Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition

I might have given 4-4,5 star usually, but i put 5* to counter the "hate" review from release (where many bugs plagued the games) and "too difficult" comments (explanation below) here are my quick comments. I played around 100+ hours (first walkthough) and am not at end game (my heroes are at lvl 14) I only played the "Enhanced Edition" 1) Classes - races & Co I am not a PnP Pathfinder gamer, but i had knowledge of ADD 2.0 and 2.5. This game allows you choosing among a lot of classes and sub-specialisation. So this is definitely a plus. 2) Difficulty Fully customizable. I played on normal and until now it is ok. Some fight might have been hard but doable. I "savescummed" a LOT more for kingdom management that because of fights. What you have to keep in mind is that some places are better to be explored later than right now. It is not because someone gives you a side quest that you HAVE to do it right now (it might seem obvious but looking at the amount of hate on the spider quest....) If needed you can lower the difficulty whenever you want (i did not need it till now) Read the hint on the loading screen 3)Kingdom management Not the best part but interesting nonetheless. The issue i had is mainly linked to the period where the time fast forward (upgrading a stat for example) and no action can be executed. If a "bad event" pops up during this period and you have to tackle it quickly, you automatically fails and gets bad results (curse: look at you) 4) Bugs and Co The only annoying bug i got till now is an issue where i could not go on with one companion quest because i could not talk to him.... (i had to modify a file to make him targettable again....) Otherwise no real issue on 100+ hours

I don't know where to start? Heard so much about the game and then saw the Kickstarter for the second one and said "Why not?!" I'll do this as Good vs. Bad list. Good: The graphics are great, act I is great, I enjoy the character's levelup and character creation which I think most of Owlcast work went into. Bad: Designed for masochists. reloading is not an enjoyable game mechanic. Opening quest is a copy paste of NWN opening quest - very original. Kingdom management: When you buy a game, you want to enjoy it, not to run chores. The entire kingdom thing is tedious, the tutorial is lacking at best, and loading screen on every little button you click. Also, why do I need to be in the town if I have 4 advisors who can do it? Most followers are useless and backstabebrs. Why do I even need them? Really horrible AI it feels like I have to take care of 5 kids in a kindergarten hell. Also, stop shoving woman power down our throats - I don't mind, but there are ways to do it without forcing it. Unbalanced encounters was the last straw for me. A random party level 2 encounter that facing you against a werewolf as you walk on the road? Some flaoting skull with AC 36 in a starting area? When it got to a must do quest, I stopped - I didn't get the game to get angry at what a disconnected developer thinks is fun. Rations... Such a bad design. A can of dried fruits, jerky, and some bread dont weigh 10lbs! Each! And you need 6 per rest! Or you can go hunt for 15 hours and messup with the quest timers. Encumbrance FTW! Dice rolls - its like the game has it for you. My 6th level fighter with +12 to attack rolls, can't hit a 9 foot tall troll with an AC of 18, but the troll with +10 to hit can hit my AC of 31 (meaning they need to roll a 21, which alas, is a none-existant die). This game is unenjoyable. It feels like a chore. The writing is meh. Alignment choice answers are off, and the kingdom is creating a bad experience. Dice rolls, Challanges of +40 to succeed...

Every now and then a game comes along that just appeals to you in pretty much every single way and this is that game for me, but maybe not for everyone. I have played about 170 hours (not all of that is my main play though- but most of it) and haven’t finished it yet. That’s down to a combination of taking my time, trying to explore everything, and just experimenting with a bunch of different classes in separate play throughs. People have talked to death about the games rocky start to life and having played it then and now it’s definitely been put right. If you like baldurs gate style games, then this is a modern and very well done game of the same kind. It can be daunting at first if you (like me) have no background experience with the pathfinder rule set but just find yourself a class guide to get you started and everything will click into place for you pretty quickly. Highly recommend to people who like the sorts of games.

Pathfinder is a great game of epic proportions. This was money well spent! Despite having pretty decent graphics it's very light on hardware (even runs on my intel graphics card!). People have commented that there are a lot of bugs in the game. This was probably the case when the game first launched in 2018, but as of 2021 I don't see any major bugs or issue. It looks like they were fixed in between. Finally I want to thank the developers for near-flawless Linux support.

Balance seems to be a concept that the devs don't understand. At all. In the extreme early game, fresh out of Oleg's with a party of lvl2 characters, the first darn quest slaps you in the face with a host of enemies that are way too strong for you to handle at your level. People will tell you that you should just leave and come back when you're stronger. Normally that would be true, however... 1. You have no idea how strong an enemy is until it's too late. And that's *if* you get lucky with a good roll to inspect them. Otherwise the best you get is a name and a smear of gore where your characters once were as a monster 1-shots each of your party members as you watch on wondering what the hell just happened. The game does an abysmal job of supplying you with critical tactical information. 2. The game lacks the essential function to allow you to flee an encounter once combat has started. Found yourself in a situation that's way over your head? Tough luck. You're locked into the area and forced to fight to the death whether you like it or not. No escaping back to the world map with your tails between your legs. 3. Grinding weaker enemies in random encounters in order to slowly build your party up to a level where you won't die instantly to a treant is not practical in this game. You've only got 90 days to defeat the local bandit lord and plant your flag. Random encounters are fairly rare and you do *not* have the time to slowly grind. 4. Save-scumming is not only recommended but *essential*. Save-scumming is the honoured "art" of saving right before an important action in order to allow you to load the game again and again, rerolling the dice however many times it takes until RNGesus finally relents and decides to bless you with a good roll. If this sounds like a scummy and immersion-breaking tactic to you, then we are in complete agreement. The game relies far too heavily on RNG, severely diminishing the tactical aspect of the game.