Gamebanshee Reviews Inquisitor
Gamebanshee Reviews Inquisitor
Review - posted by Crooked Bee on Mon 24 September 2012, 13:08:23
Tags: Cinemax; InquisitorGamebanshee offers a review of Czech RPG Inquisitor, written by Eriz Schwarz. Here's a snippet:
Click here for the full review. Our own review, by Mrowak, is also in the works.
Unfortunately, though Inquisitor has all the right ingredients to put a smile on an RPG fan's face, Inquisitor is let down by some colossally bad design choices which result in a game which is one-quarter charming and engrossing, but three-quarters frustrating, repetitive and monotonous in the extreme. With some of the worst game balance I have ever seen in an RPG, overly linear quest design, a lack of player influence on the story, awful combat, and massive amounts of filler content, Inquisitor's ambitions never amount to anything that can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the classics of the genre. While it does have its strong points, it will take an incredibly strong-willed player to endure the dozens upon dozens of hours of torturous gameplay it takes to reach the good parts.
[...] Where it all falls apart is the "feel" of combat and game balance. Character movement can be very floaty and imprecise at times. Even though Inquisitor is a point-and-click game, characters will often "slide" and "bump" each other around, especially in close quarters, which can sometimes make targeting enemies frustrating or will lead to mis-clicks which send you running to your doom. Due to the size of battles, the visuals can also become very cluttered as you will routinely have 10 or more characters duking it out in close quarters, in which case it can be nearly impossible to tell what is actually going on.
But the real sin of Inquisitor's combat is game balance. I do not exaggerate when I say that have never, ever seen such a poorly balanced RPG, in everything from the character system, to enemy stats, to equipment and items, to the magic and spells available. To start, one of the reasons combat is so incredibly frustrating is that enemies have far, far too many hit points and resistances. On the normal difficulty, many enemies can individually take anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds to bring down, each. Combine that with the fact that often just about every dungeon room you visit will have 5 to 10 of these enemies in them, and then consider that the average dungeons might have 10 to 20 rooms all full of these numbers of monsters, and you can now start to see why this game is indeed "100+ hours long".
[...] Where it all falls apart is the "feel" of combat and game balance. Character movement can be very floaty and imprecise at times. Even though Inquisitor is a point-and-click game, characters will often "slide" and "bump" each other around, especially in close quarters, which can sometimes make targeting enemies frustrating or will lead to mis-clicks which send you running to your doom. Due to the size of battles, the visuals can also become very cluttered as you will routinely have 10 or more characters duking it out in close quarters, in which case it can be nearly impossible to tell what is actually going on.
But the real sin of Inquisitor's combat is game balance. I do not exaggerate when I say that have never, ever seen such a poorly balanced RPG, in everything from the character system, to enemy stats, to equipment and items, to the magic and spells available. To start, one of the reasons combat is so incredibly frustrating is that enemies have far, far too many hit points and resistances. On the normal difficulty, many enemies can individually take anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds to bring down, each. Combine that with the fact that often just about every dungeon room you visit will have 5 to 10 of these enemies in them, and then consider that the average dungeons might have 10 to 20 rooms all full of these numbers of monsters, and you can now start to see why this game is indeed "100+ hours long".
Click here for the full review. Our own review, by Mrowak, is also in the works.
