RPGWatch Feature - Inquisitor Review
 

Corwin takes a detailed look at Inquisitor, a text-heavy action/RPG with an unusual premise developed in the Czech Republic that we've been following for over 10 years. Here's a sample:
Read it all here.
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the cons - massive text and torture are not a minus for me.
what is , is the undeveloped trial mechanics. It could've been more than this.
Also main quest could've branched out more (choices)

Great review Corwin.
One of cons - •Too much 'filler' combat - simply made me stop playing the game very early. Although you said in the review respawns are not annoying, to me they were simply too much to swallow.
Massive text, well, in my case was a good thing actually. ;)

I liked the text, it was a decent game. I agree that, in some ways it could be better, but I got my moneys' worth, for sure.



-Carn

I played through the first part a couple times and got my money's worth from that. I really felt the game was too long for what it offered. The first act is as long as many full games, and when I saw the 2nd city and quests were almost identical to the first, I stopped playing.

Excellent review Corwin! Thanks! I see that torture didn't completely turn you off. Who knows? I may like it too. ;)

Great review Corwin.

I played through the complete game and enjoyed most of it. (>160 hours)
I played on medium difficulty and as a Paladin.

Contrary to the easy difficulty:

1) you have never enough money - I sold artifacts in the end to have enough money for potions!

2) many more fights are challenging (resources, tactics become more important)

I agree with Corwin that a little less uninteresting combat would improve the gameplay. For me the game gets 4 out of 5 stars. Story and dialog is very well done and 15$ is a bargain.

One quick comment on my listing all the text as a 'Con'; for me it wasn't, but I know that many do find such walls of text a negative. I've read tons of posts criticizing PS-T for too much text and there's probably almost as much in Inquisitor. Therefore, I felt that it should be listed as a negative for all those who prefer to 'get into the action'.

That amount of text wasn't just a lot it was mini novella's. It did a lot of tell not show.

From what I've heard, the problem with the text wasn't necessarily the amount of it, but the quality. Sounds like a lot of cases of violations of the "show, don't tell" rule. Anyway, good review. I'm still waiting for a sale on this one, though.

It was the amount as well, pages and pages for one dialogue choice.

A big part of the text problem was that the answer would always repeat the question. If I asked a question like, "Did the suspect have a bright shiny sword?", then the answer would be, "Yes, Freddie always carries a bright shiny sword, that he polishes every day, since his grandfather told him a rusty sword is useless." All I needed was yes :D

Inquisitor has one of the best 'text' style dialogue systems in the hundreds of games i have ever played. While It contains small portions of narrative and some instructive style dialogue, the main dialogue is of a true didactive nature, meaning it is left to the gamer to make the interactive two way understanding of choice. The dialogue, in its text form and not counting the translation gaffs, is direct and extremely logical - it makes sense and can be followed exactly by human reasoning. Surely the developer must be commended for composing this huge dialogue system. The text dialogue is the heart of the Inquisitor game - its what the game play progression relies on and does so in a most admirable way.

No, I don't know anyone who talks in the way the characters of that game talked. I'm not sure about the rest of you but if I asked a character a simple question and he blurted out the encyclopedia of data on the subject I would walk away before he was done. Just because they put a ton of text does not mean it was excellant. Like others have said, it was tell not show in the game.

Unlike you the text system was not the thing that drove me off. Yes, it was full of redudancy, but I actually liked that approach.

What made me stop playing Inquisitor was respawns.

At first it wasn't the text system, but going into towns to get basic info resulted in reading the history of the world every time. Didn't mind the respawns since you needed them to upgrade your character.

Let's be clear, I don't hate text in my games, I just don't want mini novella's. In my opinion an answer to any character input shouldn't be more then a paragraph or two.

There are no mini novella's in Inquisitor, only diversified dialogue for the inquisitor to filter through. Gamers need a fair degree of patience to play Inquisitor.

I agree.

That's an opinion. What is not an opinion is that it likes to tell not show. It doesn't feel natural at all. If you need patience to play a game to get what it is trying to say one could argue that it is not the ideal way to present the material.

It is a Sherlock Holmes game. You - the gamer - play an inquisitor. You have to set the pieces together to get a clue. Red herrings and lies are there, too.
Understanding the hints in the game leads to new areas, arrests and new story arcs.
Patience and intuition are the key.