Reviewed: May 13, 2005
Reviewed by: Jown Bowlin
Publisher
Got Game Entertainment
Merscom
Developer
3D People
Released: April 12, 2005
Genre: RPG
Players: 1
ESRB: Mature
9
7
8
7
8.0
System Requirements
Recommended System
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
I was pretty excited when Heretic Kingdoms: The Inquisition arrived on my desk. I had read some good things about it since it had already been previously released under a different name (Kult: Heretic Kingdoms) in Europe, and it had garnered good reviews from most of the press. Heretic Kingdoms is by 3D People, a relatively new Slovakian game developer studio. In the US the game is being published by Got Game Entertainment. Got Game publishes a variety of game styles, from RPG’s to Adventures to Strategy and even Action.
Heretic Kingdoms has a kick ass backstory. You are a young woman who bears a birthmark on her face, which has special meaning - you have the gift to be a mage. You have magical powers that normal people do not possess, including the ability to shift into the Dream World, and see things as they are spiritually. You are also a new recruit for an organization called The Inquisition, with the purpose of destroying religion. The god of this fantasy setting was killed in ancient times past by one who wielded a powerful sword known as the Godslayer.
The history of the Godslayer is as bloody as it is long. But now someone has stolen the Godslayer from the monks who guarded it, and history may once again be in turmoil over this powerful artifact. What will you do? Use the Godslayer for your own power; give it to the secret cult who seeks to resurrect the dead god? Or destroy it, as the leaders of your Inquisition desire? Well first you've got to find it.
Heretic Kingdoms is essentially an action/RPG similar in style to Diablo 2, but somewhat slower paced. You need both reflexes and strategy to develop your character to be an effective killing machine. And of course, there is the story, which is interesting enough to keep you coming back for more. The game is rated M due to the controversial subject matter in the story, not to mention lots of violence.
You begin the game by creating a character. You only get once choice on gender - female. You can name her whatever you want (the default name is Alita). You can customize her appearance; everything is there from modest adventuress to skanky ho. You set the difficulty for the game here, a choice of Easy, Normal, Hard, Expert, or Nightmare. I stuck with Normal, and it was pretty difficult at the start, but that may have been due to my choices.
You also assign points to upgrade the four basic skills: Melee, Ranged, Magic, Speed. They mean pretty much what you think they mean. All of them start of as "F", and you can upgrade them through the letter grade system all the way up to A+, but starting out you'll be pretty unspectacular. As you gain experience in the game you can increase these more.
You use the mouse to move around in Heretic Kingdoms, clicking where you want to go. Enemies come at you relentlessly, so you can either stand and fight or run around and try and attack with ranged attacks. You do move faster than most of the enemies so running is a good tactic if your character build out is not very sturdy. Right click to attack. It's all pretty similar to other action/RPG titles, so you will feel right at home if you've played other games like this.
There are four different elements that you can be "attuned" to which directs which types of abilities your character can "equip" at the time. These are Fire, the destroyer, Water, the paralyzer, Air, the swift, and Earth, the resilient. I picked a high-magic Air user, and most of the abilities I got involved speed, and my attacks were very rapid. Unfortunately I was also pretty easy to kill so in order to survive I spent a lot of time running around enemies and attacking them with bow or ranged magical attacks. So how you decide to build your character can radically alter your gameplay style, and this can add replay value to the game.
One of the more unique things about Heretic Kingdoms is the duel-reality aspect. You have the real world, but you can, at will, switch to the Dream World. In the dream world you can talk to spirits, or you may have to fight them. You can find hidden hex marks that will grant you attunement points so it is a good idea to check the dream world often to see what hidden things exist in the spiritual realm.
You can have a bunch of quests active at once and the game is not entirely linear so you can choose to do different tasks in different orders, or ignore some of the side quests if you want. The game has a quest journal so you don't have to remember everything or write anything down. Most of the quests involve going somewhere; killing something, and possibly bringing something back to someone. There are some unusual quests, like in one case where you had to find a job for a zombie and mend things between a father and his daughter.
One thing somewhat unusual is the way healing works. You start the game with the item that heals you, and it never runs out, but the catch is that every time you heal, your maximum health goes down. So over time your ability to sustain damage gets lower and lower. You can recharge your health to full by sleeping at a campfire or an inn, but those locations are not all over the place.
The best part about the gameplay is collecting items and learning new abilities. The more you use a new item that is attuned to your chosen element, you will eventually unlock it's power. You can then get new "attunements" which are like special powers, like doing more critical hits, or the ability to fire a lightning bolt, etc. You don't have to keep the item around once you've learned the power it grants, which means you'll be constantly finding new gear, then using it long enough to unlock its power, then trying something else. The limiting factor is that certain items only "attune" when you are using the right element, and you are only allowed to "equip" a set number of powers, which goes up as you gain levels.
Overall the gameplay is varied and addicting, which is all you can really ask for a good action/RPG. The engaging story written by seasoned game writer Chris Bateman will keep you coming back for more. The quests are interesting, and some even have multiple outcomes, which can change the story a bit, adding a bit more replay value. Combat can get somewhat repetitive, but so did Diablo 2 and I consider it one of the greatest games ever.
Heretic Kingdoms uses static bitmap backgrounds and garnishes them with animations, such as sparkling things for magical effects and realistic fire. By static I mean similar to how the Baldur's Gate games are, where each "map" is a large picture that you can wander around in. Sometimes this was awkward in that you think you can move over a section but you can't. The mini-map helped though since it usually marked which areas were traversable and which were just scenery. Character animations were fairly well done, and the game uses fog and other effects to add variety.
Overall the graphics seem somewhat dated, maybe a tad better than Diablo II graphics. Like Diablo there really weren't a lot of options, you were stuck with the default resolution of 1024x768. You could turn down some of the graphics options if needed to be able to run it on lesser hardware. The game ran great on my relatively high-end PC.
The music of Heretic Kingdoms fits the mood of the game very well. Sound effects overall are fairly well done, although you'll get tired of hearing the sound of your own footsteps after a while. Monsters have realistic sounds, and of course. The environmental ambient sounds were also well done. The forest sounds like a forest, the burning temple sounds like one.
The game also features some voice work in the form of the narrator that tells the stories during cut-scenes along the way of your adventure. Fortunately 3D People breaks up the background story by spreading it among a bunch of NPC’s so you don't have to sit through it all in one sitting, and this make it all the more interesting.
Heretic Kingdoms is a single player RPG, so there is no multiplayer to extend the game life. The campaign will take around 30 hours to complete. But since you can develop your character in radically different ways, there's a lot of replay value if you choose to take different tactics. Plus you can try again on the harder difficulty levels once you've mastered your strategies. The game's retail price is lower than most brand new games, and with a street price of around $30 at the time of this review, you really get a good value here for your money.
Heretic Kingdoms: The Inquisition brings a better story and some unique gameplay features to the somewhat overcrowded genre of action/RPG and this sets it apart from the also-rans. The story is innovative, and so is the attunement system and the character advancement system.
Some guys might freak out by being forced into playing the role of a chick, but think of all the games that make the girl gamers play a male character, and then get over it. This game is a refreshing diversion in an age where single-player RPG’s seem to be going the way of the dodo. RPG fans, if you have any twitch skills at all I recommend picking this one up.