I just finished the game. 150+ hours, "challenging" difficulty for 99.9% of it. I went from loving the game at 50 hours to thinking it was pretty good at 100 hours to wishing the pain would end at 150 hours, and so it made me think I should check the OP's list again. Looking at it though, a lot of this is still retarded. High level items in barrels? Welcome to RPGs. No farming random spawns for XP? What is this, Final Fantasy? Encumbrance is bad? Once I got a bag of holding I was never encumbered again. Choices have consequences? Oh no, heaven forbid! However, while I think most of these are silly there are a few that touch on the heart of what I grew to dislike...
Kingdom management is a tedious and joyless experience. The option to play with it disabled doesn't work. There are many cases where you can lose the game by "misplaying" this mechanic, without explanation.
Patches have made the dangers to your kingdom more obvious, but everything else is spot-on. I'm sure some people liked it, but for me it was a constant pain in the butt time waste that would never end. As I got further and further in the game it just kept getting more and more tedious. When I played recent Bioware games the "management" stuff at the home base was pointless and tedious as well, and Owlcat took that idea and made it take up even MORE time and MORE attention. Even on "effortless" it requires constant attention, which is the opposite of no effort. If I ever replay it I'll try auto, but everything I read said that was a broken experience. If it was removed entirely it would do nothing but improve the game.
Failure to resolve quests before deadlines results in losing the game.
The deadlines are no big deal, and easily dealt with. Do the main quest first for the most part, with minor side trips, and you'll be a-okay no problemo. However the problem with the timers is it makes the game feel linear and railroaded. Want to do X? In the mood for some exploring of Y? Well too bad, because if you don't do the quest we told you to do then it's game over! Some people like this too. I have seen responses like "well if you had a barbarian army prepared to destroy your kingdom, wouldn't you rush to it?" Problem is it's not real life, you autistic fuck. There's a reason 99.9% of RPGs don't do this, and it's called gameplay. It is more fun when playing an RPG video game to choose what quest to do and when, and it breaks up the monotony of doing similar things for too long. There's a moment in Kingmaker where you do this super long quest with an undead cyclops, and of course you mainlined it and did it all in one go because of the timer. Then the game immediately launches you into the next main quest, with no break, and you have to prioritize that because of the timer. Later on in the game you'll have long stretches where you have nothing to do but kingdom management, because you're just waiting for a timer. It removes a lot of the freedom and diversity you normally have when playing an RPG, and this is why I think most people dislike it. The "learn how it works" or "muh realism!' defenses don't apply.
Maps are reused 4-5 times in places.
This is annoying and reminded me of Dragon Age 2, but I think the real problem goes deeper. The game is entirely too fucking long, and doesn't justify its length. Not only are there plenty of repeating areas, but most areas in general are very similar to one another. There's a shit-ton of wilderness, a shit-ton of similar dungeons, and a shit-ton of first world neon plants, and not much else. Most areas are small, with interesting and bigger ones like the swamp witch village or dilapidated dwarf road being way too rare. This probably wouldn't irritate me much if the game weren't 150 fucking hours long. Half the game could easily have been removed and no one would have complained about length. The joy early on of finding new areas on the map and going there for a few quick battles and loot quickly becomes tedium later on when you repeat the same areas for the same shit without anything new or different. The joy of killing the bandit king and stopping a troll army turns into tedium when you're doing the same types of battles in the same types of places 100 hours later. Add on the tedious kingdom management above and the last third of your playthrough turns into a slog you can't wait to end.
In summary, the first 50-70 hours of Pathfinder: Kingmaker is up there with the best of the CRPG "renaissance" I've played. Even that section isn't my favorite because it's a very mechanics driven game and I am not a super mechanics driven guy. I like to think of myself as a mix of combat tactics and storyfag archetypes. However I still loved it and would give that 50 hours or so a 9 out of 10, with the timer and kingdom management being the small flaws. However the last 50 or so hours of the game I barely enjoyed at all, despite taking several breaks. It just goes on too long, is too repetitive, and becomes even more railroaded and tedious. I'd give this half a 5 out of 10 or less. Mix it together and you get a strong 7ish out of 10 enjoyable RPG, but if I ever play it again I'll kill Vodrakai or maybe Armag and then quit.
