Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition

The first act wasn't too bad and I haven't ran into any show stopping bugs. As in no ctd, save corruption, nor have I run into any quests I couldn't complete... so long as I made sure I hard saved and save scummed from time to time. But once I got to the second act where the kingdom management comes into play I just stop having fun. The game just does a bad job at communicating things with the UI. However they want to control the flow of quests and kingdom management, I wish they would at least make things more intuitive. Honestly I'd prefer if they just gate the quests with events and take the time factor out altogether. If they want to prevent people from advancing their kingdoms too fast they could have just gated that side with resources or human resources you had to gather in which to be able to start projects. Then everything would flow well with the quest progression and narrative. No more weird timings. No more having to juggle things like I'm at the office working rather than playing a game to relax. I had a quest that claimed I had 13 days left to get to the location suddenly popup saying I'm late and my kingdom was going to get cursed if I didn't get there in 2 days. Why have the timer if you're not going to follow it? I feel like they followed the source material a little too closely and didn't spend enough time thinking how best to implement this game as a CRPG. Quite tired of losing hours of progress due to trial and error.

At the very beginning of the game its strengths are displayed: a faithful adaptation of the pen and paper system and great artwork. But as you delve into the game its crippling weaknesses become apparent: an extremely limited amount of enemies reused for ad nauseam repeated encounters under the same tactical circumstances (seriously, what's the fun in dealing with the 17th wolf pack in your way, just exploring the map?), the dumb AI, a large, explorable map with most locations being mostly empty save for a filler combat encounter and some basic loot, a lack of sidequests and guidance for the player to important events, mediocre writing/storytelling, etc... And the kingdom building feature... I was so excited about this when I first started playing. I was looking forward to making all sorts of important moral, diplomatic, economic and military decisions and see what kind of a baron I would turn out to be, how all that would influence the outcome. Instead it's a weak little resource management game about increasing stats and managing die rolls where even the occasional RPG style decision making only results in stats moving one way or the other. I would recommend avoiding this title. The overall experience is tedious and frustrating.

You will never know the genius of this game until you finish it. Just when I thought I understood the scope of the story it got bigger. Props on such an intricate story driven by the various personalities in the game world. Kingmaker delivered to me a large number of "that's so cool" moments. To list a few: When I first realized the grander scheme you are part of. When I thought I knew who the final showdown is with but then realized it wasn't. When I was beset by Irrovetti and scrambling for my survival. When I realized how things from very early in the game tie in at the end. When I started to see just how deeply developed this game world is. When the characters started to completely impress me. Their fireside banter, interjections in conversations, personal quest lines, handling of kingdom affairs, the nuance of their beliefs and reasoning, and ties to the game world all added up until I felt like I really know them. When I first felt like a real baron/king having to deal with endless issues coming from every possible direction. When I tried to settle the mob outside the palace and realized the effects of everything I'd been doing. When I restarted (my kingdom failed) and realized that the game and companions changed a fair bit from my first play through (I never got Harrim the second time). I was really expecting to just repeat everything as before, but the difference in choices I made and where I went altered things beyond my expectations. When the game tied up and showed me how many of my actions played out.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker is an experience clearly designed by dedicated tabletop RPG fans which more than rewards a thoughtful approach to the D&D 3.5/Pathfinder rules as your best means of overcoming the game's myriad challenges. It very much doesn't hold your hand, and it's all the better for it. Unlike certain RPGs where you (or your party) can traipse along the game world with only the sporadic risk of death, Pathfinder: Kingmaker does a superb job of dropping you in a setting where you're more than aware that you start out as a lowly band of adventurers in a world far greater than yourself. It feels very much like the sort of tabletop campaign where you learn the hard way that certain regions or encounters are far too dangerous for now. Even random encounters can be challenging if you're not careful. You'll have to think creatively about how to buff your characters, disable enemies, and maneuver your party formation during combat. Healing spells and potions are a limited yet invaluable resource you'll have to deploy strategically. You may well need to retry some of the game's harder encounters a good 4-5 times before you figure out exactly how to defeat the challenge at hand. So what makes it so fun? This is might be a bit too reductive, but the game produces a sort of "Baldurs Gate crossed with Dark Souls" kind of experience. Every area you clear, encounter you win, or quest you complete is that much more of a victory. It genuinely does feel like your party is tracing the risky, tough-yet-rewarding path of determined adventurers who become gradually more powerful with time. Certain previously impossible encounters become merely challenging when you retry them with better gear and a new level tacked on. If you're a fan of tabletop RPGs and classics like Baldur's gate, appreciate a rich game world, or enjoy CRPG's that don't shy away from a challenge, Pathfinder: Kingmaker is an absolute gem.

The game itself is great, but the amount of bugs and pace of fixing them will take many months before the game is actually completed. Right now I got stuck in single location in the game after 60 hours of playing and I would literally have to start all over or wait for some bug fix. The game requires some work on the balance too, but it's normal for any new game. Many dialogues are not natural, they just don't feel like real conversations. That's a very big issue to me, as I'm sure that it will never improve. Nevertheless if bugs were fixed I would rate it 5/5, but by that time there will be already some expansion that you will need to purchase again..