Pathfinder: Kingmaker

The Good
I have to start this review with a strong statement: I was completely addicted while playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker! Normally my gaming sessions are not longer than 90 minutes, but the first week of my holiday was almost completely filled with this game - 6 hours of uninterrupted playing were the norm and not the exception. This shows that Kingmaker pushes all my buttons. I am a huge fan of the Baldur's Gate series and the exploration reminded me a lot of the first: Mechanically it works a bit differently, but the player spends a lot of their time visiting locations which all have more or less interesting little side-stories to find. The map recycling was a bit too much for my taste, but overall exploring the overworld map was a treat.

More surprising was the good writing. The companions are all interesting and have character development while the plot offers varied challenges and always puts the player under stress. This is because there always is a ticking time limit, but when the player has understood the kingdom mechanics (more on that later), there is always more than enough time to do everything. I also loved how varied the outcome of quests and the story itself are; almost everything is connected to previous choices the player has made.

Of all the so-called old school RPGs of the last years, Kingmaker has the most appealing graphical and UI design. There are still a lot of parts to improve, but all in all the handling never got in the way. The combat system (real-time with pause) is very competently implemented and allows fast-paced combat which is a lot of fun after the characters gained their first few levels.

The Bad
My main gripe is the too literal adaptation of the Pathfinder roleplaying system. When starting a new character, it throws dozens over dozens of poorly explained possibilities towards the player. This may be no problem for a seasoned pen & paper player, but everyone else has to make very important decisions based on nothing. This is the case with most game systems: they can't be reasonably used without an outside guide or multiple failed attempts.

The other big problem with the adaption is that too much is based on random dice rolls, e.g. there is a dice roll for opening locks which can only be attempted once per character level. This probably makes sense in p&p, but in a computer RPG it just leads to a lot of unnecessary reloads. The game should just have used fixed lockpicking values for each chest which regulates if a character can open it or not. This is only an example, the randomness pervades through the whole game.

The kingdom management is poorly designed and, of course, poorly explained. If the player has the basic mechanics down, it all boils down to dice rolls. If the first few hours of kingdom management go well, it is almost impossible to lose afterwards - but if the rolls go badly, the player enters a downwards spiral which inevitably leads to a game over towards the end game. So the player's ability to finish the game is not based on skill, but on good luck or save-scumming.

The Bottom Line
I'd love to give Pathfinder: Kingmaker 5 stars just because it pushes all my buttons perfectly and I absolutely loved the time I spent with it. Alas, I can't because there are too many negative points to consider. However, if you are a big fan of Baldur's Gate and are not afraid of using external reference material, you definitely should give this game a try. Pathfinder: Kingmaker is obviously a labor of love which easily outweighs the missing polish.