Recent reviews by Peaky

'Pathfinder: Kingmaker' is a flawed masterpiece. I'm closing in on 100 hours played (challenging difficulty) and the end is nowhere in sight. I love me some CRPGs and this just might be my favourites since Baldur's Gate II (though the two are VERY different in design). With a handful of quality of life improvements, this could very well take the top spot in the future.

Pros:
- Well told story (adapted from the Kingmaker module for Pathfinder tabletop)
- Deep, complicated Pathfinder class system with myriad of options to build your characters. Levelling up is an event - expect to spend plenty of time in the level up screen weighing your options.
- A collection of interesting, unique and likeable party members, all with their own quests/interjections.
- Plenty of opportunities to roleplay. Lots of difficult choices to make throughout the game with longstanding repercussions. Lots of replayability.
- Fantastic, albeit unoriginal score.
- Fantastic, albeit sparse voice acting.
- Combat feels punchy; even 100 hours in it's still immensely satisfying as Amiri runs headfirst into battle and crits an enemy into a million chunks before they can even react.
- Thoughtfully combines the management of a kingdom into a CRPG unlike anything I've seen before.

Cons:
- Doesn't do a good job at guiding someone new to CRPGs or Pathfinder (I watched multiple videos before beginning my game and still felt unprepared and overwhelmed with all the systems/feats/skills at play).
- Doesn't do a good job of giving players all the information they would need (feat screen needs an overhaul, I still have questions about certain aspects of kingdom management, I don't know how certain feats work, etc).
- Sections of tedium (the amount of times I've had to run back and forth between the kingdom management screen, buying BP, my throne room and the surrounding villages is enough to drive anyone mad).
- Load times! These were almost instant when I started playing (SSD), now 100 hours in are quite a bit longer for each map. Quicksaving used to be instant too, now it takes several seconds. It all adds up.
- Difficulty can spike pretty hard at certain times. Some particular fights/named enemies feel obscenely strong, verging on being purely unfair to the player.
- A lot of reused maps throughout minor/side areas.

For better or worse this game is pretty true to Pathfinder and a lot of the game is left up to the roll of the die; this includes combat, kingdom management, skill checks, etc. If you're against save scumming you can easily get a string of bad luck and run into some BIG problems throughout your game or miss out on some interesting/useful stuff. This isn't a game to jump headfirst into without any prior knowledge of Pathfinder - do some research, watch some tutorial/build videos, do some practice runs of the early game, plan ahead. Early game will be tough (it was for me!) but if you put in the time and effort to learn the Pathfinder ruleset that the game uses (almost identical to tabletop by the way), you will be rewarded with something special.

The con list may seem a bit daunting, however the good of the game FAR outweighs the bad. This is a love-letter to Pathfinder and CRPGs that has a lot of heart. The scope and depth of P:KM is so damn impressive. It's been a long time since I've been this engrossed in a CRPG and I honestly thought I'd never feel the same way about a game as I did about BG2 many years ago. Plenty of games have come close, like PoE1&2, DA:O, NWN1&2, etc - all fantastic games in their own rights, but something was always missing. Whatever that something is, P:KM has it in spades . This is a game I can see myself playing through multiple times in multiple different ways throughout the years. I'm eagerly awaiting future content/updates and to see what's next for Owlcat.

Had the game of released a few months later in a more stable state, I think we'd all be talking about this as being one of the all-time greats. Thankfully the nastiest of the bugs are patched and the devs are working on a more standard cycle to introduce new fixes and improvements. If you've been waiting for the bugs to be fixed, now would be a perfect time to jump in. I've read a few recent reviews that complain about bugs, but I've put in over 100 hours since 1.1 and I've not encountered anything remotely game-breaking. There's been some minor bugs here and there, some of which are fixed as of 1.2, others I've reported and expect to be resolved in future patches. Load times/performance seems to have improved as of the latest patch as well, and the devs have stated they are working on further improvements in that area.

HIGHLY recommended to anyone who likes CRPGs, just be aware of the above before you dive in and don't go over Normal difficulty for your first run! This game is brutally challenging from top to bottom so don't be afraid to lower some difficulty options when needed.

Wishlist:
- Overhaul the feat selection screen into a flow chart so we can see what feats lead into at higher levels.
- Needs a respec option. I understand this isn't possible in tabletop (I think); however, most of us probably don't have a stack of rulebooks and other players at our disposal to make the most informed choice when planning out our characters. Plus we're managing a diverse group, not just the MC.
- Allow us to view the progression screen of ineligable classes/prestiges when we level up.
- Throne room management screen should allow us to manage EVERYTHING in the kingdom, including buying BP, accessing merchants, accessing party inventories, etc!
- Needs a 2x speed setting ala PoE.
- More variety in the smaller maps throughout the game.
- Maybe sprinkle some superboss/high level fights throughout the low level maps when you reach endgame. Give us a reason to stay around just a bit longer before finishing the game.
- Include a few more advisors throughout the game - for those that don't spare/recruit every NPC they meet. Maybe implement a way to hire custom advisers ala custom party members.
- Continue to optimise the game or at least cut down on the needless load times/screen transitions. Throne room directly to world map for starters.
- Find a use for, or remove some of the most useless feats.
- Mod tools of some kind to encourage the modding community.
- Romanceable Amiri... don't @ me.

If there's a better naked baby dungeon simulator with religious undertones, I have yet to find it. Plus Isaac's mum is one hot lady.

I want to have Dredmor's babies. Now.

Probably the most fun I've had with my pants on.