Codex Review RPG Codex Review: Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous

[Roguey]

Completionist are higher for Wrath, which I assume its because it has more DLCs, as the main game has less content.

https://howlongtobeat.com/game/83856/completions They mark down if it includes DLC. Most do not.

Anyway, you took this time because you played Kingmaker in RTWP and Wrath in Turn based, unless you deny it, so criticizing it for a personal choice is moot, when the encounter design was not planned for turn based.

I played most of chapters 1, 2 and a good portion of 5 in real time.

 

[Nikanuur]

My biggest gripe about both Pathfinders are the map encounters. The lack thereof to be specific. There were some good examples, but in general the maps are hardly ever complex, there are little to no map-to-map dependencies, most of the quests--otherwise branching to the moon and back--are revolving around relationships but seldom around doing stuff with the items, places, puzzles, some investigations, etc.

The amount of text at all the wrong places didn't help much either. I agree with the review. I realized something is not right when I had arrived to the climax of the Wardstone situation, and the acting parties--talons bared, swords drawn, spells readied--started a discussion longer RPG Codex's BG3 hate thread. Man, I was ready to finally spill some high-ranking demon's blood or exchange a few gritty remarks or something, but the demoness went on and on about her life and feelings and opinions and... meh.

That being said, I enjoyed other parts of the game quite a lot, the builds, the Mythic choices, the general epic feel, those kept me engaged. Getting permanently banned from Steam forums on the grounds of repeated, non-vulgar entries questioning the sanity of the queer, bi, gay to straight people ratio and romances written as if by Karens was a funny finishing touch.

 

[Nikanuur]

I don't understand this same thing that some people here keep repeating over and over again. If they don't like reading, and they don't like combat, then why do they play RPGs? Both of those things are the cornerstones of the genre. It sounds like some people just want some crappy, casual game that they can get through in 2 minutes with as little effort as possible.

The companions are much better, more memorable and friendly than the ones in Kingmaker. They were the reason this game got me so hooked in the first place.

And the game doesn't have a "management" mini-game, the crusade is a tactical addition to the story being told. Much more suited to an RPG being both less intrusive and satisfying to engage with, than Kingmaker's previous system which was more suited to the base management grind-fest genre.

This game is an improvement in every way from the previous one, which is surprising nowadays when the trend is to make everything worse. It is in all rules very similar to the relationship between Baldur's Gate 1 and Baldur's Gate 2. Games that have an equal amount of text and combat and are considered classics. And if those two are, I think Wrath of the Righteous is too.

It's about: "how, when, and where" and not about "it is there."

 

[Joggerino]

Good job on the review Roguey. Personally, I disliked this one more than kingmaker. All the RPG elements, except levelling, were completely uninspired, dull, mediocre, forgettable.

 

[LannTheStupid]

try to do better yourself rather than shitting on those that have at least bothered to put in the effort of actually writing a review.

I strongly believe that there are efforts that make the situation worse. I would not provide the obvious example of your birth (however, it is fitting), but a cook who made soup with worms, probably, should not have made it at all. The same is true for some reviews, as well as other media projects.

In this regard, I do not want to make smoothy with E.coli, but I am entitled to call out the borshcht with worms that Roguey cooked.

 

[LannTheStupid]

* - this observation got me banned from Steam/Owlcat Forums, in the latter case ironically the day after winning the award for max likes.

It seems you have been vindicated, as Owlcat forums are no more.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Roguey's Shitmaker 1 review: "hated pretty much everything, don't want to touch this again, great game!"
Roguey's Shitmaker 2 review: "wanted the sequel to be different from the original pos, but it's more of the same, meh, it's ok for what it is, don't want to touch this ever again..."

At this rate, by Shitmaker 5, he will admit these games are turds.

 

[Crichton]

So a person who has no idea what the strategic layer is for writes a review about the game where this layer is one of the cornerstones.

Now, tell me how you are not Kotaku.

Here's what the strategic layer is - it's a piece of shit. In fact, you are right, it is a cornerstone, a cornerstone of shit that only serves to make the game worse.

The only sensible advice any reviewer can give to a potential player is to turn that shit off the moment you start the game and just forget it exists.

It's a travesty that the outcry about the shitty kingdom/crusade management wasn't louder so that now those retards are adding another strategy layer to Rogue Trader, ensuring that even if it's overall good (which it looks like it might be), it will have a layer of steaming shit smeared all over it anyway.

I think the central problem with Kingmaker and Wrath trying to engraft these mini-games is the conception that they are, in point of fact, strategic layers. Both games have sophisticated strategic layers in terms of how you compose and develop your party but Kingdomville and Crusadeville have very little to do with that (aside from the odd item in a game where magic items have to cleared away from the environs like invasive carp).

As an example, if Kingdomville were the actual strategic layer in the game, it would determine whether Harrim was a cleric or a druid or whether you could hire clerics or druids from the inn; but those choices are made totally separately and all Kingdomville does is (occasionally) determine whether you have a particular bauble to equip him with. This is not true in HoMM or a Total War game where the strategic layer does determine what's available in the tactical layer; hiring a thane or a runesmith in the strategic layer determines what your hero is capable of in the tactical layer.

 

[Oreshnik Missile]

Hard to imagine something even more generic and mediocre than Kingmaker. People should have taken my review seriously.

 

[S.torch]

It's about: "how, when, and where" and not about "it is there."

This whole thread reads like bad bait. I was writing a longer post detailing other parts of the review that point out things that are clearly wrong but I think it's honestly not worth it.

So much of this thread is haters and people who didn't even like Kingmaker. Roguey himself hadn't been a fan of the first game to speak of. It has no point.

 

[Yosharian]

It's about: "how, when, and where" and not about "it is there."

This whole thread reads like bad bait. I was writing a longer post detailing other parts of the review that point out things that are clearly wrong but I think it's honestly not worth it.

So much of this thread is haters and people who didn't even like Kingmaker. Roguey himself hadn't been a fan of the first game to speak of. It has no point.

I agree with the majority of Roguey's points and I am hardly a 'hater', I spent over 300 hours creating build pages for both games

 

[Maxie]

RPGs dialogue as they should be, by Roguey.

MC: who this sword belonged to?
Seelah: Yaniel. She is famous.

Yeah they kinda should be this way unironically. At a pen & paper thing, the DM is at the constant peril of the players failing to give a shit, and it's a grand mistake to forgo this in video games (was even a bigger mistake to let Lit majors and w*men near game development)

 

[Skorpion]

The vitriol is a bit amusing, I read the review as feeling mediocre about the game, not hating or loving it.
Maybe I missed that but the reactions so far to the review seem to be "Roguey is right its a shit game!!" or "Roguey you fuck, it was amazing how could you call it shit!!"
Am I missing something or did I just feel the review was like a 6/10 kinda tone?
To be clear I disagree, I think the game has flaws but is one of the best in the genre for me.
The concept the review was more saying it was 1/10 so people love or hate in response?

 

[Maxie]

To be clear I disagree, I think the game has flaws but is one of the best in the genre for me.

Given the sheer size of the genre, that's an argument you will have to work hard to defend

 

[Haba]

Dialogue is bad, would be a valid criticism, if given the right arguments.
Dialogue is too long... I don't agree that dialogue in the PROLOGUE is too much exposition.

Is Morte first interaction in the Mortuary too long ffs?

It's too verbose in many places. The beginning was egregious. I'm to blame for a lot of that. Part of it was that I hadn't written prose in a long time. I found my stride later on. I am very sorry.

A separate, but equally large part of it was the exposition. Nobody likes writing exposition. You feel unclean when you've written it. It's boring and it doesn't advance plot or do anything worthwhile at all. Unfortunately, in this case, there was a lot that had to be conveyed for you to even understand what was going on. You had to know what a bîaŵac was before it struck. You had to know what adra was. You had to know what a Watcher was very shortly after becoming one. You had to know who Glanfathans were and why they would be mad at you for being in their ruins. You had to learn about animancers and the Saint's War and a slew of other things that led to the world being in the state it was in.

No one defends PoE. All this stuff is not necessary.

Yeah, a typical sign of a bad writer is the fact that they feel that their readers HAVE TO be explained what is happening in the world. It reveals that they've realized that their ideas are so weak that simply showing isn't enough.

This is made even worse by the complete inability to be concise. Every phrase or word that that can be cut should be cut. That is the first thing I was taught in a high school literature lesson. Once you've cut the fat, then you tighten the sentences, usually with multiple iterations. The end result is something that resembles the way that an actual human thinks and speaks.

 

[Yosharian]

Maybe I missed that but the reactions so far to the review seem to be "Roguey is right its a shit game!!" or "Roguey you fuck, it was amazing how could you call it shit!!"

Ehh I don't think its a shit game, I would say that for about 50-60% of the game I thought it was one of the best CRPGs I've played in some time. It's just that the other 40-50% were really bad, like I wanted to be playing anything else.

 

[Maxie]

Maybe I missed that but the reactions so far to the review seem to be "Roguey is right its a shit game!!" or "Roguey you fuck, it was amazing how could you call it shit!!"

It's just that the other 40-50% were really bad, like I wanted to be playing anything else.

Heh exactly how I felt about Kingmaker past the Cyclops dungeon

 

[Yosharian]

Maybe I missed that but the reactions so far to the review seem to be "Roguey is right its a shit game!!" or "Roguey you fuck, it was amazing how could you call it shit!!"

It's just that the other 40-50% were really bad, like I wanted to be playing anything else.

Heh exactly how I felt about Kingmaker past the Cyclops dungeon

I think that one thing Wrath did better was the balancing, for the most part. The most challenging main quest encounters were reasonably hard, and the optional bosses were pretty tough too. At least until the endgame where my party just became so ridiculously OP that nothing was a challenge.

This contrasts heavily with Kingmaker where many important encounters were just absurdly easy. I'm always confused when I read online people talking about hard Irovetti is for example, when he died to my MC in like 1-2 rounds

 

[Arthandas]

 

[smaug]

It's about: "how, when, and where" and not about "it is there."

This whole thread reads like bad bait. I was writing a longer post detailing other parts of the review that point out things that are clearly wrong but I think it's honestly not worth it.

So much of this thread is haters and people who didn't even like Kingmaker. Roguey himself hadn't been a fan of the first game to speak of. It has no point.

I agree with the majority of Roguey's points and I am hardly a 'hater', I spent over 300 hours creating build pages for both games

Surprise surprise that the only
people who liked the game are build autists who spend more time on the char screen than actually playing the game.

 

[Roguey]

The vitriol is a bit amusing, I read the review as feeling mediocre about the game, not hating or loving it.
Maybe I missed that but the reactions so far to the review seem to be "Roguey is right its a shit game!!" or "Roguey you fuck, it was amazing how could you call it shit!!"
Am I missing something or did I just feel the review was like a 6/10 kinda tone?
To be clear I disagree, I think the game has flaws but is one of the best in the genre for me.
The concept the review was more saying it was 1/10 so people love or hate in response?

Yeah, I'm confused as well. I wrote a lot of positive things about it in addition to pointing out what I didn't like. Neutral-positive like Kingmaker.

 

[Jaedar]

Played crusade on story mode, opinion invalid.

 

[Jaedar]

Played crusade on story mode, opinion invalid.

you mean the only correct opinion there is.

It's just as valid as playing the combat on story mode, or having auto level up turned on. Which is to say "not really valid at all".

 

[LannTheStupid]

we don't want that shit in our games.

whocares​

Exactly.

Prepare for the ship combat game in Rogue Trader.

 

[Nikanuur]

Surprise surprise that the only
people who liked the game are build autists who spend more time on the char screen than actually playing the game.

I wonder if it's a surprise too that an ad absurdum arguments tend to be usually more narrow-minded than what are they pointing towards.
Anyway, I find Pathfinders enjoyable games with many a must-see, epic moment and I am glad to have played them. It's sad that they miss on some crucial parts CRPGs should stand for, but I wouldn't hate these good games for a few shortcomings.