Heretic Kingdoms: the Inquisition

List Price: $29.99 Discount Price: $8.32

Features:

• Play through over 50 quests with multiple outcomes, as you work out your own moral code -- be an altruistic heroine, a selfish & thirsty killer, or just a woman doing her job
• Battle more than 30 monsters, each with their own habitat -- plus whenever you clear a dungeon
• More than 100 Attunements for maximum choice of expression - empower your character by choosing the path of warrior or sorceror
• Dialogue Engine reflects the changing nature of the world, based on the player's actions

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine	Zonealarm Internet Security Suite [Old Version]

Customer Reviews:

Simply a wonderful game [Posted on 2006-08-03]
Overview

Heretic Kingdoms: The Inquisition (known as «Kult: Heretic Kingdoms» outside North America) is a hidden gem among RPG games and is one of the few RPG games that surpasses the standard set by the Diablo series and does so with flying colors.



The Warrioress and Gameplay Mechanics

You play Alita, a female warrior for a movement called "The Inquisition." She is no ordinary woman; she is in fact is a descendant of the God Emperor, Arkor. For the sake of not spoiling any surprises, I will not go into detail on how her ancestry factors into the story (more than what it says on the box). You can customize her appearance (there is even a nude skin of Alita in the game's texture folder, if you are into that), her starting skills and even change her name when starting the game. Although Alita is the only character you can choose, the game makes up for this in its innovative form of character development (the Attunement system)

The Gameplay is both innovative and a refreshing change from the RPG norm. In place of the usual character class system is a system of magical augmentations called attunements, which also replace the usual spell and mana system. These attunements are earned by using a given weapon or piece of equipment in battle long enough and give her additional abilities. Attunements can only be activated or deactivated when Alita sleeps and not all of them can be used at once, although the more she levels up, the more attunements she can have active at any given time (some attunements -- called focuses -- only work if you use a certain piece of equipment).

One of Heretic Kingdom's most innovative systems is the healing system; instead of stockpiling healing potions, you have a healing object that can be used indefinitely. However, every time you heal, a pool of points called "blood points" is consumed and the less blood points you have, the less hit points you can be restored to -- if you lose 5 of your 100 total blood points for example, you can only be healed to 95 health. Each time you heal, you lose blood points. To restore both blood and hit-points, Alita must sleep either at a campfire, a hotel or a house (if you buy one). The attunement system is perhaps the game's most powerful system and allows you to customize your character in more ways than usual.

Another innovation is that addition to being in the real world, you can enter a parallel realm known as the "Dream World," which is useful to get extra skill points, attunement points (for unlocking attunements) and even to escape danger (although the Dream World has its own hostile denizens).



The Setting, World and Story

The Story in a nutshell is set in a nation-state called Corwenth. Just after the fall of an oppressive theocracy that had ruled Corwenth until a rebellion overthrew it, a movement known as the "Inquisition" has moved in and started stamping out all traces of religion while a shadowy cult conspires to resurrect a dead god. You, the player, starts out investigating the theft of a sword known as the "Godslayer," a powerful weapon and religious symbol. Over the course of the game, however, things are not as they seem and everyone has their own agenda. The game's story is not entirely set in stone and depending on your actions, you will be led to one of six different possible endings. Parts of the story are told through cutscenes consisting of beautifully crafted paintings and a narrative voice by Tom Baker.

The game world itself consists of 50 large, beautifully rendered and highly detailed maps with several N.P.C.s to talk to interact with (more to interact with than in any other game except Deus Ex) and some 50 side-quests. Each quest can be completed in multiple ways and have multiple outcomes. In short, this game is a sword-and-sorcery equivalent to and worthy of the standard set by Deus Ex.



Graphics, Sound and Performence

Visually and audibly, the game is simply beautiful. This Isometric game departs from the isometric norm by using 3D models to render the characters, weapons and objects and you can zoom in on our lovely heroine without losing detail as a result. The detail is very lush, with weather effects, day and night cycle and even wildlife (some of which you can kill and sell their meat for money).

The game's audio does not disappoint. The music is good and dynamically changes in combat much like Deus Ex. The sound effects are rich and varied. You will not hear voices except in the cut scenes, but this is forgivable.

The game will run well even at its minimum system requirements and is one of the few post-2003 games that does not need a pixel-shading capable graphics card. However, you will want at least a 2 GHZ CPU, 512 MB of RAM and a 64MB card to run it at maximum detail at 1280 x 960 (the game's maximum resolution). The only crunch is that even on a high-end system, the fog will reduce frame rates at resolutions higher than 1024 x 768 (the fog occurs only in three missions of the game and is intermittent).

Awesome game, but didn't last long enough [Posted on 2006-11-11]
I loved this game, I'm a huge fan of Diablo II and the Expansion Pack for it. This game brought back wonderful memories, similar to Diablo but a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT and NEW game. The only problem with it, is it didn't last long at all. I beat the game within a week, where's the fun in that for that price?

Great idea, poor execution [Posted on 2007-09-03]
The concept behind this game is a novel one: you are a government enforcer for a state that has abolished religion a la Soviet Russia (had it existed in an alternate fantasy world). Unlike most CRPGs, you cannot choose between a variety of characters; this is not necessarily a bad thing, seeing as how Planescape: Torment---quite possibly the greatest CRPG of all time---sported the same "this-is-your-character-whether-you-like-it-or-not" philosophy. Unlike that classic game, however---which abolished character choice for reasons integral to the game---it seems arbitrary here. But that's the least of its problems.

Perhaps if you're a Diablo fan (of which I most certainly am not), you will find something of value here. But there's way too much dungeon-hacking and way too little plot/character development to hold my interest. This is unfortunate, because Heretic Kingdoms could have been a most artistic and philosophical addition to the CRPG genre, but instead opts for non-stop pointless fighting and, worse yet, sports one of the worst "healing" systems since....since I can remember.

Once again, if you were a fan of Diablo, you may very well find this game perfect for your collection. But if you value intelligence in a CRPG, look somewhere else. Like Planescape: Torment, for example.

Planescape: Torment

good rpg [Posted on 2007-09-05]
This game is under rated, fun and addictive.
You are a female warrior; you can pick your magic from 4 categories fire, water, earth or air. The best is fire I tried all 4, if you find a magic staff for another element you can still use it, which is good. Your magic works through attunements from all your items armor weapons and rings ect. There are 2 worlds to play in the real world and the dream world. Say, you are getting your butt kicked in the real world you can switch you the dream world and visa versa.
My only complaint is it was too short. The game makers (3D people) are in the process of making a sequel to this game, Looking forward to that. I really liked this game. Enjoy!

could have been better, seems "shortened" [Posted on 2008-02-02]
This is not actually a bad game - with high system requirements the graphics are okay and the game is relatively stable. The big issue of course was that this game seems to have been rushed from design to end product (earning it the distinction of being one of the fastest produced RPG games from design to finish stage).
But there are certain elements of the games that do not seem to be fleshed out and it feels like certain ideas that could have been put in the design phase were not fully implemented. For example, the gems in the games have pretty good descriptions and make you think that they somehow can give you more abilities through interactions with either your items or your attributes. But other than using them for money and quests, I didn't find any other use for them. It is as if the designer(s) of this game decided or was forced to shelve the idea somewhere in the production process of using gems as something useful. Or maybe I could be wrong - there could be a hidden use for gems. But after scouring google search engine for an on-line guide for this game (of which I only found one - and it was hard to find), I couldn't find a use for them. Although except for the attribute and weapon system, this game really doesn't need a guide - the plot and missions are so linear and simple and easy to remember.
Another thing that seems to be cut is the length of the game. This game is roughly 1/2 to 3/4 as long as many other RPG games that I've placed on the PC platform. Not saying that I don't mind a short game as long as it is well done - and some people don't like exploring every nook and cranny of an RPG game. But this game only took a week and a half of part time playing to finish.
So even though - unlike the RPG game "Beyond Divinity" - which was truly an unfinished game that resulted in bugs and unfinished maps. This game seems to have been shortened in the production and design phase - making it a game that could almost have been something really good - instead turning it into another standard RPG hack and slash fest. Fun, stable, complete, yet at the same time feels like it was "shortened" and with not enough depth.

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