If you are familiar with tabletop gaming, you know there are several tactics that have become signs of poor gamemastering and should be avoided: railroading, lying to players, and changing rules. The makers of this game indulge in all of these tactics, which unfortunately ruins what could have been an otherwise enjoyable, if limited, game. As is too often the case these days, tedious was substituted for challenging, deliberate time-wasting for engaging, and game-breaking actions discoverable only through save-scumming. The last straw was permanently killing a player-controlled character through an (unskippable) cut scene, removing the only access the party had to a spell that made the final dungeon possible. Removing player agency in this way is not dramatic, it does not add poignancy, it merely reduces what should be a game to a poorly made movie: to couple this with a final act of player sabotage is to betray the trust gamers are required to place in those few companies fortunate enough to produce a game. If this company ever produces another game, I will not purchase it.
Pathfinder Kingmaker is arguably the most fun I've had in a D&D styled game since the Baldur's Gate Trilogy, warts and all. It is not a great game (yet), but the developers deserve credit for rapidly deploying patch hot-fixes from day one.
While fun, the game very much caters to a min/max style of gameplay, even on the 'normal' difficulty, and punishes you heavily if you don't optimize well. I've enjoyed this challenge thus far, but fair warning to people who are not fully accustomed to the harshness of read-as-written Pathfinder: you are probably going to die.
Classes are well implemented and have a variety of options for designing your character, although the lack of certain feats and options are disappointing. (my kingdom for Intensify Spell) Mild changes in feat implementations make certain builds and character types easier than in pen and paper - Slashing Grace works with Spell Combat, spontaneous metamagic doesn't appear to be penalized to a full round action, etc.
The difficulty issues aside, there are very common and omnipresent bugs - classes not getting abilities on level up, entire feat groups not working at all, prerequisites for feats not being recognized, and the entire nation building side of the adventure is extremely buggy - save early and often, and expect to have your kingdom collapse at least once or twice with minimal feedback as to why or how.
Altogether - Pathfinder Kingmaker is worth your time, particularly if you enjoy what is essentially 3.5++ D&D. Its probably worth waiting till the end of October or later to pick it up. Let the major patches hit first, then buy it.
I really like the game, brings me back to old school D&D where a lot of the others recently released just didn't scratch that itch the same way. I know the game is flawed, but I really enjoy it anyways. If I had any gripes it would be that it scales a bit rough, it's a little to easy to unknowingly walk into something your party has no chance against.
In addition, the loading screens and times are horrendous. I have a decent gaming rig, and while I don't mind a loading screen here and there. The fact that there are so many, and they take so long lead me to estimate I have probably spent at least a quarter of my game time looking at a loading screen.
I am hoping over time they will optimize this some. I'd like to see them continue on doing some adaptations to some older D&D campaigns from way back if possible, the whole march through the giants, the underdark and to Lolth including trips to the planes would be awesome and this framework appears suited for it.
At the end of the day, I love it, just wish it performed a bit better, and get's a little more polish.
Campaign ongoing.
This is an excellent CRPG, for every fans of pathfinder or classic rpg like baldur's gate.
For me, if Pillars of Eternity 2 is very good, Pathfinder Kingmaler is excellent (even if more "conservative") !
A surprisingly good combination of RPG and kingdom management (not yet perfect, but I love it).
The dev team is making a huge work to patch bugs, bravo to them !
There are some in-game kingdom management options that can permanently cripple your several dozen hour spanning playthrough, specifically speaking the game lacks proper developer foresight for lawful and non-good alignment characters, as far as the in-game advisor system goes.
To explain the issue to those not in the know: the game offers a meager number of 3 possible councilors (a type of advisor) across the whole game. Holding at least one is paramount to a functional kingdom and not hitting permanent game over. The problem is that two of them are permanently missable characters from early-mid game, and third can be permanently lost later on.
First is only available at the very start before the game has even introduced kingdom management gameplay, and to make matters worse, their advisor role is unknown to the player as well when they're making their choice. Recruiting the right one who happens to be a councilor type advisor is a pure 1/3 coin toss.
Second is only available later on in one specific point in the story where there's no way to assume the character in question is going to be an advisor: in fact unlike other advisors she isn't even given a voice or a portrait to denote her importance and recruiting the character requires you to pick the most forgiving goody two shoes option in the quest involving her, which goes against any lawful or non-good player character modus operandi. Nothing alludes to the hostile character in question of being statescraft-related either. 1/4 coin toss in this case as far as quest choices go. The character isn't even good aligned, yet getting her services requires you to act one.
As for the third: later on you lose the only councilor you are guaranteed have, and are again forced down the goodie two shoes path to regain his services or break your playthrough permanently unless you happened to luck out at the start of the game.
I'm fine with punishing games. What I'm not fine with is unpredictable coin toss decisions.
