Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition

Pros: very faithful to d20 PF system, gives you PnP feeling. Cons: very faithful to d20 PF system, gives you PnP feeling with a DM who hates you. Two problems as of now: bugs and a combat. Bugs will be fixed (eventually, or you can be lucky and never see one). Combat .... is not that simple. The system itself, like any DnD variation, assumes a human DM in charge. Without a living breathing DM the rules have to be seriously altered to make the game playable. And in PF:K they were not (enough) altered. Hence - save your game often and pray to St.Random. You are expected to save often, to know the rules of PF very well and to modify the difficulty level as you play. If you accept those facts - you will be fine and can be your own DM, changing difficulty of every encounter the way you want it to be. If you expect a traditional evenly progressing game - you might find the game unbalanced and way too difficult. My advice - do not give up and simply learn!

Kingmaker has been getting mixed reviews for a reason: It certainly is no game for the masses. It is near perfect, however, for pen-and-paper role players who also love grand computer RPGs like Baldur's Gate 2. In fact, no game has ever come so close to giving me the feeling of an actual tabletop session. You can tell at every corner they took a popular official Pathfinder campaign and made an effort of love to turn it into a single player computer game. It's not just the great storytelling, the meaningful choices, the atmospheric presentation - you will also find a lot of situations that are pretty common in pnp: A campsite with corpses and untouched provisions right in the middle of a battleground? Maybe hestitate to rest there. Also, a successful perception check might further support your suspicion. But let's adress the most common complaints: .:. Difficulty & Balancing .:. Kingmaker is not a difficult game per se. It offers, however, a huge world with tons of stuff to do and areas to explore, most of which your party will be too weak for at the beginning. Yes, there is no level-scaling of enemies, which I'm very thankful for because you actually experience progress. If you stumble upon an overwhelming foe, you flee and come back later to triumph. Also, the game offers many difficulty settings that you can always adjust on the fly. Hate kingdom management? Set it on auto. Don't want to fiddle with character builds? Set levelling to auto and stick to normal difficulty for encounters. .:. Gimmicky Builds .:. The Pathfinder system is notorious in that you should plan your classes somewhat in advance. For me and many others, this adds another fun element. If you don't like it, there are many good builds online and the preset builds work well enough, too. .:. Choices and Hidden Consequences .:. Almost everything you do will open up or close parts of the story. Roll with it or use a guide. Just like in Fallout New Vegas which is commonly praised for exactly this.

I have been a fun of CRPGs many years now and I have played all major titles that are out there. Kingmaker is a truly great game, nothing else is like it. I don't remember enjoying so much a game since maybe BG II or the original Fallout series. The game is very stable at its current state. It is a shame the release was buggy leading to the game not getting all the attention it deserves. The game mechanics are really complex and I find it really impressive that a small development studio managed to create something that great. Having a lot of experience in software development myself, I understand that it is simply impossible to the create a game from scratch with so many features without creating bugs.

I may come to like this more, and I do like the music and graphics and general charm of it so far, but... There are a number of obvious, sloppy bugs that I've noticed already on day 2 of the game's release. I created a "Sage Sorcerer" and had an ability with a blank description and name. I rested and saw text something like "{color=1}Abilities restored" on the camp's confusing timeline interface. My quest list offers to "Show complite quest". Basic quest info like "Where is this trading post I'm supposed to go to; which direction?" is missing. So far these bugs are minor, but two of them are things that any player could notice, and I suspect there are many other problems if I'm seeing these in my first hour or so of play. The game should not have been released in this condition. I'd give this game a positive review so far if it had been better playtested and patched before selling it, instead of using the customers as the playtesters.

Игра дарит кучу эмоций, причем от игрового экстаза до лютой ненависти! Из положительного: сюжет - преподносит сюрпризы, вариантов прокачки - уйма, диалоги - хорошо прописаны. Смесь ролевки, тактики и немного экономической тактики. Очень хорошие настройки сложности. Из минусов: игра очень недружелюбна для новичков в системе D&D, внятного объяснения/глоссария нет, как и нет предупреждений: мол, зайдешь сюда, и дальнейшее развитие будет необратимо. Начало игры изобилует разнообразием контента, в то время, когда под конец с ним становится скудновато. Возникло ощущение, что под конец разработчики сильно торопились, и не смогли реализовать вовремя все задумки. Из-за этого, видимо, последние главы гораздо сложнее, чем вся игра в целом. Надеюсь, что с патчами это поправят. В целом от игры остался очень доволен. Наверное, это первая моя игра, которую захотелось пройти 2й раз сразу же после 1го (хотя последнего босса так и не прошел). Игру рекомендую всем любителям РПГ к обязательному прохождению.