I think only the Priest has access to the Magister Level 45 spells. I'm currently level 44, pretty excited. The biggest drag was using the Student level spells till you get Initiate, that's 20+ levels of using Locust Swarm.

Couldn't say it better myself.

The game is a broken mess, but not for the reasons you mentioned. Well, not entirely. The combat is atrociously bad, the game is stuffed with pointless filler to pad it out to reach "80+ hours of gameplay!!1", the story basically sucks and uses every lame, predictable twist in the book (sometimes 2-3 times in a row), and the character system is ludicrously unbalanced and poorly designed.

The only redeeming qualities are the visuals (excellent), world design (solid) and music (not bad).

Well, I think the OP is just exaggerating.

I can agree that this game has problems, but I am nevertheless enjoying it quite so. For some perspective, I usually don't play games like these, where I've only really played, say, Fallout.

EDIT: It seems like people are focusing way too much on the problems the game obviously has. For anyone reading this post in making a decision to get this game, they should note that there are many things that make this game great that are not being mentioned.

And there are also many more bad things people aren't mentioning.

The translation quality is shameful, the quest design atrocious, and the GUI absolutely pathetic.

This is not a good "old school" RPG, because it's flaws aren't just terrible by modern standards... they'd have been unforgivably bad even had this game been released in the mid to late 1990s.

It's only 'bad' if you lack determination.
The story and graphics are great IMHO.
I don't know what's so awful about the UI.
There are no modern standards this should be compared with, modern standards are even more awful (IE, simplistic, geared towards mouthbreathers).
Thank you, makers of this game, it was an awesome journey!!

Someone here mentioned that they could not understand why a game like Lionheart is considered bad, when there are games like Inquisitor that are just so damn bad. Well I have an idea...

Inquisitor doesn't hide behind all the fancy graphics and a brand name to try to make people believe it's a great game. I found Lionheart truly bland. It felt like it tried 'too hard' to be something it wasn't. It was definitely no Balder's Gate or Planescape Torment where those two got almost everything right.

Inquisitor is sub-par and we all can see it, hear it and feel it. It comes from a small development company I've never heard of. I saw the screenshots and thought: "Damn, they still released this?" Yet, even with all these apparent negatives, I still bought it. I wanted to give it a shot and help fund the company to allow it to make better games.

Lionheart is a bit like a kid who wears the best shoes, most expensive gear, most trendy clothes and goes to a top notch school with a certain amount of high expectations. Then fail school, found out his/her character is shady at best and has a bad attitude, but ends up running his/her father's business empire anyway. Inquisitor on the other hand is like a struggling kid who have crooked teeth, has acne all over, wears hand-me-downs and attends a public school near the slums. Then fails school, becomes a motorcycle mechanic and is greasy all day long. Lionheart is a pretender. Inquisitor is honest. ^_~

So far, I agree with the OP's points, BUT I STILL bought the game and have played roughly 15 hours so far and will continue to play it until I get bored and move on or leave it until I want to play it again, like dozens upon dozens upon dozens of other games I've played in the last 15+ years. ^_^

Just because there are better games out there, doesn't mean I should drop this and play those other games. Unlike a lot of people I've come across, I seem to have this ability to play different games over the course of the day/week/month. ^_~ 2 hours of Inquisitor now, an hour on World of Goo, do some work, 30 minutes in Stronghold Kingdoms, an hour of Mass Effect 3 MP, do some work, eat dinner, go out, come back, another hour of Inquisitor.

Maybe I am just outdated but I don't consider this game as bad as many people seem to point. I played the Ultima games when they came out, Fallout games, all of them and I am still playing FO3 and NV merged together by a great NV mod project I am part of the team (a bit of advertisement without advertise anything :P ), Baldur's Gate games (at the moment playing multi-player with my wife), Icewind Dale games, Planescape, Arcanum, Neverwinter Nights games, Diablo games (except for the 3rd one), Lionheart, Sacred games, the Witcher games, the elder scrolls saga, etc, if it is an RPG in any way I probably played it and beat it. After playing all of those games I still don't see how people can really hate this game. True there are flaws that can't be disregarded but I still have a fun time playing it and so does my wife, I am on the second act and I play with the thief, I don't think combat is that slow but maybe that is because since I am a thief I have an extra soldier in front of me hacking enemies together with the dog and the knight, and will soon get a second soldier (since I am about to finish the quest to upgrade my title). About potion usage, yes it gets annoying, but it is not as bad as in lets say the first Diablo games and those were (and still are) considered great games (while it lack any good story and its really just pure Hack and Slash) at least Inquisitor does have a story, came from a small developer and most important is really fun and addictive to play for some reason, also the quests, yes they do require a lot of talking to find out where to go next or who to talk to, and it is annoying but also realistic, if in real life you need to investigate a murder then you do have to talk to a lot of people, and many times have no idea where those persons are, I do agree that the journal should get more notes in it from lots of situations or information that are important but are not written down in it.

About developing strategies to defeat battles, I am really surprised but since I am a thief and use a bow I don't limit myself to just jump into a battle if that was the case I would still be trying to defeat the Orc king by now, it's not as obvious and there is not as many options than lets say Baldur's gate games where we had so many different ways to beat a fight (which is awesome :D ) but there are still several options in Inquisitor (using buffs, seals, skills and different spells, lure enemies or charge in, use ranged or melee, make my companions wait in a strategic spot, using different equipment that buffs or gives different bonus, using a magic box, in the thief case change the type of arrows, etc).

On a side note I do understand quite well when we buy a game (or a book, movie, etc) expecting it to be one thing and then when we use it we realize that is not like we imagined it, it really put us down and make us angry and frustrated, it happens all the time with me, one of the many reasons I joined GOG was because I was so tired of spending so much money on games I would then play and get totally disappointed in them (Command and Conquer 4 I am looking at you :P but there are really a lot of games I got really disappointed after buying) at least here I can buy older games I do love and try others I never played and if I don't really like them then it's all ok, didn't waste $60 on them :P .

Sorry for the ramblings of a bored getting old guy.

Good game so far, just about finished Act II. The story is great, I love the whole detective aspect of it, there aren't a million quests, and for the most part they all have to do with the main story or help progress in the story, the music has a nice charm to it.

Obviously there are many flaws I won't deny it...combat is a bit boring at this stage of the game. I don't bother with seals or spells sides a select few, healing touch, raise dead, levitation, sixth sense, but otherwise I just hack and slash so gets tedious and boring especially in the bigger dungeons. The game also crashes unexpectedly as well as having red boxes blocking any view and basically making the game unplayable. That being said though I don't mind too much, the game has no long loading screens, so on crash I can be back in game within 15 seconds, by no means does it make it okay just something I can cope with.

Then there's some things that some will hate or love. No tutorial or waypoints or objectives telling who to talk to or what to do. Personally I love it! At first I was overwhelmed by it but then it grew and grew on me. I was annoyed by the fact that I actually had to think to beat some parts...something I don't recall doing in video games in a while. But once I got used to it I loved it.

Enjoying the game and can't wait to get back to it. Also add to the fact that I bought this game and 4 others for $16 I definitely feel like I got a steal ;)

This seems to be a surprisingly common mindset when it comes to Inquisitor: "The game sucks, but it grew on me and now I can't stop playing." I have absolutely no idea how does it do that.

Can you say "Stockholm Syndrome"? ;)

The game is legitimately awful due to the terrible quality of the translation.

It's so bad as to make the game completely unplayable, IMHO.

I also got bored and annoyed by the tedious combat and stopped playing. I guess I lack the patience to endure enough of the terribly botched combat and bland quests to work myself into the kind of Stockholm syndrome mentioned above.

This game discourages superficial approach.
Go on and you will appreciate it.
It is not bad.
Initially, it looks VERY bad.
But it is a good game, after all.