Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition

Despite the re-release of the "Enhanced" edition 1 year later, this game is still plagued by bad design decisions. I commend the team on fixing the thousand of bugs that were there when the game released (in a beta state, pretty much), but bug fixes alone are not enough to make this a good game, let alone a masterpiece. I cannot go in full detail due to the limited numbers of character that GOG allows for a review, so I'll keep it short. 1) The game a serious optimization issues with saving and loading times, the longer you play, the more they increase. By the time you hit Vordakai, they peak to untolerable levels. THERE IS ACTUALLY A MOD FOR THIS. Yes, a mod to reduce loading times, I don't think anything else needs to be said. 2) Real time combat breaks the balance of several builds, especially casters and tanks. Get Turn Based mod and the balance is much better. (This should not be a surprise, PNP rules were made for a turn base game) 3) Kingdom management is a complete bust, it's not engaging, it's merely a "defensive expenditure" (or you could consider it a tax on your playtime) just to avoid a game over. If enabled, it will drain a lot of your time for little to no reward. The game gives you the option to disable it, but that is pretty much the developer's way of rising the white flag and admitting that they completely messed up this aspect of the game. Get the kingdom resolution mod to make it less painful. Also there is no goal for it, at the end of the game it becomes irrilevant. 4) RNG rules too many aspects of the game, even those it shouldn't (outside of combat). Get the bags of cheats and tricks mod to bypass all this madness. 5) Lacks fundamental quality of life features. You need mods to highlight learnable scrolls or to properly display your animal companion's health from your party UI. These are unacceptable oversights. Long story short: This game needs a heavy amount of modding to be enjoyable, the vanilla game is a mixed bag at best.

Disclaimer: I haven't completed the game yet (I've thoroughly played the beta, and has started playing the full game). Still, I think that it might be worth to share my impressions. I really like the writing so far, and the characters seem interesting. Mechanically I really like this game, as e.g. Pillars of Eternity games feel too overbalanced for my taste, while Pathfinder: Kingmaker allows for more wacky stuff. For those who don't know, Pathfinder is basically a tweaked version of D&D 3.5 (think NWN2), and Pathfinder: Kingmaker follows the rules quite faithfully. Can't really say much about the kingdom rulership mechanic yet. Visually, P:K looks great; in my opinion, better than Divinity: Original Sin 2. I enjoy the art style a lot. Also the UI is very nice. I had some graphical glitches and slowdowns, but nothing too drastic so far. All in all, if you liked e.g. NWN2 (and expansions) back in the day, definitely check this game out.

I've gotta agree with those that say this is a good game with serious issues. One major one is lack of balance. It's almost as if this game wasn't play tested. I've been playing for about 6 hours and am still level 2, which wouldn't be so bad except I'm constantly being pushed into places with much more higher level enemies. And even when I can kill them, they've done so much permanent stat damage that my characters are useless. That doesn't mention the text bugs, such as color codes being displayed in some descriptions or custom formations being called "<Null>". Oh, and then there's the demilich that attacks you and kills you (because you have almost no chance to survive, especially at level 2) because you stayed at a camp site that was already set up. And no, there's no "go level up and come back" because these are time sensitive quests. If you try to do something else instead, the quest will fail.

I love D&D type games and after watching a vid of this game since I had never heard of it before, I was sold. However, I should've watched more of them before I bought this so I could've save my money. This game is great. Great character building options. Great graphics. Great faithful adherence to the D20 system in 3.5 edition of D&D. Sounds great so far.... then comes the combat. To be more specific, the balancing. It's quite possibly on the level of broken. First, the dedicated encounters are all over the place in difficulty. Some are cake walks. Others are on the level of completely broken. For instance, a mob that has 20 AC with a 10 damage resist and high combat stats at level two that can destroy a party easily even on the easiest difficulty level. Then there's the random encounters difficulty spikes. Some are within the player's level like four skeletons for a four person level two party. Then some are completely broken like a werewolf for a the same party at level three who had only one weapon that could even touch the werewolf. It's broken. If this game didn't have the balancing issues I would give this 4 stars easily. But, it's almost completely broken to play so it gets a 1. IF they fix these issues then I will change my review. Until then, I highly recommend you stay away from this game and play either Pillars of Eternity 1 or Tyranny instead.