Betrayal at Krondor is one of those RPGs that has it all: A fun, challenging combat system, rewarding character growth, heroes you'll grow to love both on and off the battlefield, memorable combats both easy and difficult, powerful weapons, spells, and dozens of groovy items. Most of all, it tells a good story, and it does it well.
Utilizing the fantasy world of a bestselling fantasy author (this being several years after some excellent Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms D&D games started coming out), this game is based in the world of Midkemia and its war-weary Kingdom of the Isles. You've got the mysterious Gorath, a dark elf prisoner with a white beard, being escorted to Krondor by Seigneur Locklear (basically a squire) to bring news of a new plot with assassins on their heels, while the novice magician Owen caught up in the ride. So you've got the first chapter's goal: Bring Gorath to Krondor! Your motley crew starts off quite square: Gorath is the strong and slow guy, Locklear is an overall excellent warrior, and poor Owen's only good spell is a blindness spell whose mechanics the game doesn't even explain to you (though it's good). These and your other party members improve on a total of 16 skills plus their Strength stat very gradually with practice. Trust me, you will see their fighting skills and especially their equipment and magic become the stuff of champions. There's the same level of detail and variety in the items: not just Rations, but poisoned and spoiled rations, "Days Rations" of quality food sold in taverns that offer no in-game benefit, the abnormal ailments: each ranging from 1-100% strength, mostly hard to shake off, and several having key roles in the plot or game world, and the small towns: you'll love walking up to doors just to see if there's a shop to sell all that junk you're carrying, and finding a friendly villager making polite conversation instead. You'll look forward to Gorath's insightful observations (with full character body portrait) when he detects an enemy ambush. It's the game's narration that uses these otherwise boring mechanics to immerse you in the game world and story.
The overall gameplay and combat system is different. You need to rest to heal for the most part, keep track of rations, repair your equipment, and follow the yellow roads to your goal (or get lost hunting for treasure chests!). You usually see the enemy you're about to fight, and during combats you alternate between movement, accurate thrusts, strong swings, using magic, plus Defend and Rest options. I know it sounds difficult to learn a completely new RPG system, but it's not boring in this case. By the time you fight this game's first really terrible battle (and it's pretty early!), you'll have it all figured out and be hooked on this game.
Betrayal at Krondor was one of the last pre-Windows 95 compatible computer RPGs that came out, a mega-leech on the computer memory in its day, and it was worth it. It earns a solid A in my book.