I'm wondering if the Betrayal at Krondor Pack might be something I'd enjoy. I read a lot of praise about the writing and it seems to be a well regarded RPG. But I also noticed most of the players praising it already played it during the 90s, so I'm not sure if players who newly discover it now would be able to appreciate it just as much ...

Not that I'm necessarily fixated on good graphics and couldn't enjoy mostly text-based games, too - and I don't have a problem with the series' age at all - but what I've seen of Betrayal at Krondor looks bland and ugly even for the time it was released in. There are lots of games from the early 90's the art style of which really appeals to me even today, Krondor however isn't THAT old and still it does not (it seems a relic from the unfortunate time when every ambitious game designer had to experiment with 3D graphics and real actors but hardly anyone had the means to make it look good, so the graphics came across as cheap and worse than before).

Anyway, when comparing Krondor and Antara, to my eyes Antara looks a little more pleasing. And I read the stories of Krondor and Antara are not related. So if I'm not mistaken, since they're both independent games that only share the same engine and rules, it would be perfectly fine to skip Krondor in case I can't adapt to it and play Antara first or instead? Or would that be a sacrilege? I understand Krondor has the better story and writing and Antara's is pale in comparison?

Which one did you like better, and is there anyone who preferred Antara? What aspects of the games most appealed to you - and still do -, and why do you think one should give them a try even today (if you think so)? What's good about the story, what kind of story is it?

I'm curious and would be grateful for any comment that helps me get a better impression and form an opinion.

About a decade ago, I played both Krondor and Antara. More recently, I did so again, with the help of GOG of course! My opinion hasn't changed since: Krondor is a classic, Antara is pretty good.

You are correct; they share the same engine and almost the same ruleset. It's clear which came second, however, as Antara is a lot more refined in ways that make it easier to play, more balanced etc -- and yet, in my opinion, not quite as fun. It's kind of hard to explain, but Antara gets a little bogged down in the details, whereas Krondor encourages you not to care and plunge boldly ahead.

Part of this is also that a significant part of Krondor is a free-exploration game. Right away you get access to about 70% of all areas, allowing you to do what you will. And the area is huge! The game world felt far larger than, say, Morrowind or Oblivion. If you wanted to, with enough patience and with the correct choices, you could have pretty high skills and some of the best equipment of the game before the first chapter is over. Antara, on the other hand, abandons all pretence of free exploration. You're pretty much restricted to one (small) region per chapter and rarely get to travel back to an area from the last one. Equipment is the same -- better stuff is doled out to you chapter by chapter. It also caps your skills per chapter, limiting free character development. It's this that I missed the most from Krondor.

Presentation-wise, yes, the graphics came along quite a ways between the games. But I think Krondor's is actually better, in that it does a better job of immersion. Yes, it's horribly pixelated, but in Krondor they did an incredible amount with very little -- and I think that actually worked to the game's advantage. It felt like a text-driven adventure (these games are styled after novels, after all) with a bare-bones faux-3D interface as a vehicle. Antara is cleaner, yes, but this also means its flaws are more evident. When your engine is so limited, less is definitely more, and sometimes Antara went for a bit too much. There are times when I muttered to myself 'come on, was this the best they could come up with?' in Antara, but never in Krondor -- I guess I was willing to overlook more in Krondor's case.

The one thing I think Antara clearly wins out is in the sound department. The music is CD-quality, and simply gorgeous, laden with rustic acoustic riffs. The voice-acting could SO easily have been bad, but is instead surprisingly good, treading the thin line between hammy and convincing. And pretty much all NPC encounters are voiced, too! Krondor, of course, has MIDI-esque tunes and no voice acting at all.

You're also correct about the writing -- Krondor is based of Raymond E. Feist's Midkemia, Antara is totally original. As expected then, Krondor is a much more fleshed-out, expansive and consistent world. Antara is -- well, it's obvious that it was thrown together to make a game. Not to say it's bad, but I never found it as coherent as it could be (look at the Elder Scrolls or Dragon Age as fine examples of original settings). You won't mind if you don't think about it too much, of course.

Ultimately, I think what made Krondor great is that you got thrown into an awesome world and then got totally caught up in it. I unashamedly say that I got rather attached to the characters and setting! Antara, on the other hand never quite let me forget it was a game. But both are shining examples of more elegant games from a more civilized age. There have been no other games quite like them since.

I have to warn you, however, there is a game-breaking bug going on in GOG's Antara. It hits a little less than half-way through and crashes prevent you from continuing. Not good, since the plot just starts to heat up. If I hadn't already finished the game a decade ago, I might have gone mad. I haven't played through all of Krondor yet so can't say if there's anything similar!

Thanks a lot for the detailed and informative reply! Much appreciated! :)

I admit I'm a little intimidated by games with huge gameworlds and a lot of freedom because they're so time-consuming. And an overabundance of exploration and side quests - as much as I love them - can also lead to me losing interest, for lack of direction or, ironically, also because of the feeling I'm missing out on something if I skip some parts, even when they bore me - so playing becomes like a chore ... (I'm currently experiencing that in the middle of Arcanum, even though I already had lots of fun with it).

But the way you praise the writing and immersion factor has aroused my curiosity. I half made up my mind to give it a try, if it weren't for the game-breaking bug ... So I won't be able to complete Antara with the version sold by GOG? Are they aware of that and trying to fix it? Or do we just have to accept that the game we pay for is broken?

The beauty of Krondor is that it is very possible to go straight to your objective. It makes the mid-game a little harder, perhaps, at least until you get better equipment. If you're curious at all, you will feel compelled to explore, but if you just focus on the main quest it will take you all around the world anyway. I've successfully played through both ways without any trouble. Krondor's combat system is balanced very well that way.

See this thread for more info on the bug: http://www.gog.com/en/forum/krondor_series/bia_error

It seems GOG hasn't done anything to fix it yet, and as far as I know it is affecting everybody. The bug sounds like a relatively simple fix, though (game is calling up the wrong resource files) so we can only hope. In the meantime, Krondor seems to be working okay.