Hi it's me Connie Voltaire. That's my name.
Just played through three CRPGS. Here are my thoughts on them.
Foreward:
The first CRPG I played with Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire. This was about a year ago. What do I remember of it? Well there was some really boring ship combat in it, some puzzles I didn't really understand, and some cool stuff where you talk to gods. I barely remember the plot, I don't remember any of the characters, and I never finished the game (I got bored) but it was a good enough introduction to the genre that it lead me to check out another game in the series, which in turn lead to me play another then another. I say all this mostly because the vast majority of CRPG fans have played through classics like Baulder's Gate, Fallout, and so on, while I have not. I'm viewing these games without any tint on my glasses. As a matter of fact, I don't wear glasses at all.
What is a CRPG? For those of you wondering, it is, by my definition, an isometric perspective RPG featuring strong focus on story elements, with real time or turn based combat, where skills have cool downs. They are very stat/class/race focused, with dozens of abilities for each classed. You could argue the main difference between a CRPG and a JRPG is CRPGs focus much more on customization and freedom of choice in the story (like the ability to attack/kill most any character), where JRPGs focus more on presentation and simplicity.
Divinity: Original Sin II Definitive Edition - Larian Studios (2017)
Of all the CRPGs I have played, D:OS2 is easily the best. I could go through every basic feature of a game, or a CRPG for that matter, and this game does it better than the others I have played. Every quest is interesting, every fight makes you think, and it gives you options you'd never even consider wanting. Not only that but it features... features that I've not seen anywhere else, most importantly the creation tools and multiplayer. If there's any take away from this, it is to play this game.
To quickly summarize the story, you are a person who can control source, a type of super magic that has the negative side effect of drawing in evil monsters from another dimension. Because of this, the "government" as it were suppresses you and others like you. You begin the game unable to channel this power, gradually learning more and using it more. Now what is the goal? In my mind, it's to learn about the world, and about the very subjective truth. That is what makes this story so interesting. Should you be suppressed? Are you and your kind causing these monsters to kill innocent people, is there a way to "fix" it, is anything that you've been told true? Having finished the game I'm still not really sure what the best option is, and that's what I love about this story. Maybe I was wrong about everything objectively, but in my mind I did what I thought was best. The game really never gives hard answers, never says "this is right and this is wrong," (like having a system along the lines of lets say a renegade/paragon system from Mass Effect, or an alignment chart) and that's what makes it work so well.
There is character creation in this game, but it is sort of put on the wayside in favor of "origin" characters, which have their story integrated into the game. These characters get unique quests, dialogue options, and naturally have their own unique background/story/motives on top of what any fresh character would have. You might think this comes at a trade off to customization, but outside of their race and gender, you can fairly easily change them up to fit your play style. It should also be noted that while they have a certain disposition already, you can still choose not to use their unique dialog options and you get options within their quests that let you play them more to your liking as opposed to how the creators intended. Regardless, as you might expect, all the races have very unique attributes, from the elves who can eat body parts to see people's memories, to the undead who have to cover their faces in public as not to freak everyone the fuck out (in exchange for other positives). On the other hand, there are no classes. At the outset there are preset builds that push you in one direction, everything is attribute based from abilities to spells (which you learn by reading books which you can find/purchase), so you need only put enough points in one attribute to get access to this or that bonus.
I should also mention, the game is beautiful. It still holds up easily for 2014, on par with any Unreal 4 engine game. There's not much more else to say about it. See it for yourself.
The combat in this game is turn based, which is somewhat unique to modern CRPGs, which prefer real time cooldown based combat where you can pause to make choices. Frankly, the turn based combat in this game works so well it shines strongly in comparison to the other CRPGs as well as JRPGs I've played. In contrast to most CRPG with real time combat, the turn based combat of D:OS2 allows you to know exactly how far a character will be able to travel in a set amount of time (their turn), set up combos using the turn order, place spells without worrying about characters moving during casting, and all in all gives you more options in combat. There's a lot to go through on the front of combat, so lets start another paragraph.
The main unique feature of D:OS2's combat is environmental effects. If there is water on the ground or it is raining and someone uses a lightning spell, the people in the water may get shocked. If someone uses a frost spell on the same ground those people may be frozen. If the water gets heated it will turn to steam which can't be seen in to or out of. That's just one interaction. From oil to acid to blood to ice, what you are walking on can really fuck you up or enable you to do things you couldn't before. Another aspect of this is lines of sight and elevation. Unlike in some CRPGs, you can't attack or cast spells at something you can't see. Being on the low ground can mean your enemies can see you while you can't see them, while being on the high ground gives a damage and range advantage. In other words, positioning actually matters, which leads to abilities like teleportation (drop your enemy in a bunch of lava, or a sniper in front of your tank) or blink-movement (move without enemies being able to take attacks of opportunity against you) making massive differences in combat. The other unique aspect is physical and magic armor, which are tracked separately. Damage is dealt as either magical or physical, chunking away at that type of armor until the raw HP is exposed. This also factors into status afflictions, some of which are only taken on when magical armor is depleted, others when physical is depleted. Some classes focus on physical armor, while others focus on magical. This leads to interesting interactions in combat, where your sword wielding characters will want to focus on those with low physical, and magic users on those with low magical armor. On the other hand, you could focus all your damage as one type as a party, focusing on the enemies with low armor of said type first, leaving those with high armor for last, and so on.
As far as the writing is concerned, most all of it is well written except for the Origin characters. Many of them feel quite bland and one dimensional in spite of everything around them. They have their one goal and outlook from moment to moment, and it never really changes. While eventually you may see the other side of someone, I found myself asking myself why I should care about them or what they want when their motivations are only partially exposed to me. Even with the character I chose I found myself wondering why I should care about her goals when I never experienced what lead her to those in the first place. It's not all too surprising though, the game focuses much more on the main story than the particulars of these characters, considering they are optional and all, which leads to them not having much special to do in the story. However, the game does some work to wrap their stories into the main story which makes things a tad more interesting, but also confusing at other times when you find yourself asking "why is this person adventuring with me when he clearly is more invested in this other thing?"
On the other hand, the story quests and the side quests are very intriguing for the most part, leading you through them on the very strong pull of trying to figure out more about the world, as mentioned before. The motivations of the multiple organizations, races, forces, leads you to investigate every nook and cranny of the map, trying to piece together what it all has to do with each other. The world is incredibly interesting and even the smallest quests succeed thanks to that factor alone. They also provide many, many different ways to handle situations through story based choices to gameplay decisions. Do you knock on the door? Do you teleport to the back of the house and sneak in? Do you try to trick someone else into entering? Very few quests limit you to one option.
In reading about this game, you will see a lot of people mention how weak the third and fourth acts are. These people are right, but the game is still very much worth playing through those acts, provided you leveled up enough to beat them. Since release the game has been patched to add more content to these areas, but having just played it, it's not enough still outside of the main story quests, which still feel great in those areas.
Now you may have seen above that I said this game is stupid difficult. Now what does that mean?
Level progression in D:OS2 is a poorly made/explained nightmare. The main issue is there is no way to increase your level past what the game presents you with, or in other words there is no way to grind out levels. Now normally you might think this isn't an issue, you could go back and do this or that to increase your level as needed. Unfortunately, the game is presented in a four "act" structure, and once you leave one act for the next you can't go back and get that missed XP. This leads to the situation where I was in, one level below the "minimum" of act 4. As I made my way through the act I hit a point where the only remaining enemies were level 20 and I was level 18. In some RPGs this might not be an issue, but in this game the gap between equipment/player levels is percentage based, meaning a level 18 shield might have 500 HP, while a level 20 one has 1000. I banged my head against a combat encounter for three hours, taking different approaches and pre-buffing and doing a lot of cheesing of the combat system, only to get effectively wiped after four rounds or so of combat. Short of completely respec-ing all of my party for this one encounter, there was no way forward, no way to get the levels which would unlock the new armor in shops and increase my stats. I ended up having to download a program that allowed me to edit what was essentially an ini file (with ten times the hassle) to hit higher levels at which point I could make progress again. It should also be mentioned as an extra layer of difficulty you can only revive other characters using a revival scroll which you have to find or purchase, there are no spells that do this.
Another minor gripe is you are sort of forced into a progression through each act via level gating. There is no scaling, but you'll never run into anyone lower level, just higher. Each act has just a bit more than enough at each level to let you hit the level of the next area. You can't explore freely and just run into high level areas, which makes sense, but since there are, lets say, 5-6 levels within an act, the map is only big enough to provide 3-4 quests at each level, leading to you running around trying to find what content is suited to the level you are at to access the stuff you've encountered that's higher level rather than just doing it in the order you'd like. I understand a bit of level gating around certain things that give high rewards or are meant to be experienced after this or that, but there is so much level gating that it ruins a bit of the immersion. Perhaps if you're one of those nutballs that can beat this game on the highest difficult and has a lot of CRPG experience you know how to beat stuff multiple levels above you, but I don't, at least not without learning my way around all the combat exploits (of which there are many, the main one being leaving combat or tricking enemies into leaving their combat area to fight other NPCs, which I don't feel is the intent of the developers).
All in all this is an incredibly well made RPG that has so much to offer in terms of story and combat encounters. The fact I was willing to find and spend hours on an obscure way to edit my character levels to play more of the game says a lot to me. I'm not even touching on the multiplayer or creation elements since I didn't really delve into them, but the framework is all there for some incredible stuff and I haven't seen anything showing me otherwise. This is the Witcher 3 of CRPGs. I give it...
NINE FIRE SLUGS out of FOUR HUNDRED BONE SPIDERS
Tyranny - Obsidian Games (2016)
Just played through three CRPGS. Here are my thoughts on them.
Yep that's what I look like
Foreward:
What is a CRPG? For those of you wondering, it is, by my definition, an isometric perspective RPG featuring strong focus on story elements, with real time or turn based combat, where skills have cool downs. They are very stat/class/race focused, with dozens of abilities for each classed. You could argue the main difference between a CRPG and a JRPG is CRPGs focus much more on customization and freedom of choice in the story (like the ability to attack/kill most any character), where JRPGs focus more on presentation and simplicity.
Divinity: Original Sin II Definitive Edition - Larian Studios (2017)
Summary
- Visuals: Damn good looking!
- Difficulty: Stupid (in a not fun way)
- Story: Pretty dope
- Combat: Incredible
- Music: Albert Ayler
- Put It Down Factor: Can't do it
- Fire: There is a lot of it
The aforementioned fire
Of all the CRPGs I have played, D:OS2 is easily the best. I could go through every basic feature of a game, or a CRPG for that matter, and this game does it better than the others I have played. Every quest is interesting, every fight makes you think, and it gives you options you'd never even consider wanting. Not only that but it features... features that I've not seen anywhere else, most importantly the creation tools and multiplayer. If there's any take away from this, it is to play this game.
To quickly summarize the story, you are a person who can control source, a type of super magic that has the negative side effect of drawing in evil monsters from another dimension. Because of this, the "government" as it were suppresses you and others like you. You begin the game unable to channel this power, gradually learning more and using it more. Now what is the goal? In my mind, it's to learn about the world, and about the very subjective truth. That is what makes this story so interesting. Should you be suppressed? Are you and your kind causing these monsters to kill innocent people, is there a way to "fix" it, is anything that you've been told true? Having finished the game I'm still not really sure what the best option is, and that's what I love about this story. Maybe I was wrong about everything objectively, but in my mind I did what I thought was best. The game really never gives hard answers, never says "this is right and this is wrong," (like having a system along the lines of lets say a renegade/paragon system from Mass Effect, or an alignment chart) and that's what makes it work so well.
There is character creation in this game, but it is sort of put on the wayside in favor of "origin" characters, which have their story integrated into the game. These characters get unique quests, dialogue options, and naturally have their own unique background/story/motives on top of what any fresh character would have. You might think this comes at a trade off to customization, but outside of their race and gender, you can fairly easily change them up to fit your play style. It should also be noted that while they have a certain disposition already, you can still choose not to use their unique dialog options and you get options within their quests that let you play them more to your liking as opposed to how the creators intended. Regardless, as you might expect, all the races have very unique attributes, from the elves who can eat body parts to see people's memories, to the undead who have to cover their faces in public as not to freak everyone the fuck out (in exchange for other positives). On the other hand, there are no classes. At the outset there are preset builds that push you in one direction, everything is attribute based from abilities to spells (which you learn by reading books which you can find/purchase), so you need only put enough points in one attribute to get access to this or that bonus.
Me & the squad waiting for the Supreme pop-up shop to open
I should also mention, the game is beautiful. It still holds up easily for 2014, on par with any Unreal 4 engine game. There's not much more else to say about it. See it for yourself.
The combat in this game is turn based, which is somewhat unique to modern CRPGs, which prefer real time cooldown based combat where you can pause to make choices. Frankly, the turn based combat in this game works so well it shines strongly in comparison to the other CRPGs as well as JRPGs I've played. In contrast to most CRPG with real time combat, the turn based combat of D:OS2 allows you to know exactly how far a character will be able to travel in a set amount of time (their turn), set up combos using the turn order, place spells without worrying about characters moving during casting, and all in all gives you more options in combat. There's a lot to go through on the front of combat, so lets start another paragraph.
The main unique feature of D:OS2's combat is environmental effects. If there is water on the ground or it is raining and someone uses a lightning spell, the people in the water may get shocked. If someone uses a frost spell on the same ground those people may be frozen. If the water gets heated it will turn to steam which can't be seen in to or out of. That's just one interaction. From oil to acid to blood to ice, what you are walking on can really fuck you up or enable you to do things you couldn't before. Another aspect of this is lines of sight and elevation. Unlike in some CRPGs, you can't attack or cast spells at something you can't see. Being on the low ground can mean your enemies can see you while you can't see them, while being on the high ground gives a damage and range advantage. In other words, positioning actually matters, which leads to abilities like teleportation (drop your enemy in a bunch of lava, or a sniper in front of your tank) or blink-movement (move without enemies being able to take attacks of opportunity against you) making massive differences in combat. The other unique aspect is physical and magic armor, which are tracked separately. Damage is dealt as either magical or physical, chunking away at that type of armor until the raw HP is exposed. This also factors into status afflictions, some of which are only taken on when magical armor is depleted, others when physical is depleted. Some classes focus on physical armor, while others focus on magical. This leads to interesting interactions in combat, where your sword wielding characters will want to focus on those with low physical, and magic users on those with low magical armor. On the other hand, you could focus all your damage as one type as a party, focusing on the enemies with low armor of said type first, leaving those with high armor for last, and so on.
It looks like a butthole
As far as the writing is concerned, most all of it is well written except for the Origin characters. Many of them feel quite bland and one dimensional in spite of everything around them. They have their one goal and outlook from moment to moment, and it never really changes. While eventually you may see the other side of someone, I found myself asking myself why I should care about them or what they want when their motivations are only partially exposed to me. Even with the character I chose I found myself wondering why I should care about her goals when I never experienced what lead her to those in the first place. It's not all too surprising though, the game focuses much more on the main story than the particulars of these characters, considering they are optional and all, which leads to them not having much special to do in the story. However, the game does some work to wrap their stories into the main story which makes things a tad more interesting, but also confusing at other times when you find yourself asking "why is this person adventuring with me when he clearly is more invested in this other thing?"
On the other hand, the story quests and the side quests are very intriguing for the most part, leading you through them on the very strong pull of trying to figure out more about the world, as mentioned before. The motivations of the multiple organizations, races, forces, leads you to investigate every nook and cranny of the map, trying to piece together what it all has to do with each other. The world is incredibly interesting and even the smallest quests succeed thanks to that factor alone. They also provide many, many different ways to handle situations through story based choices to gameplay decisions. Do you knock on the door? Do you teleport to the back of the house and sneak in? Do you try to trick someone else into entering? Very few quests limit you to one option.
In reading about this game, you will see a lot of people mention how weak the third and fourth acts are. These people are right, but the game is still very much worth playing through those acts, provided you leveled up enough to beat them. Since release the game has been patched to add more content to these areas, but having just played it, it's not enough still outside of the main story quests, which still feel great in those areas.
Now you may have seen above that I said this game is stupid difficult. Now what does that mean?
Me realizing I forgot to do 4 quests in the previous act of the game
Level progression in D:OS2 is a poorly made/explained nightmare. The main issue is there is no way to increase your level past what the game presents you with, or in other words there is no way to grind out levels. Now normally you might think this isn't an issue, you could go back and do this or that to increase your level as needed. Unfortunately, the game is presented in a four "act" structure, and once you leave one act for the next you can't go back and get that missed XP. This leads to the situation where I was in, one level below the "minimum" of act 4. As I made my way through the act I hit a point where the only remaining enemies were level 20 and I was level 18. In some RPGs this might not be an issue, but in this game the gap between equipment/player levels is percentage based, meaning a level 18 shield might have 500 HP, while a level 20 one has 1000. I banged my head against a combat encounter for three hours, taking different approaches and pre-buffing and doing a lot of cheesing of the combat system, only to get effectively wiped after four rounds or so of combat. Short of completely respec-ing all of my party for this one encounter, there was no way forward, no way to get the levels which would unlock the new armor in shops and increase my stats. I ended up having to download a program that allowed me to edit what was essentially an ini file (with ten times the hassle) to hit higher levels at which point I could make progress again. It should also be mentioned as an extra layer of difficulty you can only revive other characters using a revival scroll which you have to find or purchase, there are no spells that do this.
Another minor gripe is you are sort of forced into a progression through each act via level gating. There is no scaling, but you'll never run into anyone lower level, just higher. Each act has just a bit more than enough at each level to let you hit the level of the next area. You can't explore freely and just run into high level areas, which makes sense, but since there are, lets say, 5-6 levels within an act, the map is only big enough to provide 3-4 quests at each level, leading to you running around trying to find what content is suited to the level you are at to access the stuff you've encountered that's higher level rather than just doing it in the order you'd like. I understand a bit of level gating around certain things that give high rewards or are meant to be experienced after this or that, but there is so much level gating that it ruins a bit of the immersion. Perhaps if you're one of those nutballs that can beat this game on the highest difficult and has a lot of CRPG experience you know how to beat stuff multiple levels above you, but I don't, at least not without learning my way around all the combat exploits (of which there are many, the main one being leaving combat or tricking enemies into leaving their combat area to fight other NPCs, which I don't feel is the intent of the developers).
All in all this is an incredibly well made RPG that has so much to offer in terms of story and combat encounters. The fact I was willing to find and spend hours on an obscure way to edit my character levels to play more of the game says a lot to me. I'm not even touching on the multiplayer or creation elements since I didn't really delve into them, but the framework is all there for some incredible stuff and I haven't seen anything showing me otherwise. This is the Witcher 3 of CRPGs. I give it...
NINE FIRE SLUGS out of FOUR HUNDRED BONE SPIDERS
Tyranny - Obsidian Games (2016)
Summary
- Visuals: PS2 game
- Difficulty: Weird
- Story: Unique like me
- Combat: Whatever
- Music: Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers
- Put It Down Factor: Well, I finished it
- Ending: Uh... okay dude.
Wait a sec... I want a soda too.
This game is ugly as all hell and relies mostly on it's premise and execution of it.
You're a member of a tyrannical leader's army as he conquests the last remaining territory of the continent. Your role is something like a judge, jury, and sometimes executioner within his army, and you're tasked with aiding this conquest in a few different ways, all of which are pretty brutal. Being on the side of the empire instead of the rebellion for once is a pretty incredible thing, and it gives you a new perspective on what that can mean. Will you be a cog and help the empire become one, or risk life and death to become the change you want to see? It all works quite well.
The game starts with something that I think was called conquest or whatever. Basically you make broad and legitimately impactful decisions as to what you did leading up to the actual events of the game, while character creation gives you a good handful of options that determine how you were brought into the fold. All of these options give you unique dialogue choices and determine how the factions of the game view you from the outset. The impact of these decisions lessen as the game progresses and you make choices within the game itself, but it's a great introduction into the feeling of being a part of a massive machine that destroys everything in its path. When you actually get into the game you are tasked with making big choice after big choice. In side quests you can often just walk away and lead people to deal with things on their own, but eventually push comes to shove and you will have to deal with the consequences of your actions, which can be very very severe.
Unfortunately, the game feels like it ends with a dull fart. Not a big nice stinky one, just a dull one. Perhaps it was because I was used to the length of Divinity, but when I finished this game I was just confused. How is that it? Where is the rest of the game? I don't even think it's a spoiler to say you never meet the titular TYRANT! What are we doing here people? If this wasn't a full price game maybe I'd understand it a bit more, but there's nothing about that out there. If I had played without the new DLC area I'd be even more furious. This isn't to say the game is terribly short, but there are hints there is going to be a lot more, particularly one feature you unlock at the very end of the game... which you only get maybe one chance to use! Not only that, but it doesn't feel like it leaves much room for a sequel at the end, hinting at what you went on to do, but providing no real closure. It was a big let down to me, and I felt like all my choices were really for nothing. My people never banded together with or against me, it just ended.
For some reason I never got to go here in my playthrough lol
The characters you meet along the way in this game are the most interesting between these three games. Depending on what faction you side with you get a character, and there are a few others you can choose to or not to add to your party for I think six in total by the game's end. Each character has two story based "stats", fear and loyalty. I don't think it is particularly well explained in the game how these work, but essentially it determines what the characters are willing to talk about with you, how they think of you, and it works quite well. Because of your role, and the other characters roles in the world, which vary from bloodthirsty to basically someone that is conscripted by you, the sorts of interactions you have with party members are unlike anything you'd see in a normal RPG and can lead to really cool interactions, particularly when they chime in on your choices. For example, being an asshole for a large amount of the game, try not to step out of line and get killed, I drew the ire of one of my party members are being very inhuman, which to be fair I was. To my own surprise, I got upset with her trying to tell me to be a good person when I was "just trying to do my job," while siding with my blood hungry and rash party member, which I would never do in any other RPG.
Like party members, the non-party characters in the game can be just as interesting, also have their own two stats (as do factions, which effect groups of minor characters that don't have their own stats), wrath and favor. Of particular interest are the leaders of the two main factions. These leaders are really scummy assholes that are completely full of themselves, and you have to work with them! Trying to navigate between truth and fiction, as well as how much you want them to trust you is some of more interesting stuff in the game. Should you fuel their fire or keep your hands out as much as possible risking them thinking you can't be trusted? Unfortunately there are some aspects of the story that are poorly explained. For example I brought a particular party member along when I talked to a certain person which lead to them not liking me and from that a lot of long term consequences when I had no idea the two had anything to do with each other in the first place. I guess you can just chalk that up to "chance" on my part but when that sort of thing happens multiple times it can be frustrating, not know what will set something off.
Yep that looks like shit
In terms of gameplay this is the most middling of the bunch. As far as your character goes, you get a good deal of options, while your party members are mostly locked into their ways, having two or three skill trees while you have six or seven. Honestly the combat isn't very fun, and is confusing at best. The way I figured out you could deal with most everything is just stocking up a bunch of large health potions and hoping for the best (only one character has any healing spells and they aren't that great). Using abilities can be confusing as to if they are working or not, weapon effectiveness against this or that type of armor is weird (get used to at least one character yelling "this weapon doesn't work" over and over), and the spells feel really weak. Also, hit points of enemies are represented not as specific numbers, but four to five orbs over their head and a status like "barely injured." This is somewhat DnD like, when there are numbers popping off of them already when they are hit just feels weird and obtuse. That just one specific example I remember that I'm bringing up because honestly I don't remember all that much about the combat.
Visually this game is a step back for Obsidian from POE2... somehow. It looks like they were sort of going for an interesting painting-like art style but it just looks so god damn ugly. Honestly you could probably run this thing on an iphone 4 with how outdated the graphics are. Not only that, but most of the environments are bland as all get out. Most everywhere is a desert or rocky, and the dungeons all look the same save for one underground town (that I think is DLC) which is situated under a waterfall or something. I can't explain it, it's just ugly.
My Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 Custom Character
In summary, this game is worth playing for the story, but I got absolutely nothing out of the combat, so I say give that a shot but if its not interest just crank the difficulty down to the lowest and power through. The experience of playing on what would traditionally be the "wrong" side of history is fascinating, even if it leads to very little in the end. It's worth the ride. I give it...
HAMBUBGER SANDWICH out of HAMBURGIES AND HOTDURGIES
Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Owlcat Games (2018)
Summary
- Visuals: PS3 game
- Difficulty: Completely broken
- Story: Has potential?
- Combat: God damn stupid
- Music: The Swankys
- Put It Down Factor: [Old Yeller has contracted hydrophobia and must be put down; Katie brings out the gun]
- Ending: No one will ever know
(Angrily smashing beer on the table) YOU ALL FAIL THE DEXTERITY CHECK
Your dungeon master is a total asshole. You just started and after about ten hours of playing you've run into a monster with 20 AC when the best weapon your party has is a +3 shortbow, while the monster has poison and seems to have a +10 to hit. Eventually you land a hit but after damage reduction you are doing literally 0 damage. Your tank could probably do enough damage to put a dent in but has to roll a Nat 20 to hit it. It never happens. Your party is wiped. Should've done some easier quests first, idiot. Wait, why did the DM present you with a quest you had no way of beating? Oh, it's because he's an asshole. You return to the tavern to fulfill another quest but for some reason the quest giver won't acknowledge having given you the quest in the first place and there is no one else you can talk to about it. Unfortunately the DM has decided if you don't finish this quest the campaign is over. You spend a month looking for another way to finish the quest. You don't finish the quest, the game ends.
Pathfinder: Kingmaker is based on the very real tabletop RPG Pathfinder, which itself is based off of the 3.5 ruleset of D&D, and beyond that the Kingmaker Module of Pathfinder. This leads to google searches about the game being very confusing to useless. The game is very, very loyal to the mechanics of Pathfinder (I'm less aware of the elements of the Kingmaker module so I can't comment on that) as well as the lore of the world and so on. This leads to some clever, fun interactions, but mostly tedium and frustration. It is incredibly systems heavy, so there's a lot of ground to cover. May I elaborate?
My party getting ready to crown me "KING"
In the introduction to the game you are tasked with conquering a region called the "Stolen Lands" on the behest of some rich guys. There are some intricate politics going into this, all of which are too confusing to get into which never had any gameplay implications for me because I was unable to get past the second act of the game. You trudge out there with a few other people and eventually set up shop by taking out some bandits. Boom, you have a kingdom, you rule the lands, so what are you gonna do, bro?
As a baron (no, you're not a king. Don't ask me why), you appoint advisers from your party plus a select few others to deal with things that come up in your kingdom (or barondom?). Beyond that you have a city, and eventually cities to manage, building structures and such to create an economy and happy people and all that. Finally, you go out and see things for yourself. There are miscreants to take care of, party members who have things they need help with, threats against your kingdom, and so on.
Frankly, I like the other characters, I like the nature of the story, I like the world, I like the way the story is told, and I want to spend more time with it. It's a pity that I can't since the game is broken and I can't make progress. That's all I have to say on the matter of story.
As mentioned before, the game is incredibly, incredibly systems heavy. Unfortunately the "encyclopedia" of the game is barren of mechanic information. There is a tutorial for the game, yes. Unfortunately, none of that information is stored anywhere. As soon as you close the window, that information is gone. Some monsters are immune to this or that. Do you see that information in the bestiary? No, it's all flavor text. Is there a way to see the stats of enemy monsters that I'm fighting? Not that I saw (yes it's a game based on RNG where you don't even see your own rolls outside of damage after reduction). Wizards have spell slots, meaning you're going to take a lot of naps if you want to be at full power (and why not?). Every time you level up you have about 50 different perks to chose from that provide minor buffs and sometimes sub-perks of said perks. Why does one character get +2 attribute points per level while another gets 7? I have no clue, you can't change their class anyway so too bad (you can buy new ones for thousands of gold later on).
Nope, never saw this guy
On the subject of quality of life, you party is the slowest group of idiots that have ever walked the earth. In Tyranny and D:OS2 and even POE2 there is a button that lets you speed up the world, letting you run fast from point A to point B across a massive map, or letting combat play out faster. Not here, no you'll be waiting a full minute to cross some larger maps. Hope you find what you're looking for because the only exit is another minute in the other direction. Keep in mind there is an encumbrance feature that can make you walk even SLOWER than this glacial default speed (good luck if it rains by the way). Traveling the world itself is equally slow because you have to rest after every day of travel, which can mean barely moving in forested sections, which just leads to uninteresting random encounters which just leads to the timer going down even further which leads to less time to do side quests.
One last complaint is sometimes dialog will appear outside of the dialog box... and you can't skip it after you're finished reading. Five minutes on what took a minute to actually read. Oh, okay, another. You need to make new settlements in the areas you conquer. How do you do this? No, there's not some button, no the game doesn't tell you how, you have to figure out you can click on these weird little sign posts in the region. Why I spent so long trying to figure out something you'd think is so crucial to the game is beyond me. Just point a god damn arrow at it or something. Also there are numerous spots in the game with "null" or some such in value fields.
The difficulty of the game is a massive issue that is being patched as we speak, but I already played the game, I'm not doing it again. The main issue is one of AC (the stat which determines if an enemy attack hits or not), which enemies early on have way too high and the unexplained mechanics mentioned above (who keeps getting stealth attacks on my guy for +10 dmg?). Now unlike in Tyranny and D:OS2 you can grind out encounters in the world by just wagoning around. Unfortunately, the major quests of the game are on a literal timer. If you just can't beat that encounter because your level is too low, you mismanaged time somehow, you're going to have to hope you have an old save far enough back you can fix those mistakes, and good luck with that because this game features limited save slots at all difficulty settings.
He really said that
The game gets some minor credit for including a fair deal of difficulty options, but I was playing on normal and would have to churn things down to "story" to get through some sections, after which point I could move on at normal difficulty. When you are on a timer, grinding out things or searching for lower level content is not a real option.
Sometimes when the difficulty is just right you get a great encounter. You drink ten dozen potions before the fight, running in buffed as hell and barely skate by killing the enemy on the last hit. Unfortunately, unless you already understand the mechanics of the game likely from playing Pathfinder itself, knowing what is weak to what, or just having a lot of time to experiment on random encounters, you'll find yourself hitting wall after wall after wall. There are many minor issues with the combat mechanics themselves which would be solved if the game was turn based and not real time (people moving during touch-distance casting, "initiative" is imprecise), similar to Tyranny but worse since Pathfinder is much more punishing moment to moment.
If this was tabletop, you wouldn't have the ability to reload a save over and over, yet that is what you rely on here, hoping for good RNG and finding out what you can do with the tools you have. Many this wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the egregious load times (almost 30 seconds to leave your castle into loading the main town) but it's not worth the wait. In fact I spent most of my time in this game playing a GREAT mobile game (You Must Build a Boat) during load times. Not only that but there are SO MANY load times. Kingdom management seems so fun in theory but even checking up on some little thing leads to another load.
Now to the bugs. I'll just list the ones I ran into:
- Can't complete a quest: I find the first part of the quest, now I have to go talk to someone. They have no new dialog option and I can't find the other person involved in the quest. The quest giver gets mad at me for not talking to the person in question after a few days.
- UI broken: The hotbar on the bottom of the screen stays up in menus and dialog, blocking dialog options.
- Can't complete a main story quest: I'm tasked with finding a village. I fail the RNG based event that makes you find it, the other way to find it (that I know of) is an RNG encounter that never occurs. My kingdom is destroyed.
- Can't leave an area: My class is ranger so I have a dumb ass bear following me around. Unfortunately the bear blocks me and gets stuck.
- Can't finish quest: Character for quest doesn't show up in designated area.
A Pathfinder: Kingsmaker QA tester
Finally, this game expects you to remember everything it tells you or guess the right answer, which doesn't just mean the tutorial and tip screen messages (why is that how I am learning what swarms are weak to?). The numbers of quests I got that expected me to remember where I was supposed to go for them after taking them on hours earlier is absurd. I ended up just checking every place I hadn't visited hoping what I would want is there. Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't. If you're paying enough attention you'll notice a new thing has appeared on the map that wasn't there before, but sometimes the new place won't be added to the map you'll just have to find it. Sometimes the game won't tell you that a place on the map is at all related to a quest, you just have to guess. Again, instead of telling you what does what, you just get flavor text. I show up in the right area, pop open the map hoping it'll tell me where the person is that said they will be there. Nope. I have to spend four minutes scouring the map to find them.
If you have the time to bang your head against something over and over (and have good luck with bugs and loading times) there is definitely something here for you. For me, it was not in the cards, at all. Come back to it in a year perhaps? Or don't. I know I won't. I give it...
BIG POOPIE out of MOM?
Someone is getting their friggin' A*s kicked
I felt simalarly about dos 2... And it got me all pumped about crpgs, so I bought both the pillars of eternity games, tyranny, and Pathfinder. I'll save Pathfinder for last hopefully it will be decent by then. One thing to note from your review is you implied that tyranny is newer then poe2, but it is actually an older game.. probably why it looks so bad.
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