Five CRPGs I Struggled With 

"Kingmaker feels like you really want to enjoy it, but it's fighting you every step of the way." No truer words have been spoken on this channel.

Kingmaker is 80% of the perfect CRPG. And 20% *that* DM who really, really, wants to TPK your party.

I saw the title & I knew Kingmaker would be here! LOL! Perfect description: "You feel like you're enjoying the game, but its fighting you every step of the way." *slow clap*

Man I would love some more Tyranny, I love the bronze age setting, the way you level up, I also remember that last fight during act I.

Pillars does take some getting used to, as the control and area of effect mechanics w/are a bit unique when it first came out. Fortunately by the end of chapter 1 they can be mastered and the party size of 6 does help in properly implementing that new found knowledge.

I played cRPGs since BG2, and Kingmaker was still an exercise in tedium and misery.

I ended up using a build guide for Pathfinder: Kingmaker. There are so many opportunities to waste the buffs you get when levelling up that you can get a ways into the game and realize you haven't really gotten your characters much stronger while the enemies have.

I'd like to watch a video where you talk about your dream/ideal CRPG. What features do you want...etc

I struggled with Pathfinder Kingmaker, I loved the game, but was really frustrated with the kingdom building, and the last part where, there were a lot of portals.

Pathfinder being based on DnD 3.5 has got me excited. Your channel finally tipped me over the edge and got me playing cRPGs again for the first time in 20 years. On PoE1 right now still, but gonna give Pathfinder Kingmaker a go after PoE2. I can't get a DnD group going IRL, but these games make a perfect alternative. Thanks for this massive amount of content. You're probably the most professional / high quality game reviewer on the internet. I've no doubt you'll be in the 7-digit eventually.

Like you I have always loved CRPGs, but divinity was what really made me adore them and realise just how amazing they could be, I love divinity and I really hope we get a third.

I never would have thought Lord Mortisimal would have struggled with any game.

4:37 100% agree! After over 1500 hours invested, I finally uninstalled it and decided it was just too damn annoying trying to like what could have been an exceptionally likeable game.

4:43 You took the words out of my mouth I played kingmaker when it was released and finished it. I really wanted to try to play it again but something about replaying the game just felt like I need to make an effort to push through and so I was not enjoying the game.

Dos2 was my introduction to crpgs after putting 100hrs into it when I heard larian was doing bg3 now I'm going down the rabbit hole of all bg and any other crpg I can get my hands on

Yup, I struggled with Pillars of Eternity as well. Playing it the first time, I couldn't even figure out how HPs, damage and healing worked, exactly, lol. Took some effort to grasp the system. Same for Tyranny. It gave me fits in the beginning because it was decently smart. The AI kept attacking my damage dealers, who were also glass cannons.

For me a really easy game to get into was Wasteland 2/3. (I did watch an hour long video on how the stats work). Wasteland 3 has a very fun intro, whereas 2 just drops you in the world. While having proper companions is fun. I think creating your own squad and creating their back story is always fun! Not that anyone asked but... My Wasteland 2 squad was; a shotgun wielding nun called Mother Russia, a woman who is out for revenge sniping from afar, Phoenix. A new ranger recruit called Freshman and finally an old toaster salesman named Rooster. I mention it because it helped me keep invested in what happened to the characters. Play Wasteland 2!

I've played a decent amount of crpg's in my life and the only 2 I stopped only a few hours in are both on your list. You're opinions on Pathfinder were spot on. That game was so complicated to me. The other is D:OS2 and that is because I hated the mechanic with the combat with the magic / melee resistance. It wiped out crowd control until you cleared their magic bar which by then might be too late.

Great breakdown. While I love the Pillars series, it definitely has a learning curve. I was lucky in that I started playing maybe a year after it came out, and started hanging out on the Obsidian forums doing deep dives into theorycrafting, which helped me learn some of the gameplay dynamics. For me the hardest was Icewind Dale 1 under Heart of Fury from the start mode. So many fun times, trying to win the early battles, sneak past Goblins, only to finally make it into the relative safety of Kuldahar :)

Absolutely loved Divinity: Original Sin 1 and 2. I own Kingmaker, Tyranny and Pillars 1 and 2 but have not touched them yet. I also need to get BG3 too.

With PoE, I muddled through it as well. Beautiful game with huge depth in lore and music, but I struggled towards the end of the game since I couldn't plan characters!

Thanks for the video, was interesting to see how it different from my experience. I wouldn't have D:os2 and Pillars up there, beat those no problem and had a blast. Kingmaker, now there is one I respected but couldn't get into and didn't beat. Divinity OS 2, Wasteland 3 and Pillars 2 are my personal favorite of the modern crpgs. D:OS1 was probably the most challenging of the modern crpgs I beat.

You have more patience than I. I don't mind redoing a fight one, maybe 2 times. But beyond that, I'll just lower the difficulty level. It's not fun for me redoing fights over and over. So I didn't struggle on Tyranny. A game I did struggle on was DOS2. In fact, I've never finished it. One of these days I might. DOS was a little challenging until I realize how powerful crafting was, and it was much better than anything you could find or buy. By the same token, I don't like games too easy either. Which the Dragon Age games can be too easy (though the first Dragon age pre-1st patch could be challenging), especially Inquisition.

This vid made me get kingmaker and I am LOVING it coming fresh out of baldurs gate 3 with some experience in dnd 5e. Exactly what I was looking for

I feel you on Tyranny. I played the game when it first released and the fight at the end of act 1 was so tough, I restarted the game on an easier level to learn how to approach that fight in particular.

It's funny you post this today. I'm currently really frustrated with the Possesed Dwarf in Divinity 2 on Bloodmoon Isle who posses your party members

As I said on another video, I started out with Kotor 1+2. Both of which are not difficult by the standards of many other CRPGs, and they are quite forgiving even if your build is less than optimal. But then I tackled the Infinity Engine games back in 2005 and 2006. Baldur's Gate 1+2 already gave me quite some trouble when I first played them. But then I suffered through Icewind Dale 1+2, which demand that you create a decent party and know what you're doing in general. That was rough, but I learned a lot. My second run through IWD was a LOT less frustrating. Which also helped me with more recent CRPGs. Pathfinder in particular was like "coming home" in a sense, because so many things felt familiar from the D&D CRPGs I had played. That's why I didn't Kingmaker too frustrating...until the final dungeon that is.

PF:K unfair difficulty is really what the name says, when you go lvl 2 into a obligatory encounter against multiple lvl 4 enemies that you need to crit otherwise you will never hit because their AC is buffed to something like 30+ that is extremelly irritating. That game is one of the most frustating games I have ever played on the highest difficulty because you are obliged to save scum or just replay a lot of the game trying to get lucky, doesn't matter how good you are and how much knowledge you have of the game, of course, when you start getting stronger things change and the game becomes playable but at the low lvls that game is hell on earth relying 100% on the RNG.

Pathfinder and PoE are the one's I struggled with the most because I'm not good at creating builds so I usually wait for people to post guides out there. It'd take me a bit of courage to actually read stuff and see if they come along together well, but I'm too lazy for that.

Definitely surprised to hear tyranny as one I am sure if you go back to to tyranny now you would find it isn't quite as hard as you remember. That is now that you have so much more knowledge of the genre. You should do a video of the top 10 hardest achievements you've acquired.

Kingmaker is my thorn! Played 196 hours almost finished with my slayer, but because I am stupid could not stand the book art where they were showing Hedwirg, so I restarted as him (fighter premade chatacter), and have not continued since them, I need a break to gather forces to take through a 150 hours playtthroug again!!!

I'm playing through underrail now and I knew it would be in this video from the title lol Amazing game, and I would recommend it to everyone.

Totally agree on Pillars of Eternity. The game system was extremely confusing, and trying to manage everything during the fast RTwP battles overwhelmed me.

There is layers and layers, kingmaker i finish on hard with spellcrafters, Wotr i did on core with fighters and just one spellcrafter, was hard but i learned a lot, other comp is almost another type of game.

Dead right about that fight at the end of Act 1 Tyranny on PotD. Took me several attempts to beat that as well. It's a big spike, game gets much easier after that.

So I played Tyranny when I was in a heavy Xcom Long War kick and remember act 1 being a bit tricky but not in the same league of difficulty. Iron man impossible is that difficulty for tactical rpgs, altho I would advise honor systeming the iron man with bronze man because their are a few bugs you can run into with line of sights that can end up squad wiping because cascading pulls. There are no cheese builds, snipers do eventually get pretty broken but you can't really support taking more than 1 on normal missions and 2 on expanded squad missions later. One of the huge things on its difficulty is beating a mission with the squad alive can still be very detrimental if everyone took injuries, as macro game fatigue and injuries on your roster are hugely important.

Baldurs Gate 1 and 2, had me loading my savefiles quite a bit. Pillars of Eternity is luckily not to difficult, because the deep and new rule system led to some missteps. There I found Pathfinder Kingmaker more "friendly", since it's similar to DnD 3.5. I wonder how Planescape Torment is.

have you played wizardry 8? that one took me a lot of effort to get into initially but it was so rewarding, definitely one of the best RPG's of all time

I got very lucky on Tyranny's Act I boss fight when I beat it the first time : I was down to Barik and Lantry vs their leader, Ebb and a Sage. And that's when I had a massive stroke of luck and the IA glitched out, which made it ignore Lantry as long as he wasn't attacking or doing any sort of damage, meaning that I used his healing spells and potions to keep Barik alive while he slowly, SLOWLY whittled at the enemies' health.

What I like about your perspective is that you don't push people on playing the hardest difficulty. I like playing on the hardest difficulty usually but you are absolutely right about it not being worth it sometimes.

Wow ....all of the games you listed are ones I've bought but haven't gotten to playing yet (except divinity 2 ....co-oped that with friends). Some rough times ahead.

My overall enjoyment and likelyhood to complete a CRPG is completely based on whether I have to go online and look at a guide or not. The best ones are the ones where I can min/max with the knowledge that The game provides on its own

Great vid man! Been loving your content recently. I checked out your steam profile and saw to my surprise that you hadn't gotten all the achievements for P:WOTR. Did they add some new achievements after you played it?

Hardest for me was *Blackguards.* Even by spending a lot of time properly building and knowing the system, that game kicks you between the legs at almost every fight. It was fun though: I mean it does an autosave at the start and there is an easy restart button when you fall.

"Kingmaker makes you feel like you want to enjoy it but it's making fight every step along the way." That is so accurately what I've felt trying to play it, I was very disappointed because of that. Wanted to love it, but man, it was not lovable.

Whelp !! You just mentioned half of my top 10 all time favourite cRPGs. Guess I am a masochist! Who would have thought! I love all of these games, especially PoE1, DoS2, Kingmaker and Underrail. Those are in my top 5 ( easy). I specifically love them for the fact they offer some resistance. Whether through new mechanics ,or just plain having to go through a multi-layered maze blind ( yes original Underrail *had no map* , I had to design one by hand!! ),I enjoyed being challenged . This is due to the fact I grew up in an era games really did not care about helping you. You installed your game and that was it; no tutorials, no nothing. Swim or drown kind of situation. No online guides or anything of the sort either. I am therefore used to that mode now. It is part of what I enjoy in a game. the struggle to figure out the game mechanics and to find out whats good and whats bad. As Cavafy put it in his poem Ithaca: Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. Without her you wouldn't have set out. She has nothing left to give you now. And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you. Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean

That daily dose of may you wonder in wisdom. Missed the "all that YT Jazz" lol.

I love the everything about the idea of the pathfinder games but in practise I could never even finish them (or even get a few hours in). I am not well versed in the class mechanics and trying to plan a character build started to feel like advanced calculus. I know I could probably just pick with whatever I want and roll with it but on one hand the difficulty often requires a decent build and I also hate feeling like I am wasting my time.

Tyranny : the first fights are scary ! I played on Hard (not sure how different that is to Expert; I think they are similar). It got rather easy later on of course after I found a more tanky companion, as I crafted better spells and optimized my companions.

I loved kingmaker, didn't find it too difficult to play but found it difficult to just keep playing at about 3/4 through. Found divinity 2 to be more difficult, not over all but certain situations seemed geared towards being roadblocks unless you had certain comp.

Tyranny was my reintroduction to the genre, though I never finished the game. and despite struggling I kept finding the game to be a little too easy every time I progressed. eventually found myself going through on path of the damned with a single character and yeah, the first act was insane, especially the final encounter in act 1. pretty much had to use every single tool the game offered to make it through the first act.

I started underrail few days ago, the "no companion" hits me really hard.

Cheese tip on the Tyrany fight: Activate pause on enemy sight and use stealth. Move back and pull part of the group.

DOS 2...came out of the cemetery and headed down the hill...invisible assassins ambushed the party to kill the Red Prince...never even got a chance to attack..they just going until the entire party was dead...happened twice in a row and that ended to game for me

Kingmaker was brutal for me. I had just finished POE2 on Path of the Damned difficulty and could barely play Kingmaker on normal difficulty.

I got Pillars of Eternity about a year or two after it came out, and I struggled with it so much that I quit. I finally went back and tried again, and finished it in 2019. But I never played the hardest difficulty and never will. I still haven't finished 2 either.

Have you ever played Age of Decadence? It's a tough one but also truly excellent.

I have to say, Tyranny is probably my favourite CRPG, my third playthrough was on "path of the damned", and i didn't really struggle on the last fight, i don't know why and how, but i beat it on my 4-5 try.

I don't know which Pathfinder game I'd consider more of a struggle for me. The kingdom management stuff of Kingmaker is a pain in the ass but I don't find it as _hard_ as I do just... painful and monotonous, whereas WoTR has some of the most batshit encounter design and skewed balance (enemies come pre-buffed, everything's a demon so poison and electricity are pointless, spell resistance and saves become absolutely ridiculous by the time of the Drezen siege, etc) I've ever seen

Didn't play Divinity 2 yet, but 1 made me struggle a lot and half of that was due to UI and similar problems. Misclicking, that weird problem of that dialogue screen (wherever I click it automatically travels to the top and I can't collect the data easily), game calculating area of effect wrongly. I still played the heck out of it, a testament to other parts of the game being excellent.

I did a run through of DOS2 with all physical guys without learning magic - though I allowed the use of scrolls and potions. It was pretty challenging but fun - admittedly I did honor mode with an optimized lone wolf pair and it actually made it so easy it was kind of boring.

Good stuff!

You're seriously a pillar of the cRPG community and a creator of awesome content!!! Keep it up!!

Surprisingly I didn't really have issues with age of decadence which I still consider a pretty tough crpg, their new game colony ship is kicking my ass pretty bad. Underail I didn't struggle mostly due to the build I ended up with stealth/traps/smg made a lot of fights easy. Kingmaker I didn't have too bad a time with till the undead lich dungeon/crisis which was just a slog personally.

The fight outside at the wall and the fight inside the spire of Tyrannys act 1 had me question my ability to play Crpgs ... I don't even remember how I got past it but I do remember increadible frustration and coming back several times. Kingmaker lost me. I want to play it. I like the story so far (got to kingdom management) and everything but the constant timers and "HAHAAAA you didn't know that this location will absolutly destroy you and therefor you are DEAD!" gameplay just eroded my will to play the game.

I keep on getting stuck in underrail it’s very frustrating. I feel like I’m missing out on some sort of power up because I just can’t clear encounters around the mid game.

PoE and Tyranny are among the best games I've ever played. Unfortunately an intrinsic problem of RPGs, even in "pen-and-paper" is that the heroes just suck at low level: while this is part of the experience when one plays with his friends, it makes less sense in a videogame. In Tyranny as example, you are supposed to be an army leader, while then on the battlefield you are often weaker then normal soldiers.

I would like to get into crpgs, but somehow I find them difficult, being the most difficult ones I have played Wasteland 1, Fallout 1 and Morrowind. I look forward to playing Baldurs Gate 1, Wasteland 2 and Jagged Alliance 2.

I got so angry during the last Act 1 fight in Tyranny on the PotD. When I had finally managed to win after Idk how many tries, I got stuck on the loading screen that takes you to the top of the spire. I had to restart the game and after trying many times to win that fight again with no success, I just gave up and switched to hard mode. Won the fight on the first try 😢 it wasnt even fun. Definitely wanna try PotD again in the future. I still have the save from just before that fight waiting for me lol

can confirm about path of the damned in tyranny. one of the hardest things ive managed to do in gaming.

Interesting no IWD1&2 HoF. Yes you get to preplan your entire party but that's how the game expect you to play. Most games allows mercs and playing with companions isn't mandatory. Then again CRPG difficulty varies depending on a lot of things and it's up to the players to avoid cheese/etc. Like in Pathfinder you can play solo without enabling "exp sharing with active party members" for the ultimate challenge.

Have you done a video on Planescape Torment?

Currently playing through Tyranny now. It's so fucking good!

Dungeon rats is the one game that i not only turned down difficulty but even used console commands

DOS II......bloody oil field battle.Never again! I had to cheese it, to save that lad.

This isn’t technically a crpg but I would love to see a review of the neverwinter nights enhanced edition. I’m currently playing through it and I’m having a blast and I would enjoy hearing your thoughts on it.

To this day i don't understand pillars systems. The four defense system (Fortitude, Deflection, Reflex, and Will) just never clicked with me, i never knew what rare items were better than another, and there seemed to be a ton of bad abilities for casters/ciphers.

Ah yes, Tyranny path of the damned. I specifically remember chosing not to carry over my stats from my last playthrough and trying the mode fresh. That entire first act was just insanity. That last fight....that last fight I literally spent over an hour just pausing and unpausing every fraction of a second to analyze the situation over and over and over again lmao. You're better than me, because you finished. After I beat that fight, I uninstalled Tyranny and moved on. Love the game immensely, but I can't do it again lol

Have you done a video that showcases some CRPGs that might be good for newcomers?

you got to try arc the lad 1 and 2 twilight of spirits also, tactics ogre knights of lodis. any tactics ogre actually. also, vanguard bandits and the robot wars games. these are mainly on ps1 but have been made for other systems.tactics ogre is my all time favorite then comes arc the lad.

Those Damn, Dragon level, Owlbears !!!

Oh god, Kingmaker. Yeah, that game just doesn't want to be played. It's amazing how awesome and horrible the game is at the same time. For me it was the kingdom management. Specifically, the game forcing you into "stasis" for weeks when you do certain projects. The thing that turned that game around for me was a mod that sets all Kingdom project durations to 1 day. After that I was set. And Wrath is IMO just as bad, taking a step back for every step forward. I love the game, I have over 300 hours clocked on it, but it'll be a while before I muster the fortitude to finish it...

good list , played all 5. To me the hardest of them all bar none is Underrail. Pillars was very hard to finish because it becomes so boring to play :) Kingmaker was hard because of faulty and unexplained game mechanics, Divinity is only hard on its hardest settings. Underrail seems to be hard because it was built to be so. I like to say about Underrail is that it is the only CRPG where the AI cheeses you as much as you exploit it. The nice thing about it is that there are several "checkpoints" in the game where you can see if your build is viable to move forward: mostly the notorious Depot A but also the arena sequence and final boss. Overall, one of my all time Favorites and one that I really really hate to play. Divinity II still takes first place as best on the list.

Icewind Dale 2's also a really good high blood pressure simulator

Even on Normal, PF Kingmaker was difficult to get through without really good builds, and the kingdom management was not done in a fun way.

@Mortismal Gaming Did you check out Disco Elysium from polish developer ZA/UM? Would like to see your take on it

I remember when I decided to stop using cheats, exploits, and cheeses. It made me realize just how much I overestimated my skill at video games. I think I have found a decent rule. If I already beat something in a game once in a legit fashion, I can cheese it as much as I want later.

I liked divinity original sin 1 and 2 on xbox but the characters move so slow do you know if any way to make them walk faster

The thing about Pillars of Eternity was, the stats were weird. For instance, if I remember right (it's been a while) Strength isn't how hard you hit, but determines the size of your AoE. So if you are a healer and have an AoE heal spell, or a mage and have AoE damage spells, you want lots of strength... this is the exact opposite of most fantasy games and not very intuitive when it comes to building your character if you play a lot of RPG's.

I've beaten wrath of the righteous twice on core, and started third one on hard. I can't beat the prologue, lmao. After like 30 tries on a random lvl 5 dude in a corridor (on lvl 2), I thought "why am I doing this to myself". It's definetely hardest one for me, enemy stats are bloated beyond belief. Had no trouble with Pillars on PotD, some troubles with DOS:2 on tactical, bunch of others on hardmode, but IMHO nothing compares to wotr BS. Even Kingmaker was kinda mild (played after wotr on core), enemies at least had reasonable stats. Haven't finished that one yet, though, but I'm close ( lvl14).

Pillars of Eternity... after struggling playing the game, had to use console commands to defeat the last boss because, even after defeating his two giant statues, no one could hit the guy and if they did he would constantly heal up. Basically, looks like my dps was either low and/or my builds where sub-par. This was after completing Might and Magic World of Xeen(4 & 5) and Eye of the Beholder 1 and then play testing some crpgs(Baldurs Gate 2, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights 2) to decide which one to finish. Not my first topdown crpg ever played but the first one I have finish. Felt like I needed to close the book on this game. The transition from dungeon crawling rpgs to crpg was a bit jarring.

When I finally killed the boss in Underrail, I felt so good :D

Everyone struggles with Pathfinder in the beginning, even veteran table Top Pathfinder players. On top of the sheer amount of spells/actions/builds to get your head around, the game still suffers from difficulty spikes. You'll be cruising along on hard difficulty and then come into a situatuation that yo can only get past by lowering the difficulty

I still haven't finished kingmaker, I think my problem is story grinds to a halt after the first act.

Age of Decadence is one CRPG that does not mess around.

My biggest gripe with underrail was when they updated and added a whole new mechanic completely invalidating my build and forcing me to start all the way over. Good game so I wasn’t super mad but DAMNIT I was in the middle of something!

Pillars is a bit of a slog because of all the text walls..... but still a good experience. It won me over with the character creation screen tbh.

What is the game at the start called? The one with the Tank you're controlling?

PotD in Tyranny feels like an afterthought, it's not particularly balanced. For that fight you struggled with I eventually managed to split the enemies and do it in two parts. Eventually dropped it around halfway in because the cooldown based gameplay devolves into spamming whatever comes up with zero thought, while PotD just makes it take 10 times longer. It's one of the rare cases where I enjoyed a crpg more by just playing on normal and letting the combat win itself.

1. PoE - totally agree. Even after playing PoE a couple of times and PoE 2, I STILL don't have a clue about the combat system. Never have figured that one out. 2. Underrail - I played this pretty early (before a number of balancing passes) and I hit a point where I could not move forward due to difficulty and could not go back. I was totally and entirely stuck so I quit, gave it a bad review and never returned to it. One of these days I may give it another chance but that ship probably has sailed. 3. Pathfinder: Kingmaker - no problem with the game but the bugs were terrible. The bug - which still exists - prevented the main quest from progressing. I have no patience for that so again it was bad review time and I moved on. I love Pathfinder WotR though and played it twice. 4. DoS 2 - I wouldn't dream of playing this on the highest difficulty - more power to you. Simply one of the best RPGs ever. 5. Tyranny - again, I no longer play RPGs at very high difficulties so I didn't struggle with this. Tyranny is easily one of the most underrated RPGs in the last decade and the one I'd like to return to the most from a lore standpoint. While RPGs allow you to play as "evil", no other RPG sets you up as the Bad Guy from the start.