Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition

The beginning is tough. Tougher than anything else I've played in recent years. The good news is: every seemingly impossible fight can be turned around in your favour with just some minor spells, potions or abilities. For example in the first part of the game you will have to fight trolls. Lots of trolls. I didn't really have an issue with the fights prior to the Troll chapter, alltough a lot of resting was necessary to venture forth. The trolls are heavy hitters - so you do not want to let them hit you! Use spells to slow them down or immobilize them completly (web works wonders!) shoot them down from afar or have your highly buffed frontline tank hold them off just a few more seconds. I found that there are ways to deal with enemys like that again and again. There always seems to be some trick - you only have to fight yourself through the countless spells and abilities in order to figure out the right ones. But this is something that reminded me of good ol' Baldurs Gate (the game is based on the free D&D License so you have LOTS of similarities, only the lore is completely different as far as I can tell) As time goes by and you progress further into the game, your party will become stronger. Much stronger. But even in the endgame I find myself in a challenging fight every now and then. The story is unique in that you have to build your own kingdom. It's also interwoven with a very neat storyline, making you expand more and more into the world that surrounds you. The companions could be a bit more interessting, but I was fine with them. From a technical point of view I didn't have any issues except for long loading times and occasional sound issus which could be resolved by restarting the game. I can really recommend this game for anyone who is willing to put in a bit of work - or at least doesn't feel ashamed to turn down the difficulty (which you shouldn't be, it's supossed to be fun after all). The settings are VERY customizable in that regard.

Played this on Steam and I plan to purchase the Imperial Edition Bundle on GoG for the goodies and DLC. Finally got around to Pathfinder now that the bugs have been fixed and I'm blown away. The production values are absolutely INSANE. There's tons of high quality voice acting, the graphics and effects are very pleasing to the eye, and the music helps keep you immersed in the fantasy world. Story is basic but effective. Feels like you're experiencing an actual table top adventure, which I appreciate. The Kingdom management system is really only the questionable design choice here, but it can be ignored using the auto option, or even mitigated by selecting the difficutly option that trivializes it (assuming you don't want to miss out on things). The combat and character building are where it's at here. If your idea of a good RPG is to build a character and see them grow, then this is the game for you. You will not be disappointed. Tons of stats, tons of skills, tons of spells, and surprising intresting equipment - all of which is complimented with great combat scenarios to put it all to use - I can't speak highly enough here. If you are a fan of cRPGs or table top games on any level I can't recommend this enough.

I was very surprised by Kingmaker. I didn't expect much of it but it was way better than Pillars of Eternity and for me even better than Divinity. Of course I played a year after a release and with all DLCs so bugs were not an issue for me.

Graphics: Check Story: Check Gameplay: BIG RED X The game starts out fine and I was quite pleased with the camping characteristics then not only do the bugs start ranging from after switching weapons you can never again use another weapon and those casting spells can never use weapons again to the occasional game crash to save games entirely disappearing or never actually happening. My first game outright vanished. "Its your machine!" Sure, it happens to ONLY dislike PF:K save games. But this, unfortunately isnt the worst part. Game "scaling" is broken. Im in an "Ancient Tomb". I save after entering since I know its likely something will break. I wander in and get into a fight. I quite easily smite everything with ease. Expected. Fast forward 10 minutes game crashes. My bad, didnt save every 5 minutes. No problem Ill just go back to the tomb. WRONG. This is a reload so NOTHING should have changed, WRONG. I start the fighting just as before and in literally 20 seconds my entire crew is dead and Ive hardly laid a scratch on the mobs. What!? Ok fine. Fluke right? WRONG AGAIN. Reload after reload after reload. Im decimated seemingly worse each time. Its a joke. "Just leave and travel elsewhere I hear you say?" WRONG! First encounter, happens every time now, on the road is even worse than the tomb. Same kobolds I killed 6 times before but clearly a simple reload has changed the entirety of the game scaling. No, its hopeless and consistent with the last game in which I was stuck at the Inn in which the game went from a challenge to outright impossible with one shot kills on all my characters and every attack a miss. Note Im talking about the NPCs as well so its absolutely not "my build" or my "clicking wrong". Same npc, same equipment, same click as before but utterly futile. No console commands hence 3rd time to restart. Maybe not since I probably will never play again. Guess Im suckered 40 bucks. Dont even get me started on returns. Also futile.

I'm really enjoying this, yes the load times are a bit long and sometimes the difficulty can be punishing, and learning kingdom management is not fool proof, but its beautiful, its massive (I'm 22 hours in at level 9 and only up to Varnhold vanishing, I think that means I am 2/7's of the way through the game- this bad boy has to be longer than BG1, BG2 and TOB put together!), the characters are cool, I especially love Kivan… I mean Ekun, Amiri, and Jubilost. I would like a bit more conversation with them though. I love the pathfinder rpg but find high levels daunting cause of the mechanical crunch, love that this game works that out for you. If you like games where your hand is held all the way this isn't for you, but if you are up for a challenge and like isometric rpg's I don't think we'll see something to match this for a long time to come.