Pathfinder kingmaker reviews: Pathfinder: Kingmaker Reviews — OpenCritic

Pathfinder: Kingmaker — Definitive Edition Trailers

Pathfinder: Kingmaker — Definitive Edition — Console Launch Trailer

Pathfinder: Kingmaker — Definitive Edition — Console Launch Trailer [NA]

View All Trailers

Pathfinder: Kingmaker — Definitive Edition Screenshots

View All Screenshots

Critic Reviews for Pathfinder: Kingmaker — Definitive Edition

TheSixthAxis

Gareth Chadwick

7 / 10

Pathfinder: Kingmaker is a phenomenal game with hundreds of hours of deep CRPG and kingdom management gameplay, but at the time of review it’s hampered by bugs that impact how you can enjoy the game, and with reports of progression halting issues and save file corruption. Our advice would be to wait for the bugs to be patched, but ready yourself for a serious commitment to this vast CRPG.

Read full review

God is a Geek

Mick Fraser

7 / 10.0

The PC version, ironically, remains the true definitive edition, but console owners hankering after a new RPG to lose a few hundred hours in could do worse than Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

Read full review

Windows Central

Samantha Nelson

The controls are smoother on the PC, but the new version offers everything you could want from a Pathfinder video game.

Read full review

GameMAG

Azamat Tegaev

5 / 10

If you were looking forward to dive deep into Pathfinder: Kingmaker — Definitive Edition on consoles, you probably should change your plans. At least for the time being, while the devs are trying to fix their game. Meanwhile, if you still crave that classic role-playing experience, just get yourself Pillars of Eternity or Divinity: Original Sin.

Review in Russian | Read full review

The Games Machine

Gabriele Barducci

7.8 / 10.0

Pathfinder Kingmaker is an incredible game full of content, capable of entertaining for a countless number of hours, especially considering the Definitive Edition includes all expansions. The porting, unfortunately, suffers from very poor optimization, and managing combat on a pad might prove a bit of a hurdle.

Review in Italian | Read full review

COGconnected

Doug Mercer

80 / 100

Controls and obnoxious voice acting aside, Pathfinder delivers exactly what it promises and does so very well.

Read full review

PlayStation Universe

Garri Bagdasarov

6. 5 / 10.0

Satisfying and frustrating at the same time, Pathfinder Kingmaker does everything right when it comes to its character creator, story, and combat. However, it falters in its Kingdom management and the constant game crashes that start to feel more like a gameplay feature than an actual issue.

Read full review

Checkpoint Gaming

Tom Quirk

9 / 10

Pathfinder: Kingmaker Definitive Edition, as a console port, works impressively well. Despite some cumbersome menus, it makes the transition from mouse and keyboard to controller without losing its complexity. Combined with the substantial amount of added content, Pathfinder: Kingmaker Definitive Edition is quite an easy recommend for any fan of Baldur’s Gate, Pillars of Eternity or similar RPGs. It won’t hold your hand, even on Easy, but if you’re looking for an adventure to become immersed in, Pathfinder: Kingmaker Definitive Edition could be the game you’ve been looking for.

Read full review

View All Critic Reviews (26)

90,000 Kingmaker 40 patches later / Computer and mobile games / iXBT Live

90,002 In a way, Pathfinder: Kingmaker is an underrated game, 73-75% is an absurdly low rating for it. It has amazing characters, plot, design, music, atmosphere, a battle system that is bottomless in depth. But there is a bold BUT — the Russian studio Owlcat Games did everything to make the game start badly.

Let’s talk about how to start playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker on penultimate or even ultimate difficulty. This is not an objective guide, but my personal experience of overcoming.

Patch Finder

This started a couple of years ago. Out of the corner of my ear, I heard one reviewer complain about a game where he was forced to lower the difficulty from medium to easy, because some woodland bum with a penknife humiliates his character — the most powerful and tenacious barbarian.

On easy difficulty, he has already managed to complete the prologue and survive to the first night. But behind the easy and normal difficulty are complicated, difficult and dishonest … Who are they for ?! I bought the game and tried it. Convinced. I felt humiliated, as if I was again playing against Korean progamers in one strategy. And decided to leave it until better times.

Pathfinder was called «Patch finder» for the first time, they say, the goal of the game is to wait for patches, without which it is impossible to play. Secondly, the turn-based mode, which was added only recently, suits the game very well. It was he who convinced me to return to the game, and I did not regret it. The third cant, which cannot be changed with patches — the game does not give time to master, it is too difficult from the very beginning, there are no discounts for newcomers to the genre.

Download simulator

Isometric games of this century like Divinity Original Sin 1-2, Tyranny or Pillars of Eternity 1-2 don’t prepare for Pathfinder at all. Here are some features of the unfair difficulty in this game:

1. There are no tanks (but this only applies to you, the enemies of almost every monster can be added to World of Tanks for a donation).
2. If it comes to hand-to-hand combat, load up.
3. Yes, it is better to install the game on an SSD or M2 drive. Until you gain experience, you will have to boot often (and then — not infrequently).
4. There are no melee DPS nicknames either (or rather, they are, but useless — see point 2)
5. Healing in combat? No, have not heard.
6. There is simply nowhere to grind the levels, so you won’t level up your enemies.
7. Some enemies don’t mind reducing your numbers other than hit points — stat points or whole levels with each hit.
8. You can lose because of bad decisions at the table in the throne room, and downloads will not help.
9. There are still ways to bend over!

I would like to dwell separately on the point about healing in battle — according to my observations, battles are won either without damage, or not at all with my tactics of remote magic / shooting combat, which I adhered to.

However, I made one concession to myself — when you set a dishonest level, the ability to retrain characters disappears, and I still included this little fad. After all, this is simply necessary during the first passage. So you pumped the mace handling skill, and suddenly found an ax that is much better. What should I do, start the game over? No, you go to a tavern and retrain.

In general, I would not recommend setting dishonest difficulty right away. I personally turned it on after I got level 3 of the hero.

Here are the spells I’ve found most useful for keeping enemies away:

Miss Simulator

What does combat look like in any D&D RPG when the heroes aren’t leveled yet? The dummies stand opposite each other and occasionally swing so as not to hit anyone. This was most expressive in the game Neverwinter Nights: all attention is focused on one character, and the pauses between attempts to hit seemed endless.

Why is it so hard to hit? The D&D system is a twenty-figure dice roll (also called a die). If the enemy has 30 armor and you have +10 accuracy, you only hit every 20th time (when the invisible die rolls a 20). But if you have +11, then every tenth (because you will be satisfied with a roll of 19and 20, that is, two numbers out of 20). This is how the pathetic surplus unit to accuracy doubled the number of hits! But this is still not enough. For a stable hit, it is desirable that your accuracy lags behind the enemy’s armor by no more than 10 units. The game ceases to be a miss simulator if you take care that the level of accuracy is adequate to the armor of the enemies.

There are plenty of accuracy buffs in the bins of priests and mages, but applying a bunch of buffs with one type of bonus is not an option, only one of them will work. The types of bonuses must be different.

Enemies often get a stealth buff to make it even harder to hit. If you see the line «miss: disguise» pop up above the enemy, then cast the spell «True Sight» on yourself.

Separately, I would like to note the magic of the School of Destruction. It is not armor that protects against it, but saving throws (saving throw against magic). Even when the saving throw is triggered, it doesn’t completely remove the damage, and the enemy still takes a good hit. But there are quite a lot of enemies in the game with this or that immunity, so situations are not uncommon when a mage is useful only with buffs.

Characters and what to do with them

One of the strengths of the game is the brightest, albeit slightly comical, characters. I will especially highlight the barbarian Amiri, the dwarf Harim, the inquisitor Jeytal, the bard Lindzi, the half-mage-half-thief half-elf Octavia.

Playing without them is like not playing, the atmosphere of adventure immediately disappears. But, alas, they were not created by the same game designers who created monsters and trials. Therefore, it was necessary to do feints with the ears so that the characters became strong members of the squad, and there was no temptation to create plotless mercenaries in a tavern.

Lindsay

Your personal biographer. Playing without it is not canonical at all. Another question is what to do with it in battle? I did not see much use from the bard, his song is not a bad thing, but nothing more. Having freaked out when she missed many times in a row, and, having hit, inflicted a couple of points of damage, I took her to a tavern, reset her to level 2 (up to the first, alas, it is impossible) and made her an inquisitor-archer. The combination of «killer’s weapon», «divine power» and «sentence — justice» made her human.

«Assassin’s Weapon» appears on the class level 5 Inquisitor. This skill adds damage to weapons and helps to break through armor. This happiness is valid for a limited number of moves, so with this tactic you will often have to rest. But time is not a problem — the game only tries to intimidate with a lack of time, fastening the timer to the main quests, and it’s not at all difficult to be in time everywhere. This is one of the few aspects of the game where the developers have treated the players with kindness.

Lindsay does not have the initial Wisdom bonus to use spells, but her lack of Wisdom will be covered by a hat with the appropriate bonus.

Jatal

It’s easiest with her. She is undead. In general, this is your only successful plot companion. So much so that even the main character cannot be compared with it, no matter how you create it. Don’t believe? On Unfair difficulty, you will see that death on the battlefield becomes a real problem. Only Jaethal, when HP drops below zero, will lie quietly and just get up if your hero survives after the battle. Curses to reduce characteristics or levels, various poisons and damage do not stick to it.

As for dying, it’s rather disappointing that if your hero’s icon turns black and white (that is, he died), then they immediately offer to boot, without giving even a couple of seconds to resurrect him with the help of scrolls, like any other characters.

The most logical way to make an Inquisitor is an archer — to make as many hits as possible with the “assassin weapon” per round, since the bow has invaluable skills “quick shot” and “volley”. But it is better to leave Jatal to hand-to-hand combat contrary to the rules, she can safely close the loopholes — and water is like water off a duck’s back. If only everyone were undead…

Harrim

The ideal priest. But so-so helper. See point 5 — any treatment directly in battle does not compensate for damage if they ran to you. And between battles, the inquisitor can heal. Alternatively, you can make Harrim a mystical theurge. Upgrading the Radiant Sorcerer class (which draws inspiration from Wisdom) to level 4, Priest to level 3, and the Mystic Theurge class is unlocked. As a result, Harrim became a donor of the most useful spells of both classes: supreme invisibility, true sight, heroism, acceleration, restoration, protection from arrows, protection from the elements. Well, he can launch chain lightning at enemies as it should. But not like the next hero.

Octavia

Girl of uncertain qualification. At first I thought — what kind of nonsense is this, what were the game designers thinking? Giving us a mage hero that has a thief level? That is, it is malaise and incompetence? But no, Octavia is up to the task of becoming a mystical trickster. This is my favorite class in the game in general. At 14th level, such a character will be able to hit with a rogue sneak attack in areas. no comment.

But, of course, Octavia is not without flaws — why does she specialize in transmutation? I still don’t know what to do with this school. In the highlighted green slot on each page of the spellbook, I inserted the haste using the «upgraded spell» metamagic.

Amiri

Another problem child, but one of my favorites. She fiddles with her family sword on her back, which she will never pick up in her hands, because it is impossible for them to hit someone on dishonest difficulty. With the seeming strength and endurance of a barbarian, it is important to remember about points 1 and 4 and not to get into the thick of the battle. But it is not necessary to put Amiri on the bench, with experience comes an understanding of when she can be sent forward without fear that she will have to dance with a tambourine for resurrection.

Instead of conclusion

The most important thing to know about Pathfinder: Kingmaker is that there is a way out of difficult situations. Here ghosts appear, frying with lightning and burning my entire squad in one move. I leaf through the book of spells and find protection from the elements. Somewhere archers like machine gunners shoot even my inquisitors? I am looking for protection from arrows in the magician’s book. The most pleasant thing in this game is when you find some monster next to which you don’t have time to say “mom”, after some time you return to it with a new understanding of the game mechanics and severely punish.

We don’t need this port! Review of Pathfinder: Kingmaker Definitive Edition

Disregard for porting to consoles and a ton of bugs ruin all the magic of Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

The project of the St. Petersburg studio Owlcat Games, which visited the current generation consoles on August 18, turned out to be disappointing. It’s not even about the game itself, the disregard for porting and a ton of bugs ruin all the magic of Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

Art by: Anton Lavrushkin

After our flash preview for the PS4 version, an impressive 17 GB patch has been released. This is more than half the weight of the game itself, and it seemed that the developers had solved at least most of the problems. But the Russian «maybe» crept even into such a project …

This does not detract from the other advantages of Pathfinder: Kingmaker — still vividly written fantasy, with good variability and interesting kingdom management. The combat let us down, because, it seems, no one was engaged in the balance initially — everything was given to the power of the “D20 cube”.

A good book — a bad game

The story and texts of the project do not let you tear yourself away from the screen. The game has a well-written storyline and side missions. Tasks like “bring / kill / find 3 pieces of something” are extremely rare, and they have a plot background — no one sends the player just for no reason.

The main story chain from the prologue to the second act leads us to a single outcome — the hero becomes a baron of local lands, gets an impressive piece of territory into his possession and solves his problems. Each act is a new threat. Every decision counts, and every choice you make will have consequences. It’s hard to implement, but Owlcat did it.

Important events are presented in the form of a book written by one of your character’s companions, Lindsay. They serve as a test of skill, the whole party participates in them, and the further development of the plot and some game moments depends on success or failure. This is what attracts in Pathfinder: Kingmaker — the gameplay is tightly connected with the story.

For example, when helping an explorer pull a cart out of a turbulent river, I couldn’t pass the skill test. Constantly something was missing, some few points of «Knowledge of Nature». Moving a little further, I saw horses that could be tied to this very cart — and voila, it worked. The cart with all the goods ended up on the shore, and my hero found a new party member and treasurer for his kingdom.

Companions are written in the best traditions of old-school role-playing games, each with their own background, tasks and characters. A barbarian girl, a knight of the school of arts, the undead, a bard, priests of various gods — they all seem to be alive, they communicate with the main character, each needs its own approach. Over time, you become attached to them and perceive them as full-fledged characters in the main story.

Everything would be fine if not for the core of the gameplay — the combat system. Along with the release of the console version, the developers added a turn-based combat mode to the project, but real-time combat mode is also available to console players. Choice is always good, but you have to choose the lesser of two evils.

It is inconvenient to control the game during a battle with a pause. Constantly switching between all available party members is not an option — there is no quick change of characters, and opening a special menu where you can select the desired party member simply ruins all the dynamics. As a result, the whole battle comes down to convulsive switching from ally to ally and watching the menu. You can turn on artificial intelligence, which will manage the party itself, but it must first be configured in a separate menu.

Turn-based combat solves all the problems of the previous mode, but brings its own. Long battles where the hero can make a move and attack, or move a greater distance, sacrificing the ability to hit. And if the character misses, such a fight can drag on for an unacceptably long time.

Nobody worked on the balance at all. The ‘roll the dice’ system, straight out of 2000s RPGs, is so outdated it’s nothing more than gnashing of teeth. From anger. Combine this with prohibitively high difficulty, even on «normal» levels, and more often than not the player will be watching loading screens rather than following the story or battles.

However, this also creates interesting points that cannot be ignored. At the end of the first act, after killing the final boss of one of the locations with the help of a bear, which he kept in a cage, I began to explore the area. Almost without health, without spells, having run into opponents that outnumbered me, there was only one desire — to turn off the game. There was no save after the death of the final boss of the act. After a little thought, I ran to the same bear, who decided to join the fight with me, and began to treat him with health potions, sending him to “tank”.

The only problem is that in 20 hours of gameplay, this situation happened once — the rest of the time, «normal» difficulty caused nothing but irritation. As well as the local inventory of characters.

You must manually place the hot items in a special cell. The hero cannot use potions or spell scrolls directly from the common bag, and only one item can be placed in a cell. Let’s say the hero has 40 health potions in his bag, but he can only use one that is placed in quick access. Drank? Go to inventory and put another one. And so constantly. This mechanic probably refers to the desktop Pathfinder, but damn it — it’s just inconvenient.

Moving around the global map to complete tasks is also not intuitive. The task to visit the Crooked Marsh can put the player in a stupor — after all, all the names of the regions are made in English, although the locations have names in Russian. Strange decision.

Stay with us, Hero, be our king

What I would like to praise Owlcat Games for is the kingdom management mechanics. It’s a whole game within a game.

In the second act, the player is taught how to set up business in his own barony, and party members become not only comrades-in-arms, but also advisers on various matters. They must be sent on special missions that will help solve the problems of the kingdom. Assignments come across a wide variety, but the solution of «problems» must be prioritized than «opportunities» — separate types of tasks that give different bonuses to the kingdom.

But even here everything is ruined by the technical execution. Some tasks incorrectly display their completion dates. The kingdom may be engulfed in rebellion, simply because important «problems» that could have been postponed suddenly ended and gave a bunch of minuses to the country’s statistics. Literally in a day or two, the game will give a window «the kingdom has fallen, my lord!» and will ask you to load an earlier save slot. The player at this moment will only roll out his eyes in surprise, because just a minute ago everything was still under control.

Another mechanic in managing your territories is the capture of new lands, where after joining you need to monitor the infrastructure, build new buildings and help the local population. All this is done in the form of cards or a special menu with small houses that can be moved, but it is still interesting to play.

Such ports are not needed

Poor balance and long battles can be endured, some bugs in the kingdom are possible — after all, they hide an interesting plot and a great fantasy atmosphere that you want to dive headlong into. But what definitely cannot be tolerated is the number of bugs and the technical dampness of the port.

On PlayStation 4, the game just freezes in the fourth act and crashes, and traveling through locations is accompanied by stable crashes every 20-30 minutes. Everything would be fine, and one could write it off as problems during porting, but the same problem exists on the PC! Even on SSDs, downloads in the Pitax region last more than a minute, what to say about the console. The computer release took place 2 years ago, but the problem still exists there.

Another problem is the rollback of progress when loading the last save. The player starts in the same location where they left off, however, everything they have done before this «save» is simply discarded, like the current game. The main character is standing alone somewhere in the sky, and his whole party is running after the location map and maybe they will come to him. Saves only a rollback to an earlier save, and even then not always.