Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition

I'm an enormous sucker for isomentric, party-based RPGs, but this game just wasn't ready to be released. Too many of the quests are either out-and-out broken or can be accidentally broken with no way to fix or proceed in them. I'm writing this review after finding out that the reason I can't complete one of my quests is that the NPC isn't showing up where she should be. The game also makes the player sit through way too many loading screens, too many times where your party has to slowly walk from one end of a zone to the other, and other wastes of time. Managing your kingdom might require going through three loading screens just to check on something or spend two seconds ordering a building to be built. The overworld map and kingdom managing UI really have no excuse for not being kept in memory. The time that the game eats up transitiong between them bogs it down to an unacceptable degree. And then there's the horribly unbalanced combat and innapropriate placement of ecnounters. Early game you will be dying in stupid, frustrating battles where your characters are getting one-shotted. It's gotten better by the time I've played to, but the early game is a real slog, and almost made me quit it. Story-wise, there's noting special or interesting so far. It would be servicable if the rest of the game were functional, but it's not enough to justify playing through this thing.

This game got something refreshing. It's very nice to play most of the game. Nice gameplay, story, writing and all... I have to say i got addicted to it rapidly. The game is quite hard, but you can overcome that with a little effort.... BUT this is UNTIL you arrive to the last 2 chapters.... then you are doomed... FRUSTRATION, DESPAIR, this is not something your characters are going to experience, but YOU WILL.... The end is so broken that you come to think that developers dont want you to finish the game. All the love for this game vanish just to be replaced by HATRED.... All the efforts you put in the game are wasted on a developer's WHIM just to tell you : "you can't beat GOD my dear son, so cry" Just to see the end of the game i HAD to cheat on easy mode ??? What kind of game need you to cheat on easy mode ?? And i had to retry several time even with that BECAUSE, on a whim, a blink, a bad dice roll any character can die. Seriously, you can enjoy this game very much until chapter 5. At this point just consider droping and look at the end on youtube, if you dont want to be frustrated so hard you'll not touch CRPG for months....

If you are familiar with tabletop gaming, you know there are several tactics that have become signs of poor gamemastering and should be avoided: railroading, lying to players, and changing rules. The makers of this game indulge in all of these tactics, which unfortunately ruins what could have been an otherwise enjoyable, if limited, game. As is too often the case these days, tedious was substituted for challenging, deliberate time-wasting for engaging, and game-breaking actions discoverable only through save-scumming. The last straw was permanently killing a player-controlled character through an (unskippable) cut scene, removing the only access the party had to a spell that made the final dungeon possible. Removing player agency in this way is not dramatic, it does not add poignancy, it merely reduces what should be a game to a poorly made movie: to couple this with a final act of player sabotage is to betray the trust gamers are required to place in those few companies fortunate enough to produce a game. If this company ever produces another game, I will not purchase it.

Pathfinder Kingmaker is arguably the most fun I've had in a D&D styled game since the Baldur's Gate Trilogy, warts and all. It is not a great game (yet), but the developers deserve credit for rapidly deploying patch hot-fixes from day one. While fun, the game very much caters to a min/max style of gameplay, even on the 'normal' difficulty, and punishes you heavily if you don't optimize well. I've enjoyed this challenge thus far, but fair warning to people who are not fully accustomed to the harshness of read-as-written Pathfinder: you are probably going to die. Classes are well implemented and have a variety of options for designing your character, although the lack of certain feats and options are disappointing. (my kingdom for Intensify Spell) Mild changes in feat implementations make certain builds and character types easier than in pen and paper - Slashing Grace works with Spell Combat, spontaneous metamagic doesn't appear to be penalized to a full round action, etc. The difficulty issues aside, there are very common and omnipresent bugs - classes not getting abilities on level up, entire feat groups not working at all, prerequisites for feats not being recognized, and the entire nation building side of the adventure is extremely buggy - save early and often, and expect to have your kingdom collapse at least once or twice with minimal feedback as to why or how. Altogether - Pathfinder Kingmaker is worth your time, particularly if you enjoy what is essentially 3.5++ D&D. Its probably worth waiting till the end of October or later to pick it up. Let the major patches hit first, then buy it.

I really like the game, brings me back to old school D&D where a lot of the others recently released just didn't scratch that itch the same way. I know the game is flawed, but I really enjoy it anyways. If I had any gripes it would be that it scales a bit rough, it's a little to easy to unknowingly walk into something your party has no chance against. In addition, the loading screens and times are horrendous. I have a decent gaming rig, and while I don't mind a loading screen here and there. The fact that there are so many, and they take so long lead me to estimate I have probably spent at least a quarter of my game time looking at a loading screen. I am hoping over time they will optimize this some. I'd like to see them continue on doing some adaptations to some older D&D campaigns from way back if possible, the whole march through the giants, the underdark and to Lolth including trips to the planes would be awesome and this framework appears suited for it. At the end of the day, I love it, just wish it performed a bit better, and get's a little more polish.