Leroux: Hey, I just saw Kult sold in a bargain bin over here for $3 or even less. Is it worth it? And do you by chance know what DRM the retail version was using? Simple CD check or anything more draconic?

adamzs: At $3 Kult is definitely worth it. Don't expect anything earth shattering, it's a solid ARPG however, with an interesting setting and some unique gameplay mechanics. I've only played the game once, and as I've mentioned even that was ages ago. I remember loving it though. It's set in an openish world if I remember correctly.

Skree: Fenix, perhaps you lost the last message i wrote, it was for you :P

I asked if it was possible to play a thief not based on ranged combat, but on agile, quick melee. That's usually how i like and play roguish characters.

Apart from this, the thief has persuasion, the priest, if i read correctly the manual, has anyway something similar, authority or somesuch. The only character without social skill is the paladin, am i right? Could you pleas clarify on these questions please?

Thank you for your answer of course.

Skree: Fenix, perhaps you lost the last message i wrote, it was for you :P

trebor8273: its past 10.59 GMT how much longer?

trebor8273: its past 10.59 GMT how much longer?

Fenixp: Bah! I took my time writing up a review and you can't add one before release .... Well makes sense I guess. Still:
TL;DR version is: Oldschool RPG in the truest sense of the word: Unforgiving, hard, but rewarding and fun, with it's share of issues.

I've actually had a pleasure of playing the Czech version of this game, so I can go ahead and give you heads-up. The wall of text follows.

I think Inquisitor's gameplay can be best compared to that of Divine Divinity - Diabloish combat with fairly open world, where you're controlling one character and can get AI followers. The biggest difference would be that dialogue and decision making plays a very important role as well, you're actually investigating and uncovering what led to series of mysterious events, so expect to be talking a lot, asking a lot of questions, and collecting evidence. I have a love-hate relationsip with this one, you can ask everyone about pretty much everything and they'll only ever have so little to say. It really makes sense - you're there to collect information, and that's just a necessary part of it. Just do expect to proofread a lot of not so interesting text in the process. Thank god it's fairly well-written, at least - well, the Czech version was.

Still, there's asking questions, and asking questions. Have you ever wanted to torture someone until he spits out everything he knows? You actually can in Inquisitor. And what if you catch some ill-doers that require punishment? Yes, there's a lot of burning at stake going on as well. A bit sadistic, maybe, but it goes well with the overall dark tone of the game. All this would be for nothing if story was crap: Which it isn't. It's actually very decent - not the best thing you've ever seen in a game, but it does get it's job done and it's really engaging.

Anyway, dark tone it has. The game takes place in 'our' medieval-esque world, with the only difference of monsters and magic being present. This actually leads to something I really DO like - Cinemax tried to be as authentic as possible. Armours and weapons actually have historic descriptions, and you won't see a sword shaped like a bloody rollercoaster. Basically, if you like world of The Witcher, you'll probably find world of Inquisitor appealing as well, Cinemax has really nailed the contemporary atmosphere.

There, we've got gameplay and game's world covered, let's get to RPG mechanics: The system itself is fairly standard, you get XP which give you level-ups, and those give you skill and attribute points to distribute. You can choose between three classes: A Paladin, Priest and a Rogue. I really like that the world actually reacts to your choice, and some bits of the game change according to it as well - for instance, as a paladin, you get access to their buildings scattered around the world, as a rogue you actually play a role of noble, so you get your own village eventually, and priest is an actual inquisitor, which comes with greater privileges. Other than that, they're just your standard warrior-mage-thief bunch, nothing that surprising there. All in all, apart from actual in-game differentiation, RPG mechanics are pretty standard and generic. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, I just wish they were much, much more balanced.

And that's probably the bit where this game suffers the most, unless Cinemax has made some serious changes to game system in the meantime (which I truly doubt.) Balancing. Have I mentioned it's old-school? Yes, yes it is. In all it's aspects. It's really hard, it's really unforgiving, it's also very frustrating at points and more than once have I got stuck in place, not really knowing what to do next. Protip: Get the school of magic with levitation with it. It HELPS TREMENDOUSLY and can be picked by any class.

Aaaand I think that just about covers it. My personal rating would be around 70%. If you like oldschool RPGs with all their flaws, add 20%. If you can't stand being frustrated, and think that these old mechanics were only used because devs didn't know better, substract 20%. All in all, Inquisitor is a very good game, with good story, fairly pretty graphics (and bad animations,) and it's really fun to play. Personally, I think that for a price of 15 bucks, it's money well spent - I have paid roughly 35 bucks for it and I don't regret that in the slightest.