Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition

As someone who's been wanting to play the tabletop game for ages, but who has no friends and a family whom dislikes pen@paper, this was a great chance to dip my toes into the universe. I recommmend installing the turn-based combat mod; assuming that it hasn't been officially added by the time you, lovely internet person of the future, read this review. Other than slowing down the pace of the game, it really does help showcase the underlying mechanics behind many of the abilities. For those going in blind; be prepared to either brush up on the tabletop ruleset or be willing to experiment, allow the game to auto-level your companions, or re-create character sheets from the Iconics / Pathfinder Society. I can imagine anyone with the min/max mentality could suffer from analysis paralysis as well-- part of the fun, imho, is just rolling with the flaws of your party. The DLCs are also top notch and fairly priced for what they have on offer. Now all there's left to do is wait for Paizo to release the 2E ruleset for Kingmaker and find a way to convince my family to play.

This game is a true heir to the Baldur's Gate series, and will satisfy fans of that genre. While I suspect the many bug-related criticisms levied at this game early on were likely justified, the Enhanced Edition has gotten rid of all of them, and I've had an enormously satisfying run. 120+ hours in, I'm continuing to enjoy my slow play, able to pick this game up and put it down at my leisure. Sometimes I'll have a marathon session, others a few minutes stolen here and there. I can leave for a month or play regularly day after day, and the game remains rewarding every time.

So i've tried to play through this game a few times but this game really needs to be turn based when in combat, classes that should be casting spells are instead shooting a bow or crossbow, you can set a spell to be cast all the time, but not the same at least to me. So why roll an Initiative check if everyone is just going to charge into the enemy anyway's, you can turn off the AI or pause the game non stop to issue orders but that gets tedious also. If it's supposed to be like table top you enter into combat, roll initiative and then each character goes on their turn including the enemy, regular exploration should be real time as it currently is. I want to love this game but if I want a hack & slash with no concept of actual D&D combat I'll go play Diablo, I want a game where I have to think about who to aid or attack not oh crap were all going to die. Hopefully the second game coming out will have Turn based combat like Table top, didn't see it in the kickstarter info one of the reasons I didn't back this one like I did the first one.

This game is awesome. If you liked Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, just get it - Pathfinder universe, for those that doesn't know (I didn't), uses pretty much the same ruleset as D&D 3.5, so it very natural if you are used to D&D. I've read the game had a rough release, with lots of bugs, but almost all of them have been fixed and the remaining ones are really insignificant.

It's not perfect, there's issues, but this is still the overall best topdown RPG since Baldur's Gate 2. If you know those old games, you'll most likely love this. If you felt Tyranny was to on-rails, somewhat shallow and easy combat, if you felt Pillars of Eternity was to vanilla cookie-cutter wherein I can't even recall what the antagonist or bad guy was in that game, then this is for you. If you're entirely new to these types of games, this can be a very daunting game for you. There's nothing wrong to change the extremely indepth customization for difficulty if you're new to these games. I myself love reloading like 8+ times on difficult fights, I see them as a puzzle need solving with different spells and potions, but I also get that a lot of modern players won't want that. TLDR: If you're oldschool, this is the best game on the market for that. If you're new, don't be afraid of changing difficulties to learn, these games are complex and that's their charm.