Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition

A good game, addictive in its own way. Fun, and a refreshing step forward from the olf Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale. It has several cons, however, that should be noted. Cons: Difficult to learn. If you don't have a previous knowledge of Pathfinder (or at least 3.5 D&D), you will probably feel overwhelmed by the system. Too many choices, too many options... and it's very unclear what is a good choice and what is not. It can be frustrating. Even more so as some choices in character building reveal themselves as crap, only after hours of gaming and a few levels. If you can get past that and grasp a good felling of what does what... then the options are really many, and great and rewarding. If. One save. You have multiple save slots. Yes. And 3 autosave slot. But you can do only one character/campaign at a time. You start with another, and the game will eventually delete your previous one. No warnings... So... if you spent like 30 hours on a fighter and want to try a wizard for one evening... that's painful. Bugs. There are bugs. Not so many, but some that can be annoying. Some have been already addressed by hot fixes. Some will probably be addressed in the future, I'm sure. What game has no bugs? Characters. Nothing unforgettable. Nice ideas there... but they are somewhat bland. It's neither an old-school bioware game, nor it's Torment. Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale are a more apt comparison. Idle times. There are times when you don't know exactly what you should be doing. Quests with little clue on where to find a person to talk to... (internet helps), Resting and traveling boring mechanic, time period without quests ("should I just do my kingdom and skip days or I missed something", kind of feeling). Pro: It's a good game. Well thought. You can see that the dev did not just throw things random, but had a true idea. It's fun, albeit sometimes slowly. If you like the genre, it can be a notch up his recent competitors. Have fun!

It is a buggy piece of shit. Others will try to white knight it and make excuses but the honest truth is that is a bug laden mess of a game.

Hi all! First review, old time RPG player here. (BG2, PsT, IWD, ToEE, Arcanum, more recently PoE, D:OS, Divinity2) -About Bugs: yes, there's still things that need fixing, but don't let this scare you away anymore, the big things are all done. I have put around 70+ hours into the game and not encountered a single bug that was meaningful, let alone game breaking. Fixes happen every other day, very active support. -Progress is meaningful, every level up matters, getting better items is extremely rewarding and impactful -The game surprised me in that i actually changed my alignment and party comp substantially as i went along, because it felt more like how i wanted to approach things. This is totally viable and well implemented. I run a mixed alignment party now, with great flavour. -The story feels fantastic to me. This game just doesn't feel at all like completing one boring quest after the other. Moreover, the story stays fresh, with great development. -Not a streamlined "holding hands" approach to progressing on maps, you might have a map with an easy encounter followed by a super tough or even an impossible one, you never really know what to expect, i love it. If you can't beat it yet, leave it, go somewhere else, come back later and get your revenge :D -Started on challenging difficulty. It's doable, but you might have to put in a bit of research time for mechanics etc. before you start and during your first steps. I really enjoy doing that, but if you don't, simply pick normal, which is still tough and rewarding. :) -I often feel like my party strength is JUST enough. Encounters that feel impossible at first, suddenly become barely doable with good micromanagment and preparation. You'd find a certain tactic/approach that might just turn the edge. And often times just when i was about to give up, i'd manage to beat it, being rewarded with a fantastic item. --->love it. -This game has the flavour i've been missing in ages Have fun all, chwat

It has all the bells and whistles of a Baldur's Gate like, but there are SERIOUS issues. Dont recommend it unless it gets a significant overhaul - First: bugs, bugs, bugs. In theory this is an 1.0 release, so why is it so full of bugs? Seriously, this feels like an early Beta. - Character creation is seriously flawed, options are far more limited than it might seem at first, both because of the low starting stats and because... - Game balance is completely out of whack. Out of depth encounters are dime a dozen. Even regular encounters can be hit and miss. This forces you to both minmax characters (which is a problem from a RP pov), and to reload constantly... and by the way, the developers don't think this is an issue. They see it as a feature that is working as intended ( ! ). - Related to the above: the biggest influence in the game is RNG, simple as that. This is a big part on why you end up constantly reloading.. results differ wildly from one reload to the next, to the extent of steamrolling a foe vs getting a TPK. Hell, you can even see it in conversation options... EVERYTHING is rolled. Even what is avaiable for you to say. "But it's based on a P&P so that is to be expected!" No it's not. Go look at any of the classics. BG didnt work like that. Or P:T. Or NWN. If anything THIS is what makes the whole combat system so frustrating. Everything is random. In other games if an encounter is too difficult you reload once, level up doing other stuff (which this game doesn't really encourage btw), and then go back and beat the foe. You don't expect that repeating the same encounter several times will result in wildly different outcomes at random. - Minmaxing characters is very frustrating. Either you build a talker and then you're screwed if you explore, or you build a minmax that will be good for combat (or some combats at least. provided RNG doesnt screw you). Also, you're pretty much forced to use custom chars as the default party is suboptimal.

I bought this game when it came out, and to be fair, there's a lot to like. It's a CRPG with interesting NPCs and a good plotline. Honestly, the story is quite good, and most of the uneven bits from the module have been ironed out and turned into a coherent narrative. I also like the alignment system and how it influences your dialogue choices. Really, Owlcat has taken almost everything about Pathfinder and made it into something good. But. And of course there's a but, because I gave it two stars. The but is that the game is horribly, horribly buggy. NPCs disappear. Storyline quests are broken. You can get through 20-30 hours, but at some point it becomes literally unplayable. I've waited something like three weeks for a fix, but I have yet to see a patch that addresses any of the current issues. Instead, Owlcat released some DLC for extra gore. Yeah ... gamebreaking bugs are left to fester so that your PCs' portraits can get some extra red masking. I don't even have the words. At this point, I've given up on this game. Don't waste your money on it. If there's a patched version out next year and the price has dropped, it might be worth the gamble. As it stands, just don't.