Pathfinder: Kingmaker — Enhanced Plus Edition

one of the game that i never probably want to playthrough ever again. i play on RTwP normal difficulty and everything just one shot me, i had to turn down the difficulty to push through because i like the story. i should have played on turn based, i maybe have easier time with the combat. still a good crpg would recommend just for the story.

A true CRPG experience that is beyond what pillars has to offer, this game is made for people who loved BG1/2 and want more, this is the real extension to those game systems. The game does not care about you seeing everything, as the game is time based which can be daunting originally, finish your main quests as soon as you can and then in your down time explore/manage your kingdom. My very first time, my kingdom crumbled because I was doing side things before focusing on the main quest. Do hard saves often before skipping time in the throne room, so if you skip too far you can load and do less kingdom time skips. I'd probably recommend setting the kingdom to either auto/easy as by the time I hit the late game for the first full play through, i was so far behind on adviser levels that I couldn't do any event without crisis tokens and this only solved itself once the game is basically over. Overall it is hard but fair and recommend playing it despite some of its flaws in terms of early difficulty.. and the last big dungeon being designed by some neckbeard min/maxing dm that wants to make you hate yourself. Despite all that i had a great time.

My recommendation on this game is a qualified one. While the developer has created a good game, faithful to the rules of the system it's based on... the problem is the system it's based on is pretty seriously awful. From the fact that pyjamas provide more protection than adamantine plate mail, to a harsh encumbrance system and low movement speeds, the ridiculous choice hamstringing put in place by an alignment system that fails to understand how people actually make choices and often locks you out of preferred solutions and narrative options, to the fact that a deep familiarity with the classes, subclasses and feats is required to have a character build that doesn't suck, there's a lot to dislike here. The Kingdom Management elements of the game are also a weak point, and a tedious one at that. Yet the narrative and the adventure itself are well written and enjoyable, enough so that after finishing the game I've started a second playthrough. There is a good game here, it's just hobbled by a bad system, and the developer's faithfulness to that system translates into some very poor elements of play.

The earlier parts of the game were fun but when you get to the late game every enemy is such a health sponge that's also immune to way too many things with way too high stats which then evolves into fighting 1 group of enemy for an hour resting then fighting another one after 5 steps forward. My player character was an illusionist and enchantment and let me tell you, in late game when everything is immune to mind affecting skills it sucks fucking ass. My team composition was 1 sorcerer , 1 cleric/mage, 1 cleric/tank, 1 barbarian, 1 rogue and 1 arcane archer and because of this shit scaling my cleric/mage was relegated to being a summoner while my PC was sitting on his ass because all inspection DC was way too high in late game so I just had to throw spell just to see if they would work or not. The country management system was fun at first but then turned into a chore really fast. Then when they fey kept attacking it turned into a time fight to finish the game and I could no longer just explore and do quests which sucks ass. The ending area, House at the End of Time, is such a slog to go through. I dint want to believe when people complained but fuck man its so unfun. Not only that but after searching and playing in the area for like a good 10 hours I find out that my game is bugged and the Knurly Witch wont ever spawn for me no matter what i did unless i go back 6 hours. Unless its a skill issue but even then im so done with this game. Yeah no, i'm not doing that this games been out for like 7 years and they cant even fix the issue which i've seen many people have. Gameplay is ok. Music is whatever. Story was actually not bad. Characters were good. The UI and how you can use it to find info about the game is kinda ass tho. There's no comparing equipment, easy switching between party members and way too much reading with the info given. Please just make it a summary and if I want to read more give me a button, as well as the vague wording on some spells and how they interact. So yeah 6/10 game wish I could have finished it myself but i'm not going to waste anymore time on it after playing it like 140 hours.

The game is unfortunately poorly optimized. There's sometimes a few things you need to figure out to get it all working properly but the simple reality is that it's a great crpg. I would highly recommend it. All of the crpgs by owlcat fall behind only my 1. Baldurs Gate 3, Dragon Age: Origins, and Divinity Original Sin 2. So this is the entry point. Not as good as Wraith of the righteous or Rogue trader but it introduces you to the Owlcat style and is a good fix for those looking for crpg gold.

Interesting enough story, but terribly unbalanced and unpolished gameplay. Maybe one day I'll pick it back up and have a different opinion, but fore now I'd rather play WotR

Finally completed this game years after release. Took several attempts and nearly 160 hours of game play to get there but I got there. And oh boy. It's... something. Overall I had a decent time. But the question is do I recommend this game? And the honest answer is .... no. If you're a hardcore gamer, RPG lover, and fan of the Pathfinder system then play this you'll probably have a decent time with it like I did. If you're a more casual gamer, or a non RPG gamer then don't bother. The game is kind of a mess in many ways. The baffling design decisions, the many many many bugs still not fixed, the lack of truly interesting characters, the fact the game doesn't explain bugger all. and the wildly bad plotting make for an occasionally frustrating experience. And all of it culminates in the worst way in what may be the worst end game in any RPG i've ever played that exemplifies all the worst parts of this game in the worst way. I'd have honestly bounced right off it and stopped playing had I not had ways to get around the problems. Maybe I am being a touch unfair but that only 6.5% of players got the "you beat the game" achievement says something to me and that something is not good. I'd give it a 6 out of 10 (being generous). And a don't play it if you don't love RPGs.

A very good old school CRPG up to the House at the End of Time (I would prefer going through the fade twice in Dragon Age Origins than playing again the last chapters) . The end of the game is way too combat intensive for my liking and I find the cycle buff/combat/rest/buff extremely tedious (it probably explains why fewer than 10% of players have completed the game).

It's so stressful. Everything has a time limit and it feels like you're not given time to just explore and build your kingdom. If you were given time between acts to just explore and have fun it would be great. But it's really not enjoyable to worry about missing out on things, or not feeling prepared.

After 30+ hours in game, ALL of my save files became corrupted. I cannot progress through the game any more. If you would be upset losing hours of your life and hard work to a game breaking bug, I suggest you pass on Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

Its a good game for all that it gets right. The moment to moment game play, combat system, character creation, skill checks system and so on. Its a true D&D experience and as close to a traditional table top game as you can get via PC. It suffers from bloat however. The kingdom management system, traveling on the map screen, weather, resting, ALL of the writing. It slows down the experience and makes it just a bit to boring and frustrating to be a truly great game. If you can look past that, and spend some time adjusting the difficulty settings so that the game is properly balanced, then it is a game worth playing in the end.

Beautiful, interesting, massive RPG of a classic tabletop game. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

A complex game not for everyone, but one of the best crpgs on the market for sure. The last 2 chapters felt like they dragged on a bit, so that lowers the score.

I really like how this feels like playing the pen and paper version of the game. The creators did a great job in using everything the pathfinder system has to offer.

Kingmaker is not an easy game with a number of time constraint missions however there is plenty of variety and if you like tactical rpgs you will not be disappointed.

Amazing game, great storyline and nice gameplay. Some bugs and could use some QoL, but unfortunately Owlcat do not own the video game rights so cannot update. Better than WotR

The game has performance issues, a lot of "bring and return" quests, and the maximum difficulty is a bit weird. There are thousands of reloads at the beginning of the game, regardless of your understanding of leveling and game mechanics. After the second half of the game, there is no challenge at all. On the positive side, amazing companions (not all of them) and a story. I recommend it.

fun fanstasy squad rpg adventure, i use the turn based mode. love the story and kingdom building/management parts of the game.

Good overall, but annoying and unbalanced end game enemies. Theres no point on having debuff characters since all end game enemies have either too much saving throw or are outright immune to every single debuff you can throw at them. 7/10

fun but there needs to be some early encounter balance especially the stag king is impossible without cheesing his high level goons by his side

Its a great game with solid RPG mechanics and deep character customization. However, I ended up quitting because of the mandatory and tedious kingdom management system. The base-building aspect felt more like a chore than a fun mechanic and really broke the pacing for me. A great RPG overall, but that part made it hard to enjoy long-term.

Great game if you want a no handholding experience that requires a deep understanding of the Pathfinder 1e system or D&D 3e/3.5e. Otherwise you will find the learning curve extremely steep... and by that I mean there is no way in hell you will be able to interact with the systems or gameplay on anything deeper than a superficial level because it's so needlessly over-complicated. Upon further play, I don't really think I can recommend it anymore. While it's certainly as accurate to the pathfinder system as one can realistically be and I personally enjoy it for that about half the time... the balance in this game is completely messed up. The encounter design is VERY poor, and it's not really a good experience for combat to start and a Dire boar just randomly crits and kills a character forcing you to reload a save. And it's worse when you have to do this several times in a row, or lose 30 minutes of progress because you're trying to cast a spell and misclick and your healer eats 4 attacks of opportunity. Or for your party of 4 level TWO adventurers to go up against a team of 3 FIVE HD dire wolves with permanant 50% miss chance buff because why not. Or a bear with 27 strength that crits for just shy of 40 damage when your tank has 26 health... This game is VERY frustrating at times. It's still an ok game, but I would recommend the superior experience of this games sequel Wrath of the Righteous. Kingmaker really doesn't hold up.

It is unexpectedly huge game. It took me almost 150 hours to finish from start to end. Some parts of the game such as kingdom managing can be omitted but it isn't too awful. Game allows you to switch between real time fights and turn based fights anytime you want. Even during the combat! Story wise, it is great role playing game that makes choices matter. Hundreds of unique items that makes you redistribute your arsenal over and over again every time you progress in the game. From alignments perspective, I think this game can be replayed couple more times to achieve few things that I have missed from my lawful good play through. But I have to say that game's engine is too much problematic. There are constantly fps drops and it gets worse over time. You'll have to restart game to mitigate these issues. This game could be perfect if developers put last bit of effort to remaster it. Nevertheless, it was still playable and enjoyable unique experience.

I would recommend this game to any CRPG fan; however, DO NOT play this as your first ever CRPG. You will have a bad time if you do and it could sour the genre for you. The RPG elements are great, story is fantastic, and the combat feels really good between real-time with pause and turn-based tactics, but the kingdom building aspect of the game does slow down progress quite a bit. Not only is this part of the game not explained super well, which can lead to spontaneous game loss if you don't have the setting to "never lose" turn on, but it takes up quite a bit of time in the story. That being said, you can apparently turn this part of the game to automatic, though I don't know how successful it is or how much of the story is cut out of the experience when doing that because I didn't try it. While I enjoyed the kingdom management for the most part, it did take up about half of my play through time sending advisors on missions and listening to citizen requests. My 110 hours as of this review is for one single play through on normal difficulty, which is a long single player experience. So if you are already a CRPG fan and are interested in something different to shake up the experience, I highly recommend the game. If you're new to CRPGs, I recommend getting into the genre somewhere else first before diving into this wonderful game.

Fun. Confusing sometimes, but all old Baldur's Gate fans must-play. Not as well done as BG3, but still quite awesome.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker is hard to simply describe as good. I think that "good in spite of its issues" is a more accurate description. There's no need to reiterate what other reviews have said in detail. There are some portions of this game that are really, truly, baffling in their design. This game is also wildly long; my first playthrough took 180 hours. In spite of the numerous issues present in this game, this game is really good. I don't need to write about why this game is good. Just know that you can read about 500 different issues this game has. You can read about countless bugs, terrible enemies and encounters, and even the worst quest ever put in a crpg. All of those issues are real, true, and possibly even worse than they sound. Pathfinder: Kingmaker is good, maybe even great, in spite of those issues.

I feel like there was a lot of potential but a lot of minor things and a few major things really bring this game down for me. A lot of people have mentioned the learning curve, but it's hard to overstate just how big that learning curve is. If you're coming in off the back of something like Baldur's Gate 3 or Dragon Age and have no experience with the classics listed in this game's description, this game is going to kick your ass. Aside from the difficulty though, pacing feels very rushed. Once you get your kingdom, so much stuff happens (and you will likely be unprepared for most of it) with little warning or indication of what you're even meant to do. The game tells you your advisors can handle things, but often even when they succeed on their mission, you still have to go handle things yourself. I have had some fun with this game, don't get me wrong, but I unfortunately can't recommend it to most people. If you like your cRPGs, you might get more out of it.

its just not fun. its clunky. the difficulty is all over the place. you spend several turns trading misses. it's just not fun. very few things are properly explained, and the rule of 50% is thrown out the window after being burned. its not a proper ttrpg in any sense. its just not fun. its poorly balanced, it just lacks any sense of completeness and continuity in the world, where enemies have 20 ac out the gate and my characters feel like conscripts in their utter inability to hit a man right in front of them with even 25% reliability. its just not fun.

I love how this game plays. The character creation, leveling, and combat are so fun. It's just the quests and the writing. I just can't finish the game. Every quest I'm set upon gives me a heavy sigh because everything is urgent and all the quests are just plain dumb. Many of the scenes where I cannot skip dialogue, are the WORST. It's has very good systems. But these system guys can't be the writers. They just can't write. The things my companions do and say make zero sense and many times my options for my "choices" are highly limited- unfleshed. I think the creative director was very lazy here and it's such a shame. I just can't finish this game every time I try to replay or continue I have to stop

Pathfinder 1e a.k.a. spread-sheet calculator PC-ified. Has some questianable choices and decisions, but over all great game. Can spend a lot of time if you enjoy char building aspect.

Man, this game is bad. I decided to play it because Rogue Trader was so good, but there are many systems in this game which prevent you from playing it. The first is the "swarm" mechanic. Some enemies are in swarms, and can't be damaged except by items like alchemical fire. The items you can use to kill these enemies are inherently resisted by them, so they don't work. That is, if you don't miss which happens most of the time. I got a mod to let me just fight swarms. Secondly, the resting mechanic. it works fine when you can hunt, but when you can't the party will not use rations and thus will not rest. It's pretty broken. Because of this, you won't be able to take on the game without finding workarounds that take extra time. Also, all quests are timed, which is pretty aids in the first place. I'm still trying to figure this one out. There are a lot of settings you have to enable in the difficulty tab to make the game remotely playable. Otherwise things do not work. These shouldn't be optional, but whatever. Owlcat in general can't balance difficulty. Very few studios that make crpgs seem to be able to. Owlcat's hallmark is to have easy games, with absurd difficulty spikes at times. This game is balanced much better than rogue trader, but it bears similarities. There is a positive: if you ever played the witcher 3 and wanted to play as the Bloody Baron, this is the game.

I am requesting a refund. I can't get it to run on my m2 macbook air. I tried a work around to disable system integrity protocol, but it didn't work. The continue button is greyed out. Update: It turns out that selecting windowed for the display was cutting off buttons needed to start the game.

Great story. Great villain(s). Incredible characters. I really liked the resting menu and its character dialogue.

both Pathfinder games by Owlcat are exceptional for people like me who really enjoy turn-based tactical rpgs

What a story! The only downside was Chapter 7 where the fight was tedious and repetitive (i hate dungeons simulator). Other than that, one of the greatest CRPG

Normal difficulty, got fatigued, went to camp, got ambushed by a bear, procceeded to miss 26 consecutive hits with all the buffs I could provide, bear esentially double hits each of my party members. Probably the single most disasterous mechanic I have ever witnessed in 20 years playing video games. If this wasn't a free gift, I would refund this garbage on spot. You probably have better chances in casino than in this.

I loved Owlcat's take on Wrath of the Righteous, but several hours in, I am having a really hard time getting through this one. Sticking with it for now because I like the Pathfinder RPG and I like some of the characters (Jaethal my beloved), but encounter design is too lethal and the game has a lot of problems it throws at you that are seemingly unsolvable. To give an example of these unsolvable problems, I currently have a dead party member who is literally impossible resurrect because the game has simply provided zero way to resurrect him. I have one Raise Dead scroll, and nobody can actually use it. Nobody in the settlements is willing to provide a way to resurrect my dead guy, it's just not a dialogue option. I'm down a party member until I eventually, hopefully, get another party member who can cast this scroll. When I say combat design is way too lethal, I mean that enemies are throwing DC 27 saves and level 8 enemies at me at level 2. One encounter is a guy with a fear aura that none of my party members are able to pass, so they can't approach him, and he just destroys my entire party while having 32 AC so nobody can hit him. Again -- I am level 2. My minmaxed main character can't hit him on anything other than a natural 20. Hoping it gets better as I gain levels.

This is a wonderful romp through Pathfinder's Golarion via the lens of Owlcat's interpretation of the ruleset and canon events. It is worth every hour invested.

This game ia ass. The story is one of the worst stories I have ever seen in a game and the combat is painfully boring. 2/10

Heavy is the head that wears the CROWN.

Owlcat is the company of liers, scammers and ghosters. Don't buy anything from them.

Spellcasters do no damage. A swarm of teeny tiny spiders is stronger than a troll. Need I say more?

I like the freedom of choice we have with the campaign, the fact we can really direct the kindom somewhat

Needs its mods, but its a good game and I enjoy it.

Not easy but satiates the hunger.

Any old head CRPG fan should find a ton to enjoy here.

One of the best CRPGs out there!

just go play wrath of the righteous

The game is good

great game