Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition

The game was a horrible experience for me, I tried to finish it, but after more than 50 hours of game time, I stopped playing and completely gave up. Here are some of the reasons why: - The game is a literal translation of the Pathfinder RPG, without a second of thought how those mechanics function in a digital game. One example - you level up a powerful sorcerer, who can cast a strong spell once a day, after which he becomes utterly useless. - You have a giant world to explore, but are stopped from doing so by invisible walls and quest railroading. - You are constantly on a timer. ALL THE TIME. It was understandable in the tutorial section so people concentrate on the main quest and do not exploit the game in some way. But through the entire game you have to keep to a timer which ends the game when it is done. - Kingdom management is a low point. It is more of a hindrance and most of your decisions carry absolutely no weight beyond whether the kingdom survives or perishes. - Once I had one of the mandatory quests run out on me, without any idea I even had it. I was lucky enough to have a save from two months ago, which allowed me to (barely) complete the quest on time, even though I had removed character deaths from the game, because I did not even have the time to rest. - There is no fast travel, even through explored regions, which is just another time sink in a time-demanding game. - Even if you turn on the "Invincible Kingdom" option, you still fail the game if you do not finish one of the mandatory quests on time. - You can spend 60 hours in the game and get locked from continuing, because of one of the aforementioned timed quests. - Horrible inventory management, the inventory does not have a dedicated slot for quest items. You can drop, sell, and even completely miss quest items which are VITAL for the conclusion of the timed mandatory quests. There is much more. The game design is quite poor and I am not ecstatic for the second game in the series.

This has got to be the hands down best crpg I have ever played, and I've played just about all of them. Filled with little handcrafted details and lovely effects that the screenshots don't do just. I'm playing on Challenge and are most of the way through the game, and things ramp up so satisfying to make not only your player character feel more powerful, but also your barony. Now I grew up with the original Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and the like, and I have to say that the difficulty feels tailored to me, keeping me engaged and guessing, and I'm not one of those instant gratification types that minds reading or having to reload. I can't stress just how amazing this game feels to me, and how rare it is to find a game tailored to my tastes in this day and age. HOWEVER.... This game is riddled with bugs. It's a travesty. How do you go through all the trouble of putting something this special together, and then turn around and release it way before its ready. For instance, equip a dwarven shield and get 2 damage reduction. Cool right? Then watch that damage reduction multiply out of control until your character walks around invinsible with 60 DR. Aldori Dualing mastery sound like a kickass feat to you? Well too bad it does absolutely jack...hope you noticed before you played too much further or you are going to have to replay hours just to get your feat back. Sure hope your preferred romance isnt bugged, or better yet, hope the main quest isn't bugged to the point where you lose dozen of hours or even find that your entire game cannot progress at all. Amazing game and the developers seem to be working on the bugs. Don't miss out on one of the best crpgs of all time, but wait until this shameful mess is sorted out before jumping in.

First off: For me personally this game is a 5/5 and already one of my favourite CRPGs ever. The graphics are nice and so is the soundtrack (reminded me a lot of Dragon Age: Origin). The story isn't anything new but it's good enough and while some of the companions are pretty clichéd, I liked them, mostly because the writing is really good, which is important since you need to read A LOT in this game (most dialogues don't have voiceover). So why only 4 stars? Because if you haven't played D&D or Pathfinder before and somewhat understand the mechanics, you're going to have a really rough start. This game has the potential to be very frustrating and one big reason is that it's not really good at explaining it's mechanics. While there are tutorial-messages throughout the game, they don't go into details and it's those details that can turn an otherwise manageable fight into a nightmare. To sum it up: A great CRPG if you know and like Pathfinder and if you don't, prepare for a steep learning curve and a lot of frustration.

The good: Quests arent too repetative Kingdom building is fun Character creation is very deep (too deep for me personally but still a plus) The world building is deep Overall story is interesting The bad: so much save scumming... with some bad rolls you can be doomed pretty early. I have never save/reloaded so much in a game before. Doesn't do a great job of explaining what is going on and punishes you badly if you make a mistake Companions are kind of bad... This could be just personal opinion but I dont actually like any of my companions. This game wastes your time, a lot. There is a lot of time spent entering exiting travelling. Reloading because you forgot something... Yes you could just deal with the mistake but it could end up in a game over after many more hours of play. No middle ground in battles. On normal, the battles seem to either be quite easy or impossibly hard. I would give this game a higher rating but it has way too many annoying aspects for me to give it a 4/5

Graphics are great, story is superb. The first 80 hours of play I took my time and did my best to overcome some incredibly annoying and, frankly, unneccessary bugs which hindered the actual story. At least 3 times I lost about 3-4 hours of gameplay due to some bug error with the kingdom management system. Losing this kind of time due to a bug is just unacceptable. I ended up saying to hell with it and began letting the game automanage the kingdom. However, in the last chapter, the useful feature that prevents kingdom destruction due to mismanagement is turned off. The Kingdom building system itself needs a lot of work. The bugs and poor design make it nearly impossible to succeed on the kingdom front. Making it to the last area just in the hopes I can put an end to this game and be done with bugs brought utter dissappointment. Those long 80 hours of play, due to the bugs, ended up ruining it to the point where I literally could no progress any further. ***SPOILERS*** My main group throughout the game consisted of myself, Amiri, Harrim, Linzi, Octavia, and a guy I made. The last area is so bugged that without any action on my part (and scouring the boards this is true for everyone) Linzi and Amiri both die. Two characters who I've built up, equipped, and used the entire 80 hours are no longer available to me. Worse- their equipment is all gone. So the game makes you use your other companions- who have no equipment. One more thing- you don't have the ability to rest in the final area and cannot get out of it to rest outside. With the amount of monsters- seriously hardcore monsters even on story mode- in the final area it is literally impossible to proceed. Many of the fights themselves contain bugs. I cannot recommend this game.