Should You Play Pathfinder: Kingmaker? 

For the people that are scared about the time limits, you can explore absolutely everything, take your time, you'll still have to skip months in the late game so that you can reach the date of your point of no return quest. Also, in contrast with most games, in Kingmaker you wanna do the main quest first and only do the side stuff after you finish the main quest of each chapter. That's it, have fun.

Hey mort, I am very excited to play WOTR on console so I've been going through and watching all your WOTR content (again) and it's been a real blessing. I appreciate you putting in such thorough work and your clear and simple explanations. As always, love the channel brother. Keep it up!

I am new to CRPG's and picked up PK today after watching your 100% video on it. Your recommendations in this video are quite fair and are consistent with your older video. It may take some time, but I plan on being in that small group that beat the final boss before going on to WOTR.

Playing through kingmaker will make you really appreciate the improvements in wrath of the righteous. But both are on the whole good cRPGs.

I think Owlcat should patch in some of the WotR quality of life improvements back into Kingmaker. Like the ability to dispel your own effects after combat and showing exactly what feateres change with archetypes or listing the feats that have the inspected feat as a prerequisite. That said WotR has very clunky and overwhelming start. I find Kingmaker is way more welcoming, especially if you stick to pregens or straight forward classes. You get a lot more time before you get your full party or have to start leaving someone behind. And the quests and everything around is a lot less overwhelming. It eases you in a bit better. I also found WotR had a lot more stuff to read through that slows the pace way down early on or impactful story choices before you know what is going on. It was a bit much.

Pathfinder Kingmaker was actually the game that brought me into the CRPG genre. Yes it was overwhelming at first and it took me a couple of tries to get into it but i would still recommend playing it, but maybe holding of and playing Wrath first

I'm one of the 7% that completed Kingmaker. I loved the game despite it's flaws. It's so epic and you get to play as just a regular person that wins a kingdom to rule. I like that concept and loved the story. I'm still playing wrath of the righteous and I hope to finish it but I'm not as in to the story as I was with Kingmaker. I prefer to play as a mortal, not a demi-god. In Kingmaker, I got to defeat a god like being using my skills and my wits. That was awesome.

i bought it last week and have been enjoying it quite a bit but i find it almost overwhelming with all of the options and depth the game has (i've no experience with pathfinder or almost any traditional RPGs) on top of the length. 35 hours in and i've only just finished the troll hideout, though i did restart my save file once after about 3 or 4 hours.

Thanks for the great work Sir

I just finished an Aldori swordlord run in kingmaker then continued the same character’s grandson in wrath. The games are imperfect masterpieces. It wasnt my first run in either game but damn if it wasn’t another blast

Many thanks for this review. Take care man

My biggest gripe with Kingmaker were actually the loading screens. Even on MV2 SSD they are still quite annoying and more importantly - frequent...Wrath of the righteous also has those same loading screens, but the game is better optimized and also the maps are smaller, so they do not feel like the same pain... This might sound silly to some, but the difference between 7 sec. loading screen and 17 sec loading screen is absolutely huge, when they are so frequent. It puts you out of the rhytm of the game, emersion goes to hell and not to mention all the reloads you are gonna do if you play on the higher difficulties...

Kingmaker is a game I absolutely loved and wouldn’t recommend to anybody who’s on the fence. If you’re not fully up on the PF systems, you’ll be totally lost in character creation. I liked the kingdom management, but it (and literally everything in the game) should have been reduced by 40%). That said, if you played countless hours or pen-and-paper PF, it is a fantastic representation of the system, and just a great experience. But yeah, if you’re on the fence skiiiiip it.

Picked up this and Pillars of Eternity 1&2. Gonna have my hands full but I'm super excited!

Really helpful. Thanks.

Playing Wrath of The Righteous and i agreed when you said that "soft" timers make the experience way more enjoyable than the time limits of Kingmaker.

I’ve only played Kingmaker and spent over 100 hours on it. It’s great!

Thanks for your review.

I love both games but Kingmaker is definitely my favorite. It's not required to enjoy the next game, but if you like one you should definitely play the other imho.

I keep telling myself I liked kingmaker more but whenever I look back at the games or want to play one again wrath of the righteous always comes ahead. That being said my recommendation is play wrath first and if you like it play kingmaker too. Wrath teaches the game better so you don't need to go through tutorials on kingmaker.

That is some great advice!

I've been on my first playthrough for about 7 months. I've been very off and on with Kingmaker. It's an amazing game with many pros and cons... It becomes tedious, but I actually like the storyline and the characters, and how the story is revolved around you and your kingdom.

Thanks for the concise and informative review. Guess I'll pass on for now and pick it up once it's on sale if I enjoy Wrath of the Righteous.

This video actually convinced me to get WotR since I was super overwhelmed by Kingmaker and quit midway through act 2.

I loved playing Divinity OS 2 and picked up Kingmaker some weeks ago for 5 bucks. I really enjoy it so far, the story is great and much more comprehensable than Divinity's. I'm looking forward to the second game after I finished the first one - if I will achieve this. I recently started managing my kingdom and there are just sooooo many things happening. Can be kind of overwhelming at times.

Just so everyone knows, its currently on sale, along with all the dlc up until sept 5 (so two more days). I picked it up because of this video, being somewhat new to crpgs (only played BG1) and have been absolutely in love with it. Bought all the DLCs last night. Definitely recommend 👍

I feel like if owlcat went back and added a few things they implemented in Wotr. Not anything big, just a few classes, some spells, and overhauled some of the kingdom management, it would be a lot more enjoyable.

Finally, finally, finally beat the game on Challenging after losing a 50 hour run due to a kingdom management death spiral and if I hadn't allied with the Hellknights that may have happened again at ~100 hours. You're 100% right, it's fun but I just couldn't recommend it. Can't believe some people manage this on Unfair, so hats off to you for 100%ing this thing. My biggest advice going in to this game would be if you're looking into putting out martial damage over magic - just look up what weapons will be available for your chosen type and when/how you get them. I limped through the end of the game with a +2 necrotic fauchard and I only made it because my build was debuff/fear heavy (thug rogue/two hand fighter). It turns out the insanely annoying npc whose quest I failed without even realizing it was THE fauchard artisan and ONLY source of decent +5 fauchards. Don't be like me bros, just go glaive or bardiche or longspear.

I liked Kingmaker story and general feel more, but WoTR is a leap forward mechanics-wise.

I think you should mention that, you probably want to play Kingmaker first if you intend to play both. Going back from Wrath is a bit of a rough experience with how improved the sequel is.

Uuufff i played for 186 hours and it is a game that helps you to hate it!! But still is amazing, I do not know how to describe it, I love it to death and at the same time I just want to chocked it slowly in hate

Playing Kingmaker after Wotr is actually a very good idea, especially if you tried before and struggled a lot. I haven't touched this game for nearly three years, I do rememember the final chapter of the game being a harrowing experience. Now with my pure mad dog barbarian, smilodon pet and my party built to perfection it feels catharthic. After journeying through the Worldwound and the Abyss, the Stolen Land on challenging feel like a nice stroll. Nothing can stop us, even the most terrifying encounters can barely slow us down! I can't wait to meet you know who and give him the Baphomet/Deskaari treatment.

My favorite RPG. I have been playing RPG's since The Bard's Tale in 1986. It's that good.

Honestly, I bought this game when it was released because I used to love crpgs when I was younger and had played pillars 1 and 2 but found it really weird and the art style was not my cup of tea, so eventually I uninstalled it, then I've read about people who love the pathfinder system and heard some interesting things about Wrath of the Righteous and I said, hey I should just get over that learning curve, be a little bit patient and read about the things I do not understand. I'm now hundreds of hours deep with a flourishing kingdom, enjoying an awesome sword saint build, after dealing with bandit lords, trolls, liches, barbarian warlords, evil fey, and who knows what else the game is about to throw at my face in the late game. I'm really debating with myself if after ending this I should start wrath of the righteous or do an evil playthrough in kingmaker. This game is so fun! So in summary: stick with it guys! and watch stuff like the content morty makes so you get familiarized with the system because once you do, these titles are so fucking fun

Ironic that this video came out right after I have replayed Kingmaker, for what is the 5th or 6th time, and after I finished it on Challenging and unlocked the "secret ending" path for the first time after 400 hours. I am honestly torn on which game I think is better as I think I enjoy both equally for different reasons. That being said, I would still suggest Wrath of the Righteous to newcomers mainly because it is better structured and better paced for the first few acts. There's a nice sense of scale and progression from Act 1 to Act 3 before you're off exploring at your own pace whereas Kingmaker immediately starts you off on that path and then throws in some Kingdom management tutorials after only one act.

I have a permanent save going in the sense of, I play a little bit and then realise what a slog it will be if I continue and then I stop. I probably should get back to it.

Thanks for the review. The game lost me when you mentioned timers. I'm too old for stressful gameplay.

Kingmaker was one of the first crpgs I played when it released on ps4 and I loved it up until it started crashing on me every 20 mins near the end of the game. It was definitely alot to learn but I liked that. Also Harrim and Nok Nok are 2 of my favorite companions in any game.

One game I would love to see you tackle is Darklands. It is the first isometric real time with pause game that I know of, being released in 1992. So it is a DOS game, but you can get it both at GOG and Steam with dosbox preapared. What makes it so uniqe is the setting, that of a historic 15th century Germany/Holy Roman Empire with the twist that supernatural folklore things of that time exists in the game, like the wild hunt, but also religious things like demons. There is no magic per say but priests (well, there is no priest class but we will get to that) gets powers from studying actual Catholic saints and there is alchemy for producing potions both for offence and utility. The character creation system is also skill based, you don't get any levels, you just improve your skills. Charachter generation is done through 5 year career choices sort of like Traveler ttg. Pillars of eternity also took some inspiration from the game, most notably the text adventure stuff as well as the endurance system and the armor and penteration system. The game has a fair share of clunk and is very complicated but there is also nothing like it, would love to see you do a 100% on it (even though the game does not have achievments).

Just finished the game, some tips: visit all map locations, for this, boost perception as much as you can, boost persuasion because a lot of exp comes out of it. For your main Character don't play anything crazy, play a barbarian or something like that. Make sure you have a cleric, everything that gives or offers passive or active freedom of movement get it. For the advisors use the right people, for example the warden should be someone with high constitution (look for the right Stat for each role) . On Kingdom mgmt try to rank up stats as a priority , then problems, then curses, then projects, then opportunities. For rank ups, after 40 level ups you will get a project to reduce the time to 7 days instead of 14. Don't stress over time, it's manageable. FINISH all companion quests and always pair Jaethal and Tristan on their companion quests.

I played a few hours of it, and enjoyed it a lot! Though it's still installed on my machine, I've temporarily dropped it along some other games, due to a certain crpg burnout, but I'm eager to finish them all someday.

Unless you are playing with some harsh difficulty options it is really hard to fail the game. Wrath is a definite improvement over,but both games have well written stories and characters (along with some poorly written ones) and are worth playing. Tuesday should see the release of the roguelite DLC for Wrath,but Kingmaker's Beneath the Stolen Lands is an awesome example of how to do a story DLC with extra, the extra being an out of campaign Rogue lite mode that let's you create the entire party in a somewhat randomized version of the dungeon. That alone gives Kingmaker huge replay value versus Wrath (atm)

played kingmaker a couple of years ago, loved it and got to the kingdom part and stopped because it was stressful, picked it up again last week and restarted and enjoyed much more. Bought the second in the series and i prefer that alot more, seems more suited to newer players.

Kingmaker just hits really different fr I loved it

i love kingmaker it's not perfect but i love it. before i played it i knew nothing about the pathfinder ttrpg but now i've learned alot and am even familiar with most of the adventure paths.

Just recently picked it up and I am really enjoying it so far. But then again I started playing pathfinder as a pen and paper RPG and DND since 2nd Edition (not recommended. lol). My first CRPG I think was the original Buldar's Gate from 1998. But I can see how some of the technical side of things like character creation could scare off people coming from something like Skyrim.

I completely agree

YES, you should play it! It is a lot of fun!

You got that right, still haven't beat the final boss. It's been months since, and now I'm wondering if I should lower the difficulty. May have been also because I messed up my build for the characters.

When feasible I do prefer to play the games in order they were released. I did for example with Shadowruns and it was good decision as I don't imagine playing Returns after Dragonfall (or more extreme example ME1 after ME2/3). However, I have limits e.g. I will definitely skip Wasteland 1, not sure yet about second one. So yeah, I started Kingmaker and I am currently in 93%, but that's because it takes time as you said, not that I gave up (yet). Whereas Pathfinder is new setting for me, it was not new system exactly. Thus getting to know new world, while having good grasp of core mechanics was so far a positive experience. Kingdom management was fun... until I ran out of BP =P

The Kingdom Management isn't great for its own sake, but it adds a lot of context/stakes to the game as a whole.

I think it is a good idea to play Kingmaker if you can get it cheap and learn how it all works even if you don't finish it. Then when you go into playing wotr you will have an idea how things work.

just found out about the crpg genre and im completely addicted. i just completed dos1&2 a couple days ago, currently playing pillars of eternity with the sequel on standby. i couldn’t help myself so i got kingmaker and im 2 hours in. it’s really challenging so i play on custom difficulty. i never see people saying this but i assume most of the fun comes out of the difficult combat. i guess im just playing through this one on easy, so when i play the sequel im more prepared & comfortable. im very limited on time so i don’t have the luxury to replay games or do another run as a new build, id rather experience all the games and once im done ill feel better about doing so.

Great game and totally worth it. Has some bugs here and there but still a great game! Time limits worried me but were not an issue whatsoever.

Thank you, Mort, for being the only reviewer I see who admits that Kingmaker isn't great. I was really into it until I got stuck where it wouldn't let me progress until a timer finished, but I had done everything else to do. I spent an entire real life day watching something on my second monitor while spamming the "skip day" button until it finally passed. If you are going to play both: play Kingmaker first, because Wrath outclasses it by a wide margin.

I'm so close on kingmaker almost to act 4 but I've been playing since the start of the year lol. On Xbox series X using a 65" 8k OLED TV with the Sony HT-A6 surround sound system has made the game feel different. I think I enjoy the sound design and music in this game the most. I'm a very casual player that reads everything and I definitely feel decision paralysis, glee, regret, sadness, and excitement. Definitely a love/hate feel playing through as a lawful evil monk.

Id buy this game in a heartbeat if it had coop

So, I finished Pathfinder:Wotr about half a year ago, got secret ending, finished all side quests, etc. And it was a blast. I really enjoyed it. Story, mechanics, combat, everything. Should i try Kingmaker? Or its a huge downgrade in comparison with Wotr. Mostly interested in story \ mechanics \ combat. Also, i did a little research on nexus, and there are a lot of mods for simplifying that scary kingdom mode, so i`ll probably use those.

KM has a better story, WR has more toys to look at (but not really play with).

I have been really enjoying Kingmaker.... but I 100% agree..... good god it is stressful, this is a game I would not hesitate to use a guide on!

I am loving it so far. Bought it on GOG for 3.99€.

I think one of the problems with the two pathfinder games is that they can be overly punishing to new players if you don't follow a guide or lower the difficulty to steamroll everything.

My first ever crpg type game (only have a play station never got to experience the genre) overall had a blast and I'm looking at checking out the classics in the genre I missed out like baulders gate

Thank you, should check WOTR in future

I enjoyed Kingmaker more than Wrath of the Righteous because in Wrath, you are generally either good or evil, and if you're evil, then the story doesn't make any sense; but in Kingmaker, you get to make more morally grey, nuanced choices.

I beg to differ. I started Kingmaker as a newbie, and I really like it so far. I am even playing on Hard. It is challenging, but rewarding. The story is captivating as well. Try it 👍

Just downloaded and started yesterday lol hoping the answer is yes 🤞🏻 (had free on EGS)

Super fun game in my opinion. The best adaptation of a tabletop system in any videogame. I played it exclusively in turn-based mode, which takes way more time but is the best alternative for pen and paper RPGs a working guy like myself can get. If you want to play it be warned -- the game is indeed long. Finishing the story, the dungeon DLC, the companion DLC, every quest I could find on top of exploring every corner of the map took me about 140 hours. After I finished it though I really felt satisfied with the choice of endings the game presented to me. You could say the endings really crown the adventure;p

Yes!

Ive sunked over 200 hrs on Kingmaker and only got halfway through. Its a really LONG game. You can be familiar with games like Baldur's Gate but not with how the tabletop D&D games are, this can be a rude awakening. Like the whole resting mechanic and the timers.

I played this near launch when it was really imbalanced. Used a cheat engine to buff my character and had a blast playing it for the story. It's basically what I wanted from DA:I when it came to ruling a kingdom.

Errr yes, yes you should!!! 😀

Here's a good tip, just set difficulty to the easiest possible if you ever see "Wild hunt" in your screen and you will enjoy the game for the most part.

Starting the video now, and it should be a resounding yes.

Of course you should!One of the best RPG'S rhat you can play. This game looks awesome and is pure old school rolgame. Play this,the second or warhammer 40000 rogue trader or all of them.

These type of games require a lot of mental fortitude to play through if you are not familiar with the systems, and Kingmaker is a ridiculously huge game. Keep that in mind.

Kingmaker is overwhelming in several ways with a ridiculous number of choices for skills/abilities/paths, a huge game world, very uneven combat difficulty spikes, and so on. It is likely fun for very experienced Pathfinder players. I'm a long time CRPG player, and while I had intermittent fun with this I probably only made it about half way through. It was just too much of everything! I purchased "Wrath" on Steam when it was on sale as I read that it is better in most respects but haven't tried it yet.

I really need to try this game again. Played before the turn-based update, with a Alchemist I just was not feeling after a couple of hours. Oh, and probably swallow the pride and turn the difficulty down to easy, so I don't have to spend every freakin' fight buffing everybody for five minutes. Never liked that design choice for normal fights.

I have a question, have you heard maybe about Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos? It's a free mod to gothic 2. And really big one, can be downloaded on steam. Unfortunately it has only english subs (audio is polish). I think it's worth to check it out for oldschool rpg players.

Invisible failure state timers really annoy me, so I am part of that 93% that never reached the ending. I love all the options available for characters in the Pathfinder system, but hate the idea of having to constantly juggle chainsaws which threaten to end the game at any moment.

I enjoyed the CRPG aspect immensely, but the %$@#&* kingdom management really managed to suck all the fun out of it for me. I hate being on a clock, and my natural drive to explore a game world was really hemmed in by the whole timer thing. It upsets me still because I love 3.5 and Pathfinder, and I wanted to experience the story.

Awesome game :) close to perfection.

if you like WOTR, Kingmaker is a must play. Since main enemy is fey, it's a lot more colorful than wotr you get to see things that kinda opposite to what you see in wotr. only downside is you have less chioce in character making but not much affect on how you roleplay. if it get remake in wotr engine it will be even better

Over 200 hours into the first Pathfinder Kingmaker game. Just finished the War of River Kingdoms quest line. I really want to like this game but it has some big problems. First and foremost is Kingdome Management and the advisors. You have to spend years of in game time leveling them up and then they still keep have lover and lower chances of being successful at missions, on top of that are the infernal timers for the whole process. You have to micro manage your ministers and their time or you can completely fail the game if your kingdom falls. This is far more like a card game than a RPG. There are also a lot of hidden checks going on in the background of encounters and if you miss some of those, which happens all the time, there is no way to undo what you missed unless you reload and go back or find a loophole. I am pretty familiar with these types of games and yet in this game there are lots of thing that I don't know and learn as time goes on which if i knew earlier would have made the game much more enjoyable. A lot of quests and puzzles seem to have no clues on how to solve them or no hints, or if there are hints they are buried in some imperceptible thing in game, or the mountains and mountains of text which grind you to tears. There is tons of potential in this game but the Kingdom Management kill the game, with the tons of timers adding to the misery. This game could be great if the game were cut down to be an adventure game with less Kingdome Management, less text but text that actually was useful more often, and getting rid of hidden perception checks or unchangeable event outcomes, like when you don't do the right thing like break something but move it instead and then cant get into doors you can clearly see and should otherwise be able to open.

Agree 100%.

$8 on PSN right now, until 9/1/22. At that price I might give it a shot to check out the systems and world and when Wrath dips down grab that for a more serious time investment.

I really liked Kingmaker, don't remember having that frustation with it. It will be a while before I play WotR, but I'm sure I will like it too.

Might get back onto this game on ps4 . I left pathfinder to play poe2 but the loading times are awful on console for poe2 so i think ill play kingmaker until w.o.t.r comes out

Can you still stay in the act before moving on to complete side quests? Or do you automatically move on to the next act when you finish the main quest. I ask cause people say you can do the side stuff after each main act and i wanna know what is meant by that

For me, the biggest problem with the Pathfinder games is that they're Pathfinder. Don't get me wrong, it's a good system if you're playing with friends on the tabletop and you've only got one character to learn and manage. Pathfinder has systems on top of systems with subclasses that are slightly different than each other and it can be daunting to figure out one class, let alone the 5 others in your party. Most classes are straightforward but many of them you really have to buckle down and learn how to play because they aren't the usual classes everyone has seen before. Add on top of that the class and stat choices Owlcat made with companion NPCs and an unforgiving system with sometimes extremely quirky mechanics with unforgiving fights and it can lead to frustration quickly. I understand the system now and the way Owlcat has built encounters but it took me multiple failed attempts to figure out that Owlcat decided to give bosses insane AC and resistances and the problem wasn't that I was underleveled for an encounter, I just needed to buff and debuff the hell out of any boss I met with multiple layers of both to succeed. That said I liked Kingmaker more, mainly because demons have extremely high elemental resists so having a non-divine offensive caster in your party is harder than it needs to be.

I have struggled with Kingmaker twice now. I guess maybe if I had a walkthrough that told me how to manage the timers, I might give it another try. But at this point, I think two failed tries means that it was too clunky for me to enjoy.

I could not get through Kingmaker on my first run, or well, runs, as I did like 20 restarts. Might give it a shot 1 more try before starting WOTR, as these games really are my niche

for anyone wondering, it is currently $8.99 atm on steam

I started playing last week. Yes, yes you should play it. Although I'm looking forward to playing it without the kingdom management.

I bought this on sale on Steam a while back and haven't got around to playing it yet

You summed it up well..got it dirt cheap on the Epic game store. Got @ 30 hrs in and gave up. Still trying to decide on Wotr...Wotr is 50% off on Steam so probably the time to pull the trigger.

The mods I was using during my kingmaker playthrough broke like 3/4ths through. I wasn’t playing wrath of the righteous because I’d intended to go back, re-mod kingmaker, and play it over. I thought there was more of a story tie between the two. Hmm.

As someone who started with wotr and has gone back to Kingmaker very recently I have mixed feelings so far. I think my main issue with the game is just how long each quest feels comparatively. I swear even the early quest with mites vs kobolds felt like it rivaled the Midnight Fane in scope, the dungeon was just massive. It's too many encounters to be fun. I feel like wotr has the same problem just to a much lesser extent. This is probably due to me being newer to these systems. Wotr might as well be my first crpg and i adore it. Otherwise I've played a few hours of some others, not ever getting into them much. I want like 4 or 5 unique, challenging, and cool fights per dungeon rather than two dozen "trash" fights. Maybe 10 to 15 for big set piece dungeons. I am one of those people who absolutely love crusade and kingdom management. I would go as far as to say it probably is my favorite part of Kingmaker. There are some companions I really wish I could drag into my wotr playthrough. I wanna see a party of Jaethal, Amiri, Camellia, Wendu, Kanerah, Regill and Ember. I feel like they would get shit done. Though I would greatly worry for Ember's mental health.

I enjoyed Kingmaker for quite a while but I just never got around to finishing it. At some point I just stopped enjoying it. I've tried twice and got quite a bit further the second time, since I was more comfortable with the Pathfinder system, but I still couldn't complete it. I really didn't like the Kingdom Management but didn't want to put it on Auto. The fact that things could spring up while you were super far away and you'd have to interrupt what you were doing and go all the way back to deal with things was incredibly annoying to me. I know there was other stuff but it's been so long that I can't really remember any more lol. I did really like a lot of the side characters though, companion quests were solid. Idk it just didn't grab me overall. But WotR refined things enough for me that I've played the base game through all the way twice.

What your saying sounds a bit like the situation between divinity vs divinity 2 where the original is good but it gets overshadowed by the more refined sequel