Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition

Balance seems to be a concept that the devs don't understand. At all. In the extreme early game, fresh out of Oleg's with a party of lvl2 characters, the first darn quest slaps you in the face with a host of enemies that are way too strong for you to handle at your level. People will tell you that you should just leave and come back when you're stronger. Normally that would be true, however... 1. You have no idea how strong an enemy is until it's too late. And that's *if* you get lucky with a good roll to inspect them. Otherwise the best you get is a name and a smear of gore where your characters once were as a monster 1-shots each of your party members as you watch on wondering what the hell just happened. The game does an abysmal job of supplying you with critical tactical information. 2. The game lacks the essential function to allow you to flee an encounter once combat has started. Found yourself in a situation that's way over your head? Tough luck. You're locked into the area and forced to fight to the death whether you like it or not. No escaping back to the world map with your tails between your legs. 3. Grinding weaker enemies in random encounters in order to slowly build your party up to a level where you won't die instantly to a treant is not practical in this game. You've only got 90 days to defeat the local bandit lord and plant your flag. Random encounters are fairly rare and you do *not* have the time to slowly grind. 4. Save-scumming is not only recommended but *essential*. Save-scumming is the honoured "art" of saving right before an important action in order to allow you to load the game again and again, rerolling the dice however many times it takes until RNGesus finally relents and decides to bless you with a good roll. If this sounds like a scummy and immersion-breaking tactic to you, then we are in complete agreement. The game relies far too heavily on RNG, severely diminishing the tactical aspect of the game.

First Pathfinder looked and sounded great, good story, great background, beautifull, but after few hours i was really disapointed... Inconsistent difficulty and horrible balancing (some battles are so difficult), strange random encounter, constant loading screens, stressfull because of time limit (too much timers), flaw ergonomy (for combat) and gameplay, unclear mechanisms. In this game, most of gaming time we travel one place to another on the map due to the speed of your traveling.

If you already know the Pathfinder system of top of your head, you might get some enjoyment out of P:K. Tabletop system seems to be faithfully translated into the game, and there is a wide range of classes to play with and enemies to test your built against. Just turn off the kingdom management, mod the game to minimise tedium and you will get a comprehensive Pathfinder sandbox to play with. For a game that complex, UI is just not good enough. It seems to prioritise presentation over functionality, and it lacks some basic features. You also better have an SSD as the amount of loading screens this game will put you through is just unacceptable (a routine visit to the capital will take you through 4-7+ loading screens), and a second screen for walkthrough – the game is so inconsistent in design you will have better time checking what you are supposed to do next, then trying to guess where the game won’t kill you for going next. Campaign itself is easily the worst one I have seen since NWN1. There is a mediocre 30-40h campaign in here, but it’s unbelievably padded. It took me 182h to beat the game and even if using purely RTwP system I expect for the game to last about 100h. The game delights in wasting your time. You can have a 2 hour session and accomplish nothing of note. Dungeons are far too lengthy and lack variety – usually is just multiple generic rooms with samey mobs. World map, is huge, but with only few actually interesting places to visit. Game has also difficulty spike problem – and it fails to telegraph difficulty of content ahead, or skill/items required for completion. It can trap you in an inescapable dungeon and tempt you with mobs that you can kill in your sleep and after an hour of playtime it will treat you to an unwinnable encounter at the end of it, with no way to go back to change party composition, or grab items you might need to succeed. It’s not that it’s hardcore, classic design – it's just bad. If you haven't, just go and play BG1&2.

game doesnt take good advantage of its own mechanics. it never explains what it needs to, has good player choice in the settings, but you better magically know whats best the minute you start cause the stock ones are garbage.

It took me a while to get into it, but I'm really liking it. I've spent over 50 hours on this game, and it's tons of fun. Yes, the kingdom management can be painful, but hey, if it was too easy, maybe it wouldn't be fun :) The RPG aspect is really nice and you get to know your characters quite well by the end of it. It has some weak spots, like most games, but overall, it is a really enjoyable game to play.