Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition

Played this on Steam and I plan to purchase the Imperial Edition Bundle on GoG for the goodies and DLC. Finally got around to Pathfinder now that the bugs have been fixed and I'm blown away. The production values are absolutely INSANE. There's tons of high quality voice acting, the graphics and effects are very pleasing to the eye, and the music helps keep you immersed in the fantasy world. Story is basic but effective. Feels like you're experiencing an actual table top adventure, which I appreciate. The Kingdom management system is really only the questionable design choice here, but it can be ignored using the auto option, or even mitigated by selecting the difficutly option that trivializes it (assuming you don't want to miss out on things). The combat and character building are where it's at here. If your idea of a good RPG is to build a character and see them grow, then this is the game for you. You will not be disappointed. Tons of stats, tons of skills, tons of spells, and surprising intresting equipment - all of which is complimented with great combat scenarios to put it all to use - I can't speak highly enough here. If you are a fan of cRPGs or table top games on any level I can't recommend this enough.

I was very surprised by Kingmaker. I didn't expect much of it but it was way better than Pillars of Eternity and for me even better than Divinity. Of course I played a year after a release and with all DLCs so bugs were not an issue for me.

Graphics: Check Story: Check Gameplay: BIG RED X The game starts out fine and I was quite pleased with the camping characteristics then not only do the bugs start ranging from after switching weapons you can never again use another weapon and those casting spells can never use weapons again to the occasional game crash to save games entirely disappearing or never actually happening. My first game outright vanished. "Its your machine!" Sure, it happens to ONLY dislike PF:K save games. But this, unfortunately isnt the worst part. Game "scaling" is broken. Im in an "Ancient Tomb". I save after entering since I know its likely something will break. I wander in and get into a fight. I quite easily smite everything with ease. Expected. Fast forward 10 minutes game crashes. My bad, didnt save every 5 minutes. No problem Ill just go back to the tomb. WRONG. This is a reload so NOTHING should have changed, WRONG. I start the fighting just as before and in literally 20 seconds my entire crew is dead and Ive hardly laid a scratch on the mobs. What!? Ok fine. Fluke right? WRONG AGAIN. Reload after reload after reload. Im decimated seemingly worse each time. Its a joke. "Just leave and travel elsewhere I hear you say?" WRONG! First encounter, happens every time now, on the road is even worse than the tomb. Same kobolds I killed 6 times before but clearly a simple reload has changed the entirety of the game scaling. No, its hopeless and consistent with the last game in which I was stuck at the Inn in which the game went from a challenge to outright impossible with one shot kills on all my characters and every attack a miss. Note Im talking about the NPCs as well so its absolutely not "my build" or my "clicking wrong". Same npc, same equipment, same click as before but utterly futile. No console commands hence 3rd time to restart. Maybe not since I probably will never play again. Guess Im suckered 40 bucks. Dont even get me started on returns. Also futile.

I'm really enjoying this, yes the load times are a bit long and sometimes the difficulty can be punishing, and learning kingdom management is not fool proof, but its beautiful, its massive (I'm 22 hours in at level 9 and only up to Varnhold vanishing, I think that means I am 2/7's of the way through the game- this bad boy has to be longer than BG1, BG2 and TOB put together!), the characters are cool, I especially love Kivan… I mean Ekun, Amiri, and Jubilost. I would like a bit more conversation with them though. I love the pathfinder rpg but find high levels daunting cause of the mechanical crunch, love that this game works that out for you. If you like games where your hand is held all the way this isn't for you, but if you are up for a challenge and like isometric rpg's I don't think we'll see something to match this for a long time to come.

After seen so many reviews saying that the game was bugged, I was going to wait until a at least a couple of major patches were released to buy it (I'm one of those guy who rage quit forerver when something game breaking apears). But after seeing the dedication and respect for the players on the devs part, releasing patches almos every day (sometimes twice in a day), I deicided to give it a try. And i'm glad I did. The game is fantastic, if you are a Baldurs Gate fan like I am (it used to be my favorite game until The Witcher came along), you gonna love it. Its the best BG sucessor so far, better than PoE, Divinity Original Sin and others. With the closest gameplay (pros&cons included), but most important, the best writing. I've never been a fan of Chris Avellone, always thougth he was overrated, but he and the rest of the crew manage to create an immersive, non cliche (including the non Bioware romances), story rich game (and that's whats RPGs are about), with great companions (except maybe for Harrim). There is also other good aspects of the game like the Sound Track, great voice acting, the challenging but rewarding combat and the really fun Kingdom System.