Kingmaker - Review @ Gamebanshee

Gamebanshee likes Pathfinder: Kingmaker:

Pathfinder: Kingmaker

Introduction
Originally designed as an alternative to the 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons, Paizo Publishing's pen-and-paper Pathfinder Roleplaying Game was released back in 2009. With its robust fantasy world of Golarion and a rich ruleset based on the modified 3.5 edition of D&D, it's quite surprising that we're getting our first Pathfinder cRPG just now.

Released on September 25, 2018 after a successful Kickstarter campaign, Pathfinder: Kingmaker is that game. It was developed by Owlcat Games, a Russian studio that consists of numerous industry veterans and Pathfinder enthusiasts, with the help of such notable individuals like Chris Avellone and Inon Zur.

During the campaign, Kingmaker was said to be inspired by Baldur's Gate, Fallout, and Arcanum, and after spending roughly 100 hours with the game, I can safely say that those weren't just marketing buzzwords, even though Arcanum's legacy is mostly represented by an abundance of bugs of all sorts. Still, out of all the games released in the past decade or so, in my opinion Kingmaker comes closest to recapturing the magic of those classic cRPGs.

Quite an endorsement, I know, so if you're interested in a detailed breakdown of what makes Kingmaker worthy of such praise, you should read on.

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Conclusion
Even today, games like Baldur's Gate, Fallout, and Jagged Alliance 2 stand proudly as benchmarks of their respective genres, since for whatever reason, video game developers spent the past 20 years not building upon the foundation of those games, but instead streamlining and simplifying their mechanics.

No more, says Owlcat Games with Pathfinder: Kingmaker. It's time to move forward, to take the old classics as the baseline and expand them, add more features instead of taking them away. Massive, complex, and immensely fun, even a heap of bugs was not enough to diminish my enjoyment of this game.

If you like isometric RPGs, you simply owe it to yourself to play Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

More information.

For me Pathfinder: Kingmaker is already GotY 2018. And I played a lot of good games this year.

Well can't deny it's a good game but If I was them I would be ashamed at how buggy the first release was. I'm not kidding this looks/feels like another Troika game.

Anyway I'm sure it will become another cult classic like the games that inspired it. Also please spare me the usual fanatical reply's defending the game despite its bugginess.

I still have to run in a bug - I'm 98 hours into the game. I played with the last two patch versions only.

Originally Posted by HiddenX
For me Pathfinder: Kingmaker is already GotY 2018. And I played a lot of good games this year.

Well I've only played 6 hours so far, but I'm enjoying it a lot so far. I'm not sure if I like it as well as Pillars of Eternity 2, but we'll see when I finish it. But as far as good games though, this year ranks up for me with 2014 & 2015 which saw a ton of good rpgs released. I know already that Battletech will not make it into my top 3, and I think its a very good game. Would have definitely made it up there the last two years. Its a great year for rpgs.

Originally Posted by HiddenX
I still have to run in a bug - I'm 98 hours into the game. I played with the last two patch versions only.

Well more then half the buyers on Steam and the developers disagree with you. They have a whole thread on steam about this games issues , and admitted its bugged.

Yes the latest patch is freaking 9Gb and it does fixes a lot of them.

A for me this year was good but not great.

I spent this year mostly playing.

Wasteland 2
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
Fallout 4 & NV
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Vampyr
Valkyria Chronicles 1&4
The Banner Saga 1-3
Divinity: Original Sin 2 – Definitive Edition
BattleTech
Pillars of Eternity
Pathfinder: Kingmaker
Torment Tides of Numenera

Still haven't played these game and some I probably never will.

The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep
Bard's Tale Remakes
Shenmue I & II
Pillars of Eternity 2

Probably missing a lot of indie RPGs but I'll leave it at that.

Adding to your list - I can recommend The Great Gaias, The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II, Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption and The Tower of Time.

Cold Steel the second right now is my game of the year. The only other contender for me was Hero-U, it came close but Cold Steel wins for me.

It is certainly in my top 3 for this year.

Originally Posted by HiddenX
For me Pathfinder: Kingmaker is already GotY 2018. And I played a lot of good games this year.

I second that. I´m roughly 60 hours into the game and it has me hooked like nothing since "The Witcher 3".

Considering that I do prefer party-based games, I´d say that the last time I had this much fun was with the release of "BG2" and in many ways it feels just like I would have wanted/expected a third installment in the Baldur´s Gate series to feel.

Still a bit wary/uncertain about the kingdom managment aspect of the game but I´ve not had any significant issues this far, same thing goes for bugs and design problems.

Originally Posted by Carnifex
Cold Steel the second right now is my game of the year. The only other contender for me was Hero-U, it came close but Cold Steel wins for me.

Hmm I keep reading good opinions about those games so I may have to buy them on GOG. A friend of mine said I should check out the prequel Trail in the Sky games also.

Yes, you should.

Did you enjoy any of them ?

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
A for me this year was good but not great.

I spent this year mostly playing.

Wasteland 2
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
Fallout 4 & NV
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Vampyr
Valkyria Chronicles 1&4
The Banner Saga 1-3
Divinity: Original Sin 2 – Definitive Edition
BattleTech
Pillars of Eternity
Pathfinder: Kingmaker
Torment Tides of Numenera

Still haven't played these game and some I probably never will.

The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep
Bard's Tale Remakes
Shenmue I & II
Pillars of Eternity 2

Probably missing a lot of indie RPGs but I'll leave it at that.

Originally Posted by you
Did you enjoy any of them ?

Yes minus a few nitpicks of course but not all are 2018 games.

I'm nearing the end of my 1st run now, and it's definitely a good game. Probably in 3rd place for me for 2018, behind PoE2 and KC: D, mainly due to bugs/lack of polish, quest timers and the fact that it drags on a bit, similar to the main campaign of NWN2.

2018 has been a great year for me because of Kingmaker

Definitely my GotY

Personally, I think Owlcat should be proud for taking the classic RPG forward with all the enhancement

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Well more then half the buyers on Steam and the developers disagree with you. They have a whole thread on steam about this games issues , and admitted its bugged.

Yes the latest patch is freaking 9Gb and it does fixes a lot of them.

Not a fanboy defense, just an anti-bandwagon response.

Steam reviews, both in this game and in others, often have a bandwagon effect where you have people with 0.2 hours in game posting "Omg, so buggy!". Highly skeptical they actually hit a bug in the first couple minutes that broke their game so much to force a 'review', but rather its the cool thing to post and aspire to relevance for 5 minutes.

Originally Posted by Wisdom
Not a fanboy defense, just an anti-bandwagon response.

Steam reviews, both in this game and in others, often have a bandwagon effect where you have people with 0.2 hours in game posting "Omg, so buggy!". Highly skeptical they actually hit a bug in the first couple minutes that broke their game so much to force a 'review', but rather its the cool thing to post and aspire to relevance for 5 minutes.

I agree but the game has been broken on release right after chapter three. You couldn't even finish the game due to a game breaking bug. It just wasn't tested enough.

Well I could go on but the bugs are well documented by the developer. What's funny about this situation is they released a Blood DLC called Bloody Mess in jest.

They recognised their mistake and reacted swiftly. Showed a good sense of humour too