Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous - Enhanced Edition

...which breaks me, because if it wasn't for this one thing, I would give this game 5 stars. What is it, you ask? Their updated EULA. To keep things short, Owlcat thinks people will just accept having what can be classified as SPYWARE on their computer just to play the game. And here I thought Owlcat had potential, but at the end of the day, ruSSians gonna ruSSian. Pretty sad, the game is good last time I played it, but now I can't recommend it with a straight face and have people's data be sold to God knows who.

I had a love/ hate relationship with Kingmaker, and bought this game the day that it was released (against my better judgment). Overall I do like this game. It feels less "alive" to me than Kingmaker, but maybe because I'm only 8 hours in to the story. A bug is preventing at least one of the maps from loading, for me. Hopefully that bug will be fixed eventually (fingers crossed).

Perhaps a controversial opinion but read the title again: I'm talking about D&D CRPGs, which still aren't all too common. I think Wrath is the peak of D&D CRPG design because of how mostly accurate it is to the tabletop with the rules and lore. However, compared to regular CRPGs, I think games like Divinity Original Sin 2, Wasteland 3 and Pillars 2 actually do things better than this game; but for D&D this game is a gigantic, colossal meaty game that fans need to at least try. Wrath has arguably the deepest character creation in any CRPG to date with so many classes, races, feats, spells, items and combinations of them all you can build almost any fantasy character you can imagine. If you can look past the deadly and often frustrating enemy encounter design and bugs then you're in for an amazing time. The combat system is done better than ToEE although it's missing true D&D rules like counterspelling and wait for approach (among some others) that are still exclusive to that game. Wrath is incredibly deep and will require methodical and tactical mindset (especially in turn-based mode), which is exactly my kind of game. Oh, yeah, this game has proven you can do both RTWP + TBS all at once in a single package! It's safe to say though that Wrath, despite the many improvements, QOL and extra tutorials compared to the predecessor Kingmaker, is NOT CRPG-newcomer friendly. You WILL require prior knowledge of the Pathfinder 1e ruleset, at least on a basic level, to understand what's going on. This is all because of how complex the game is with things like metamagic, DR/, spell failure chance, ranged touch attack AC... yeah, you're gonna need to learn these terms! If you love deep narratives, complex characters, amazing and tactical combat, tons of customisation, a lengthy replayable campaign and a fantasy setting and can gruel through bugs and incredibly tough encounters then give this game a go.

You know you can just block the game from accessing the internet, right? It's a single player game, it doesn't need access anyway.

I LOVED kingmaker, and thought that any follow-up would be challenging, but they managed to outdo themselves with the sequel. Drastically improving on game mechanics, and even sharper writing. Some of the companions are incredibly evocative, and memorable. The crusade system which has many detractors adds some scale to the game that is fun, and appeals to me, even if the mechanics aren't as refined as they could be. The character building is amazing, giving you a hug variety of game-playing experiences and roleplaying options. It can be overwhelming at first, but as patches have arrived, they have helped mitigate this. The post release support has been great, and they have greatly refined the experience, and the UI is in a better place than ever. My main complaint about this game, is I just want to play it again and again, and now struggle to appreciate other CRPG's.