First Pathfinder looked and sounded great, good story, great background, beautifull, but after few hours i was really disapointed...
Inconsistent difficulty and horrible balancing (some battles are so difficult), strange random encounter, constant loading screens, stressfull because of time limit (too much timers), flaw ergonomy (for combat) and gameplay, unclear mechanisms.
In this game, most of gaming time we travel one place to another on the map due to the speed of your traveling.
If you already know the Pathfinder system of top of your head, you might get some enjoyment out of P:K. Tabletop system seems to be faithfully translated into the game, and there is a wide range of classes to play with and enemies to test your built against. Just turn off the kingdom management, mod the game to minimise tedium and you will get a comprehensive Pathfinder sandbox to play with.
For a game that complex, UI is just not good enough. It seems to prioritise presentation over functionality, and it lacks some basic features. You also better have an SSD as the amount of loading screens this game will put you through is just unacceptable (a routine visit to the capital will take you through 4-7+ loading screens), and a second screen for walkthrough – the game is so inconsistent in design you will have better time checking what you are supposed to do next, then trying to guess where the game won’t kill you for going next.
Campaign itself is easily the worst one I have seen since NWN1. There is a mediocre 30-40h campaign in here, but it’s unbelievably padded. It took me 182h to beat the game and even if using purely RTwP system I expect for the game to last about 100h. The game delights in wasting your time. You can have a 2 hour session and accomplish nothing of note. Dungeons are far too lengthy and lack variety – usually is just multiple generic rooms with samey mobs. World map, is huge, but with only few actually interesting places to visit.
Game has also difficulty spike problem – and it fails to telegraph difficulty of content ahead, or skill/items required for completion. It can trap you in an inescapable dungeon and tempt you with mobs that you can kill in your sleep and after an hour of playtime it will treat you to an unwinnable encounter at the end of it, with no way to go back to change party composition, or grab items you might need to succeed. It’s not that it’s hardcore, classic design – it's just bad. If you haven't, just go and play BG1&2.
game doesnt take good advantage of its own mechanics. it never explains what it needs to, has good player choice in the settings, but you better magically know whats best the minute you start cause the stock ones are garbage.
It took me a while to get into it, but I'm really liking it. I've spent over 50 hours on this game, and it's tons of fun. Yes, the kingdom management can be painful, but hey, if it was too easy, maybe it wouldn't be fun :) The RPG aspect is really nice and you get to know your characters quite well by the end of it. It has some weak spots, like most games, but overall, it is a really enjoyable game to play.
1. The story: nothing to write home about, with the exception of a few quests like "The price of curiosity" which is one of the best quests I have ever seen in a videogame, I literally could not stop laughing for 5 minutes traight.
2. Build crafting: amazing, it has enough classes and archetypes to keep you up all day long thinking about competitive/fun/whacky/broken or straight up janky party compositions. Most of those builds will never see the light of day because the game is very long and most people will not commit to a 3rd or 4th playthrough.
3. Music: cool and immersive tracks... PAPAPAN PAN PAN PAAANNN. Yup, the main menu track hits you right in the epic feels.
4. Length: the game is on the lenghty side, took me about 270 hours to complete 2 playthroughs in Hard difficulty.
5. Progression: enjoyable, if you take your time to explore and complete side quests it always feels like you are doing fine, no encounter feels out of your reach at any given moment. Lots of cool equipment to support different play styles throughout the entire game.
6. Kingdom management: somewhat interesting and fun but it becomes tedious. Takes at least one playthrough to fully grasp all the mechanics and properly manage your kingdom.
7. Quality of life: everything feels fine until you play Wrath of the Righteous and realize where Kingmaker is lacking. Most notoriously being unable to rotate the camera.
8. Performance: decent most of the time with the ocasional fps drop during turn transitions (especially latter in the game), quickly switching between turn based and real time usually fixes all problems.
Conclusion: I really enjoyed it and I strongly recommend it to all rpg lovers out there, if you made it all the way down here I guarantee you will enjoy the game. The perfect cRPG would have Pathfinder's game deisgn with Pillars of Eternity's story
