I had been on the fence for a long time on whether or not I wanted to play this game, learning more and more as time went on (but not too much for my taste.) I finally decided I did at least want to give it a try. I'm excited for all varying aspects of it, overall just the general uniqueness of it all, and most of all the writing and story (which so far seem to be great.)

I will probably eventually play through it 3 different times playing 3 different ways. I want to make a completely evil and sadistic priest, a wholly good and right thief, and as close as I can play it middle-of-the-road paladin. I decided it would probably be easiest on my first playthrough to do the paladin route. Role-playing a hard-headed, two-faced, ego-maniacal arrogant asshole named Arogan Tyran III. The sort of guy that will at one moment be likeable, charismatic, and even handsome, and then at the next when things don't go the way that suits him, he induces fear, hate-ability, and becomes grotesque given his facial musculature.

Looking forward to all the twisted-ness and great writing/story it has to offer!

So, after playing for a while I started over on easy. This is the first game I've ever played that I've played on any sort of "easy" difficulty. It feels very weird to do. It's not like combat was un-doable by any means: be smart with skills/stats and get some very good equipment and companions and pots and then be prepared to swing away until you get the job done. I USED to have fun on Diablo II hard difficulty playing it over and over and over and other older games that had "hardcore grinding" - what a waste of my time!!! I quickly (still in act I), decided that there was no need for all of that, and started all over. I'm so glad I did, too!

Plus, I get all the benefits to having learned the game a bit and starting over knowing some things - get to do stats a bit differently and know where to go and what dialogue I don't need to necessarily re-read. I'm still doing all of my dialogue choices/quests the same as I did my first run-through, because of my plan on how to run them through (read previous post), and it is really great to have re-read some of the stuff. I'm quickly catching up to where I had been and having lots of fun. And even more fun now not having to spend so much time organizing pots, drinking pots, and banging no baddies. The combat is way more fun now, really, it suits the game (plot-wise/gameplay wise and all that that matters) rather than is something I dread encountering.

It is quite fantastic! I really hate to even compare it to diablo because it is a piece of art where diablo is a piece of fancy performance machinery. The atmosphere is only comparable in that they are sort of about the same thing in a similar setting. It's like comparing the atmosphere of Aliens with the atmosphere of Space Cowboys. They have similar functions, but are totally different and do different things and Inquisitor is such a superior game it's an almost an insult to mention them in the same conversation. Really loving it.