Combat is fought in real-time. Left-clicking moves the character, and right-clicking attacks with the currently selected weapon or spell focus. The game suffers from balancing issues. Early on I found myself struggling to stay alive. During the middle things seemed pretty fair. But late in the game almost everything was a ‘one-hit' kill, with no damage to me.
The game flows very naturally and organically from beginning to end, with your main quest dictating action, but leaving you able to pursue side-quests and revisit old areas. You never feel lost, but there is plenty of exploration available. It will take you twenty or thirty hours to finish, depending on how much you tend to explore both worlds in all areas.
Heretic Kingdoms is a satisfying action-RPG with an interesting plot and dialog, a number of unique and innovative features, and varied combat and settings. It's enough to make a very enjoyable game. It is short, as RPG's go, but in a very slow period for RPG players it stands as one of the best.