Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition

This is the second game in my whole life where I had to change the Difficult setting to "Easy" (month ago I have finished Pillars of Eternity 2 solo on "Path of the Damned"). And it stil barely playable because of the broken and buggy "Kingdom Management" feature. I played 60 hours and I had enough of this "bloody mess". For now, it is a solid 2 stars until this game will be balanced and patched properly.

I was expecting lots of bugs due to the reviews but they must have been fixed by now since for me being 3/4 through ... there have been none. A tough game to learn having Zero experience in this genre and some really difficult battles where I felt under leveled but loveable characters and a beautiful world to explore with tons of Lore kept me going. So I stuck with it and once I got to the Castle building it really became interesting (even though I am not a World builder type of gamer) this drew me in. I think if you like Baldurs Gate, POE, Dvinity or just like a good Story, and the ability to have your choices shape the World, fun combat and interesting character developmnet you should give this a go.

One of those rare games where both the good and bad reviews are totally accurate. The good: this is a great, well-written game in the style of Baldur's Gate which a lot of love has clearly gone in to. Main story seems to be standard high fantasy fare (but you get to become a Baron, which is a nice twist) - but I'm not all that far in so it may yet improve. The companions are for the most part well-written and both their moral positions and your own alignment choices are much more sophisticated than the standard fare (evil characters and choices are actually believable and reasonable.) The game is also properly *hard,* lets you get in WAY over your head on the open map, and the AI puts up a decent fight. You'll die a fair bit unless you turn the difficulty way down, which I enjoy but may not be everybody's thing. The Bad: the game does indeed crash all the time, and I have the supposedly 'cleaned-up' version (2.0.0). It also really struggles on older machines unless you turn all the fancy graphics way down (at which point it even starts to look a bit like Baldur's Gate!) And the interface is a bit unresponsive and cluttered at times so it is sometimes unclear what is going on and whether a particular character is doing precisely what you wanted them to. But if you can get past those flaws (not all of which are minor) there is a gorgeous game under here

This is the best RPG I've played in a while. Simple as that, folks. The kingdom building aspect of the game is the best attempt I've seen so far of trying to mix CK2 style rulership within a RPG system. While Pillars of Eternity had a bit of stronghold management in Caed Nua, this game perfects it, allowing you to hire advisors, assign tasks to them and build a kingdom out of what was once a desolate, bandit-ridden land. There is easily a 100 hours of gameplay in just the main quest, probably more. I'm about 40 hours in now, and I've only just finished the second chapter (there are seven in total). Each quest is very well written and while your companions -- and NPCs in general -- are not as interesting as the ones in Pillars of Eternity, they still feel authentic and immersive. The game feels a lot like a tabletop game that you might play in real life. The plotline's not Oscar worthy, but my goodness is it fun to play. Having said this, the mechanics can take some getting used to. If you're familiar with the Pathfinder system (I occasionally run tabletop Pathfinder games IRL), you'll have no trouble getting to speed in Kingmaker. If you aren't however, things might be a little tricky. I would suggest playing one or two difficulties lower than you normally would till you get used to the quirks of the system. In fact, I wouldn't blame you if you set the difficulty on 'Story' just to enjoy the good writing. There are also a few balance issues with your party getting tossed into encounters that are far beyond your ability, but these are few and far between. I personally haven't encountered a lot of bugs, so it is possible that the low ratings are from launch when the game wasn't as playable. tl;dr: What are you waiting for? Just buy the game already.

First of all, this is "enhanced" version of the game, which means that the majority of release date grievances has been addressed. Secondly, the Windows version of the game is superior, as the Linux port eats up resources like mad and you can find yourself frustrated if your PC isn't powerful enough. This game was released post Pillars of Eternity and Divinity Original Sin, so a few comparisons will be made down the road. Does the game innovate? No. But I had a blast playing it and actually found myself enthralled by it. I don't care about the graphics, so I won't give the pros and cons in that regard. This game shines where it should, mainly the story is one of the best out there since Pillars. In terms of character creation, Kingmaker offers a huge number of classes that can be picked up and paired with a standard set of D&D races. While it's great, the game does not offer any way to test your build or even a respec option, which means that making a mistake in your build can have dire consequences. I also miss a deeper background story for your main char, a la Pillars. Any hopes of in-combat usable terrain disappear after Oleg's Outpost and it's a huge shame, and missed opportunity. Companions are interesting and you play a role in shaping their history which is great, but there are no internal conflicts within your party and child-eating monster finds it fine to travel along with a godly paladin. While companions have their own opinions on methods of solving quests, you won't' upset them by disregarding their wishes. Those two issues contribute to a missed opportunity for real immersion in this part of the story. If you found "realm management" in Pillars lacking, you will like it here. Although optional, it gives you a sense of purpose and you grow to like it. However, a few dev choices are weird: region claiming and realm leveling up when triggered it immediately subtracts 14 days form in-game time. This is painful when you face invasion or ancient curse.