I really tried to like this game, but the amount of bugs makes it impossible. I stopped counting how many times I actually had to edit save files just to advance through the main story. On top of it, towards the end of the game there are huge annoying balance issues and absolutely idiotic game mechanics (like the game permanently kills half of your companions chosen randomly destroying all group synergy your built for the past 150+ hours).
1 star since this game is still in beta, and you can not treat people who paid full price like free beta testers.
Let's get this out of the way: The game is a big challenge and there are some features - RPG system and the Kingdom management - that rub some people the wrong way and that is perfectly fine and there is nothing to do about it.
So I'm just talking from the point of view, obviously, of someone who enjoys challenges, has at the moment occasionally time slots in life where this epic challenge of a game fits, who enjoys a game where you can multiclass at every level-up, where you can make a lot of various kinds of adjustments to difficulty of the game, who doesn't stress about the kingdom management, instead doesn't mind making mistakes... And there is save-scumming if I make a mistake I'd rather undo...
It's not really a tough game, honestly, if you have the time to learn it.
What really keeps me going is how much I enjoy the game world and the characters both bad and good... And it's not of course always easy to know which is which... The characters seem to me quite original, it's just not obvious from the start... It's like getting to know a stranger, little by little... It may seem the other person is one-dimensional, but more one has patience... There may be more to it, than meets the eye... Now I'm thinking a Neil Young song... Where was I?
Yeah so the pacing... I'm still getting origin story quests added as possibilities in my quest journal, and I've played over 60 hours... And I'm not even talking about being leveled-up enough to be able to go and start completing these quests...
But yes, I have to admit the game can be confusing. I'll admit anything, as long as I can also claim that this is for me, one of the best games I've played... And I've played through quite a bit. Not in the hundreds, but still a lot! :P
Being a fan of both, RPGs as well as building simulations, Pathfinder: Kingmaker (PK) sounded like the perfect game for me. Becoming king in an high fantasy setting and shaping the future of your country and character should be an intriguing combination after all. Regrettably, the game's flaws prevent you from truly enjoying your time in the "Stolen Lands".
In the following i will focus on the kingdom building aspects due to the restricted number of words i am allowed to use.
My biggest issue however is the kingdom building aspect of this game. Instead of creating vivid towns you only build buildings on three different archetypes of layout grids. The buildings you build have no effect on the world expect for passive secondary kingdom stats like "Relationship" boosts, which in turn allows you to train your advisors which allows you to claim more land, build more, train more, etc. Its a pertetuum mobile of standarized repeating actions.
Meanwhile when you visit those settlements with your party they will always look and offer the same, no matter their development.
As a critique without advice for improvement wouldn't be fair i will try to offer ways in which i believe his could be improved.
Firstly, use unique locations from the map as groundwork for your towns. If their is a story relevant trading post then build the village around it. Add quests to turn it into a center of trade. make each settlement unique instead of a copy paste procedure.
Secondly, tie world map improvement of your town to personal experience of your characters. Build a tavern in the city, be allowed to rest there. build a shop, trader pops up. Build a smithy, traders starts to deal in arms and armour as well...
All in all, the game was a dissapointment becasue even though I invested a lot of time into it i never really felt invested in the story and the characters and that makes this game below average.
I've been playing isometric CRPGs since the original Fallout. I remember drooling over previews of the original Baldur's Gate more than 20 years ago. I played my way through Pillars of the Earth and backed Deadfire.
Pathfinder Kingmaker is the closest fit to my gaming tastes of any game released since the Infinity Era. Yes it had bugs; it had a lot of bugs at the start but even they weren't enough to hide the fact this game hit all my CRPG buttons:
Companions with personalities and relationships
D20 mechanics
Moral choices
A story that let me explore rather than forcing me down a railroad.
DEPTH
Campaign length: I've played 250 hours already and won't be surprised to play 250 more.
Yes, the difficulty can scale pretty high and some find that off-putting, and that's not even mentioning the bugs it started with. At the same time, Owlcat has been very good about fixing bugs and they have done wonders in decreasing load times. I have a fast NVME SSD and the first versions were just terrible for load times, but now it's no worse than other games of the genre.
If you like western style isometric RPGs you can get lost in it for untold hours, and that's what I want most from any game. Hours of enjoyment.
I played for 70 hours and was enjoying the game, and then was stuck in an inescapable game over situation. I didn't have saves far enough back to be able to fix the problem in time, so now I either have to start over or just leave the game unfinished. I don't think it's worth playing again, so I guess I'll just stop, which makes me feel ripped off.
There is no warning that the mysterious magical event that you're told about is any worse than the myriad other challenges you face, which may have negative effects if not dealt with in time but don't cause you to immediately lose the game. I had no idea that this particular event deadline was so much more serious than other events - there's honestly no way to tell without reading a walkthrough online. Sure, I guess I should have kept a save file for each chapter and never deleted any of them so that I could go back 20 hours of play rather than starting over, but that seemed wasteful, and no modern, well-designed game would put players in a situation where they just have to throw the game away or start completely over, right? (And, frankly, even being put in a situation where I have to scrap 10 or 20 hours to go back and fix something like this would be immensely frustrating.) The game did not clearly communicate the stakes, so I didn't get to make an informed choice, resulting in a disappointing experience overall.
Prior to that, I had been an interesting translation of the Pathfinder tabletop RPG to a new medium, and the writing was OK.
