Inquisitor

Even though Inquisitor is by no means perfect, it's a 5-star game for me. It's not because it's old school - but the story and feeling I've got from the game was among the best in RPG games (I've played probably all the better known ones). Forget small maps and story with arrows that take you from quest to quest - this game lets you do the thinking and detective work instead (yes, in one or two points, this may mean you get stuck, not knowing what to do next, but it's worth it, imho). The game contains three stages - only the first one could be a full game by today's standards, probably (speaking of area and length of playing). But it's followed by two more rich and interesting chapters - i.e., this is a big game. But I never felt it was winding down, I wanted to get to the bottom of things the whole time, unlike some other games, where you finish them just to be done. The storybuilding is stellar. Also very well balanced is your character's position in the universe. Usually, in an RPG, one starts as a lowly grunt, to progress to lord of the universe in 20-30 hours. Here, you are pretty much the whole time in a position where you're quite powerful, feared, and respected - but at the same time, you still have superiors, guys to fear, and you never become the superhero of mankind... i.e., I found this to be very well balanced. The fighting system isn't great and the game is probably a bit too difficult initially - this was frustrating me. Graphics isn't great (then again, I didn't find it too bad). But if you give this game a chance and get over the imperfections, the overall feeling you get can be really amazing. Possibly a heresy, but for me, this is a better game/experience overall than the likes of Pillars of Eternity/Tyranny.

Inquisitor has superb story and lore due to the inspired christian background. This game brought a new element into the rpg game world. Most of classic rpgs focus on that same stuff like orcs, elves, humans, polytheist gods, witchcraft, so far they import roman empire aesthetics, but when it comes to medieval it is all the same, with the predominance of the "spirits of the forest", necromancy, chaos gods and pagan related myths from various barbaric cultures and the exclusion of the biggest and strongest cultural structure that stood above all those tales on medieval times. The introduction of the One and True God concept is a breakdown of all those old rpg stuff, it forced all those common enemies and creatures to be reunified into other concepts. Orcs, Lizards, Trolls… they are all hellspawns, they all came from the same origin, Satan masked himself as the Cursed Flame and was able to communicate with his minions under the polytheist masks of the false gods. This is an entire new plot in RPG games, it was begging to be explored, and Inquisitor developers seized that opportunity. All the complain about the combat is true. The game is not hard, it just have stupid gameplay mechanics. That could be fixed by someone that has moding experience or by the developers themselves. The durability of the itens is another topic. In Inquisitor, it looks like as if the equipments were made of plastic, it is insane, you give 10 hits on some enemies and the equipment is already broken. Let’s say you come across any kind of relic that was used by a legendary Saint of past times, it just doesn’t matter, weapons and armors are useless in this game. If you have the archangel Gabriel’s bow, you use it a few times and it is broken, just throw it away at the city fountain Inquisitor is the combination of best lore, excellent story, plot, dialogue writing with the worst combat and gameplay mechanics in games history. Buy if it is cheap, otherwise don't.

Well, a lot have been said already about this game, but I don't think anything really prepare you for it. I didn't get very far, and that's because the game is SLOW and HARD all the way. Everything is stronger than you. The bats, your partner, guards, everythings. I got attacked by an assasin and run for help, and it took me, and the 3 soldier like 2-3 minutes to take him down, and I can't say I was really able to participate (Most of my stuff broke on me). The game is basically unplayable until you find your first companion, and then you'll go to a map, fight 2-3 ennemies, WAIT for your Stamina bar to resplesnish (Without it, your attack get a lot more SLOWER), kill another enemies, go back to town and with your spoil of war you're able to get about 3 health potions. The game seem incredibly cool. Lots of cool dialogue, a very dark atmosphere, kind of a ''realistic'' setting. I remember thinking that it was very cool, 'cause other game of that gendra now have a lot of carttonish design that I found rather distracting. However, I played like 6 hours and basically did nothing at all. Barely a quest, I gain 4 lvl, didn't really upgrade my equipement and sure as h*ll wasn't able to figth anything effectiveley, and that is with forum help and cheats :( So, seem pretty cool, especially with a 4 stars ratings. But if you're an adult with limited ''play'' time, this game can be... will be tremendously frustrasting.

I just wanted to write a short almost counter-review to all the childhood nostalgia and "old-school" references being thrown out in all the 4 and 5-star reviews. It has old-school traces sure but it's no BG2. If anything it reminds me of BG1 before its first patch. Monsters respawning just outside view (check), broken quests (check), melee is a death sentence but ranged is godly (check). One thing that BG1 did not have though is blatant typos ("Save succesful" is probably the most frequent thing you will ever see and it's spelled wrong) and some of the dialogue clearly suffers from translation. That said it is probably what you expect. Just don't expect your childhood nostalgia to hold up. And get a bow, for God's sake!

The mechanics are aged like rot. The dialogs are more often than not text dumps, and while there is no side-menu it is no more complicated than morrowind's. Sure, there is the illusion of agency, the skeleton of a good game. If this were an alpha version I'd praise it. This is NOT what is expected of a finished product. However, I can't deny that this game is strangely poignant. And nothing is more frustrating than "almost good".