Review by: Pete Hines
Published: August 1, 1997

Aren Cordelaine thought it was going to be another simple day fishing — little did he know how his life would change by the end of the day. After helping save William, a noble from the house of Escobar, from a hideous beast, Aren receives an invitation to accompany William to his home, where Aren can learn more about his apparent gift of magic. After a quick goodbye to his parents, Aren joins William on a lengthy adventure that covers the expansive realm of Antara. Let me be sure to mention that this is NOT a sequel to Betrayal at Krondor, but it does have some similarities and looks somewhat the same.

While the game begins with just William and Aren, a companion they manage to save from trouble soon joins them. Kaelyn, the “damsel in distress,” decides she must accompany the duo until she has repaid her debt to them. You can only have three characters at one time in a group. Portraits at the bottom of the screen help keep track of the members of your party and their belongings.

The game is broken up into a number of chapters, each consisting of a main task or quest. In addition, numerous side quests can be embarked on. These include exploring caves, rescuing lost children, and obtaining ale for thirsty townspeople. Each of these might gain you added experience or additional wealth or items, but are not essential to completing the chapter. The chapters start off relatively simply, but become increasingly difficult as the game wears on. They usually involve interrelated tasks, which must be completed in a specific order and are not always obvious.

BiA covers a rather large map. Over 35 towns and villages are spread throughout Antara, with many other areas for exploration in the areas in between. Cities are navigated through the use of a map, which highlights only those buildings or areas that can be explored. Players click on the building or area they wish to explore and are immediately taken to the interior, thus removing the need to navigate through the streets and find the proper door. Villages are explored in the same manner as the rest of the areas in the game, where players walk amongst the buildings and click on the doors they wish to enter.

This game is somewhat of a split between an adventure RPG and an action, or combat-oriented, RPG. Some of the early chapters do not inherently require too much combat to complete them, although the “random” encounters and side quests along the way almost guarantee that you will do additional fighting. As the game progresses, combat plays an increasingly central role in successfully completing each chapter.

Three types of attacks can be used in combat: ranged (bow and arrow), hand-to-hand (shield and sword), or magic. Combat is turn-based and is played out on a small grid broken up into small hexagons. Ranged combat can only take place if the player does not have any enemies near him or her. Ranged combat is limited to a given range around your character, and moving and attacking in one move is as simple as pointing at your desired target and clicking it. Magic is a special skill that must be developed over time. One of the best ways to learn skills is to have an enemy character cast a spell in combat. You can then learn that spell and use it yourself.

Dialogue in the game is fairly straightforward. Most of the conversations are linear and are based around keywords that you can ask NPCs about. A flashback feature allows you to go back and recall what different characters had to say, in case you forgot. The flashback feature is organized so that you can either search past conversations by the NPCs you spoke with or by the different topics. Unfortunately, I found that some of the information I obtained in conversations was not available later on in the game, so be careful about what you do and do not write down.