with regards to Magician, I consider most of it mediocre, but the parts with Pug/Milamber on Kelewan are interesting to me. I did want to learn more about the Tsurani, even if they were formidable assholes for a large part. Magician just has so many moments that are very memorable to me; I can't explain it. Pug's being 'chosen', his... elevation, later on when he goes back to see his old 'boss'... I go back and re-read those sometimes even when I am not re-reading the books. It's hard to explain sometimes why we like what we like. In terms of games, Purple, I was going to suggest Eye of the Beholder, but someone else is doing those. So, I was going to suggest the trilogy (only in the sense that they are in the same engine) of Strahd's Possession, Menzoberranzan and Stone Prophet. The first and last game are in Ravenloft, while the second is obviously Forgotten Realms but they all play very similarly. Low jank, modest amounts of text, reasonably plesent GUI for games from 1994~ish. I thought that they might be a refreshing, simple change from what you have done recently. Given their length, lack of long text dumps and your update pace, each one should take you about a fortnight.
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Mar 26, 2022 01:00
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Update 2: Welcome to Krondor Welcome back... to Krondor! Unlike Betrayal, this one is more accurately named by having Krondor in the title since I'd say about half of the game's playtime is set in the city, rather than it just being a place we briefly visit for a plot update three or four times over the course of the game. Let's start by watching the animated intro! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3HndS65YSY Short version: There's a ship full of monks, it gets sunk by a ship full of pirates, one of the pirates is very upset and another is very tired.   Check out this swanky main menu. ... I'll be honest it looks completely awful, like the "3D" models from the original Alone in the Dark or something. Let's just start a new game before we have to look at it too much.  Not all of these settings will make sense until we know more about the mechanics, but the "balance" option is definitely the weirdest. Suffice to say that some spellcasting has a failure chance now, and if you swap the balance towards magic, spell failure chances drop while to-hit chances with melee attacks also drop, and if you swap the balance towards fighting, the opposite happens. I would recommend just leaving it at the default "balanced." You'll definitely want to up the combat speed to at least its mid point, fighting has a lot of animations even for just a single swing, and if you leave it at the rock bottom speed it starts at, I predict you'll go insane before you finish the game. Lastly, the "trap lock mode." The demands that the lockpicking/trap disarming make on your reflexes are absolutely minimal, so setting it to "dice roll" just means you'll fail more. Stick with the Reflex setting, trust me.   These chapter intros are voiced in the most laconic and unemotional ways by "Pug," they're exactly short enough that I feel no reason to record them. Do note, however, how loving bad this font is. I hate this font. I loving hate this font. Supposedly it's possible to edit the game files to remove it, but I don't even want to tempt this game to gently caress up harder on me.  And boom, we're live on the scene.  By Ishap, I'm polygonal!Say hello to the new and improved James. I'll leave him here for a moment while I pore over his character sheet.  There's a lot of stuff going on here, it's definitely not as simple as the old Betrayal at Krondor sheet. Some of these stats are completely self-explanatory, like the Attack and Defense values are James' odds of hitting or not being hit, what's less obvious is that some things like better armor will weaken both. He has Aggressive, Balanced and Conservative attack styles, Conservative is better called Defensive. Aggressive has the highest chances of hitting, the biggest damage bonus and doesn't allow parrying. Conservative has the lowest chances of hitting and a bonus to parrying/dodging, while Balanced remains in the middle. "Strike" is how many attacks he gets per round, Health is self-explanatory, no more health/stamina split, and he has zero spellcasting because James is not a nerd. Similarly he has no magic path ratings. Then we get to skills and... whoof. These remind me of Deus Ex because of how easy it is to completely waste your skill points on level-up, yeah, we have levels and get skill points now, rather than skill training. Brawling is just bare-handed fighting, never invest in this with anyone. Bladed is anything that cuts stuff, except for Axes. Blunt is hammers and maces, even the two-handed ones. Axes are axes and bad, do not use. Two-handed isn't every two-handed weapon, it's only staves and two-handed swords, not two-handed axes. Bows... have niche uses. Never found them very handy myself. Defense and Initiative are super relevant, since getting off the first attack and not getting hit in fights are vital. However, Initiative isn't all that rules Initiative! If you look on the left, there are also basic stats, which do not rise with skill point investment, and James' Agility(as well as being a thief) also improve his basic initiative rolls and means he almost always goes first in any case. Analyze is for identifying magic items, potions and jewelry. Do not have James invest in this, you only need one character who knows it. Stealth is... I'm not actually sure where Stealth is ever used. But it's probably used somewhere. I think that sometimes Stealth is what governs whether an enemy gets a retaliatory strike before you hit them, but even the strategy guide doesn't explain this. In fact, even the strategy guide doesn't know what some magic items in the game do. Pick Lock and Disarm Traps slow down the reflex-based parts of picking locks and disarming traps, or just flat increase the random roll odds if you go with the skill-based version. Perception does something I don't know what is. Alchemy is for mixing potions, which is theoretically very useful except you can only mix potions when you can rest, and large swathes of the game do not allow resting. Evaluate lets you get very vague information about enemies, more Evaluate makes it less vague. Shield is for using shields. I don't think I've ever equipped anyone with a shield in this game. Maybe I'll try it this time around!  We're skipping the spellcasting tab since, again, James isn't a wizard. His inventory contains a few healing potions, a repair potion, a spare knife, his lockpicking kit(you can find more of these, but there's no quality difference, they don't get expended or worn down, etc. so as long as you have the one, they are simply vendor trash) and some spare change.  But God, look at what this loving font is doing to our poor item descriptions. Most of them are now also vague about exact item stats and effects, plus they don't really contain any of the fun flavour text that Betrayal at Krondor(and to some extent Antara) had. No more some writer completely losing his poo poo over a pile of grapes or the concept of garlic in meat. Can we please get back to the game? I want to show off my new tricks.Ah, yes, James has one very big new trick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_foDh408vJI Voice Acting I'll be recording most longer exchanges, but also summarizing them below for anyone who doesn't care. I would suggest watching the first time a character speaks, though, just to get their voice, and sometimes there are actually some fun or well-acted exchanges worth listening to! The short version of this one: The guards ask James where he's going, James reminds us that he's going to the north gate to pick up the new court mage, who has arrived in the middle of the loving night.   Also as with most games that have pre-rendered backgrounds, RtK also has pre-set camera angles. The weird thing is you can change these angles while you're in fights, the strategy guide insists they can also be changed out of fights(which would be extremely handy), which seems to be a dirty lie unless the strategy guide is wrong about the keybind, the keybind is different depending on whether you're in or out of combat, or simply because no areas in the intro chapter have alternate camera angles at all.   Wait, James, where are you going? Well I'm a thief, aren't I?Uh oh.  Practically any time there's a door in the pre-rendered Krondor background, it can be entered and will contain a randomly generated room. Some only have empty boxes and rats, some have combat encounters and this one... has a chest. There are no repercussions for kicking down a bunch of citizens' doors, stabbing them and looting their corpses. In fact, doing as much of this as possible in the first three chapters of the game is a really good idea since some of the encounters can put you vastly ahead of the curve in terms of gear/money and killing people means more XP. For now, let's focus on the chest.  Each chest or chest-like object has three sections, the depressions in the wood.  Click one and you're presented with five options which are, from left to right: Lockpick, Lever, Cutter, Ratchet and Probe. The Lockpick is only for the lock itself, but since practically every lock in Return comes with a trap, we want to save that for last. Lever, Cutter and Ratchet are useless for now, so let's bring out the probe.  There's a pendulum connected to the central symbol which will swing left to right once, and then right to left again if you don't stop it the first time by. The goal is to stop it in the "golden" section of the ratchets, which is a success.  Having failed the first one, I don't get to see what's in there, but for the other two I can now see the mechanisms. Now I need to disable all three mechanisms using the Lever, Cutter and Ratchet for each of them as appropriate. Several parts may want the same tool. What's the relevance of the right tool, you might ask? Well, if I'm using the right tool, I get the "broad" golden section like with the probe. If I'm using the wrong one...  Yeah.  That one's a lot tougher. I kind of like the idea, with a couple of caveats. Firstly, just being able to save means you can trial-and-error your way to the right tools with no risk. Secondly, there's no real logic in what tool goes for what part that I can sense. No visual or logical clues.The bar on the left saves trap combos as you come across them, as well as what tool you last sorted a given piece with, so if you hit a familiar trap type, or a trap type made up of one or more familiar components, you can flip back to see how you sorted it last time. Mind you that it saves the best tool you cleared it with, so if you got lucky with a wrong tool, it'll still list that one. There's also a second-best tool for each component type that has a golden area in between the two, size-wise.In any case, I gently caress this one up...  Which gives you a neat little animated sequence of each section triggering in turn.  And then fucks James up. Note that he only has 34 hit points so this is a considerable chunk! It took me a couple of tries to get all the tools right, and this trap can do up to damage in the low twenties, which is loving cruel for literally the first trap you can run into(you can also run into a combat encounter here, in fact, the strategy guide seems unaware that this encounter, like all the "behind a Krondor door"-encounters, are randomized, and insists it always spawns a couple of thieves if it's a fight).  When I do get it open, though, it's just an unaccountable box of sharp objects.  None of them are upgrades, but James hoards them in his bottomless backpack for later selling. While backpacks are still grid-based, the grid is endlessly scrolling to the right and the only true limit is weight. It certainly makes it a lot easier to liberate people of all their property in one go.I somewhat miss the old system because inventories in Return very easily get out of hand and hard to manage, even if this appeals to my RPG pack rat sensibilities. It would suck less if the inventory view window wasn't such a small drat porthole. Once all the swords are in James' pack, it's time to head out. Once we're outside on the streets of Krondor, we can open up the map.  The available places to go are: The Palace, the Poor Quarter, the Ye Bitten Dog tavern, the Rainbow Parrot tavern, the North Gate, the Sea Gate and the Wealthy Quarter. Most of these places are just sources of more doors to kick in(except for the Wealthy Quarter that has no purpose at this point), and heading to the North Gate will advance the plot by letting us meet Jazhara.  None of these sections are pre-marked, you only find them by mouse-overing where they are and the map has plenty of dead space.  Welcome to the North Gate area, notice the lovely camera perspective that shows us what's behind us but not what's ahead of us. The weird monolith is another way to return to the Krondor map in case you've forgotten where the button is on the interface(it's under the Krondor button at the lower left). I also learned that the empty slot to the right of the Krondor button will have an eye in it if there's an alternate view to switch to which, again, I've only experienced in battles so far.   As we step into the area, though, we're grasped in the sinister claws of a cutscene. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzGSX3Slu_E Short version:  We're gonne rob you! That would be a really bad idea. We're too dumb to be warned off! This drops us into the game's first mandatory battle, James vs two thieves.  Which gives us some cool, dynamic angles! James starts out most fights with turn one, as mentioned. Note the green ring around him, for both players and NPC's, this indicates their general health state.  Right-clicking enemies gives a general idea of their abilities, though until we have a higher Evaluate skill, we don't learn much... not that I think we ever learn much. Enemy armor is generally represented on their model, but it's useful to be able to see who's more whackable.   I get impatient and flick James over to Aggressive, then have him cut one of the dudes to ribbons.   In a single turn, because I got cocky, these two dickheads hack off about a third of James' health, dang.  Nothing interesting happens until turn three(except for James hacking down one of the thieves) where you'll note the new text in the upper left, this is the "Fate" system. Each turn, a D100 is rolled(with high rolls bad, low rolls good, -10 is subtracted from the roll if the party's on the ropes) and it generates a random modifier for the fight. Rally(+10% to all rolls to hit), Flurry(+1 action), Evade(+10% dodge and magic resistance), Refreshed(10% health regeneration), Accelerate(initiative bonus) or Press(increases the base critical hit chance from 20% to 35%) for either the Heroes or Villains. If the Villains have a Press, Rally or Flurry, for instance, it might be worth your time to flick characters over to Conservative for the round to not get their asses kicked. It's an interesting system to spice up fights a bit, but I'll say that I often didn't pay attention to it unless it was a pinchy situation already.  While you were narrating I finish them off.  Wait, is your model different? Because I stole their shirts, too.The characters who can equip armor actually have model changes when they equip the armor, too, and their weapons will change with new equipment as well. It's a nice detail.    Because I go the wrong way, I end up at the Temple of Prandur. It can't do anything for us at the moment(because I had James drink a healing potion after the fight), but we can pay the guy here to heal us if we get our asses kicked.  I'm sure that having a pyromaniac cult inside the city walls is a wise decision on Arutha's part.Prandur is one of several poorly-detailed deities of Midkemia, but his titles imply that he seems to look as fondly on burning cities down as he does of warming people up and cooking food. Let's head back and go the other way that I actually completely missed was another way until I went down this dead end.   Along the way I poke into another beggar's hideaway.    Someone's rigged up a flamethrower to protect their single coin and empty bottle. Being a thief in Krondor must be loving rough.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qpS3Z7jgh4 This one's worth giving a watch to hear Jazhara's voice acting. Short version: Wait a moment, aren't you some fancy royal? Where's your entourage? Your caravan? I find that travelling with servants weakens the mind and spirit. What a strange attitude, I find one of the best things about being part of the Prince's court is I can tell someone to fetch things for me any time I feel like it. Perhaps we should debate this after you escort me to the Palace.We've now got Jazhara on our team!  Welcome her on board. She is notably more fragile than James, about half his total health pool. Her skills are also pretty bad, but she has spells and can inspect the items we steal from people or loot from their corpses. Now you're speaking my language. My mystic senses are warning me of danger. It's funny, my old travelling companion Owyn's mystic senses just warned him when there was an easy mark around. For each ten points in one of her paths, Jazhara both gets better at casting the spells and also gets another spell in the path. For now she has: Demonblade: An excellent spell that adds 2d4 fire damage to an ally's weapon for the rest of the fight. Sunray: Blinds an enemy, giving them an unspecified penalty to hitting. Also damages undead. Fire-Eater: Gives a party member fire resistance. Mindblade: Does 1d4+1 damage per level of damage to a target. Contest of Wills: Paralyses both the caster and the target until the target breaks free. Potentially useful to lock down a single tough target. Craftsman's Touch: Repairs everything a character's wearing and wielding. Theoretically useful except that all characters' meaningful gear is rapidly replaced by magical gear without durability and weapons and armor degrade super slowly anyway. Lightning Blade: Conjures up a melee weapon that does 2d4+level damage per swing for the mage to wield. Useful if you want to save spell points, note that if a mage wields a staff or dagger, they can't also cast spells, and equipping/unequipping a weapon in combat takes up a character's entire turn. Nothing anywhere indicates whether Lightning Blade is a guaranteed hit, whether it uses Bladed skill(it's a blade, after all), path of Storms skill, etc. not even the strategy guide. Similarly, mages not being able to equip weapons might seem like an argument in favour of giving them some Brawling but... there's just no info anywhere on whether it's any use!  Speaking of information, trying to read this loving text will give me a headache sooner or later. Goddamn.  She also comes with a full drug lab that we won't be able to use for a while yet, in part because I believe she doesn't actually come with any recipes.   This is the way to the palace, yes? Ha ha, no.I know there's an optional event that's going to happen, but I forget where it's triggered, so I go to all of the(very similar at night) zones to bust into people's houses, stab them and take their stuff.       There's nothing interesting popping up in any of these, but this is what the next hour or so of gameplay looks like as I smash through every door I can find and stab everyone who moves. I've never seen so many dead poor people before.Occasionally one of the fights merits Jazhara busting out the magic.  The main mechanic to keep in mind when casting spells is Slow and Quick casts. Slow casts only go off on the next turn Jazhara's got, but always succeed. Quick casts go off instantly, but have an unspecified failure chance. If there's something I find a bit weak about RtK's combat, it's that to-hit and spell failure percentages are obfuscated, which makes it hard to decide what's a risk you want to take. Let's have a look at what Demonblade does for Jimmy.    With a non-magical rapier, it literally doubles his damage output. Mind, while non-magical gear has different quality levels(usually four different ones), the differences are extremely tiny. From the worst to the best, it's 1d10 to 2d6+1(the game just specifies a 2 to 13 range, but the lack of extreme highs and lows when used suggests it's a bell curve double dice deal). Anyway, the murdering goes on. It's worth noting that Jazhara doesn't passively generate spell points, she only gains it from resting(not currently available) or magic recovery potions(of which I have none), so her magic sees little use for now.     ...and then one of the dogs turned into a campfire! James, no magic could do that. You must have been hallucinating. Saw it with my own two eyes while we were trying to rob graves at Sethanon. You w- wait, someone's coming down the street.  Hand over your valuables and no one gets hurt! What if you hand over your valuables and you all get hurt? I feel like you don't quite grasp the idea. With the villains flurrying, I flip James over to conservative combat and station him in front of Jazhara. It seems undocumented, but when set to Conservative, characters also seem more likely to get a free swing on enemies trying to move past them or attack them.  These guys are not loving around, that's half James' health gone.  James is in fact getting his rear end kicked a bit until Jazhara slaps on Demonblade.    Boom. That's what you get for messing with protagonists.  Part of the busted part of doing this bit of grinding early, even in the attempt to trigger an event I can't recall clearly, is that sometimes you get drops like this which is one of the best pieces of armor we can get in the early game(James and Jazhara can't wear it, but once we get someone who can, they'll really appreciate it).  I'm about to pack it up and accept I won't trigger the event when I go in for one last random fight.  These guys look like just another three random assholes, right?  loving wrong. The dude in the middle loving lifts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItmC5kUmk48 Hmmm, I feel like Lims-Kragma got... hornier since the books. Anyway, the good news is that the game lets you resume from the start of a fight where you got your rear end kicked, just like Betrayal in Antara! Unlike Antara, however, which restarted you just before you entered the fight, giving you a chance to rejigger gear, toss around consumables, perhaps use consumables, Return to Krondor just starts you from turn 1 of the fight again, meaning that if you got your rear end kicked because you forgot to heal everyone up first... you're in the poo poo! I am getting my rear end kicked because James starts at 2/3rds max health... oh and because I'm fighting someone who can stomp him in one blow.  After roughly ten attempts that get me stomped miserably, I find something in Jazhara's inventory that I'm 99% sure I didn't pick up off anyone's body.  Circle of Madness, huh? Let's see what that does. "The target character becomes confused and has a 50 percent chance of doing nothing each round and a 50 percent chance of attacking a target randomly." Neat.   This is the break the team needed.  I'm unreasonably amused by the little jerky twitch the victims make when they lose their turn.    Jazhara eats poo poo on the way, but thankfully Return to Krondor is much more merciful than the previous two games and doesn't have the near-death condition. Instead "dead" player characters just revive at 1 hit point and don't get XP for the fight, but these fights give jack poo poo XP anyway. Hm, wonder what that rear end-kicking guy was wielding.  So, to recap. Jimmy's current Rapier: 2d6+1 damage. Woundlord: 2d6+8, +25% to hit, double chance of critical hits. Back in my day we had to adventure for months with a weird elf to get terrifying magic weapons. James, you're in your early 20's. Well, I used to know someone in his 200's, to honour his memory, I say things he'd say. ... If he wasn't dead. ... And an elf. We're absolutely going to the palace now.   Ah yes, safely back at the castle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STDsZqqvk2M Short version:  I sure love being back at the palace and not getting robbed. I, too, enjoy not being robbed. Oh no! I got robbed! We should catch the horrible little goblin who robbed you. Child, James, child. As I said. Child, stealing is wrong. Let's escort you to some nice cultists who'll take care of you. Noooo, I met those cultists already! They fed me worms and rats! What? No. The Shield of Dala wouldn't do that. She blessed me once, you know. ...who? Dala, in exchange for grain, because I was so humble. ... Child, tell us who hurt you so we can go hurt them for you. It's Yusuf in the poor quarter! The short version may have been slightly paraphrased. This encounter is actually canonical, in Tear of the Gods, Jazhara's pouch full of dangerous magic poo poo gets pickpocketed by this girl, who tries to bite off James' fingers when they suggest she go to an orphanage run by the genuinely nice adherents of Dala. She finds out that Yusuf, a clothmaker in the Poor Quarter, has been recruiting children as cheap, abused labour by pretending to be running an orphanage.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnXgM8Bn7T0 Short version:   [Demand Entrance] Let us in or I'll call the cops. Whatever, the boss is inside.If you try to push your way in, you end up aggroing the guard, and then if you walk in, you have to fight everyone(except the children) inside. It's mechanically the superior option, but then you miss out on a lot of fluff, plus the canon way is that James and Jazhara just demand to be let in.     Greetings, I am Yusuf, who was less weird in 1998 but come across as a kind of weird racist stereotype now. Stop being mean to children. I'm not actually mean to children, now what if you stepped outside while I talked to Jazhara. This seems like a great idea, I'll do it. So as you can see, I'm actually a Keshian spy. Admitting this to me seems like a bad idea, Yusuf. Clearly, your loyalty to Kesh must be greater than your loyalty to Arutha whom you've sworn an oath of service to. [Play Along With Yusuf] It's the option that gets you all the low-down on Yusuf's operation because he's a loving idiot. Oh, yes, I'm totally very loyal Kesh and thus to you. You should tell me everything you're up to, like what you're doing to these children. Child abuse and child labour funds my spy operations here. How very ingenious of you, excuse me while I step outside. I am very smart and smooth. I demand to know what's going on. Yusuf is abusing children for money, also a spy. So... Yes, James, we'll kill them all and take their stuff. Just like the good old days. The children will stand in the background cheering us on while we gut Yusuf like a fish. They know what real fun is.   Woundlord absolutely fucks, plus you try to tell me that isn't a metal as poo poo name for a magic sword.  I'm too clever to die! Aiiiieee! Shut up and let me loot you.  Yusuf is carrying this pointlessly incriminating and villainous note. Let's go loot his office to make completely sure we didn't just murder an innocent but very stupid man.   Can you read these papers on his desk in full view of anyone? Yes, James, I'm literate and... son of a whore! What? Yusuf was a double agent! He was playing Keshian intelligence with false intel in the service of someone called... The Crawler. That makes me upset, but I find myself strangely unable to actually act on this.This is a plot thread that just vanishes completely into the aether. It's also worth interacting with the table again after getting that note and the exposition, because the table is also a container.   A container full of loot.   And a wacky document in the middle of a child slavery den. It feels a bit out of place.   Some magic rings.  And this wand! Now, you might wonder: Permanent damage? Like a permanent loss of maximum spell points or health? No. Instead each use drains a point of Mind magic skill. This isn't actually a particularly bad deal, as such things go. It's a guaranteed cast that won't fail and doesn't cost any spell points, and which is likely to take a good number of enemies out of the fight, especially if used in close confines.   Don't forget to go upstairs and actually free the rest of the children, by the way.  With Jazhara still out of spell points, these guys get a mixture of blunt trauma and large cutting wounds to put them down. No clever strategies for intro chapter mooks.  Yusuf's desk had a key for the cage but, er, I forgot how to actually use keys and just ended up picking the lock instead.   Run, my lumpen-headed little ones! Normally, without a trail of dead beggars and homeless people, this would only be a level-up for Jazhara, but even so it would still be worth seeking out to get slightly ahead of the curve. Plus, you know, not leaving children to be kept in cages by a secret agent dickhead.   James gets Bladed, Defense, Initiative, Pick Locks and Disarm Traps for his boosts. Getting 100 points, you might figure that it'd be super fast to max some skills, but skills have escalating costs. Past 50 points, they cost 2 per point, then past 75 they cost 3 per point, and the last 10 points past 90 cost 4 each, this means that getting a skill starting at 0 to 100, it'll actually cost 185 points, and since each point increase gains you the same bonus, you'll want to get the increases to 50 in your important skills first.   Aside from magic boosts, one of my early Jazhara objectives is maxing out her Analyze so I know what I'm picking up. As exemplified by Woundlord, there are some extremely choice things you can pick up, but also some literally cursed items that have stat penalties, poison you, etc. and which are to be avoided, so you can't just assume every odd-looking thing you pick up is a magical toy. New spells for her are... Prandur's Touch: Touch-range only, which sucks, but 2d8+2*level fire damage does not suck. Fire Lance: 1d6+4 damage per level is insane, but Jazhara can only cast this spell two or three times from a full pool of spell points. For when something's just gotta be dead real loving fast. My Enemy, My Friend: A single enemy can't attack the caster. Taint of Madness: Circle of Madness but single-target, proven as a good spell. Cleanse the Mind: Removes a Mind spell's effects from an ally, I do not remember any enemy ever hitting my party with a Mind spell. Know the Hidden: Instantly ID's an item. Largely a waste of spell points. Skin to Steel: Vaguely boosts an ally's armor. Armor is a completely mysterious mechanic that the strategy guide doesn't even really bother to particularly engage with, just insisting that it's "complex." Shield of Winds: Total arrow immunity and +25 defense for an ally. Thunderclap: Stuns everyone in an area for 2d4 rounds but hits allies as well as enemies. Very powerful, but not great in close quarters.  Downstairs, the kids have cleared out.   James and Jazhara insist that the children be taken to the palace because Arutha's going to love having a bunch of children running around and getting his tapestries all grimy. In the book, they just shove the problem off to the real Order of Dala orphanage, after some resistance from the children they eventually believe Jazhara that it's an actual safe place where they'll be fed and given safe beds. ... This is going to be hilarious in an update or two.   Let's get the gently caress out of here before one of these little bastards steals Jazhara's purse again.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzdKZmdfkrk Short version:  Gentlemen, meet Jazhara, the new court mage. Cor blimey, a black person near the Prince? This don't seem right. I swear they're just idiots, not racists. No, it's fine, I'm used to this sort of thing. Assholes.  So, since I've been a perfect gentleman all night. You took me to the slums and made me kill beggars all night. As I said. If you're about to hit on me, I'll turn you into a toad. Harsh, but fair. Welcome to Krondor!With Jazhara back and only mildly traumatized, we skip into the first proper chapter.   In the book, it's a less sudden cut. The book narrates how James spends the daytime showing Jazhara around the city(without killing anyone) and how Jazhara gets formally accepted into the court, swearing fealty to Arutha in a ceremony and such. It turns out she's eager to see William again because she wants to clear the air between them. ... See it's because they had a relationship with a large age gap when William was a teenager at Stardock, and he was her rebound after one of the teachers dumped her. This does not feature at all in the game but is kind of a weird and slightly creepy side plot in the book, mostly because we already had the Arutha/Anita thing that was a weird-rear end, questionable large-age-gap relationship presented as a totally romantic thing. Anyway, let's see how William's doing.    James! Talia's been hurt! Help me out here! Welcome to Krondor. Is it too late to resign my position as court mage?   This is a pretty straightforward fight as we acquire William as a party member. He's our big block of hit points, heavy armor and big weapons. He's got twice Jazhara's HP and if a random drop hadn't gotten James a magic sword, he'd be doing twice James' damage with each swing, too(but only be getting one swing per turn). One of his good uses is as a linebacker since if he stands in a narrow corridor intercepting everyone trying to reach, say, Jazhara, he gets free swings at everyone squeezing past him, while James is better on the offense since he gets more out of spells like Demonblade because they're a flat damage bonus per swing.   As the last raider goes down, William and the gang rush over to poor Talia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrTAigWJmiY Short version:  Don't you die on me! Jazhara, can you do something for her? William, wizards can't cast healing spells, also arbitrarily our fifty healing potions won't do anything for her. William... get revenge on that rear end in a top hat for me, I swear by Kahooli I will see him drown in his own blood. ...oh, yeah, she was raised by Kahooli nuns, as established somewhere not in this game. Blargh, I'm dead. So, I hate to ask the obvious: But what the hell happened here? Well, I was going to get a drink with one of my friends, who's also dead now, when a bunch of armed psychopaths ran out of the inn covered in blood. I'd say you saw James, but he was with me all day. Heh. No, they were lead by some incredibly huge guy. I think they ran towards the jail.After suddenly being dumped into the actual plot, let's have a look at William's character sheet.  As mentioned, he's loving huge. His shoulders won't even fit in his character image window.  Being a Warrior, he's also able to use two-handed weapons(greatswords, axes), platemail(if we find some) and chainmail. Since he's already really good with greatswords, there's no reason to ever invest in axes, since good axes are also insanely rare. He gets the enchanted chainmail we found earlier.   Also holy poo poo, the Rainbow Parrot Inn got absolutely hosed up. We'll hop out on the streets and follow the plot, maybe kill a few more homeless people, next update.
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Mar 26, 2022 22:16
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I actually rather like the voice videos in this game. Kahooli is the god of vengeance, so it makes sense to swear a vendetta on his name. It cames up several times in even the few books that I have read.
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Mar 26, 2022 23:57
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Oof, I forgot they thrust you into Dead Girlfriend territory quite that fast. Then again, I was the kind of player who'd screw around kicking down doors for way too long just because I liked combat and loot. This was also my introduction to Midkemia, after which I went and got the Magician books out of my library and then rapidly bought the first three/four together. Alas, I don't know where my copies are anymore. Also, man, I was so eager to get to do alchemy because they teased it right away by having Jazhara come with some of the gear, and it really does take way too long before they let you play with it. The full set of alchemy gear is goddamn heavy, too.
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Mar 27, 2022 00:13
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Who doesn't travel with a full meth lab in their pockets?
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Mar 27, 2022 00:33
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JustJeff88 posted:I actually rather like the voice videos in this game. Yeah, it makes sense but like... it makes double sense if you read Krondor: the Assassins, when William gets surprised at learning Lukas sent Talia to get raised by Kahooli nuns. So for her it's not just the thing you do when you're really pissed and dying horribly, it's actually her religion. disposablewords posted:Oof, I forgot they thrust you into Dead Girlfriend territory quite that fast. It's a very jarring cut, especially since it just spawns James and Jazhara inside the Rainbow Parrot as soon as the chapter starts! It would have felt moderately less janky if the chapter just started at the palace gates with an objective of "show Jazhara the city" and then after a point she goes: "dang, James, you know where William at? I used to hang out with him," and then you go to the Rainbow Parrot and things look fucky outside, and then you rush in and meet William and such. As much as this is a much better game than Antara, it does still have some holes. kw0134 posted:Who doesn't travel with a full meth lab in their pockets? I'll leave my spare clothes, my extra staff and my potions at the gates, but the meth lab stays on my person at all times.
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Mar 27, 2022 00:33
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Sorry, Purple, I didn't realise that that was a book reference. I just thought that you were being cheeky. I'm glad that this game goes back to a more traditional use of Spell Points. I've never been fans of games where spells use health/stamina as it just feels like punishing the player for using its skills. Resource management is always a factor, but it shouldn't hamper the player in other areas. On another note, it looks this game is going to be another revolving door of party members. I'm probably in the minority here, but I get frustrated when a character leaves after joining. I'm boring like that.
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Mar 27, 2022 00:54
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It took me a few looks to realize the difference between James and William's portraits, so I was kind of confused when you barged into the tavern and it looked like William was asking for help in the fight, only to immediately realize Jazhara was a new face and welcome her to Krondor mid combat. Kind of funny, but the real sequence made more sense.
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Mar 27, 2022 02:07
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 16:11 |
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Thus far it really seems like this start is the complete opposite of Antara, rather than an exciting intro cutscene to calm village gameplay, here you start off with the short calm before quickly revving up to murdering a slaver and having a bar fight. Also I do like that you keep control of Jazhara when she talks to the spy , rather than cut to James to generate suspicion.
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Mar 27, 2022 06:19
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