Let's start with the bad: This games is incredibly bug ridden (with game breaking bugs) and the kingdom management aspects are really poorly explained. They do release multiple patches a week, so they're trying, but every patch seems to introduce as many new bugs as they fix. The loading screens take a while on a good PC and the save game files are 30+mb each. The good: This is the first time I've actually felt like I've played a game that's similar to Baldur's Gate. I've tried PoE, Tyranny, Divinity: Original Sin, etc. They all had strong starts that ended in disappointment. I haven't even finished Pathfinder yet and I'm not disappointed. It has flaws, but this is one of my favorite games since it's Baldur's Gate, but brought into 2018. Character creation is incredibly diverse. If you enjoy min/maxing or if you just enjoy trying various party strategies, this game delivers. Character development is superb. Other games may give you 1-2 special companion quests. Pathfinder does it right by giving them entire questlines and meaningful personalities. My favorite is the dwarf who is pretty much Eeyore. Every time you rest there are dialogues between your companions as well. I still haven't noticed a duplicate. Quests are interesting. There's a lot of text reading, but you'll notice that decisions you make early in the game affect the options you get later in the game. It creates a strong feeling that your choices matter. The RNG is pretty punishing, but that's the nature of the D20 system. The game surprises you with ambushes that put your archers/spellcasters in danger, critical hits that eat up half your tank's health, and nasty permanent effects that can be expensive to remove. But all of these can be mitigated/prevented with the right strategy. It just may take a couple party wipes to figure out the right one. Unlike some games, if you're going to wipe, you'll wipe quick at least so you can move on and try again.
The changes made in this expansion are phenomenal. They took almost every frustrating thing about the game and made it better. I cringed a little bit at the introduction of "Only one player can build this" improvements, but they're a lot more balanced than the ones in the Civilization series. So I'm hooked again to the game. The reason I'm being harsh in my rating is the extremely high amount of bugs. This is effectively a beta release. The UI is non-responsive in many instances (moving ships, ending a turn, etc). There are also quirks with portraits missing in the selection screen. But the worst things are the ones that affect game play. At one point I made a trade for resources. I lost my resources. I did NOT get the resources I was supposed to. Not OK. Seems to happen if I re-negotiate when the AI asks to trade. I didn't buy mercenaries so that may be related to the fact that United Earth is simply broken. The ships don't show up in the map. That means I can't play as United Earth because I can't build ships. It also means that if United Earth is set up as the AI, the AI won't do anything. UE is essentially a minor race.
