Czech game "Inquisitor" - ever heard of it?

[FeelTheRads]

So far expect Lionheart in combat

So, retarded combat that offers no satisfaction whatsoever?

Bioware combined with Torment in writing.

What does that mean? Crappy and long?

 

[thesheeep]

Well, the combat style in Lionheart was nice. I liked it. But the "classes" and skills and monsters and.. well.. everything was so incredibly unbalanced.

 

[Raghar]

What does that mean? Crappy and long?

Bioware number of choices and long. LOOOOOOOONG.

 

[logrus]

The game is now listed on gog.com as a preorder for $11.99 (described as "20% off the full price, only during preorders") until Wednesday, September 5 at 10:59 AM GMT. I'm really looking forward to this game, so purchase is done, I'll post my experiences with the game when it's released.

Link -> http://af.gog.com/news/preorder_inquisitor?as=1649904300

 

[Raghar]

I wonder how would they translate:

Do you know anything about disappearance of xxx?
Yes I know exactly how he disappeared.
YES? HOW?
WITHOUT ... A ... TRACE.
... thank you very much Baron, you helped me a lot...

The Baron is ultimate troll, when he is not scared about what happened to his wife (you know she had brain and economic talent).



If you arrest Paladin, you might have this conversation:


Do you see all these torture devices, and can you imagine to what are they used, and how would you feel?
I'm innocent.
He's stubborn, take him back to the cell.

Considering you can release him from patch 1.01 and above... (What they were thinking, did they never imagine someone would arrest him, then want to release him again?)

 

[kaizoku]

Umm bitches. Someone here has it installed and can answer your questions, and possibly even translate something.
So far expect Lionheart in combat, Bioware combined with Torment in writing.

What does that mean? Crappy and long?

Bioware number of choices and long. LOOOOOOOONG.

"Bioware number of choices" - do they work the same way of Bioware "choices"? They always result in the same consequence?
"looooooong" - but is it a good long or a bad long? Is the writing good and interesting or does it become a boredom fest?

What about in terms of characters and encounters/quests ?


Someone mentioned Arcanum... is it anything like Arcanum? In what regard?

 

[Raghar]

"Bioware number of choices" - do they work the same way of Bioware "choices"? They always result in the same consequence?

The dialogue isn't really branching. Thought choices obviously don't end in the same consequences.

"looooooong" - but is it a good long or a bad long? Is the writing good and interesting or does it become a boredom fest?

You know, it's about ages when all they are doomed. When you read 3 page long (when added together) in one dialogue about how they are doomed because there was a storm, they seen some orcs, or how they can't be arsed to kill some bats... Either you'd see it as a mockery, or should get used to it.

What about in terms of characters and encounters/quests ?

Well imagine it as a visual novel combined with hack and slash. Obviously when you are asked to do some investigations, you are doing investigations. You are asking people around, listening to theirs fairy tales, and try to find the real culprit.

Someone mentioned Arcanum... is it anything like Arcanum? In what regard?

More likely Lionheart, they just had time to finish it.

 

[sea]

I got access to a review copy. Didn't think I would buy it normally because I'm tired of Diablo-likes, but obviously I have made an exception in this case.

Inquisitor is a lot more like a traditional RPG than I expected, outside of the combat. You have hirelings that will help you in battle (not sure what the maximum is, I have two now), you have more resources to manage (stamina is just as important as mana and health, for instance), you have a slightly more complicated character creation setup, and the game is most definitely not a dungeon crawler, at least what I've played so far. The majority of time is spent in dialogue rather than fighting, and there is a lot of it. You can basically grill any NPC about anything you have learned, which often opens up new quest options, journal entries, etc. You can even return to all those same NPCs and ask them about new stuff you have learned from others. It seems that, unlike some RPGs, the focus is more on your own personal ability to work things out mentally, rather than your character's ability, as there are no dialogue skills and you have to actually pay attention to what people say to really pick up on the finer details.

That said, the text is also kind of boring. Most NPCs have the same personality (i.e. none), almost all of them have pages and pages of things to say, and most of them will repeat very similar things. The quality of the writing is also pretty inconsistent - some people speak using Ye Olde English, others use more modern parlance and even a few anachronisms. I'm not sure if it was translated or written in English, but there's also a fair number of grammar issues - the fact is that such a sheer amount of text demands that it be good, and it's not especially great or dripping with character. Whether this becomes a problem later on, I'll see - for now it's still interesting enough to keep me going, but I have definitely started skimming a lot of the text even a few hours in.

One thing to note is that C&C is more related to actions rather than picking "good" or "evil" - say the wrong thing to the wrong NPC and suddenly they'll hate you and refuse to cooperate, for instance. It's a nice change, but I could see it being a bit punishing considering you don't always know what will offend someone, and the game likes to autosave immediately after every dialogue.

Combat is simple, but fine for what it is. There are magic spells which provide your usual buffs, heals and offensive abilities, and so far things are fairly well balanced. Enemies aren't especially challenging, but it isn't a cakewalk either, and you will really need to use all the potions you come across to keep your levels up. The game has auto-attack on by default, which make it less of a click-fest than some other games. Drinking potions is a free action, and the inventory pauses the game, but everything heals over time so it's not so big a deal. Having party members helps to break up the usual Diablo-style monotony, too, though your control over them is a bit limited. Let's face it, though - many games I love, like Arcanum, have awful combat. Replacing turn-based with a real-time format that's simple but works isn't a big deal in my opinion, if the rest of the game is still storyfag enough.

I also have to say that the game is quite good-looking. Seeing high-quality prerendered backgrounds enhanced by modern tech is a real treat. The game has nice effects, it runs extremely smoothly, and the art style is straightforward without being boring. It's such a nice change to see a 2D top-down RPG in this day and age. Music and sound effects are less interesting. Sounds are very stock and generic, i.e. blowing wind and chirping birds kinds of ambiance, with your usual animal and monster sounds probably taken from a library somewhere. The soundtrack has a lot of pipe organ, harpsichord, some choirs, etc. and largely resembles traditional church music - fits the setting, but it also gets a bit dreary and monotonous.

I'll have more thoughts later, but in short, I like it. I'd say it most resembles Lionheart or Divine Divinity but with much, much more dialogue and less combat, so if that sounds good then I think it's a fair bet to buy it. I'll have to wait and see if the "it's a 2D game!!1" love affair wears off after a while, though.

 

[LizardKing]

Already pre-ordered this one.
It looks promising, but so did Lionheart.

 

[Mrowak]

I got access to a review copy. Didn't think I would buy it normally because I'm tired of Diablo-likes, but obviously I have made an exception in this case.

Inquisitor is a lot more like a traditional RPG than I expected, outside of the combat. You have hirelings that will help you in battle (not sure what the maximum is, I have two now), you have more resources to manage (stamina is just as important as mana and health, for instance), you have a slightly more complicated character creation setup, and the game is most definitely not a dungeon crawler, at least what I've played so far. The majority of time is spent in dialogue rather than fighting, and there is a lot of it. You can basically grill any NPC about anything you have learned, which often opens up new quest options, journal entries, etc. You can even return to all those same NPCs and ask them about new stuff you have learned from others. It seems that, unlike some RPGs, the focus is more on your own personal ability to work things out mentally, rather than your character's ability, as there are no dialogue skills and you have to actually pay attention to what people say to really pick up on the finer details.

That said, the text is also kind of boring. Most NPCs have the same personality (i.e. none), almost all of them have pages and pages of things to say, and most of them will repeat very similar things. The quality of the writing is also pretty inconsistent - some people speak using Ye Olde English, others use more modern parlance and even a few anachronisms. I'm not sure if it was translated or written in English, but there's also a fair number of grammar issues - the fact is that such a sheer amount of text demands that it be good, and it's not especially great or dripping with character. Whether this becomes a problem later on, I'll see - for now it's still interesting enough to keep me going, but I have definitely started skimming a lot of the text even a few hours in.

One thing to note is that C&C is more related to actions rather than picking "good" or "evil" - say the wrong thing to the wrong NPC and suddenly they'll hate you and refuse to cooperate, for instance. It's a nice change, but I could see it being a bit punishing considering you don't always know what will offend someone, and the game likes to autosave immediately after every dialogue.

Combat is simple, but fine for what it is. There are magic spells which provide your usual buffs, heals and offensive abilities, and so far things are fairly well balanced. Enemies aren't especially challenging, but it isn't a cakewalk either, and you will really need to use all the potions you come across to keep your levels up. The game has auto-attack on by default, which make it less of a click-fest than some other games. Drinking potions is a free action, and the inventory pauses the game, but everything heals over time so it's not so big a deal. Having party members helps to break up the usual Diablo-style monotony, too, though your control over them is a bit limited. Let's face it, though - many games I love, like Arcanum, have awful combat. Replacing turn-based with a real-time format that's simple but works isn't a big deal in my opinion, if the rest of the game is still storyfag enough.

I also have to say that the game is quite good-looking. Seeing high-quality prerendered backgrounds enhanced by modern tech is a real treat. The game has nice effects, it runs extremely smoothly, and the art style is straightforward without being boring. It's such a nice change to see a 2D top-down RPG in this day and age. Music and sound effects are less interesting. Sounds are very stock and generic, i.e. blowing wind and chirping birds kinds of ambiance, with your usual animal and monster sounds probably taken from a library somewhere. The soundtrack has a lot of pipe organ, harpsichord, some choirs, etc. and largely resembles traditional church music - fits the setting, but it also gets a bit dreary and monotonous.

I'll have more thoughts later, but in short, I like it. I'd say it most resembles Lionheart or Divine Divinity but with much, much more dialogue and less combat, so if that sounds good then I think it's a fair bet to buy it. I'll have to wait and see if the "it's a 2D game!!1" love affair wears off after a while, though.

My impressions so far largely overlap, but I disagree on the combat bit... It sucks donkeyballs. They took everything from Divine Divinity and mixed it with the worst from the Lionheart combat. Anything would have worked better than the combat there is.

Also the walls of text. Normally this is not a problem in a storyfaggy game, but here it is jarring when the player communicates in one line questions, while NPCs answer with word-bloat that says nothing about them (I really miss the "Planescapey" narration e.g. "Heh you seem to have come with directions..." Morte clears his throat, "Let's see, it starts with..."). As it is I get strong Ultima vibes... and not the positive ones.

Still, I can't deny the game has some unique charm in it - largely due to teriffic art direction (not the graphics itself, which is average at best). The game also promises a lot and I am wondering how it will deliver later on...

 

[sea]

I am liking the combat less as I go. The big problem isn't so much the core mechanics as it is the constant need to rest - there's no way to do it quickly so it means lots and lots of trips back to town. Potions are cheap and plentiful but I wish there wasn't so much guzzling, and that poison especially wasn't such an annoyance. At a certain point it's not so much difficult, but tedious.

 

[Giauz Ragnacock]

I just can't win. This game sounds so great... and then all the bad features crop up in the comments. It feels like I will never really get into playing games again... but is there a chance the bad stuff won't have that bad of an effect on my enjoyment?

One thing that does kind of bother me is... why are your characters using YE OLDE MAGICK. I mean, from a Christian standpoint, magic is evil, so I would think that combat mechanics would focus on emulating a regular person using counter strategies and weapons against magic (in the style of Van Helsing, Constantine, and/or the Equalists in The Legend of Korra) . Sea, is there any in-story reasoning for keeping the genre-standard framing devices for the RPG mechanics or at least a handwave so far?

 

[sea]

I just can't win. This game sounds so great... and then all the bad features crop up in the comments. It feels like I will never really get into playing games again... but is there a chance the bad stuff won't have that bad of an effect on my enjoyment?

One thing that does kind of bother me is... why are your characters using YE OLDE MAGICK. I mean, from a Christian standpoint, magic is evil, so I would think that combat mechanics would focus on emulating a regular person using counter strategies and weapons against magic (in the style of Van Helsing, Constantine, and/or the Equalists in The Legend of Korra) . Sea, is there any in-story reasoning for keeping the genre-standard framing devices for the RPG mechanics or at least a handwave so far?

They explain magic via the typical "heavenly powers" excuse, as far as I know, i.e. it's divine and holy, used by priests and all that.

Unfortunately there isn't really any excuse for the availability of potions and such, as well as some of the more fantasy-oriented monsters, like orcs and trolls (other than that they are demonic and/or evil). Suffice it to say that Inquisitor takes some liberties with history and seems a bit "gamey" at times - but like Lionheart, those sorts of things do make a certain kind of sense in the context of the game universe.

Now that I have got some levels under my belt (about level 15-16), combat is getting more fun again. The "painfully difficult" stages early on have given way to less annoying battles, and I can survive for more than 10 minutes in the wilderness without having to run back to town. I have run into several bosses that I cannot beat yet with brute force, suggesting that magic might be extremely useful assuming you can counter the bosses effectively.

Funny enough, the game actually resembles Baldur's Gate the more I play it. The way the world map is set up and split into regions, the visuals, the split between dungeon crawling and dialogue-heavy stuff... it lacks the open-ended exploration and D&D depth, but the resemblance is almost uncanny. The first major dungeon is even an iron mine... did the devs think they were being subtle?

Aside from all that though, I am still enjoying it. It is far from perfect, but it does have its own charm - the focus on investigating sinners and heretics and bringing them to justice is a lot of fun, and from what I can tell your thoroughness and deductive skills can make a difference between whether you punish the right people or not. It's also nice to see a game that does not stray away from discussing a specific religion, for a change. Like some of the games I mentioned already (Lionheart, Arcanum, etc.) it does have its share of flaws, but also like those games, the good parts outshine the bad ones.

 

[flabbyjack]

I hope they eventually provide some sort of dialogue editing hook into the game so so we can spruce up the Wall of Text as some sort of player-made mod. Those things are so damn popular these days.

 

[Giauz Ragnacock]

Awesome news guys! I just made this game my first actual GOG.com purchace and the first pre-order I've ever done of anything (with my own money...). Barring lazy-ness I am hoping to use this for my right of passage 'KKKodex Let's Play' (sadly I am very lazy..... expect orgasmic praises and whinning, hope for an account of my inquisition of the game).

I already have access to everything but the game and artbook (which will hopefully be available for download by the 5th as stated), and I have to say that it is all very well made. Especially appreciated by me is the novel, which has cool sketch illustrations like these old

(I think they were called, but I am uncertain.... I remember these three stories: a bride plays hide and seek as a wedding reception game with a predictably horrific reveal accompied by surprisingly detailed illustration; two old baseball fans wonder if baseball is played in heaven, and I very much liked the ending; a butcher who gets mad at some children.... gore follows with an illustration at the story's beginning suggestive of the gore to follow)

"American Scarry Stories" books I used to check out from my middle school's library, and the Weopons and Armors book, which is like reading one of those tour books you might find at a war site like Gettysburg (brief but very interesting descriptions of many pieces of equipment and their historical uses). I am unsure of eithers' quality just from skimming, but I like what I see (I am undecided when I will read the ~74 page novel, and I will not listen to the soundtrack until I am done with the game and if I found it to be pleasing enough to care).

The artwork outside of the yet unavailable art book is kinda nice but not spectacular. Interesting to note is that each of the three classes apparently comes with it's own HUD (The priest's looks the most well-done to me. However,......................................................
































..... I am afraid I must first find my own answer to that profound question, "What is a Paladin? )

 

[Raghar]

BTW there is brutal difference between 1.01 and 1.10. In 1.01 main character needs minimal endurance to be able to drink these more powerful healing potions without being killed, poor versions of long range (for these with shitty skills) weapons are massively worse, and zombies would cause illness instead of temporally strength drop. That or I accidentally started on Hard in first attempt.

A few hints. If you are thinking about doing overly optimized combat build on start, you can gain few levels just by solving all these problems in city and around, so starting with combat underperforming character isn't that big problem. (and in fact you doesn't need to kill these bats) Entrance to torture stuff is in the city, you shouldn't go down until level 5. If you are playing on ironman they tends to dump you into center of the area filled by horrible monsters, getting out is troublesome. Safe areas (you can get out "easily") are city, place for executions, and graveyard.

 

[Mrowak]

Bros, a question to you? How do you find magic? The thing is I am playing a Priest now, and ended up putting square shitloadz of points into melee and armour proficiency (6 points in each), because the suckerage of my spells is over 9000 even after putting lots of points into schools of magic (6 points in Magic of Miracles, Divine Magic and Infernal Magic) and Wisdom skill (it "improves" spell casting chance - also 6 points in it). It's goddamn annoying when you spells cost mana AND stamina AND have high probability of failure (they often fail with monsters 10 levels weaker than me) AND deal less damage then my wimpy character in melee. I tried using signs/pentacles, but they are still inefficient.

I am asking because I encountered Orc battlemages and they smear the floor with me - they deal reasonable damage with their spells. I am level 14 now. What am I doing wrong?

 

[Morkar Left]

Just skimming over the manual the translation seems decent, at least for non-native speakers like myself.

 

[Mrowak]

Just skimming over the manual the translation seems decent, at least for non-native speakers like myself.

It's... adequate. It conveys meaning, though the quality of writing drops significantly. It is also inconsistent - they try anachronisms and then revert to normal speech. There are typos and odd word choices here and there as well. It's nowhere near as good as the translation of TWitcher 2 - it's closer to TW1.

 

[Commissar Draco]

So is this shit finally out?

 

[Mrowak]

So is this shit finally out?

In a moment... Frankly though, I can't help feeling a tad bit disappointed with it.

 

[Commissar Draco]

So is this shit finally out?

In a moment... Frankly though, I can't help feeling a tad bit disappointed with it.

12 jewgolds is not too much to try it anyway... if shit will be as good as Kult Heretic Kingdom won't be disappointed... besides got tons of gifts on GOG with this one.

 

[Mrowak]

So is this shit finally out?

In a moment... Frankly though, I can't help feeling a tad bit disappointed with it.

12 jewgolds is not too much to try it anyway... if shit will be as good as Kult Heretic Kingdom won't be disappointed... besides got tons of gifts on GOG with this one.

I took the price/quality ratio into consideration in my previous statement.

 

[Mrowak]

Well, it's up on GOG right now, so downloadan everybody.

 

[Raghar]

I am asking because I encountered Orc battlemages and they smear the floor with me - they deal reasonable damage with their spells. I am level 14 now. What am I doing wrong?

When you are playing as cleric, you should expect he would endure hardships. He's using novice spells, they are using apprentice spells.