Hi Codex, another lurker here unlurking and registering to heap praises on this game. I used to spend more time on the forums where Sawyer posts, but their Pathfinder thread is a disaster of lolling over how bad and buggy game is, circle-jerking about how its only audience are masochistic Russian grognards, or feeling the need to qualify their enjoyment of the game with things like 'but of course Deadfire is objectively much more well made, even though I'm having so much fun with this dumb game', like they're ashamed of liking it. The last straw was a post that purportedly liked Pathfinder, but still compared it to Deadfire as a 'fun airport pulp fiction' to 'high literature to be savoured slowly', and that's when I broke down and peaced out.
But this is not the PoE thread, so here are a few things I love about Pathfinder: Kingmaker:
+ Music. Title theme owns, the rest of Chapter 1 music was pleasant if fairly unmemorable, but when the Stag Lord's battle theme kicked in I actually paused the game and listened to a few loops straight on. Never done that in a game before, and I can only hope that the rest of the boss fights deliver just as much.
+ Soundscape in general - all the critter sounds, the ambiance of walking through your little village with indistinct conversations all around you, random weather effects when you're lost in the middle of nowhere. Beautifully done.
+ One more point on sound design - imagine my surprise when the voiced dialogues in prologue actually addressed my character as 'her' and 'she', rather than 'Watcher', 'Lawbringer' or any other of the impersonal titles you tend to get in these kinds of games to transparently hide the fact that nobody could be arsed to record different lines for 'he' and 'she'. Such a small, inconsequential thing, but it's an early promise of attention to detail, and it works.
+ Changing seasons, and random weather in general. Happened to get a stormy night when sneaking around Stag Lord's fort, and stopped yet again, just watching lightning dance across the screen, listening to thunder, preparing to battle.
+ All the little critters jumping around and doing their thing in the wilderness make the world feel so much more alive.
+ All the 'survival' features - camping, permanent injuries, even fatigue and encumbrance. Taken separately, they're not the kinds of things I thought I'd enjoy, and yet put all together here they build a coherent, sensible atmosphere of adventure into a dangerous, unknown lands. Encumbrance system prevents you from overloading your party with tons of useless crap and having to waste time inventory managing afterwards. Having a fatigued party with your melee chars on death door bump into a couple of spitting centipedes right as you're on Oleg's doorstep makes for a tense encounter even if you'd annihilate them otherwise, because now you have to change up your party formation and tactics to keep the melees alive in addition to winning the battle. Having rations weigh a ton makes you actually plan your dungeon expeditions, and only carry what you need rather than running around with an entire stash for all occasions. Feels like there's a lot of thought put behind even more unpopular design decisions.
+ Speaking of camping, the amount of companion banters written must be insane - each time I get a different one, most of them voiced, some referencing the events of the chapter you're in, some just nice bits of fleshing out the characters and their interactions. Together with the long time taken on the road, it really feels like you're getting to know the characters slowly, and having them grow into a party around your PC.
+ Difficulty - I'm generally a complete story-player (or at least I thought I was!), and most of the time I don't bother putting games above 'normal'. I've never played a tabletop D&D, know fuck all about the rules, and the only Infinity Engine game I finished was Planescape: Torment. And yet, I find P:K's combat system extremely rewarding and tactical, and the difficulty (play mostly core rules, I think - no side has advantages/disadvantages) just right. Every defeat feels like I've learned something, and it's very satisfying to go from a TPK to victory within a couple of reloads just from changing the tactics. I enjoy having to carefully explore without knowing when I come across something way over my head. It raises the stakes, and adds to the sense of achievement when after trying out a few different approaches the combat log slowly reveals immunities/weaknesses some creature has, and you have to change your tactics on the fly to work around it, rather than being immediately handed everyone's levels and stats as soon as you waltz into a fight and then clicking your way to victory.
I can sorta understand some feedback the game gets about it being slow, hard, even at times frustrating - but that's why it works. It's not an amusement park you zip through comfortably devouring content along the way until the five-quest main story ends rewarding you with a bunch of ending slides as the 'consequence' part of your promised C&C. Instead, it's a long, arduous journey that will test your patience, tactical thinking, time management and god knows what else, that will take its time to develop characters and plot, that will incorporate your choices into the gameworld as you play rather than when you stop playing, and that will throw curveballs along the way, potentially game-ending, but will reward you with a sense of achievement as you slowly overcome those hurdles one by one, strengthening your party/barony/kingdom and discovering the main plot. Slowly.
It's a completely different experience, but I think it's about time we had different, new experiences of this scope in this genre. And at least so far it feels damn good at achieving what it sets out to do.
Only just started Chapter 2, and wanna go back to the game to find more things to love, but should probably do my civic duty and leave a review first. It absolutely doesn't deserve a 'mixed' rating - even with bugs and warts and all it has more heart and soul than anything post-Kickstarter Obsidian put out, and should be commended for that alone.
TL,DR: game good, sorry for word vomit.
