Recent reviews by Xalldin

>>Giving this review a small update 4 months after the original publication and after more than 100 extra hours spent in the game, will just add an extra paragraph at the end. <<

I don't often review games, but i felt the need to do so in this case, seeing as there's a lot of mixed reviews claiming the game is great, horrible, etc. I'll leave a tldr conclusion at the end.

Regarding what the game does right, there isn't much I can say that hasn't been said by other people already. The plot is pretty decent, following the original Kingmaker books, characters are usually likeable (except when they're not meant to be, of course), and even the weakest ones eventually grow on you after hours of playtime. Soundtrack is great, maps are visually good, even if some of them get reused a lot, quests are interesting and the ones that have a limited time to be completed are very generous, some give you years of in game time, etc. I'd rather talk about the Kingmaker's flaws, since that's drives most people away from the game, so here it goes.

-Loading Screens: After tons of patches, this isn't much of an issue anymore, but it's still worth mentioning: this game has a fair share of loading screen time, not only because you travel through different maps a lot but because the loading itself takes a while. Since launch, devs have reduced the need for loading screens in kindom management and the time the game takes to load stuff, to the point where it's not even an issue for me personally, but I've always been tolerant with loading screens, people that can't stand them and/or don't have a pc capable of handling this game smoothly might find this frustrating.

-Game Balance: Honestly, a lot of what is said by some of the reviews regarding the game's difficulty is inaccurate. Granted, Kingmaker is far from perfect in that area: the game does have some very distinct difficulty spikes scattered throughout the campaign, and some of the game design decisions are very poor at best, and I'd be lying if i said I didn't stop playing for weeks during some particularly annoying moments. But as I said, those are some very specific situations, and most of the game was perfectly fine. As long as you have a well thought out party composition and dont ruin your companions (and yourself) by leveling up poorly, the game will rarely feel unfair. And as a quick sidenote, knowing how things work in the Pathfinder system helps a lot in that regard. The game does try to explain the basics to you, but I don't think it'd be enough for new players, so if you're not familiar with D&D/ Pathfinder mechanics, you might wanna either read the books or look through some guides.

-Bugs: This is probably Pathfinder: Kingmaker's most infamous characteristic. You can read countless launch day reviews detailing how the game was borderline unplayable, with nearly everything that could possibly not work properly not working properly. Buying the game back then used to be like playing russian roulette: you'd either have a good time or all your money wasted on a game that wouldn't even work. As of February, 2019, 5 months after launch, after lots of patches, the game is now in a much better state. Are all the bugs gone? Certainly not, i'm not even sure it's possible to fix them all, but the vast majority has been removed, specially the game breaking ones. Of course, I'm a bit biased since I didn't encounter that many frustrating bugs throughout my playthrough to begin with, but I'd say that just goes to show how much has been fixed. Granted, we can't just ignore the fact that the game was released in such a broken condition, but i give the devs a pass: game was made by a small team with the help of kickstarter, not to mention I've got no idea how much Deep Silver had to do with this, maybe they rushed the release before Owlcat had time polish their creation. Regardless, they've worked hard to make the game playable post launch, which shows at least most of them are passionate and want to make an enjoyable product, if all the quality content ingame didn't show that already, bugs aside of course. So yeah, if anyone at Owlcat is reading, congrats and keep up the good work, the game is great, but by God pls don't let any future games launch like this.

I think i said all i had to say, there are still some pretty annoying things in the game like how kingdom management works in some aspects, but that's too specific for me to comment here. So if by any chance I convinced you to try the game out, let me give you some piece of advice to make your life a bit easier:

-Quicksave is your best friend and you better learn to love it. Yeah I know, save scumming ain't great, but the game was designed taking into consideration that you have the power to load and save whenever (except during combat). Feel free to only save every 3 hours or whatever, but your life will be way easier if you have a handy savefile ready everytime you get butchered by a horde of giant undead cyclopes.
-Don't be afraid to use guides if you don't know what to do, the game isn't always clear, and since there are still some bugs here and there, you might wanna read about what to do next instead of wasting 2 hours walking in circles or failing a quest without knowing why.
-Yes, at the start of the game everyone misses basically every attack. It's a bunch of lvl 1 characters with no attack roll bonuses trying to hit each other, what did you expect? It stops being an issue after a short while, especially if you get a bard in your party.
-Ignore the first sidequest you receive in Ole's trading post until the end of the first chapter, believe me, by the time you first get that mission you're not ready to complete it, I've read lots of reviews complaining about how they got destroyed when trying to complete it as soon as they could. >>Update: Devs made the tough enemies of this mission optional, so no need to be afraid of it now<<
-Buy a loooooooooot of rations for the main dungeon in chapter 3, and at least one character who can cast death ward, otherwise glhf.
-(Spoilers) If a crow ever asks for your name and a clearly not made for combat companion gives theirs, reload the last save. Just trust me on this one.
-(Minor Spoilers) By the time you reach the point of the game where you meet these enemies, you probably have the means to deal with them, so this isn't much of a warning or advice as much as just me wanting to go on record saying: the wild hunt can burn in hell.


TLDR - This game is certainly flawed but those flaws have been either removed or diminished by patches and fixes. As long as you have some experience with how D&D/Pathfinder works, there's a good chance you'll be able look past it's imperfections and enjoy a damn good RPG, no matter how frustrating it might be at times. I don't regret a single cent spent on this game, and if you want to try it out, i hope you have as much fun as i did.

>>Update: Yeah, if I had any doubts that Owlcat had the best of intentions and were doing their best to fix the game, these doubts are now gone. Over the past 4 months, their nonstop patches have basically fixed the game: based on my personal experience and of other players, pretty much all the most relevant bugs are gone, and the game breaking ones have been wiped out of existence. I applaud the devs and the whole Owlcat team for working hard and listening to player feedback, and wish them the best of luck with any future game releases. I still stand by everything i said in my TLDR paragraph, and want to reiterate: if you know a thing or two about D&D and like CRPGs, definitely give this game a try.<<

10/10
please nuke my country

You try to get hats as they fall from the sky until you either miss or die. As a tf2 player, this game speaks to my soul.