Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition

I bought this game when it came out, and to be fair, there's a lot to like. It's a CRPG with interesting NPCs and a good plotline. Honestly, the story is quite good, and most of the uneven bits from the module have been ironed out and turned into a coherent narrative. I also like the alignment system and how it influences your dialogue choices. Really, Owlcat has taken almost everything about Pathfinder and made it into something good. But. And of course there's a but, because I gave it two stars. The but is that the game is horribly, horribly buggy. NPCs disappear. Storyline quests are broken. You can get through 20-30 hours, but at some point it becomes literally unplayable. I've waited something like three weeks for a fix, but I have yet to see a patch that addresses any of the current issues. Instead, Owlcat released some DLC for extra gore. Yeah ... gamebreaking bugs are left to fester so that your PCs' portraits can get some extra red masking. I don't even have the words. At this point, I've given up on this game. Don't waste your money on it. If there's a patched version out next year and the price has dropped, it might be worth the gamble. As it stands, just don't.

This is the second game in my whole life where I had to change the Difficult setting to "Easy" (month ago I have finished Pillars of Eternity 2 solo on "Path of the Damned"). And it stil barely playable because of the broken and buggy "Kingdom Management" feature. I played 60 hours and I had enough of this "bloody mess". For now, it is a solid 2 stars until this game will be balanced and patched properly.

I was expecting lots of bugs due to the reviews but they must have been fixed by now since for me being 3/4 through ... there have been none. A tough game to learn having Zero experience in this genre and some really difficult battles where I felt under leveled but loveable characters and a beautiful world to explore with tons of Lore kept me going. So I stuck with it and once I got to the Castle building it really became interesting (even though I am not a World builder type of gamer) this drew me in. I think if you like Baldurs Gate, POE, Dvinity or just like a good Story, and the ability to have your choices shape the World, fun combat and interesting character developmnet you should give this a go.

One of those rare games where both the good and bad reviews are totally accurate. The good: this is a great, well-written game in the style of Baldur's Gate which a lot of love has clearly gone in to. Main story seems to be standard high fantasy fare (but you get to become a Baron, which is a nice twist) - but I'm not all that far in so it may yet improve. The companions are for the most part well-written and both their moral positions and your own alignment choices are much more sophisticated than the standard fare (evil characters and choices are actually believable and reasonable.) The game is also properly *hard,* lets you get in WAY over your head on the open map, and the AI puts up a decent fight. You'll die a fair bit unless you turn the difficulty way down, which I enjoy but may not be everybody's thing. The Bad: the game does indeed crash all the time, and I have the supposedly 'cleaned-up' version (2.0.0). It also really struggles on older machines unless you turn all the fancy graphics way down (at which point it even starts to look a bit like Baldur's Gate!) And the interface is a bit unresponsive and cluttered at times so it is sometimes unclear what is going on and whether a particular character is doing precisely what you wanted them to. But if you can get past those flaws (not all of which are minor) there is a gorgeous game under here

This is the best RPG I've played in a while. Simple as that, folks. The kingdom building aspect of the game is the best attempt I've seen so far of trying to mix CK2 style rulership within a RPG system. While Pillars of Eternity had a bit of stronghold management in Caed Nua, this game perfects it, allowing you to hire advisors, assign tasks to them and build a kingdom out of what was once a desolate, bandit-ridden land. There is easily a 100 hours of gameplay in just the main quest, probably more. I'm about 40 hours in now, and I've only just finished the second chapter (there are seven in total). Each quest is very well written and while your companions -- and NPCs in general -- are not as interesting as the ones in Pillars of Eternity, they still feel authentic and immersive. The game feels a lot like a tabletop game that you might play in real life. The plotline's not Oscar worthy, but my goodness is it fun to play. Having said this, the mechanics can take some getting used to. If you're familiar with the Pathfinder system (I occasionally run tabletop Pathfinder games IRL), you'll have no trouble getting to speed in Kingmaker. If you aren't however, things might be a little tricky. I would suggest playing one or two difficulties lower than you normally would till you get used to the quirks of the system. In fact, I wouldn't blame you if you set the difficulty on 'Story' just to enjoy the good writing. There are also a few balance issues with your party getting tossed into encounters that are far beyond your ability, but these are few and far between. I personally haven't encountered a lot of bugs, so it is possible that the low ratings are from launch when the game wasn't as playable. tl;dr: What are you waiting for? Just buy the game already.