I like the idea and theme of the game but I keep hearing about bugs. So I was wondering is it any good and worth the purchase? I am trying to decide between purchasing this or Neverwinter Nights but then I keep remembering how when I originally purchased NWN I got pretty bored but I still might give it a go again. So I guess the question is how deep is the story here and is it better than the horrid storyline of NWN?

its not really about the story, but the writing is great, and there's lots of it.

nwn has better combat and thats it. The worlds are different, but Inq has really put some work in defining it - quests and npcs have more meaning.

I'm not sure what bugs you're talking about, I see 90% of people misunderstanding the game mechanics (which is easy to do if you don't read the manual + forums)

Some people seem to have some blackscreen issues or starting the game but I don't think that's the majority. Aside from a small memory leak that makes the game unplayable after a 2-3 hours or more I have no other technical issues per-say. Just restart the game and it works as it should.

Other than that, as grui4 said, there's a lot of misunderstanding going on. There's some balance issues but you can avoid them by reading the manual, forums (avoid spoilers is a skill but each to their own which is more important) and exploring everything.

Also, I advice to save often (cumulative, not one).

The games is stable. I get after a couple of hours some RED overlay over inventory slots but nothing an EXIT and Reload won't fix.

You can save anywhere, for as many times as you please, autosave works great (saves on level-start, on dialog-start etc). Plus the items stay where you left them.
The JOURNAL is a bit cumbersome, but that's ok as this is "old-school"
Graphic-wise, think more like Diablo 1 or Fallout 2 but looks wonderful in 1920x1200 :-)
Story-wise, you'd better like to read LOTS and LOTS of screens of text, because some little detail could be usefull later, and the game forces you to use your own memory.

Choosing between Inquisitor and NWN ... NWN has it's own share of bugs and so any of the great RPGs that have gone past their glory. I would say a VS. is not fair as each is different and worth the price.

Considering that Inquisitor's combat is more Diablo, Sacred, or Titan Quest in nature, it is best to compare it to them. Unfortunately, I must say that the gameplay is simply ATROCIOUS. The original Diablo is more quick and fun when it came to combat, and the balance was much better than Inquisitor.

To give an example of balance within Inquisitor, consider the Identify Item skill when compared to Sixth Sense, a spell: The skill can't identify basic items, and even when heavily invested, can't identify items that Sixth Sense can. There is something terribly wrong with that, because Sixth Sense is just one of 10 spells within the Inquisitorial Magic school, so you got a lot more bang for your buck when investing skills into that area.

Another balancing issue is the speed of Inquisitor's combat, it is terribly slow and when you get into a fight, a feeling of tedium is the call of the day. Sure, there are skills and spells, but they generally feel underpowered to the point where you don't feel satisfaction when using them. Be it Diablo or Baldur's Gate, Inquisitor is just not fun when it comes to fighting.

However, the saving grace of Inquisitor is being able to investigate people and their stories, which could be interesting as you piece the truth together. The problem is that the combat is not just a foil to the roleplaying, it actually spoils things because it serves as an obnoxious barrier to the good stuff. Unfortunately, there is a lot of combat in the first act, so your patience and desire to see the roleplaying through would be seriously tested by the bordom.


In short: I recommend picking up a copy of Phoenix Wright instead, along with Titan Quest or Baldur's Gate II. With the Phoenix games, you get story and gameplay mechanics that are designed for allowing the player to investigate the situation without being bogged down by combat, while Titan Quest can scratch the ARPG quite nicely. If you must have a setting similar to Inquisitor, go for the Witcher.

Fact is you have to restart regularly to be safe. Because of the memory leak it becomes unstable.
Red blocks instead of items is one thing. Also the character sometimes starts walking really slow, not sure if it's related to the glitch, a restart also fixes it though.
But it can also randomly crash instead of all that.
So yeah... that's not what stable means.

Writing is pretty bad, especially if you set the bar there by saying NWN was bad. Plenty of unnecessary wall of text monologues, answers that pretty much repeat the question word by word, etc. Maybe czech version was better, but I think it's safe to say the translator certainly got paid by word count :)

The plot is pretty interesting, if you're into that sort of thing. Music is nice, whole atmosphere is pretty good. But can that alone carry a game? I'm not so sure. After all, you still have to play it to advance the story, and...

Gameplay is simply awful, there's no other way to describe it. Imbalanced as hell, boring at best, annoying at worst.

Seriously, to compare this sad abortion of a game to a solid roleplaying title such as NWN is just crazy talk.
If you don't like NWN story (I assume you mean the original campaign, because the expansions were definitely better), then there are many good free modules worth years of playtime.

I think it is worth it.

I don't know why, but even with the imbalanced things others have listed here and which I also encountered, the game has such an aura that makes you keep playing. Against all the hardships, getting used to the engine and UI, you need to literally "use your wits" to enjoy the game. We, gamers from chilhood who played games on Amiga 500s, know that the ease of play is not the first thing to make a game Golden. Deepness is. This game is deeper in story than many other "easy to play" games, which makes it worth to buy.

In my humble opinion, of course.

Yeah I had only played the original campaign and found it rather droll. Parts of NWN were good but honestly I just lost interest after a while with the story. If it gets better with expansions I might have to take a look.

All these replies highlight the problem I have with purchasing this game and might just make me wait for a sale. I have highly positive recommendation and highly negative ones. Not much middle ground it seems you either love or hate this game.

I have to agree with this last statement, Inquisitor does indeed seem to be that kind of game and I think that's mostly due to the nature of the game and how old-school it is. For some it's going to be a breath of fresh air while for others it'll be a reminder that old-school games also had their fair share of problems.

I'm definitely more of the former though, I've really come to enjoy playing Inquisitor despite how annoying and difficult the gameplay can be, especially at the beginning. However, once you've finished that first very long dungeon ( aka the Iron mines ) it does improve because your character becomes more powerful ( my priest for example can easily kill most enemies with the Locust Swarm spell ) and the dungeons become less of a chore.

Overall, there's no doubt that this was a labor of love from the developers and I believe that those like myself who have been missing old-school rpg will come to enjoy it if they can get past the difficult beginning and see past the game's flaws :).

I like the game on the whole, investigating people and their story's is the games highlight. The combat is frankly mostly passable but is seriously unbalanced witch can make you furious.

If the combat and other stuff was more balanced I would highly recommend it. I won't be playing it again until it's patched or some mods come along (if they don't I.m screwed). On the whole as the game stands now, I would say give the game a miss until it goes down to around a fiver as the game stands now that seems like an acceptable price point

As for bugs I had a problem where it would not load up had too reinstall has not popped back up yet. Otherwise it's actually being stable for me I've not had any of the problems above.

I would say it's definitely worth the money. Of course you should at least feel a little love for old-scholl-RPGs. Writing is pretty good and the developers put a lot of effort in creating the world and it's history and legends (there are lots of little details when items are described or when you have a conversation with NPCs). Combat could be better though, but for me it works and it doesn't get annoying.

About stability: Game might crash from time to time, but a restart will fix it and normally you won't loose much of your progress as the game autosaves at the beginning of every conversation and whenever you enter a new location.

If you really liked Arcanum, you will like Inquisitor.
Why ? Because for both games, there some high flaws in gameplay and balance. Yet, the story is so attracting that you don't really bother.
On the contrary, if Arcanum was painful for you, you should play another game.

Oookaaay.
And goig elsewhere and coming later after some levels ? The rogues and skeletons you can find in the other locations outside are not that hard. Ghosts are a pain for a paladin, because of its resistance to melee weapons, I know.

Inquisitor is basically like Lionheart without the good writing (though the world is interesting), with extremely predictable plot twists that are reused several times throughout the story, even worse combat, terrible game balance, game-breaking bugs (quests etc. that are unfinishable), an even more awkward user interface, horrendously bloated, overlong and extremely boring dungeons against endless copy-pasted trash mobs, bad pacing, minimal variety in gameplay except for the odd puzzle, a crappy loot system with almost zero progression throughout the game that lets you get the most powerful gear by re-visiting shops a few times...

... but at least it looks gorgeous and has nice music.

If you want to compare it to Neverwinter Nights, Neverwinter Nights is pretty awful but at least it has mods and multiplayer. Inquisitor does not.

Bullshit. Arcanum has better combat, better game balance, a far better character system, more mechanics (crafting etc.), a far bigger and more interesting world, excellent writing and a solid story, good quest design with some nice choice & consequence from time to time, a game world that is much more vibrant and alive... it's kind of broken in a few ways but the core gameplay is so good that it's easy to overlook. Inquisitor just sucks, with any good qualities drowning in an ocean of patently horrible and boring combat.

Arcanum is possibly my favorite 2D RPG of all time and Inquisitor can't even hope to lick its boots. Act 1 has the least combat of all the acts. The others are filled with between 2-4 times as many dungeons and in general, while the environments are also bigger, there aren't many more quests or characters. The game gets significantly worse as it goes on, but the non-combat stuff does get a little better. Shame that all it amounts to is clicking on dialogue options until they all disappear and witnessing the 100% linear story with almost zero choice & consequence.