Game start really good - new story, interesting kingdom building process, funny quests and so on. But.. futher you play - more critical and blocker bugs appear. Looks like game wasn't properly tested after the middle line, close to end you may catch blocker bugs (hello assasins) and non-working high-level spells (hello surge). This game need bugfix and refectoring in some way (very long loadings and tonns of em)
This game is nothing less but a Masterpiece already!
Let us start with common criticism:
It is indeed complex and can be unforgiving (if you don't adjust the difficulty) if you do not bother to learn the Pathfinder rules. The game itsels could do better to teach those, the U.I. could be better in a sense that it teaches the mechanics and words better. But if you do learn the rules, there lies a rewardung journey ahead!
Characters, the world itself. the fights. the items, your KINGDOM! Everything is full of detail, every of your choices seem to make a difference, and there are hard choices to make!
If you loved Baldur's Gate, GET THIS! (Its is also way better than Pillars of Eternity in many aspects!)
A true resurrection of good oldschool rpg traditions, such as Baldur's Gates and Icewind Dale. I'm not a great fan of Pathfinder tabletop game sistem, but has grat pleasure playing this game. I wish Owlcats to owerwhelm all expected technical problems, and looking forward for more computer representations of Paizo's game campaigns, maybee next it would bee Numenera or Curse of the Crimson Throne...
This game is disappointing to me, mostly because it could have been so much better. The world building is good, the characters are interesting, and the core systems in place are well designed. What's wrong with it then? Well, three things. A very poor journal system, a somewhat bland story of building a kingdom, and frankly the kingdom management itself.
The good: Graphics and animation are nice, and there is a lot of customization for your character. The camera angle is fixed (with zoom), and avoids being fidgety. The core system is well represented albeit with a simplified skill system that works better in this application. The basic pause/real-time combat system is almost identical to Baldur's Gate and works well. As a whole, the game is fun... when you are actually able to adventure around the world uncovering tombs and fighting monsters, etc.
The bad: You are constantly being interrupted from doing what's fun (adventuring) to go and deal with your kingdom. You are bombarded with a bewildering number of random events to deal with that function like a bad card game where you have little control over the outcome. What's even worse? These events can result in failure states for your empire if one of its key stats gets too low. There is an option for an "invincible kingdom" but that feels lame as though you are missing out. In addition, the journal quickly becomes an unusable mess as nothing ever gets flagged as completed in a legible way. I got to where I didn't even want to bother with it, which is unfortunate as many events are timed, also resulting in yet another instant failure state. And finally, we have the story. It's a generic commoner becomes nobility with a few twists and turns that is decent, if uninspired.
I have a feeling that DLC could be the savior for this game if it drops the kingdom mechanic and lets you just be an adventurer. The basic engine is very good. Time will tell. In the meantime, I can't really recommend the base game as it is.
A great game in the spirit of Infinity Engine (IE) games, combining non-linear exploration with a great deal of character customization.
The game is broadly similar to the IE games, so I won't cover the basics of the game. However, I'll highlight a couple bullet points of why I particularly like this game.
1. Set-pieces versus filler combat: I'm playing on challenging, but I'm finding that most battles actually require me to think in order to get by them (versus fighting a hundred goblins one at a time). The battles tend to be diverse, with different enemy NPC composition or monsters with unique abilities and defenses that require different tactics to get through them.
2. Character customization and meaningful growth: Many base classes, with 3 archetypes each, and they generally play meaningfully differently from one another. Also, the game takes you from levels 1-~20 (though I'm still in the relatively early levels currently), allowing you to change your game-play as you develop you characters.
3. Non-linear with exploration and replay-ability: There's an open map with a lot to find. These locations are more dense than Baldur's Gate (1), and usually are either related to the plot or are small and have a major challenging encounter with a reward afterwards. The quests have seemingly meaningful choices or ways of solving them, leading to what would seem like significantly different outcomes, with choice A precluding quest B. Finally, the Kingdom mode complements this freedom by allowing you to make different choices regarding the game's progression.
While there are a lot of reported bugs (though my slow style of play has meant that the developers seem to patch most of these bugs that faster players notice before I get to them), the developers have shown a commitment to fixing them. Obviously not ideal, but the developers have given me a great deal of confidence that the only downside to this game will be fixed.