Pathfinder: Kingmaker — Enhanced Plus Edition

This is a terrible game with a terrible start that just didn't make me want to stick around. For starters, the controller support is atrocious: I get jjoystick drift on this game exclusively. At the OS level there isn't any drift. Steam Input doesn't pick up any drift. Any other game on my steam library doesn't pick up drift. This game somehow manages to hallucinate joystick drift. UI in most CRPGs is a sin and their lack of clarity is tradition, but in this game the UI is particularly is unintuitive. Options hidden away, stat windows and tabs that take over most of the screen yet manage to not condense information in a clear and concise way. This certainly isn't the type of game you can just sit back and look at from affar, it demands the nerd hunch back from you as it lacks UI scaling settings. Lastly: difficulty. I have played my fair share of classic and recent CPRGs. As usual, I take the classic approach of "perhaps I'm dumb, I'm probably missing out something". Some games demand that from you. In this game, I've reloaded my save file numerous times, explored the map in a different order, etc. All to no avail, I just couldn't progress any further than half of level 2. Most if not all of the encounters I'd find would either be composed entirely of level 3 characters or singular level 5 boss monsters. Progression is painfully slow, the RNG system deserves it's own special brand of dice jail as you'll be missing dice rolls more often than not given the ridiculously overtuned stats of early game NPCs. (20+ AC on early game characters? okay) And it's not like theres a great variety of encounters in the early game that'll let you find an alternative way around this game's difficulty. In the same run, my party managed to one shot a manticore but would later die to a swarm of cave spiders due to successive bad rolls. I hate the save scumming tradition in this genre and I avoid it like the plague when I can, but it's ridiculous that this game demands save scumming from you THIS early into the game. Which is a shame because the game at first seemed rather charming. The characters I've met so far were charming, the story had the same pace and story beats as Fallout 1, which I found cute. The map exploration with a map and a wooden piece is cute. It made me feel like I was just playing a virtual PnP campaign. This game feels especially bad in a post Baldur's Gate 3 world. The game is like the digital embodiment of a DM that wants to promise their players an excruciatingly hard campaign, only to find a painfully unfun set of encounters composed of characters with inflated stats. Sure it's hard, but it ain't fun. There's no depth, no sauce. I'm gonna try to install some mods to see if the experience is any better, but as it is, this game is hard to recommend.

I can not in good faith suggest this game. The dice "RNG" might be the worst I've ever seen (and before you go, 'Um akshully its not actual RNG) I'm aware of how programming works. For it to be a consistent topic since the games release, something is horribly wrong with this games dice system. I really tried to like this game, I really did. I've played NWN, BG 1-3 and tabletop D&D my entire life. I've never once rolled so low so many times, respect your time and play a better CRPG. I couldn't even make it to the part where you are actually playing the Kingdom portion, the portion I was most excited about trying.

No

Given my limited free time, I was very skeptical about investing in another lengthy game. Let me share what I found after playing. The game took me 111.3 hours and 1.5 months to beat. I am not a completionist, but I do explore whenever possible and generally roleplay my character. Positives Combat is satisfying: The ability to switch from turn-based to real-time is amazing. Being able to delay your turn something I wish I had in BG3. Many distinct and fun classes to choose from. Difficulty and combat systems are highly customizable. I definitely suggest tweaking these settings to suit your playstyle. Characters feel like real people: Jhod, the slightly bitter but benevolent old priest, reminded me of someone I know in real life. Ekun stood out too the way he shares straight truths in the simplest words. Party banter is amazing; after 110 hours, I barely heard repeated dialogue. Story is good, with obvious highs and lows but overall solid. highlights for me are Nyrisas story and everything that touches 1st world, fey, eldest etc. Ending: Companions: Seeing each face their deepest fears and weaknesses was powerful. They stood against the evil Nyrisa’s mental abuse and survived because of the help I gave them along the way. That was a proud moment. Ending slides were satisfying and sad at the same time. So many choices I made over hundred hours collapsed into those final screens. I really felt like I was watching the future of my own kingdom unfold. Every bad consequence hurt. Every good one made me happy. I did not expect to receive so many outcomes. Most seemed like they would only matter immediately, but each decision rippled forward. It was the most personal conclusion I have experienced in a RPG. Not because I saw ending, but because I saw my legacy. Kingdom management adds depth, providing many roleplay options, choices, and consequences. Sometimes I wanted to focus more on running the kingdom than doing quests QoL features like area loot:why wasn't this in BG3? Negatives Game length (when done poorly). Examples of wasted time: Filler fights - less content like this would improve the experience. Loading screens, even on modern hardware. Very noticeable when managing the kingdom frequently. Map navigation. Until you build teleporters in every city, travel is painfully slow. I could step away to smoke a cigarette and return realizing I hadn't moved far because I got another encounter. Deity choice does nothing. I understand developers cannot create separate dialogues for every option, but as a Lawful Good Paladin of Iomedae, I expected to hear that name at least a few times after character creation. Last two chapters felt narratively rushed. Just complete an absurd amount of combat and win, with few choices or dilemmas. Nyrisa’s castle was pure boredom. Very underwhelming compared to earlier chapters. Final chapter problems: Heavy debuffs applied and no resting allowed until reaching a specific NPC. Why force this artificial difficulty via attrition? I do not understand why we had to fight shadows of already defeated enemies scattered across locations. Making players travel extensively while restricting rests felt like padding to extend game length unnecessarily. I would rather face all chapter bosses simultaneously on epic arena or in center of my capital. The game would be 2-3 hours shorter but 10 times more epic, experiencing how strong you have grown taking on all major threats at once! Neutral Learning curve: This game is not for everyone and requires some prior knowledge if you want to play at Normal difficulty or higher. I personally do not mind researching before starting, it helps me evaluate whether the game is worth my investment. I usually watch general tips and tricks guides but avoid following specific “OP builds.” Also Many helpful people on Reddit gave me decent advice during my playthrough. (Thank you kind people) Sense of urgency: I did not feel strongly impacted by this. Following advice to focus on main objectives kept the pace enjoyable. I made plenty of saves to fix devastating kingdom events when necessary. Balancing: I am convinced an RPG based on a tabletop system cannot be perfectly balanced (especially) in late game. Difficulty spikes or unfair enemies will always exist. I used forbidden technique of “lowering difficulty” for certain ecnounters. With so many classes, subclasses, multiclass combinations, items, buffs, and luck involved, perfect balance is impossible. Personal thoughts I got hooked early. IMHO People do not stop playing games because they are long they stop because the game fails to hold their interest. I can see how people who dislike Kingdom management would quit quickly. For me, whenever I was not playing, I kept thinking about returning to it. Finishing the game felt like losing a piece of myself. The atmosphere, vibe, and tone stuck with me, especially compared to Baldur's Gate 3's (Which don’t get me wrong I love as well and have played much more than this game) somewhat whimsical approach. Reading old reviews from 2019, I can confirm the game has improved significantly, particularly in kingdom management. When set to lower difficulty, it brings genuine joy. It took time to beat, but I never considered quitting. Perhaps this was unique to me, or perhaps the game is truly impressive. TLDR Kingmaker is a demanding commitment for anyone balancing work and life, yet it rewards patience with an experience few CRPGs match. Despite its issues and questionable design choices around endgame difficulty, the combination of deep roleplaying, meaningful kingdom management, and compelling companions makes this one of the most engaging RPGs I have played in years. If you have the at least an hour a day and patience to invest, Kingmaker offers a journey worth taking and ending worth witnessing.

Совокоты - это лучшее, что сейчас есть в ролевом повествовании. Как Bioware в их золотые годы.

The idea of an everyday adventurer rising to royalty while solving mystery curses and taking on rival kingdoms is neat. Unfortunately the story is buried under hours of tedious rests, party movement across the map, the stress of working against the clock, and dungeons and kingdom projects that can be outrageously catastrophic if you get them even a little bit wrong. In my opinion, this game is too punishing to be fun.

There's no denying that Pathfinder: Kingmaker is a labor of love for Owlcat, who did a tremendous job adapting Paizo's excellent Kingmaker campaign in an accessible and attractive form. The immersion is excellent to me, bringing the best isometric 2D has to offer. The story is excellent, as are the NPCs - everything is faithful to the original, and some welcome additions were even made, to the point that Paizo decided to include some of these in their later reedition of the PnP campaign. Well done! However, I didn't enjoy the kingdom building aspect (darn the overfocus on subsystems in Paizo's works in general). While it somehow manages to convey the leadership of a realm better, I felt it was actually detrimental to the rhythm of the game. The town building aspect is decent, but I don't feel it adds very much to the game beside adding unnecessary hours of "play". On the mechanics side, I was also deterred by the fact that the game didn't offer a difficulty level that was 100%-accurate to the Pathfinder rules: so-called "Normal mode" should be exactly that: playing with the base Pathfinder rules, without any modification to monster stats or DCs. Regardless of these minor shennanigans, Pathfinder: Kingmaker was a full success, and I loved playing through it on this format.

great game not as hard as people suggest, there is just a lot to learn and research before playing is highly recommended especially the kingdom manager, there is an order to it and if you research things like curses or lvl up your advisors at the wrong time, you will lose your kingdom outflank is king!

If you are new to fantasy CRPG first play: Baldur's gate 1/2 If you liked it but want a more battle orientated gameplay play: Icewind dale 1/2 If you liked it but want a more story orientated gameplay play: Planescape: Torment If you find above mentioned games playable but ugly/dated play: Pillars of eternity 1/2 If you want turn based orientated gameplay try: Divinity 1/2, Baldur's gate 3 If you liked everything above and want more play: Temple of elemental evil, Arcanum, Tyranny... (I can't remember any more off the top of my head but there are more good games of this simmilar genre... A LOT MORE... and expansion packs) If you loved everything from above and want even more... play them all over again with different build After you get tired from something what is like couple thousand hours of gameplay and feel ready for more challenging experience then go for Pathfinder: Kingmaker but bear this in mind: 1.It is a fixed view isometirc 3D game where positioning is important which will lead to many frustrations as you try to attack someone from their back just to click on their 3D model and charge like a lunatic 2. Load times are long so every fail you make will lead to some additional irritation (there will be plenty of fails) 3. The game has A LOT of character build options but classes are imbalanced. Every class of barbarian will beat every class of warrior in everything... at every level 4. Level progression is linear and tied to a story with hard cap to prevent you from building OP characters. This would be fine if classes were balanced. Since they are not, instead of building an OP character I can simply "pick" one by selecting a propper class during character creation. 5. There are plenty of weapon classes and plenty of unique weapons but their encounter order is a mess unless you know what you are looking for (ie reading guides) 6. The story is ok-ish but it is 60 hours of ok-ish story that you catch in the first 15. A baddy and an even bigger baddy. As for supporting characters/enemies, the development team obviously took bigger bite than they could chew. There is noticable quality gap between first 10 hours of the game and the rest of it... 7. ... and the rest of it is about 150 hours. There are some highlights (i liked old Sycamore, barbarians/Amiri, Valerie's story) but overall it is in best case mid. 8. Voice acting is atrociously bad and doesn't make full circle to being good. Lantern king is an exception. His voiceacting is so good that it makes everything around him even worse. 9. Voice lines are just cheesy, HR approved and bad in general. There is an exception here too. Nok-nok's voicelines, which are meant to be fun as he is a comedic relief character, are so bad that they feel like they are directed at a 5 year old. 10. KINGDOM MANAGMENT IS BAD AND SHOULD BE DISABLED BY DEFAULT. You can easily play for 60 hours to find out that you missmanaged your barony/kingdom for the last 40 hours. There is no indicator that you softlocked yourself for 40 hours. There is no explanation that companion stats affect their problem solving. There are no consequences for failing a problem until you hit a wall and your barony/kingdom crumbles and can do nothing but crumble 100 hours in game. You can disable kingdom management during gameplay; but as I said: IT SHOULD BE DISABLED FROM THE START. The game is targeted towards veteran players of the genre but it does everything so poorly that it feels like only the veteran players could tolerate it. Badly optimized Not fun to play Average story Frustrating

25小时卡崩溃不下10次，什么都不管用只能强制重启；堆了300个怪的图快推完了给我卡崩了，真玩不下去了。中文还人一会儿鬼一会儿的，像前期无context机翻后期人工修了一些没修一些，please save yourself=请保存你自己！太美丽了。现在3部CRPG都体验过了很遗憾原来正义之怒是猫的巅峰而不是平均水平，怒入坑的我觉得真没必要补前作了。 哦对了，baroness和barony：恭喜你女爵！现在失窃之地是你的男爵领了！ 这个中文你笑了不？ 当然这个也怪不了译者啦，我们母语魅力时刻。