Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous - Enhanced Edition

No, they're not! And it's not just some little bugs either. My game is so cooked that I cannot even start a new game, the menu just isn't responding. Half of the UI elements are broken on all saves. It's just insane, how is this even possible?

I will start by saying I like the game and the setting. Overrall it is fun and a good ride but it has some INSANE flaws that really cause problems and many lessons went un learned from kingmaker I have played through to act 4 i think it is, or act 5. Im pausing to write this review now because of a multi stage boss fight that either has an insanely awful bug or a mechanic which is retarded and ill probably end up lowering the difficulty and cheesing it because it completely breaks the way I was running the fight. 1) DC's. The difficulties of resisting many spells and effects are set way too high. Even a character with specialized resistances will struggle to even have a 50% chance of resisting some spells. 2) Scouting is largely ineffective. My scout had a total stealth score of over 50+ and the enemies got a perception check bonus of 45. 3) This is the worst one. Many enemies have AOE stun effects that will instantly incapacitate your party. There are not enough coping mechanisms for control effects. Why do I have to wait until Heroic invocation, a max level spell, to get immunity to fear? I had this issue in the last game as well. Remove fear and luck and resolve are nice I guess, but the DC is 30, my base is 10, and those add +4/+2. So....ok. 5) Long lasting debuffs: I dont know how you would play this game without the option to remove bad statuses on resting. An average fight will have you limping out with -5 levels, petrification, and polymorphed characters. 6) Armor class and role switching: In the early 10 hours, your martial characters will do all the work. After act 3 there is a drastic role switch and all front liners's life expectancy drops to 3 seconds. 7)There are items in the game which supposedly give immunities, and they make you immune to buffs of that type.there is a spell which gives YOU a gaze attack, and an item which makes you Immune to gaze attacks. This item will make your buff spell fail. I have seen at least 5 instances of this.

Game can be enjoyable, if you like experimenting with builds there are TONS of options, quest line is generic but serviceable, companions are enjoyable to interact with so nothing to complain there. Option to change from real time to turn based on the fly prove to be more useful that I initially give it credit (literally life saver in multiple cases) However, game is destroyed by terrible phasing. Fights that you will sneeze at are just next to the fights that will wipe your party clean. This is not helped by the fact that game has challenging optional encounters and multiple scripted fights that you survive thanks to cutscene just next to each other. There is no way of telling if you are destroyed by design, you are unprepared or you just opened wrong door. There are multiple of conflicting mechanics. For example game encourage you to be prepared all the time but if you do you will burn out before final encounter and if you rest to often game will punish you with corruption mechanic. Real time/turn based combat also collide with each other, in some fights things go not as intended due to you being in wrong mode. Crusade thing is just unnecessary roadblock you can turn it off but then you are missing on stuff but if you don't you are stuck with bad strategy mode. The worst thing is of how easy you can hard-block yourself: Long sequences without ability to withdraw, check Hard forced encounters that you can activate just by playing game as per usual, check Locking yourself from character development path because you missed single timed trigger, check. All above make for horrible first play, in my 30 years of playing games this is first time that I was saving so often it become noticeable. Lastly on the EULA thing. It has been hammer to the ground so let me add just one thing. I turned off "data harvesting" in options and created rule in firewall just to be sure. At the end of Chapter 1 I checked how many times .exe tried to breach the rule. It was 150+ times.

I am a big fan of Baldur's Gate. Initially WoTR seemed good because the Pathfinder system is quite complex, similar to the older D&D systems. After a while, the game is no longer an RPG, but a sort of stunted hybrid with a 4X strategy game. The whole crusade management system seemed awful to me, but I kept using it throughout Act 2. The pacing of the game got completely out of hand, as the conclusion of Act 2 is basically a huge battle for a city where you have to deal with one trash mob after another (I am talking hours of combat here). After making it to the beginning of Act 3, I took two weeks off from this game. After playing it again, I just can not enjoy it anymore, so I am dropping it altogether. Buy it if you are sure you'd enjoy a mix of Baldur's Gate and Heroes of Might and Magic, and if you think you would not mind the lack of balance between story and combat. Otherwise, you should look elsewhere.

Pros: Great story, characters, worldbuilding. I genuinely was excited everyday I got to play. Cons: All saves corrupted in Act 3 and cannot advance. They clearly learned nothing from Kingmaker's botched release. I am currently trying to get a refund. Shame on Owlcat Games for releasing another game in this sorry state.