Pathfinder Kingmaker on GOG - gog.la/BringTheRope THE LIST - docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_K3ziSxT9zcUUGCddS4sF1uNJTWHSbOwB1CQX2Rx4Uo Sorry this took longer, there was a lot of game to cover.
They even got the "DM put battle music and forget to add another because combat takes too long" right into their soundtracks just like the real tabletop, that's awesome.
The Darven's character is that one guy who writes a completely OP character and expects you all to just roll with it. 10/10 realistic tabletop setting.
He is also an edge lord, because of course he is... which is kind of hilarious for a videogame honestly. He literally "nothing personal kid" 's a man, and i'm not supposed to laugh. Very realistic tabletop character 10/10.
@@Naruga Yes, I believe this is correct. It's also why his chapter seems so shoehorned into the game. The entire Hellknight segment is just there because of his character, it has no connection with the rest of the main story.
I feel like the devs okay'd Darven to complete the TTRPG experience. Let players know what it's like to be in a campaign with "that guy," even just briefly.
Guess I'm lucky that my DM was never that guy and he only created interchangeable NPC's that were quest givers or information dumps. Since I find combat encounters to be my favorite part of pen and paper rpg,, I was also never that guy when I was DMing. Why bother writing some OP Mary Sue when I have 5 levels of dungeon mazes to design and fill with monsters, traps and loot.
I like to imagine that the backer didn't even write all of that stuff, just sent them an email with "Please add in a "That Guy" experience to the game. k thx."
@@artur6912 wtf are you talking about. THAT GUY is NOT DM, that guy means A PLAYER, who creates illogical builds just to get broken op combination, is cocky and wants to be in the spotlight..
For anyone interested in the game, don’t worry about the music just stopping in turn-based combat. There’s an option for pauses between track repeats during turn-based combat that’s turned on by default, but you can turn it off.
@@AlexWaff The problem is that... this is not a silly side quest. It's practically mandatory: you cannot refuse it or drop it at any point, and you cannot ignore it since the Hellknights give a periodical debuff to kingdom stats as long as they're not dealt with.
Personally I still had fun doing it. Yeah I was rolling my eyes everytime he appeared but it was still fun to fight those dicks of the Hellknights. If we could have sided with the Hellknights It would have been a good quest.
@@originalinhoKO yeah, the number one rule in Pathfinder: Kingmaker is always resolve problems as soon as possibile, or they will fuck up your Kingdom.
Actually it IS possible to side with the Hellknights and get a reward during Darven's quest. It's just REALLY fucking hard because so many options make Linxia hate your guts and the quest tries to railroad you into siding with Darven. Let them do their investigation, don't get mad when they start dicking around with your subjects, and wait a month or two. Eventually the next time you leave the Capital, Darven will interrupt you. Tell him to fuck off and try to arrest him, or just lie that you'll help him. Go to the Secluded Lodge, and when Linxia asks you how you knew she was there, choose the Lawful Neutral option of (Darven told me). When she freaks out and asks why, DO NOT, repeat, DO NOT admit that he wanted you to kill her. You need to tell her that it's none of her business. YOU WILL STILL FIGHT THE HELLKNIGHTS. When Darven tries to sweettalk you after, stab his ass so he runs off. Eventually Linxia will message you and ask you for backup at Brineheart. Go to her, help the Hellknights fight Darven's mercs. When Darven tries to get you to side with again, tell Linxia to go for the kill. YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST NOT ask if there's a peaceful solution. Fight Darven with the Hellknights. In the conversation that follows, DO NOT try to ask for mercy for Darven, just choose the Neutral option. Linxia will begrudgingly admit to you being a fine ruler, and will offer an alliance with the Order of the Rack. This opens up a project where you can officially ally with them, which will give a random chance of raising your stability level, with it being more likely the less stable your kingdom is. Obviously a total pain in the fucking ass to get and definitely not worth it when compared to the shit Darven gives you, but fuck Darven and fuck this quest jesus fucking christ.
Man, thank you, I was about to go for another round and absolutely didn't want to side with Darven (Didn't side with him the first time either) but not fucking myself over for litterally nothing again.
The Darven questline is like when your DM needs more time to prep for the end of the campaign so they let one of the players DM for a couple sessions and he brings in his OC from his fanfiction as an NPC to show off how cool he is. Then if you try to kill him, the guest DM is like "Uhhh... He casts Greater Invisibility!" "I have True Sight." "...His spell is special and makes him invisible even to True Sight!" Like a kid on the playground with an everything-proof shield.
I already said this but If I was to make my own quest for this with my own character it would be something dumb like you look for ingredients for two goblins who run a crappy inn called Gobblin Goblins. It's run by two Goblins named Gob and Lyn. The end of the quest is now it's a high end inn that is way over priced and the goblins now wear powdered wigs...I totally didn't do this in the pen and paper Pathfinder
Quests like this really help you realize the difference between who is truly a player or a dungeon master at heart. Personally, if handled differently, i think the darven questline could be quite interesting. I would have made darven himself a devil in disguise(Hell knights hunt devils, you see), but i would have made him sympathetic, play against type. So harboring him does technically make you in the wrong since hell knights are just doing their job, but Darven 2.0 here wants to do right and turn over a new leaf.
Advice for anyone nearing the end of the game. There is a feat anyone can take called Blind-Fight. It makes you immune to gaze attacks, which is what the Wild Hunt uses to paralyze you. This will make the last stretch far more reasonable.
Wasn't there also some items or weapons you you got early on that also made you immune to it? I think I had one on Harrid so maybe it was a mace. The Wild Hunt was effectively Pathfinder's way of having you run full speed into a concrete wall if you thought the game wasn't too hard.
Blind-Fight does not make you immune to gaze attacks in the pnp, and it does not say it does in kingmaker, so I am not sure if this is true. If it is, it is a bug or they simulated "closing your eyes" for some reason. What it does is allow you to bypass concealment for foes that you cannot see. So blind fight is the ability to fight *while* blind. You can make yourself immune to some gaze attacks by blinding yourself, and you can still fight while blind with blind fight. I do not remember if there is any way to do that in kingmaker.
@@TheTalentedMrWulf No no no. Ambigious Amphibian is the discount Sseth who deleted all his old content when he decided he'd like to be Sseth. Ambigious Amphibious is the K-Mart Sseth.
Check out the trailers for their second game, Wrath of the Righteous. It is coming out September 2nd 2021, and looks like it is addressing a lot of the complaints that people had about Kingmaker. Like they seemed to have learned a lot from the first game.
@@paulie-g In Slav Country you have to choices in job: go to forest and fight bear for vodka, or program games sent from Dazbog for mortals to enjoy. There are no other options...
@@Caelinus Can confirm, put about 160 hrs in my first playthrough when ot first released and loved it. Gameplay, QoL, and systems were improved from Kingmaker (ToyBox mod makes it way better, worth downloading for anyone, even if you don't want the cheat-y options). Personally I liked the story of Kingmaker more than WotR, but it's still great. Both are easily in my top 5 CRPGs
For anyone playing this game, something I would recommend turning off is the alignment shift display during dialogue. As shown in the video, your alignment can shift over the course of your playthrough depending on your actions, and there’s an awesome display on your character sheet that tracks each and every change in your alignment, along with a marker that slowly moves across an alignment map, which can change your overall alignment as a whole. I noticed that a lot of my actions tended to be more focused towards the alignment I was currently at rather than what I truly wanted to say. If you’ve ever played Torment: Tides of Numenera, it’s like the tides system in that game. I turned it off early in my experience, and I’m so glad I did. You can totally keep alignment shift notifications on, but actually showing if dialogue choices will affect it will tempt you into playing it to the game’s systems rather than actually roleplaying your character.
@@Lone88Wanderer Playing it right now. It's pretty mediocre game and surely unfinished. But could be finished once just to see what it is. If you enjoyed Planescape, i'd recommed give it a try. But trully nithing special in it, unlike obsidian game or pathfinder.
I like keeping it on, just so I know if the dialogue writer means something different from what I thought I was reading. Like the infamous Darven quest where siding with the evil pirate is considered Lawful, not trying to get him arrested for his crimes.
@@NarsMcain Question wasn't directed to me but OP probably menat the "glory hound" kind of player. The one that always has to be in the spotlight, butts in whenever another player is handling a situation, tries way too hard to be cool and impressive, probably bending the rules to be as OP as possible and, most importantly, gets butthurt whenever things doesn't go his way. This type of player is often referred to as "That Guy". We have That Guy in my group as well.
"Dickweed Dan and his self-insert-totally-awesome-adventure-all-about-him featuring these assholes or whatever who take forever to take their turns..."?
@@DustyLamp Yeah he passed away on the 6th of May, though it was not publicly reported until the 18th. Just awful, we really just lost one of the absolute finest.
@@therealwinston3634 I mean kinda doubt it considering how long editing these videos takes and how the news only broke on thursday. Still,a nice coincidence.
Actually, once, when i was selling junk i stuble at that rope at vendor and think. Why the hell he even to sells that? Then i remember fallout 2 and buy that rope and crowbar. And you know what? This shit is more useful than infinity gauntlet. And now i always have couple of them.
@@aibalta6340 Likely just never ran into the relevant checks. There are a handful of events where rope comes into play but it is possible you just missed them.
Not a tabletop player, but rope is just... survival basics. It bothers me when DayZ or Rust are ostensibly survival games, but you never have to tie anything. And forget rappelling or climbing, its such a lacking area of gaming that my friends used to praise Skyrim for being broken enough to allow for fake rock climbing. And then Breath of the Wild lets you free climb ANYTHING, but NO ROPE! It's so close! Like, its just so silly that this is the one, super important, thing that is just nowhere to be found.
I remember doing the old version, then coming back to the game a few months later and thinking "Was it always like this? I thought there were more." I remember the first time, I actually had to reload to a previous save an change my spell load out so that I would have enough splash damage. The kingdom building segment has seen a lot of change as well.
@@mike42192 Swams are also a lot easier with turn-based mode turned on. Makes it so that you done miss them with AOEs because they moved. (AOEs in general are much better with turn-based mode turned on.)
I finished Kingmaker earlier this year and was looking forward to your review. "A passanger in my own body" is a perfect way to describe the Hellknights/Darven segment of the game. At one point the Hellknights were being major a-holes to me and my people, I chose the option to have them arrested... and they just left! Did I fucking stutter? I told my guards to arrest them, not stand still while they leave! Any agency you had until that moment is taken away from you so that Darven can be cool and awesome all the time. Luckily it is given back to you once that fever dream of a chapter is over. It's definetely the sore thumb sticking out of the rest of the game, and it's painfully obvious that it was shoehorned into the main quest to satisfy the backer who created the character. The end section is pretty damn awful too. I enjoyed the game though, and I am happy to have played it. It's an 8.5/10 in my book.
The combat hits connecting really reminded me of the meaty thunk Diablo 2 gave and I loved it. Glad you brought that up, it’s a really satisfying part of combat in games that doesn’t get enough attention.
@@Marth667 His cause of death, aortic dissection I believe, is usually linked to stress as a factor for it occurring. He usually pushed himself into putting his all into it.
Oh dear god. I remember how that book ended and being thoroughly creeped out. It was very clear that the author was... fond of Theresa. And he still did _that_ to her.
@@adrianthenormie20 There is a lot of subtext in the book that just makes it seem like that Theresa is the authors waifu and his vessel for his fetishes. Turning her into a brood mother is just the end of a long string of... oddities. Really, the author would be a fascinating case study for someones psychology assignment.
In Varnhold there is some tongue-in-cheeck quest about some weird DIRE BARD who sings nonsensical songs. Idk if it was someone's insert or joke of developers, but that "bard" made me laugh.
A swashbuckling, devil-deal-maker who always somehow manages to escape consequences like a dashing heartbreaking lovable rogue? That's, like, the literal definition of OC do not steal. That backer was 100% non ironic, I bet my ass.
The last chapter in the House at the edge of time got me. I don't ragequit often, but it got me. It wasn't even the tedium or "unfair" encounters. It was that the game just decided "I don't like how you've handled this one character's quest line, so I'm going to kill them off with another character." It was a legitimate end to that quest, but Owlcat said no. Just death by railroading. You don't even get a chance to defuse the situation or pick one or the other. You can't even resurrect the one that was killed, although you could usually do that and the corpse was intact. Heck, the killed character was in the main party and therefore much better equipped, and by all accounts should have killed the "turncoat assassin". I just said "screw this" and left, because if a GM tried that crap with me in an actual Pathfinder game, I'd do the same thing.
I had the same experience. It is kind pretty crazy when I was so far into the game, and it is so long, far too long actually. I do respect owlcat games a lot, but man, looking back I kind of hated Kingmaker. It started out very strong, but the quality got worse and worse. They could easily have cut out 30 hours of the campaign, and instead focus on improving what they had. That and a remake of the house would've made the game a masterpiece instead of an ambitious sort-of-failure.
Preach, I did finish the game, but lost my biggest DPS in the party just because I didn't finish a questline correctly. I struggled to no end to finishit. I wanted to do a lawful evil run, but I won't go again through this shit. And to be honest there were many moments in the game where it's just bullshit after bullshit. And I'm getting Wrath of the righteous "from a friend", because fuck them.
@@BIacklce Puritans are the insufferable ones who hate dancing and everything resembling fun, protestants just dislike the pope and the catholic church, and being expected to give what little money they have to said corrupt church. Protestants also have a deep resentment for the catholic church who labelled them as heretics for splitting off and then used forced to try and subjugate the protestants to rejoin the catholic church so they could collect money from them again. The catholic church is greedy, arrogant, entitled, corrupt, and frankly rotten to the core. I couldn't tell you if the puritans or Catholics are worse, that's like asking which type of cancer I prefer, I don't like either of them lol, they are both the absolute worst of Christianity.
@@hahmann Cringelords, Edgelords, Atheists with fedoras and trench coats, and early 2000s Weebs destroyed that pretty damn well. You may or may not have seen the greentext of >Psst. Nothing Personal Kid >Teleports Behind U >Stabs you though the kokoro. ... Or just seen one too many Sonic OC's. Either or.
@@melfice999 >"Omae wa mou shindeiru." > "Nani?" Also cringe weeb bs does not make my kokoro go doki doki... I can't believe I actually wrote that sh't...
@@melfice999 If you mean specifically the anti-theist atheists who are like: hur dur all religion bad and should be destroyed cause I don't like it. Yes, that particular type of atheist is pure cringe, and is often seen with a fedora and/or trench coat.
I started playing this game blind, and even though I wasn't interested in the city/empire management as much as the actual adventuring that wasn't a problem for me. Valorie is an absolute treasure as a companion as well, I wouldn't enjoy pathfinder nearly as much if she wasn't judging the hell out of my chaotic actions while taking 90% of the hits for me in battle. What a babe.
Sadly it also feels like a Russian game. Poorly thought out ideas, that sound cool on paper but are extremely frustrating on practice. In about 100 hours that I've spent with this game so far - probably 40 hours were spent cursing the encounter designer and that one guy who desided that having timed quests without actually having a timer for player to see was a good idea in a game that requires hundreds of hours to finish. Too bad that other 20-30 hours the junk works and Russian's gamedev magic shines on this extremely rough ember of a videogame. Progression is excellent and world exploration feels better than it did in PoE. But then 10 level 8 wargs ambush your party forcing to restart from the last checkpoint and you remember why this game sucks so much.
Thats what really loved about dragon age, that your decisions early in the game could affect your playthrough completely, and makes you think harder about what you are about to do
A new game is in the works and I honestly can't wait, I loved Inquisition, even though it was easy (outside of certain boss encounters and VERY early on in the game) the story and the characters really carry the game for me. It's the same with Kingmaker for me, can't wait for Wrath of the Righteous to come out.
@@sujimayne I have been replaying Inquisition lately and I love it just as much as I did in 2014, great time. In my opinion, it's still best in class. I have yet to see a newer game do it better,
I do quite love this game, it had the Skyrim effect on me where I kept replaying it from the start, not because I was getting fed up with it, but because I just wanted to replay the first 5 chapters over and over again. To the point where I had 500+ hours in it until I actually sat down and beat the game.
Im so glad they finally introduced turn based combat into the game, real time combat could be chaotic, and feel like i wasn't getting everything i could out of a fight, pathfinder has so much crap you can do with each turn, and real time felt like i was lossing 50% of what i could have done. Not to mention spell wind-ups can be horrendous at times
I've never clicked a video this fast. Pathfinder: Kingmaker is my favourite RPG of the past decade and I am so hyped for the Wrath of the Righteous. Thanks for a great review as always.
Why though? Pillars of Eternity 1 as an CRPG is literally better in almost every single way, aside from maybe leveling and world size. Just curious to hear why would anyone prefer playing a single player Pathfinder scenario without a GM to an actually well designed video game.
@@blindeyedblightmain3565 I sadly didn't play Pillars of Eternity long enough to make a decent comparison, but I am thinking about returning to it one day. But aside from occasional bugs, long loading times and sometimes dragging Kingdom Management periods I like pretty much everything about Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Pathfinder is my favourite tabletop RPG and game does a good job with implementing it in-detail. Turn-based combat is a plus too. And I like the overall story, most of the characters, worldbuilding and decision making moments. Most people didn't like it, but I even like Kingdom Management too. Game does a satisfying job with making you feel like a ruler imo.
@@hawkeye137137 I am very much fond of the ideas that this game has, but the implementation of those ideas hurts me greatly. The biggest issues being questionable enemy balance and encounter design, both being highly infuriating from time to time. Kingdom management is actually fun and decently interesting, but also flawed with how it can destroy your first playthrough if the time you've invested in developing it wasn't sufficient enough, or if you have invested too much, therefore allowing story quests to destroy your win condition. Both of those things are very poorly explained and as it seems it is a major reason for a lot of player's dissatisfaction. The game overall is doing very poor job of explaining things to the player, I'm scared to imagine how people who never played a session of DnD would suffer on their first playthrough. But even with all that, there is some charm to Kingmaker. It is probably my third favorite CRPG of the decade so far, losing only to Divinity 2 and PoE 1. The systems implemented from PnP version of Pathfinder are so much fun to dig in and play around with.
@@blindeyedblightmain3565 I agree with the issues you listed, P:KM can be a cruel and relentless game sometimes. But aside from needing to repeat some encounters(damn you Ghostly Guards) none of them happened to me during my playthrough, so I can probably say that I was pretty blessed. From what I read on Reddit, Wrath of the Righteous will be a much better game in all fronts; teaching the system, encounter balance, no system which can end your playthrough like Kingdom Management, etc. which is always a plus. Also Divinity: Original Sin 2 too is on my playlist, but I am waiting for a friend who is at military service to return, so we can co-op it.
Darven questline appears out of nowhere, you cannot avoid it, the game enforces the one and only 'right' way to proceed it via supporting the OC DO Not Steal character all but demanding you like him and penalizing you for acting against him, even if it is within your characters personality. 10/10, authentic tabletop experience.
I love that I can look at the party that Mandalore is using and immediately tell exactly which moral choices he's made and what alignment Mandalore is.
Ironically, I did the EXACT same thing my two playthroughs. First time was a Lawful Good Fighter, second playthrough I was a half and half Lawful Good Fighter and Paladin. Had a blast second time through, I was unbelievably good against so many bosses because I got a sword that did extra damage against Chaotic Creatures, plus SMite Evil, and a good deal of the big bosses in the game are, well, Chaotic Evil. I also made Enkundayo into a fucking walking sentry turret and he would a lot of the time kill every enemy in a single turn.
@@rustyshackle8000 Ekun in Kingmaker and Aru in Wrath just go to show that archers are walking agents of destruction in Pathfinder. You have to actively screw up their build to make them anything less than that.
@@rustyshackle8000 Ekun solo killed the last boss on my playthrough. No one else in the party could even hit the fuck with anything below 18, Ekun only needed 3 on most of his attacks after doing the Query + Temp favorite enemy spell.
My party for almost the entirety of the game had Amiri, Ekun and Nok-Nok just multi-hitting everything. I played a melee tank multi class monstrosity that started as an Aldori Defender. By end game Nok was attacking 7-8 times a round and with the sneak attack damage it was crazy.
@@legion999 No but apparently he had an outline and was training people to take over after his death. He was probably having health problems for years and was preparing accordingly. Feel sorry for him.
My biggest pet peeve with Kingmaker (which I did love) was how much it was designed to waste the player's time. The characters move slowly, they're always in need of rest on the strategic map, there is even a puzzle in a dungeon that is designed so that you'll go through as many loading screens as possible. My advice? Use mods that make characters move faster out of combat, and remove the weight limit. It doesn't bring anything to the game and it's not even realistic that the land's baron wouldn't use horses or couriers to carry their stuff. About the last dungeon I recommend you soldier through, the ending is surprisingly well written and really took my choices into account, in ways I didn't see coming.
Totally man ! The only things that don't make a 10/10 games to me are: -Characters moving to slow, especially on the strategic map ! Man it's so painful ! -Rest, rest and rest again -Kingdom management, I sooo hate it ! I always hated it in RPGs. It breaks momentum and immersion. At least we can switch auto-management ON ! I would've quit the game otherwise.
Oh, and what about Linzi preventing you for traveling to Restov once you have established your barony? It's absolutely arbitrary, and prevents you to use the very comfortable and fast road to reach the southwestern part of the Stolen Lands, forcing me to crawl through mountain chains instead. Good job Linzi... and guess who just volunteered to facetank the next pack of Manticores we see?
Your character is still an adventurer at heart and bigger groups easily attract more monsters. Not only that but those guards wouldnt survive the shit you do. I think max they are level 6. AND YOU DO USE HORSES. Theres a kingdom event for it. You were carrying too much, grab a bag of holding or reduce your capacity. I mean...I love the immersion it brings, but maybe we just like different flavors of stuff
@@stonnger540 It's exactly because I played games like this that it annoys me. Decades of game development evolution and the same mistakes are still being repeated.
Serstan's Lore: An expert on Druidic magic. Serstan claims he was robbed of his rightful claim to immortality. Serstan broke a sacred vow and received the ULTIMATE DISGRACE as well as being exiled from his world, now he must venture to restore his power and his honor.
The mouseover-for-lore-and-definitions thing is a life-saver. I first encountered it in "Pyre" from Supergiant Games, and I'm surprised it's not more common in all these fantasy worlds with so many Proper Nouns.
I was a kickstarter backer for this, I prefer the definitive edition vs when it released. To be able to switch between RTWP & turn based mode "on the fly" can't be understated. If I have an issue with it, is that you can't create your entire party, you create one & the rest "come to you" as it were. You can make other members as the game progresses, but those you create aren't story-based for one, & for the other, as the levels progress so does the cost to create them in game. I do like that the game does have a good amount of replay value, 9 possible replays as a matter of fact. Each kingdom is based on your characters alignment, & each kingdom has certain things that it will & won't have based on that. As examples: a Lawful Good kingdom you can get a Bulletin Board (which gives bonuses to certain kingdom based quests), while a Chaotic Neutral Kingdom WON'T have that Bulletin Board, but WILL give you the option of having a state run whore house (extra tax revenue), A LAwful Evil Kingdom you'll have a gallows in the town square, & so on. I dig little things like that.
You may have just sold the game to me. I've been pining over a game that offers actual true necromancer gameplay. I'd LOVE to have a fully dark/evil group that focuses on undead stuff with skeleton summons, etc.
@@slandshark i'd reccomend grabbing the call of the wild mod, it adds a few more class options for necromancer-ey things. And it also optionally makes the raise dead spell work closer to how it does in tabletop.
Oh, man. I loved this review. Kingmaker was a game I couldn't really recommend to my friends without the addendum of 'but you should really play it on easy if you've never played pathfinder before' even though I really loved the game. But now that Wrath of the Righteous is out and fully released with a few big patches under it's belt (it's release was almost as buggy as Kingmaker's, unfortunately) it's an INCREDIBLY enjoyable experience. Beautiful graphics, AMAZING music (I mean come on, each mythic path has it's own theme song and they're all amazing) CAMERA ROTATION! I've played through the game three times on three different paths, each playthrough around 100-120~ hours and I've already started my fourth. I really hope that some day you manage to work your way through your list to review Wrath of the Righteous as well, I wholeheartedly believe that it's a near complete improvement on Kingmaker.
Yeah, first time I dropped the game near Pitax, when I returned, I was pleasantly surprised by that. It's still a very tough battle for a lvl 2 characters, but now the "tough" part is optional.
What's funny is that the game gives you a ton of torches. The default companions can fairly easily take out the swarms on normal difficulty using just the torches (including at launch). But everyone sells them at the first merchant they find and the game doesn't do a good job of telling you MAYBE YOU SHOULD TAKE SOME SORT OF BURNING STICK SINCE SWORDS AREN'T GOOD AGAINST SWARMS OF TINY BUGS.
@@5chneemensch138 Swarms have higher AC than usual (still only 17 on normal, not too bad) and deal pitiful damage, just keep swinging. Meanwhile non elemental weapons have the same problem, plus dealing with swarm damage resistance, which is what kills players. I've done it a dozen times now from beta all the way to the most recent update and torches work fine.
@@NicksFlying what do you mean "pitiful" damage. They hit for 8+ aoe damage while you would try to deal with them in melee range. Not to mention the fact that 70% of fire bombs will not get a hit. And you have to fight 3 of them with some larger spiders in the pack who will 3shot your frontliner.
@@blindeyedblightmain3565 if they're 3 shotting your frontliner then you're awful at equipping and building your characters. Or playing on unfair. They hit for 1d6, that's an average of 3.5 an attack and have a +2 to hit. You're telling me your tank has 10 HP and an AC so low they're regularly landing hits? Are you tanking with a CON dumped wizard?
I've walked 360. Starting from watching your video thinking I'll never be able to play CRPG as it seem to complex at the time and now I'm playing BG1 and BG2 as a preparation for pathfinder games. Btw thanks for your videos, even if I'm completelty missing the point of a game or not wraping my head around it's mechanics it's still iteresting to listen how you talk about it.
@@TheStonewall117 Not just that, Blind Fight has the bonus benefit of making your character immune to gaze attacks. Without spoiling anything imagine fighting an army of medusas all of which can turn you into stone as a free action. That's the end game and that's why you need Blind Fight
Darven reminds me of that time when Path of Exile gave a winner of a race event the reward of designing a monster for the game. And he designed saber-tooth koalas.
A lot of the issues or peculiarities with this game are issues that exist in the table top adventure path it is based on, and the Pathfinder system as a whole. Like low level swarms being absolutely brutal, that's a tabletop issue right there. Or the fact that it's essentially split in 6 different parts. That's because the adventure path is in six different books. Or hell, alignment choices. If you leave a Dungeons and Dragons group alone for long enough an argument about alignment will eventually, spontaneously, inevitably appear.
Biggest tip I can offer for the final act of the game if anyone stumbles on this review later: Blind Fight is a mandatory feat. Makes you immune to paralysing and fearful gazes without needing to cast mind blank, which almost every encounter in the final dungeons will involve. It's pretty sucky, tbh, but it's a pretty good feat to have in general beyond that.
Monte Cook is the wizard behind Pathfinder. He's also the wizard behind a lot of the books in D&D. (like unearthed arcana for example) He was brought on as a rules consultant. He's quite talented.
Also it's not really their "first" game. The devs were veterans of the Russian game dev, of Nival stock, that studio that made Blitzkrieg, Silent Storm and Heroes 5 back in the day. You may even see there are some color palette, model and animations that reminiscent of HoMM5, because I believe some designers are the same. Owlcat has roots.
I had about 190 numbered saves for Pathfinder and just recently realized that even after I uninstalled the game, the saves were sitting in my AppData folder taking up about 10GB of space (~50MB per save). Really can't wait for Wrath of the Righteous!
Use Animate Dead! The skeletons are immune to poison and mental effects, so even if they aren't doing damage they are a phenomenal shield against a lot of enemies.
This game is BRUTAL and I LOVE IT, definitely one of my favorite games, so glad your giving it some attention. I love all the different classes you can be in it, It's fun to just experiment with different builds
I rarely care about graphics, but great looking water always impresses me 12:17 Is that the No Mercy menu music!? I haven't heard that in ages, that's awesome!
The endgame was so hard even on normal. Those pesky wild hunt petrify half of the party and 4-5 shot everyone. Really enjoyed my 2 playthrough and 160hrs total. Will definitely get the sequel.
Thats why I take Improved Iron will on everyone. I'll do anything to have at least half of my party effective. And all of that is caused by very significant buff that Wild Hunt got in the video game - in p&p when you pass the Wild gaze will save you're safe but here you gotta pass another one.
I had a pure sorcerer MC, so fights themselves were pretty easy for me thanks to 9th level spell Heroic Invocation(which makes your whole party immune to fear and charm effects for 10 mins/lvl) and Freedom of Movement. There were too much fights to do though which definitely got boring towards the end.
@@lukasz1kier I think in p&p you can just fight with your eyes closed versus foes with gaze attacks, and then blind-fight would greatly mitigate the drawbacks. Dunno how it works here, tho. Maybe you could pre-blind your characters with a spell? :D
To be fair, a lot of the weird decisions can be blamed on the Kingmaker Adventure Path itself. The Spider Swarm for Fangberries encounter was in the book to begin with, and as written Bokken doesn't tell you there's gonna be a million spider swarms when you get there. Without some common Pathfinder houserules like Elephant in the Room, a lot of encounters are just that much more deadly. I've heard of horror stories of the Bear. Still, it's not as bad as Giantslayer with its "CR 1/2" Orcs with Falchions *and* Ferocity so they don't get knocked out at -1 HP, they just keep fighting until they hit their CON score while power attacking you at level 2-3 for like 2d4+6 damage per hit.
To also be fair the adaptation upped the difficulty in a lot of place and until the update that allowed you to build portals between cities it had the added negative of not giving you any fast transportation options (In a game where you can only make Management decisions from your capital) So it did add BS difficulty in both the combat and management portions of it's own (Like giving a certain common enemy in the end game paralyzation as a free action)
Is Kingmaker a decent adaptation of the module then? I've never touched Pathfinder since my group prefers either retro stuff like Fantasy Trip or Jerry rigging 5E into some godless abomination supersystem, but this seems like a neat adventure to try Pathfinder with. Also, what is the Elephant in the Room house rule you mentioned?
@@cyberninjazero5659 Haha yep you're not wrong, there's also the fact that even on 'normal' monster difficulty your regular bandit seems to have 20 DEX but yeah, the adaptation has a lot of jank, especially the Kingdom system.
@@SunsetSullivan You replied right after my comment. The gist of it is. The video game is a lot more difficult due to a lack of various utilities, the addition of enemies into encounters that were smaller/non-existent in the original and the buffing of certain enemies. You have the ability to control difficulty but please get the Blind Fight feat before the End Game/Third Act since one particular enemy buff makes the game borderline unplayable otherwise
@@SunsetSullivan In my circle of friends, Kingmaker being cursed is a bit of a running gag, as most people trying to run the campaign seem to have the game die somewhere along the first book of the module (of which there are 6), before any Kingdom management game is done. It's a very slow paced game in general, where exploration takes place and you need to have a lot entertaining encounters prepared else everyone gets bored out of their mind exploring hexes after hexes. As for Elephant in the Room, you can google 'Pathfinder Elephant in the Room' and find the most common version of it, it basically tries to get rid of near mandatory feat taxes, such as by making Power attack an attack option rather than a feat if you have +1 BAB, or combining the effects of the Dodge and Mobility feat into one feat.
The visual style looks bloody beautiful along with the UI. How refreshing. All the characters look like hand painted Warhammer models where the artist has remembered to thin their paints.
I have mixed feelings on this game since i given it a try a couple of times now. On one hand i freaking love the world the setting and the gameplay, it reminds me a little of the Neverwinter night games which is among my all time favorite games. I also like how deep they went with all the different paths you can take with your companions, that is ALOT of voice work. But on the other hand it *feels* like the game almost comes to a screeching halt the moment you become the lord of the land even though there is so much content for you to explore. I think something that contribute to this is that much of the building and town management can at times feel like busy work when you just want to explore. Not helped by this is that everything is on a doomsday clock timer, mechanics like that can be fun for parts of a game like the start of Pillars of Eternity. But when it is there the whole game when you just want to explore and enjoy this world you feel rushed along. Another thing i found with this game that might just be me, but i felt the difficulty in combat had 2 modes. Either you were effortlessly steamrolling enemies or you were horribly underpowered. I rarely felt it was anything in between where i had to use my wit to survive instead of just grinding more numbers to brute force my way through. The one battle i felt like i really had to think tactically was the fight with the Staglord. But despite this i would still recommend this game to people who love crpgs ^^
Re: Halt after act 2. Just turn off the kingdom manager? Set it to auto. It's really as easy as that and you don't even need to restart the game for it. I can see how some people wouldn't like it and nobody will shame you for it lol. Re: Doomsday clock. I have explored every single nook and cranny of this game and the clock almost never got in the way. It ultimately just tells you when to return back to the core lands for a bit. I think I had weeks of free time before every single deadline quest of the game, and that is - again - with me exploring every nook and cranny of the game world. Don't worry too much about it, it's pretty lax! Re: Difficulty. Game definitely has a pretty fair amount of difficulty. The difficulty spikes can almost always be solved through the use of consumables or simply resting. Re: NWN. I've pretty much played all major vidya RPGs since the late 90s and NWN might be one of the roughest of them all. NWN1 is just kinda generic boring, but not aggressively boring. NWN2, on the other hand, is one of the worst, most psychotic RPGs I have ever played. Even ignoring the thousands of bugs, the plot makes no sense, awful voice acting... Just damn...
Chaotic Neutral? Let me remind you that Nok-Nok is considered to be Chaotic Evil by this game's standards and even he is less crazy than Halligan and let me remind you, he brought a drunken giant to the capital! At minimum Halligan should be considered Chaotic Evil.
@@The-Samuil nok-nok is a good boye. He is basically a Jesus... but for goblins. The idea that you lugging around a pocket Jesus (not your own, mind you) gives me the chills every time I think about it.
This was a very good review, also one I was looking for. You go really in depth into the different subjects and like me you don’t hate to fail sometimes. Thank you for this video. Really well done!
I just finished this a few weeks ago so it was awesome to see a review here! PF Kingmaker is one of the best crpgs available. Despite a few huge issues it has it is absolutely worth your time.
@@ТАДАМ-ю4ж Was thinking the same thing. I played Druid so was neutral the whole time and had a lot of fun. Thinking about playing evil for the sequel.
Pathfinder Kingmaker on GOG - gog.la/BringTheRope
THE LIST - docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_K3ziSxT9zcUUGCddS4sF1uNJTWHSbOwB1CQX2Rx4Uo
Sorry this took longer, there was a lot of game to cover.
I forgive you, now back to the video editing mines >:)
Will they finaly fix the corrupt save
Not mentioning the secret chapter was intentional?
don't forget about adding encased to the list once it comes out
It's okay Sseth, take your time, quality over quantity and all that.
They even got the "DM put battle music and forget to add another because combat takes too long" right into their soundtracks just like the real tabletop, that's awesome.
The Darven's character is that one guy who writes a completely OP character and expects you all to just roll with it. 10/10 realistic tabletop setting.
The classic DMPC.
I dont know if it is true but I heard it was a oc that a highest tier backer paid for lol so you are correct.
He is also an edge lord, because of course he is... which is kind of hilarious for a videogame honestly. He literally "nothing personal kid" 's a man, and i'm not supposed to laugh. Very realistic tabletop character 10/10.
@@Naruga Yes, I believe this is correct. It's also why his chapter seems so shoehorned into the game. The entire Hellknight segment is just there because of his character, it has no connection with the rest of the main story.
The entire group, thinking: "Oh god, the DM pulled out the character sheet of his Mary Sue again..."
I feel like the devs okay'd Darven to complete the TTRPG experience. Let players know what it's like to be in a campaign with "that guy," even just briefly.
Guess I'm lucky that my DM was never that guy and he only created interchangeable NPC's that were quest givers or information dumps. Since I find combat encounters to be my favorite part of pen and paper rpg,, I was also never that guy when I was DMing. Why bother writing some OP Mary Sue when I have 5 levels of dungeon mazes to design and fill with monsters, traps and loot.
I like to imagine that the backer didn't even write all of that stuff, just sent them an email with "Please add in a "That Guy" experience to the game. k thx."
@@godspeedhero3671 i really want that to be the case LOL
@@artur6912 wtf are you talking about. THAT GUY is NOT DM, that guy means A PLAYER, who creates illogical builds just to get broken op combination, is cocky and wants to be in the spotlight..
@@alicjaalvena1120 That Guy can be a DM, it’s just that their OP character is an NPC
For anyone interested in the game, don’t worry about the music just stopping in turn-based combat. There’s an option for pauses between track repeats during turn-based combat that’s turned on by default, but you can turn it off.
this comment must go to the top. Upvote it, guys.
One question: can you choose diferent comrades or is it fixed?
I had actually set that option off and it still happened sometimes. It's a very odd feature to have at all, but you say that a lot with Pathfinder.
@@MandaloreGaming The game is still very buggy up to this day. A price you must always pay when it comes to Unity Engine.
@@thousandyoung I didnt have any bugs
In a Perfect World, Darven would be a parody of "That Guy" made by fans to put into a cool CRPG they like
But this isn't a Perfect World
It does, technically, function as a satirical side story. Maybe if there was a disclaimer it's a backer-made one.
@@AlexWaff The problem is that... this is not a silly side quest. It's practically mandatory: you cannot refuse it or drop it at any point, and you cannot ignore it since the Hellknights give a periodical debuff to kingdom stats as long as they're not dealt with.
Personally I still had fun doing it. Yeah I was rolling my eyes everytime he appeared but it was still fun to fight those dicks of the Hellknights. If we could have sided with the Hellknights It would have been a good quest.
@@DeepOne90 i did not, it fucked up my kingdom beyond repair
@@originalinhoKO yeah, the number one rule in Pathfinder: Kingmaker is always resolve problems as soon as possibile, or they will fuck up your Kingdom.
Actually it IS possible to side with the Hellknights and get a reward during Darven's quest. It's just REALLY fucking hard because so many options make Linxia hate your guts and the quest tries to railroad you into siding with Darven.
Let them do their investigation, don't get mad when they start dicking around with your subjects, and wait a month or two. Eventually the next time you leave the Capital, Darven will interrupt you. Tell him to fuck off and try to arrest him, or just lie that you'll help him.
Go to the Secluded Lodge, and when Linxia asks you how you knew she was there, choose the Lawful Neutral option of (Darven told me). When she freaks out and asks why, DO NOT, repeat, DO NOT admit that he wanted you to kill her. You need to tell her that it's none of her business. YOU WILL STILL FIGHT THE HELLKNIGHTS. When Darven tries to sweettalk you after, stab his ass so he runs off.
Eventually Linxia will message you and ask you for backup at Brineheart. Go to her, help the Hellknights fight Darven's mercs. When Darven tries to get you to side with again, tell Linxia to go for the kill. YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST NOT ask if there's a peaceful solution. Fight Darven with the Hellknights. In the conversation that follows, DO NOT try to ask for mercy for Darven, just choose the Neutral option. Linxia will begrudgingly admit to you being a fine ruler, and will offer an alliance with the Order of the Rack.
This opens up a project where you can officially ally with them, which will give a random chance of raising your stability level, with it being more likely the less stable your kingdom is.
Obviously a total pain in the fucking ass to get and definitely not worth it when compared to the shit Darven gives you, but fuck Darven and fuck this quest jesus fucking christ.
Godspeed brother
_"fuck Darven and fuck this quest jesus fucking christ"_
Words to live by.
My thanks.
Man, thank you, I was about to go for another round and absolutely didn't want to side with Darven (Didn't side with him the first time either) but not fucking myself over for litterally nothing again.
I just hate the Hellknights on principle so I just kill them all, which gets a hilarious line out of Darven.
The Darven questline is like when your DM needs more time to prep for the end of the campaign so they let one of the players DM for a couple sessions and he brings in his OC from his fanfiction as an NPC to show off how cool he is. Then if you try to kill him, the guest DM is like "Uhhh... He casts Greater Invisibility!"
"I have True Sight."
"...His spell is special and makes him invisible even to True Sight!"
Like a kid on the playground with an everything-proof shield.
I already said this but If I was to make my own quest for this with my own character it would be something dumb like you look for ingredients for two goblins who run a crappy inn called Gobblin Goblins. It's run by two Goblins named Gob and Lyn. The end of the quest is now it's a high end inn that is way over priced and the goblins now wear powdered wigs...I totally didn't do this in the pen and paper Pathfinder
His everything proof shield isn't punch proof
Quests like this really help you realize the difference between who is truly a player or a dungeon master at heart. Personally, if handled differently, i think the darven questline could be quite interesting. I would have made darven himself a devil in disguise(Hell knights hunt devils, you see), but i would have made him sympathetic, play against type. So harboring him does technically make you in the wrong since hell knights are just doing their job, but Darven 2.0 here wants to do right and turn over a new leaf.
A future Games Workshop 40K fluff writer in the making.
@@MandaloreGaming don't jinx it. I beg you.
I like how a Darven is so bad a walkthrough which is supposed to be impartial says “Bite the bullet”
Advice for anyone nearing the end of the game. There is a feat anyone can take called Blind-Fight. It makes you immune to gaze attacks, which is what the Wild Hunt uses to paralyze you. This will make the last stretch far more reasonable.
I dread a second run just thinking in the final chapter... it was a nightmare.
Wasn't there also some items or weapons you you got early on that also made you immune to it? I think I had one on Harrid so maybe it was a mace. The Wild Hunt was effectively Pathfinder's way of having you run full speed into a concrete wall if you thought the game wasn't too hard.
Get as many items as you can that has freedom of movement on them
Or you can just cast freedom of movement ..
Blind-Fight does not make you immune to gaze attacks in the pnp, and it does not say it does in kingmaker, so I am not sure if this is true. If it is, it is a bug or they simulated "closing your eyes" for some reason. What it does is allow you to bypass concealment for foes that you cannot see.
So blind fight is the ability to fight *while* blind. You can make yourself immune to some gaze attacks by blinding yourself, and you can still fight while blind with blind fight. I do not remember if there is any way to do that in kingmaker.
Thanks for the video! As a developer, I can tell you: there will be no Darven in PF:WotR. Yeah, I know, I know, that's sad, but that's the reality.
I would still love a Darven cameo. He's hilarious in his own special way.
@@MandaloreGaming there will be a cameo, but not from him, though.
He IS hilarious, but, probably, not in a commonly hilarious way =)
Please be more merciful this time to players not min maxing their characters
@@Jesion-kv9tu if you will set your difficulty above normal - you are doomed
We were so spoiled by the back to back uploads that I was getting Mandalore withdrawals man
The best thing is when he starts reviewing series because we get 2/3/4 videos in a row with only a few weeks difference
I just start hunting down reuploads of the lost livestreams when that happens.
Mandalore and Sseth on a boat:
Mandalore: "Wow that's some good looking water!"
Sessth: "Damn, that's a pretty good lookin' fish."
Stop implying their two different people
So is Mandalore Ambigious Amphibian too, or what? Because Ambigious Amphibian is absolutely Sseth.
Hehe I get it
@@TheTalentedMrWulf No no no. Ambigious Amphibian is the discount Sseth who deleted all his old content when he decided he'd like to be Sseth. Ambigious Amphibious is the K-Mart Sseth.
Sseth is Mandalore.
Mandalore is Sseth.
Ross Scott is Mandalore.
Uberdanger is Sseth.
Ambiguous Amphibian is Sseth-adjacent.
"Instead of a nice rest, you're being ambushed by the undead, all because you screwed up making chicken."
*"PUT IT OUT, YOU FOOLS! PUT IT OUT!"*
Just making some nice crispy bacon.
@@brandonbohan7281 From your ass. I never forget that greater fire elemental
"mmm smells good, watcha cookin?"
*A Knife in the Dark starts playing*
"Oh shit."
That's nice! Ash on my tomatoes!
"We saved some for you, Mr. Frodo."
That “hai yo” hits real different now, thanks for the enjoyable video Mandalore
It does.
What?
@@quint3ssent1a Author of Berserk passed away earlier this month.
I'd like to think that it was a last minute addition to the video
Time stamp?
"This is their first game"
Fucking WHAT? That's crazy! Definitely interested now lol
Check out the trailers for their second game, Wrath of the Righteous. It is coming out September 2nd 2021, and looks like it is addressing a lot of the complaints that people had about Kingmaker. Like they seemed to have learned a lot from the first game.
Just some solid Russian hackers who are really into the material and do really tight work. I'm impressed as well.
@@paulie-g In Slav Country you have to choices in job: go to forest and fight bear for vodka, or program games sent from Dazbog for mortals to enjoy. There are no other options...
It was way better then a lot of those other crowdfunded projects made by people who'd made a whole lot of crpgs back in the day.
@@Caelinus Can confirm, put about 160 hrs in my first playthrough when ot first released and loved it. Gameplay, QoL, and systems were improved from Kingmaker (ToyBox mod makes it way better, worth downloading for anyone, even if you don't want the cheat-y options).
Personally I liked the story of Kingmaker more than WotR, but it's still great. Both are easily in my top 5 CRPGs
For anyone playing this game, something I would recommend turning off is the alignment shift display during dialogue. As shown in the video, your alignment can shift over the course of your playthrough depending on your actions, and there’s an awesome display on your character sheet that tracks each and every change in your alignment, along with a marker that slowly moves across an alignment map, which can change your overall alignment as a whole. I noticed that a lot of my actions tended to be more focused towards the alignment I was currently at rather than what I truly wanted to say. If you’ve ever played Torment: Tides of Numenera, it’s like the tides system in that game. I turned it off early in my experience, and I’m so glad I did. You can totally keep alignment shift notifications on, but actually showing if dialogue choices will affect it will tempt you into playing it to the game’s systems rather than actually roleplaying your character.
That sounds like a great idea. Ill try that on my second try after i restart because of those spider swarms :D
Is Path of Numenera worth a playthrough in your opinion? I never was really able to get a full grasp of how it was based on reviews.
@@Lone88Wanderer Playing it right now. It's pretty mediocre game and surely unfinished. But could be finished once just to see what it is.
If you enjoyed Planescape, i'd recommed give it a try. But trully nithing special in it, unlike obsidian game or pathfinder.
I like keeping it on, just so I know if the dialogue writer means something different from what I thought I was reading. Like the infamous Darven quest where siding with the evil pirate is considered Lawful, not trying to get him arrested for his crimes.
The alignment behind dialogue options is blatantly obvious in 99% of the cases. It's like game give dialogue worth RPing anyway.
This game sound like it was made for people that really want to play D&D but they lack a very rare resource called "friends that play D&D".
I played it and I don't have friends who play D&D. Theory checks out.
A common affliction among minmaxers
yeah, sounds about right. Maybe it can describe all DnD-based CRPGs.
To be fair, that describes most CRPGs since Baldur's Gate.
The real problem is getting schedules to align in a proper group.
The Darven quest had me rolling.
Mostly because I've played enough Pathfinder to know _exactly_ the type of person who would come up with it.
Can you *please* elaborate, I think I have a pretty good idea but I know the real thing is probably so much better
@@NarsMcain Question wasn't directed to me but OP probably menat the "glory hound" kind of player. The one that always has to be in the spotlight, butts in whenever another player is handling a situation, tries way too hard to be cool and impressive, probably bending the rules to be as OP as possible and, most importantly, gets butthurt whenever things doesn't go his way.
This type of player is often referred to as "That Guy". We have That Guy in my group as well.
@@CidGuerreiro1234 Couldn't have put it better ;)
@@CidGuerreiro1234 I'm that guy.
"Dickweed Dan and his self-insert-totally-awesome-adventure-all-about-him featuring these assholes or whatever who take forever to take their turns..."?
Dude, the Berserk music killed me, too soon. RIP Kentaro and the pinnacle of dark fantasy and art that was his work. He went on too soon, it's so sad.
😭😭😭😭
WHAT
WHAT
WHAT
@@DustyLamp it is sadly true
@@DustyLamp Yeah he passed away on the 6th of May, though it was not publicly reported until the 18th.
Just awful, we really just lost one of the absolute finest.
So his decades spanning boat arc was his literal nail in the coffin. Fitting.
The berserk music hittin me in my heart RN
Keep struggling brother
wonder if it was intentional, or not
@@therealwinston3634 I mean kinda doubt it considering how long editing these videos takes and how the news only broke on thursday.
Still,a nice coincidence.
@@therealwinston3634 its safe to assume it is, the video was 3(?) days after Mandy retweeted Berserk_project's announcement of Miura's death
"This game knows you should always have rope."
That statement singlehandedly spiked my interest in the game by several magnitudes.
And a crowbar. Trust me.
Actually, once, when i was selling junk i stuble at that rope at vendor and think. Why the hell he even to sells that? Then i remember fallout 2 and buy that rope and crowbar. And you know what? This shit is more useful than infinity gauntlet. And now i always have couple of them.
Completed it once but never got to use a rope, never seen that option. What I'm doing wrong?
@@aibalta6340I still haven't played it yet, so I dunno.
@@aibalta6340 Likely just never ran into the relevant checks. There are a handful of events where rope comes into play but it is possible you just missed them.
"always have rope" this is the soul of TTRPGs
Who would have thought that the people nicknamed Dungeon Master would be so kinky.
Actually this might be true for the 2nd and 3rd chapter, but for the remaining 4 you are not going to need it.. thats too bad in some way.
Not a tabletop player, but rope is just... survival basics. It bothers me when DayZ or Rust are ostensibly survival games, but you never have to tie anything. And forget rappelling or climbing, its such a lacking area of gaming that my friends used to praise Skyrim for being broken enough to allow for fake rock climbing. And then Breath of the Wild lets you free climb ANYTHING, but NO ROPE! It's so close!
Like, its just so silly that this is the one, super important, thing that is just nowhere to be found.
All the boys in the party have a Thousands of ropes in their bags of holdings yet I'm the only one carrying the 10 foot pole
@@bigtastyben5119 Let me guess your a Monk and it's your bo-staff
Fun fact: the spider cave actually used to be even harder, until the devs changed it around a bit because people kept getting destroyed by the swarms.
They nerfed a LOT of encounters, that bear treant at Temple of the Elk was one of the most infamous party wipers
I remember doing the old version, then coming back to the game a few months later and thinking "Was it always like this? I thought there were more."
I remember the first time, I actually had to reload to a previous save an change my spell load out so that I would have enough splash damage.
The kingdom building segment has seen a lot of change as well.
Literally stopped playing because I kept getting owned by the swarms, like an hour in. Will try to actually play the game someday
@@mike42192 Swams are also a lot easier with turn-based mode turned on. Makes it so that you done miss them with AOEs because they moved. (AOEs in general are much better with turn-based mode turned on.)
@@DarthRadical I'll try that next time I give it a go. I didn't use turn-based because I assumed it would just make the game pace feel extremely slow.
I finished Kingmaker earlier this year and was looking forward to your review.
"A passanger in my own body" is a perfect way to describe the Hellknights/Darven segment of the game. At one point the Hellknights were being major a-holes to me and my people, I chose the option to have them arrested... and they just left! Did I fucking stutter? I told my guards to arrest them, not stand still while they leave!
Any agency you had until that moment is taken away from you so that Darven can be cool and awesome all the time. Luckily it is given back to you once that fever dream of a chapter is over. It's definetely the sore thumb sticking out of the rest of the game, and it's painfully obvious that it was shoehorned into the main quest to satisfy the backer who created the character.
The end section is pretty damn awful too. I enjoyed the game though, and I am happy to have played it. It's an 8.5/10 in my book.
Is there a mod that skips the Darven quest?
@@THX-bz8bi Global mods like Toybox or Bag of Tricks can be used to mark the quest as complete. (Yeah I know, one year too late)
@@ZorotheGallade Thanks!
The combat hits connecting really reminded me of the meaty thunk Diablo 2 gave and I loved it. Glad you brought that up, it’s a really satisfying part of combat in games that doesn’t get enough attention.
Even clubbing zombies were kinda fun. Thunk Thunk Thunk , Arrg~ (Drop), Gold poops out.
That Druid and Briggs face though, they never get old xD
That Berserk ost, RIP Miura-sensei. His masterpiece will never be finished :(
he more than likely got his assistants a backup plan incase he died, but it is still tragic he won't ever see the finale and peoples reaction to it
@@BrenTenkage This, his last few months were dedicated to finishing storyboards and walking all his assistants through his planned finale
@@AVerySexuallyDeviantOrange How did he pass? I fucking hope it wasn't because of overwork..
@@Marth667 aortic dissection - basically a cut on your aorta, to my understanding. terribly tragic.
@@Marth667 His cause of death, aortic dissection I believe, is usually linked to stress as a factor for it occurring. He usually pushed himself into putting his all into it.
Darven's quest is absolutely hilarious.
It's like that whoever wrote it aimed for Jack Sparrow, and instead wrote a gender-flipped Empress Theresa.
Oh dear god. I remember how that book ended and being thoroughly creeped out. It was very clear that the author was... fond of Theresa. And he still did _that_ to her.
@@patchmoulton5438 you cant just say that and not give context
@@patchmoulton5438 Thanks, now i hate the writer even more than i did originally
@@adrianthenormie20 There is a lot of subtext in the book that just makes it seem like that Theresa is the authors waifu and his vessel for his fetishes. Turning her into a brood mother is just the end of a long string of... oddities. Really, the author would be a fascinating case study for someones psychology assignment.
@@patchmoulton5438 She had 420 children, no joke.
Serstan and Briggs is the crossover duo I never knew I needed in my life.
OOOOH WHAT MORE COULD A POOR DROOD DOOO...
DAB DAB DA DAAB
The real question is if Darven was made to be tongue in cheek or if the moneybags backer was completely serious.
if it were any other genre i might give him the benefit of the doubt of being self aware lmao
In Varnhold there is some tongue-in-cheeck quest about some weird DIRE BARD who sings nonsensical songs. Idk if it was someone's insert or joke of developers, but that "bard" made me laugh.
A swashbuckling, devil-deal-maker who always somehow manages to escape consequences like a dashing heartbreaking lovable rogue? That's, like, the literal definition of OC do not steal.
That backer was 100% non ironic, I bet my ass.
If there’s anything I’ve learned from backer threads it’s that these tards are always serious
@@misakiv6012 Someone could say the exact same thing without the "non" and it would be just as reasonable. That's the beauty of it.
The last chapter in the House at the edge of time got me. I don't ragequit often, but it got me. It wasn't even the tedium or "unfair" encounters. It was that the game just decided "I don't like how you've handled this one character's quest line, so I'm going to kill them off with another character." It was a legitimate end to that quest, but Owlcat said no. Just death by railroading. You don't even get a chance to defuse the situation or pick one or the other. You can't even resurrect the one that was killed, although you could usually do that and the corpse was intact. Heck, the killed character was in the main party and therefore much better equipped, and by all accounts should have killed the "turncoat assassin".
I just said "screw this" and left, because if a GM tried that crap with me in an actual Pathfinder game, I'd do the same thing.
I had the same experience. It is kind pretty crazy when I was so far into the game, and it is so long, far too long actually. I do respect owlcat games a lot, but man, looking back I kind of hated Kingmaker. It started out very strong, but the quality got worse and worse. They could easily have cut out 30 hours of the campaign, and instead focus on improving what they had. That and a remake of the house would've made the game a masterpiece instead of an ambitious sort-of-failure.
Preach, I did finish the game, but lost my biggest DPS in the party just because I didn't finish a questline correctly. I struggled to no end to finishit. I wanted to do a lawful evil run, but I won't go again through this shit. And to be honest there were many moments in the game where it's just bullshit after bullshit.
And I'm getting Wrath of the righteous "from a friend", because fuck them.
Protestant Dungeons & Dragons is a wonderful description of Pathfinder that I will use from now on
No dancing allowed in protestant dnd
I guess that means OSR games are different denominations of Orthodoxy. And I am down for that description
@@BIacklce It's a reference to how Protestantism split from the catholic church over it turning corrupt.
@@BIacklce Puritans are the insufferable ones who hate dancing and everything resembling fun, protestants just dislike the pope and the catholic church, and being expected to give what little money they have to said corrupt church. Protestants also have a deep resentment for the catholic church who labelled them as heretics for splitting off and then used forced to try and subjugate the protestants to rejoin the catholic church so they could collect money from them again. The catholic church is greedy, arrogant, entitled, corrupt, and frankly rotten to the core. I couldn't tell you if the puritans or Catholics are worse, that's like asking which type of cancer I prefer, I don't like either of them lol, they are both the absolute worst of Christianity.
@@voidstrider801 and how would this translate to the DnD situation? Like, sorry, I am out of the loop and want to know.
This game might be the reason why I need to go to therapy...
The collaboration of the decade here, gentlemen.
The history of DnD video incoming
Lmao the real homie is here for no reason😂
ayyy i just came here from your last video
Wait, what did it do to you?
Dear god is Darven really goimg to be in the sequel. Did that guy pay another $4000 to continue the story.
WAIT WHAT
THE LEGEND RETURNS: DARVEN'S REVENGE
@@pineapplethief4418 pathfinder 2: darvens kingdom
@@pineapplethief4418 The legend never dies.
IM ABOUT TO MCFUCKING LOSE IT LMAOOO OF HE APPEARS BACK IN THE NEXT GAME
I love when characters unironically teleport behind people and stab them in the back.
_"Watch out. You might cut yourself on that edge."_
Why? In a fight to the death that would be a standard use of short-distance teleportation.
@@hahmann Cringelords, Edgelords, Atheists with fedoras and trench coats, and early 2000s Weebs destroyed that pretty damn well.
You may or may not have seen the greentext of
>Psst. Nothing Personal Kid
>Teleports Behind U
>Stabs you though the kokoro.
... Or just seen one too many Sonic OC's. Either or.
@@melfice999 >"Omae wa mou shindeiru."
> "Nani?"
Also cringe weeb bs does not make my kokoro go doki doki... I can't believe I actually wrote that sh't...
@@melfice999 If you mean specifically the anti-theist atheists who are like: hur dur all religion bad and should be destroyed cause I don't like it. Yes, that particular type of atheist is pure cringe, and is often seen with a fedora and/or trench coat.
@@voidstrider801 As far as i know "Atheist" pretty much means "anti-theist" otherwise they would be Agnostic.
Loved the part where you used the Berserk OST. Can't help but feel it was a tribute to the legend we just lost.
RIP Miura
what's the name of the song?
@@danielonenut1864 灰よ (Hai Yo) / (Oh ashes)
Thanks
Wow, I hadn't heard about this. I've only consumed each of the Berserk mediums once but his work hangs in the back of my mind all the time in a way.
"...a long dungeon crawl can mean hearing the same two or three short songs over and over..."
*LAUGHS IN ARCANUM*
THE MYSTERY OF THE DROOODS, THEY ALL HAVE AN ATTITOOD
The droods are comin', the droods are scary.
@@Crazyneil1986 the Scotland Yard is getting weary
@@sirmicah But Halligan is comming, to solve the quarrel
@@TheBaca219 NO MATTER HOW ILLEGAL, CORRUPT, OR IMMORAL
iTs A wAiTiNg pUzZlE
"Never thought I'd die alongside Paizo Publishing."
"How about alongside Mandalore Gaming and GOG?"
"... ... Aye, I could do that."
Turn based combat mode is a GODSEND. such a brilliant addition. I finally started progressing and winning fights when it got added
I genuinely get surprised whenever I hear it wasn't in at the start
@@Ekaidseaky rtwp is what they went for. but it's not as easy to play.
Lord Mandalore: King of Limbo, Master of the Droods, The Queen.
Cursed Queen
Now Mandalore is a true king.
He's been the king of Limbo for awhile now though
Long may he reign
Or a queen if the game is to be believed
Queen.
The Queen of Limbo
I started playing this game blind, and even though I wasn't interested in the city/empire management as much as the actual adventuring that wasn't a problem for me. Valorie is an absolute treasure as a companion as well, I wouldn't enjoy pathfinder nearly as much if she wasn't judging the hell out of my chaotic actions while taking 90% of the hits for me in battle. What a babe.
Fun fact: this was made in Russia. Mandalore and Russian games. One true pairing.
No matter who made it or where, this being the team's first game is REALLY impressive
@@fuzzythoughts8020 many of the staff have experience working on the might and magic games so it's more of a new studio rather than new Devs.
He can't escape. He might not ever go to Russia but Russia will always come to him
@@calamaty2007 A joke saying goes like this: "You can take someone out of Russia, sure. But you can't take Russia out of them, ever."
Sadly it also feels like a Russian game. Poorly thought out ideas, that sound cool on paper but are extremely frustrating on practice. In about 100 hours that I've spent with this game so far - probably 40 hours were spent cursing the encounter designer and that one guy who desided that having timed quests without actually having a timer for player to see was a good idea in a game that requires hundreds of hours to finish. Too bad that other 20-30 hours the junk works and Russian's gamedev magic shines on this extremely rough ember of a videogame. Progression is excellent and world exploration feels better than it did in PoE. But then 10 level 8 wargs ambush your party forcing to restart from the last checkpoint and you remember why this game sucks so much.
Ooooo I wonder what Sins mod hes thinking of. STA3? Prophets? So many good choices.
Hello there
proboly the Starr Trek he is a Fan of Star Trek Deep Space 9
Prophets please
STA3 is getting a big rebalancing patch soon. Maybe that
Star Wars interregnum for the win for me
I feel like you're required to side AGAINST Darven, not suffering him is the only reward you need.
Thats what really loved about dragon age, that your decisions early in the game could affect your playthrough completely, and makes you think harder about what you are about to do
A new game is in the works and I honestly can't wait, I loved Inquisition, even though it was easy (outside of certain boss encounters and VERY early on in the game) the story and the characters really carry the game for me. It's the same with Kingmaker for me, can't wait for Wrath of the Righteous to come out.
@@sujimayne I have been replaying Inquisition lately and I love it just as much as I did in 2014, great time. In my opinion, it's still best in class. I have yet to see a newer game do it better,
I do quite love this game, it had the Skyrim effect on me where I kept replaying it from the start, not because I was getting fed up with it, but because I just wanted to replay the first 5 chapters over and over again. To the point where I had 500+ hours in it until I actually sat down and beat the game.
Im so glad they finally introduced turn based combat into the game, real time combat could be chaotic, and feel like i wasn't getting everything i could out of a fight, pathfinder has so much crap you can do with each turn, and real time felt like i was lossing 50% of what i could have done.
Not to mention spell wind-ups can be horrendous at times
I've never clicked a video this fast. Pathfinder: Kingmaker is my favourite RPG of the past decade and I am so hyped for the Wrath of the Righteous. Thanks for a great review as always.
Why though? Pillars of Eternity 1 as an CRPG is literally better in almost every single way, aside from maybe leveling and world size. Just curious to hear why would anyone prefer playing a single player Pathfinder scenario without a GM to an actually well designed video game.
@@blindeyedblightmain3565 I sadly didn't play Pillars of Eternity long enough to make a decent comparison, but I am thinking about returning to it one day. But aside from occasional bugs, long loading times and sometimes dragging Kingdom Management periods I like pretty much everything about Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Pathfinder is my favourite tabletop RPG and game does a good job with implementing it in-detail. Turn-based combat is a plus too. And I like the overall story, most of the characters, worldbuilding and decision making moments. Most people didn't like it, but I even like Kingdom Management too. Game does a satisfying job with making you feel like a ruler imo.
@@hawkeye137137 I am very much fond of the ideas that this game has, but the implementation of those ideas hurts me greatly. The biggest issues being questionable enemy balance and encounter design, both being highly infuriating from time to time.
Kingdom management is actually fun and decently interesting, but also flawed with how it can destroy your first playthrough if the time you've invested in developing it wasn't sufficient enough, or if you have invested too much, therefore allowing story quests to destroy your win condition. Both of those things are very poorly explained and as it seems it is a major reason for a lot of player's dissatisfaction. The game overall is doing very poor job of explaining things to the player, I'm scared to imagine how people who never played a session of DnD would suffer on their first playthrough.
But even with all that, there is some charm to Kingmaker. It is probably my third favorite CRPG of the decade so far, losing only to Divinity 2 and PoE 1. The systems implemented from PnP version of Pathfinder are so much fun to dig in and play around with.
@@blindeyedblightmain3565 I agree with the issues you listed, P:KM can be a cruel and relentless game sometimes. But aside from needing to repeat some encounters(damn you Ghostly Guards) none of them happened to me during my playthrough, so I can probably say that I was pretty blessed. From what I read on Reddit, Wrath of the Righteous will be a much better game in all fronts; teaching the system, encounter balance, no system which can end your playthrough like Kingdom Management, etc. which is always a plus. Also Divinity: Original Sin 2 too is on my playlist, but I am waiting for a friend who is at military service to return, so we can co-op it.
HYPEEEE
Darven questline appears out of nowhere, you cannot avoid it, the game enforces the one and only 'right' way to proceed it via supporting the OC DO Not Steal character all but demanding you like him and penalizing you for acting against him, even if it is within your characters personality.
10/10, authentic tabletop experience.
I love that I can look at the party that Mandalore is using and immediately tell exactly which moral choices he's made and what alignment Mandalore is.
Ironically, I did the EXACT same thing my two playthroughs. First time was a Lawful Good Fighter, second playthrough I was a half and half Lawful Good Fighter and Paladin. Had a blast second time through, I was unbelievably good against so many bosses because I got a sword that did extra damage against Chaotic Creatures, plus SMite Evil, and a good deal of the big bosses in the game are, well, Chaotic Evil. I also made Enkundayo into a fucking walking sentry turret and he would a lot of the time kill every enemy in a single turn.
@@rustyshackle8000 Ekun in Kingmaker and Aru in Wrath just go to show that archers are walking agents of destruction in Pathfinder. You have to actively screw up their build to make them anything less than that.
@@ZorotheGallade He'd get like five attacks a turn, and with a good bow that's basically every enemy in one turn
@@rustyshackle8000 Ekun solo killed the last boss on my playthrough. No one else in the party could even hit the fuck with anything below 18, Ekun only needed 3 on most of his attacks after doing the Query + Temp favorite enemy spell.
My party for almost the entirety of the game had Amiri, Ekun and Nok-Nok just multi-hitting everything. I played a melee tank multi class monstrosity that started as an Aldori Defender. By end game Nok was attacking 7-8 times a round and with the sneak attack damage it was crazy.
"Do you have any 1099's? How big is your mom's house?" You're not getting my security question answers, Mandy. >:^)
Your into him
@@sirmicah
lewd
It took me three days to realize I misspelled onto but at this point it’s too late to change it
18:46 Rest in Peace, Kentaro Miura, we'll miss you.
He's dead? Did he finish the manga?
@@legion999 No but apparently he had an outline and was training people to take over after his death. He was probably having health problems for years and was preparing accordingly. Feel sorry for him.
What’s the music?
@@theflyingnarwhal_4851 Hai Yo, by Susumu Hirasawa
wow
RIP
My biggest pet peeve with Kingmaker (which I did love) was how much it was designed to waste the player's time. The characters move slowly, they're always in need of rest on the strategic map, there is even a puzzle in a dungeon that is designed so that you'll go through as many loading screens as possible.
My advice? Use mods that make characters move faster out of combat, and remove the weight limit. It doesn't bring anything to the game and it's not even realistic that the land's baron wouldn't use horses or couriers to carry their stuff.
About the last dungeon I recommend you soldier through, the ending is surprisingly well written and really took my choices into account, in ways I didn't see coming.
Totally man !
The only things that don't make a 10/10 games to me are:
-Characters moving to slow, especially on the strategic map ! Man it's so painful !
-Rest, rest and rest again
-Kingdom management, I sooo hate it ! I always hated it in RPGs. It breaks momentum and immersion. At least we can switch auto-management ON ! I would've quit the game otherwise.
Oh, and what about Linzi preventing you for traveling to Restov once you have established your barony? It's absolutely arbitrary, and prevents you to use the very comfortable and fast road to reach the southwestern part of the Stolen Lands, forcing me to crawl through mountain chains instead.
Good job Linzi... and guess who just volunteered to facetank the next pack of Manticores we see?
Your character is still an adventurer at heart and bigger groups easily attract more monsters. Not only that but those guards wouldnt survive the shit you do. I think max they are level 6. AND YOU DO USE HORSES. Theres a kingdom event for it. You were carrying too much, grab a bag of holding or reduce your capacity. I mean...I love the immersion it brings, but maybe we just like different flavors of stuff
I don't know... maybe because I'm already played a lot of games that what you complain about is not a problem at all for me.
@@stonnger540 It's exactly because I played games like this that it annoys me. Decades of game development evolution and the same mistakes are still being repeated.
I've been watching some of your old videos for the past few hours, and now I get this notification? Oh yeah, everything's coming together.
Serstan's Lore:
An expert on Druidic magic. Serstan claims he was robbed of his rightful claim to immortality. Serstan broke a sacred vow and received the ULTIMATE DISGRACE as well as being exiled from his world, now he must venture to restore his power and his honor.
Regarding the spider swarms early in the game; the ever burning torch you start with does fire damage when equipped as a melee weapon
16:06 y'all noticed he called his kingdom outer heaven?
"WORDS THAT KILL" (8)
That's normal, I played tons of FOB and I was top 25 at one point and even I'm just barely ahead of Mandy in terms of MGSV playtime.
Hey hey people
I really hope you cover wrath of the righteous, in my opinion its just a straight up improvement in every way. its amazing
The mouseover-for-lore-and-definitions thing is a life-saver.
I first encountered it in "Pyre" from Supergiant Games, and I'm surprised it's not more common in all these fantasy worlds with so many Proper Nouns.
Darven literally "Nothin personnel, kid"-ed that dude
I was a kickstarter backer for this, I prefer the definitive edition vs when it released. To be able to switch between RTWP & turn based mode "on the fly" can't be understated. If I have an issue with it, is that you can't create your entire party, you create one & the rest "come to you" as it were. You can make other members as the game progresses, but those you create aren't story-based for one, & for the other, as the levels progress so does the cost to create them in game. I do like that the game does have a good amount of replay value, 9 possible replays as a matter of fact. Each kingdom is based on your characters alignment, & each kingdom has certain things that it will & won't have based on that. As examples: a Lawful Good kingdom you can get a Bulletin Board (which gives bonuses to certain kingdom based quests), while a Chaotic Neutral Kingdom WON'T have that Bulletin Board, but WILL give you the option of having a state run whore house (extra tax revenue), A LAwful Evil Kingdom you'll have a gallows in the town square, & so on. I dig little things like that.
My guy really put in the Berserk music for us RIP MIURA :’(
Was going to type the same thing. RIP.
I solo'd the game on Hard with a Wizard Necromancer. Cone of Cold through your own skeletons with no ill effects is awesome.
You may have just sold the game to me. I've been pining over a game that offers actual true necromancer gameplay. I'd LOVE to have a fully dark/evil group that focuses on undead stuff with skeleton summons, etc.
@@slandshark i'd reccomend grabbing the call of the wild mod, it adds a few more class options for necromancer-ey things. And it also optionally makes the raise dead spell work closer to how it does in tabletop.
@@Squeeble00 Dont you mean animate dead?
@@goldeneyekiller101 yeah, that's the one. Names are hard xD
@@slandshark Grim Dawn has a really fun Necromancer class though you need the first expansion to play that class
Oh, man. I loved this review. Kingmaker was a game I couldn't really recommend to my friends without the addendum of 'but you should really play it on easy if you've never played pathfinder before' even though I really loved the game.
But now that Wrath of the Righteous is out and fully released with a few big patches under it's belt (it's release was almost as buggy as Kingmaker's, unfortunately) it's an INCREDIBLY enjoyable experience. Beautiful graphics, AMAZING music (I mean come on, each mythic path has it's own theme song and they're all amazing) CAMERA ROTATION! I've played through the game three times on three different paths, each playthrough around 100-120~ hours and I've already started my fourth.
I really hope that some day you manage to work your way through your list to review Wrath of the Righteous as well, I wholeheartedly believe that it's a near complete improvement on Kingmaker.
Real
Yeah wrath is just a huge leap forward
Interestingly the Fangberry cave got patched at some point so you no longer need to kill swarms to complete the quest. It used to be nastier.
Yeah, first time I dropped the game near Pitax, when I returned, I was pleasantly surprised by that. It's still a very tough battle for a lvl 2 characters, but now the "tough" part is optional.
What's funny is that the game gives you a ton of torches. The default companions can fairly easily take out the swarms on normal difficulty using just the torches (including at launch). But everyone sells them at the first merchant they find and the game doesn't do a good job of telling you MAYBE YOU SHOULD TAKE SOME SORT OF BURNING STICK SINCE SWORDS AREN'T GOOD AGAINST SWARMS OF TINY BUGS.
@@5chneemensch138 Swarms have higher AC than usual (still only 17 on normal, not too bad) and deal pitiful damage, just keep swinging. Meanwhile non elemental weapons have the same problem, plus dealing with swarm damage resistance, which is what kills players. I've done it a dozen times now from beta all the way to the most recent update and torches work fine.
@@NicksFlying what do you mean "pitiful" damage. They hit for 8+ aoe damage while you would try to deal with them in melee range. Not to mention the fact that 70% of fire bombs will not get a hit. And you have to fight 3 of them with some larger spiders in the pack who will 3shot your frontliner.
@@blindeyedblightmain3565 if they're 3 shotting your frontliner then you're awful at equipping and building your characters. Or playing on unfair. They hit for 1d6, that's an average of 3.5 an attack and have a +2 to hit. You're telling me your tank has 10 HP and an AC so low they're regularly landing hits? Are you tanking with a CON dumped wizard?
Darven straight up pulled a "Nothin Personnel Kid" on that NPC...
I've walked 360. Starting from watching your video thinking I'll never be able to play CRPG as it seem to complex at the time and now I'm playing BG1 and BG2 as a preparation for pathfinder games.
Btw thanks for your videos, even if I'm completelty missing the point of a game or not wraping my head around it's mechanics it's still iteresting to listen how you talk about it.
I swear every time Mandy uplaods a video im adding one more game in my wishlist.
Pro Tip make sure every character in your party has the Blind Fight feat before the end game. Don't ask why just do it
@@cyberninjazero5659 so they can fight while blinded??
@@TheStonewall117 Not just that, Blind Fight has the bonus benefit of making your character immune to gaze attacks. Without spoiling anything imagine fighting an army of medusas all of which can turn you into stone as a free action. That's the end game and that's why you need Blind Fight
Thank you. Was on the fence about getting this as the Steam reviews were so varied. Your review has persuaded me to get it :-)
Local man makes Chicken Wings so bad they raise the dead.
A proper gift for graduating
Congrats mate
@@tomjack1000000 Thank you, mate. It's been a long time coming
Same bro 8 fucking years here
@@icyjiub2228 I did 6 myself.
I feel that bro
Darven reminds me of that time when Path of Exile gave a winner of a race event the reward of designing a monster for the game. And he designed saber-tooth koalas.
Saber-toothed koalas are _orders of magnitude_ more charming than Darven.
Saber-tooth koalas are a nice (and intended) joke. Darven is a terrible and unintended joke that lacks any sense of self awareness.
ngl saber tooth koalas actually sound cool as shit out of context
Don’t forget Oni-Goroshi, the sentient (and talking) sword that engulfs its wielder in blue flames.
Those are inspired by Australian Drop Bears. Very dangerous and are known to eat humans
A lot of the issues or peculiarities with this game are issues that exist in the table top adventure path it is based on, and the Pathfinder system as a whole. Like low level swarms being absolutely brutal, that's a tabletop issue right there. Or the fact that it's essentially split in 6 different parts. That's because the adventure path is in six different books. Or hell, alignment choices. If you leave a Dungeons and Dragons group alone for long enough an argument about alignment will eventually, spontaneously, inevitably appear.
Darven: * Teleports behind you * nothing personnel kid
First the King of Limbo now the King of The Stolen Lands
The Queen
@@Dianbler (zee, zeer, zionk)
Biggest tip I can offer for the final act of the game if anyone stumbles on this review later: Blind Fight is a mandatory feat. Makes you immune to paralysing and fearful gazes without needing to cast mind blank, which almost every encounter in the final dungeons will involve. It's pretty sucky, tbh, but it's a pretty good feat to have in general beyond that.
This has been on my steam wishlist for a while now, since a friend recommended it to me. Good to see your take on it.
HE DID IT, HE USED ANGRY DROOD AND BRIGGS AS MC PORTRAITS! 😂
Briggs be lowkey hot
INSANE youtuber ABUSES viewers with DROODS
Mandalore Deep lore jokes are the best.
What class would Briggs be? Stersen is clearly a drood.
@@Jsay18 Trickster/Thief probably, maybe Warlock
Monte Cook is the wizard behind Pathfinder. He's also the wizard behind a lot of the books in D&D. (like unearthed arcana for example) He was brought on as a rules consultant. He's quite talented.
Also it's not really their "first" game. The devs were veterans of the Russian game dev, of Nival stock, that studio that made Blitzkrieg, Silent Storm and Heroes 5 back in the day. You may even see there are some color palette, model and animations that reminiscent of HoMM5, because I believe some designers are the same. Owlcat has roots.
I had about 190 numbered saves for Pathfinder and just recently realized that even after I uninstalled the game, the saves were sitting in my AppData folder taking up about 10GB of space (~50MB per save).
Really can't wait for Wrath of the Righteous!
Use Animate Dead! The skeletons are immune to poison and mental effects, so even if they aren't doing damage they are a phenomenal shield against a lot of enemies.
This game is BRUTAL and I LOVE IT, definitely one of my favorite games, so glad your giving it some attention. I love all the different classes you can be in it, It's fun to just experiment with different builds
A bit of warning but if you intend to use mods wait a bit because yesterday's game update broke a few of them.
Kinda salty they didnt mention fixing the rapier or estoc animation glitch. It's a small thing but so annoying to me.
* darvens behind you* psssh, nothing personnel, hellknight
We ran out of Darwin awards, now we give out Darven awards to all the OP edgelord characters. Pretty sure the character was made in Cheat Engine.
I rarely care about graphics, but great looking water always impresses me
12:17 Is that the No Mercy menu music!? I haven't heard that in ages, that's awesome!
Oh hey, so you're a Mandalore fan as well :)
What fossil did you pick this time?
Even if I might not like a game itself even I can be like "damn that is some good water"
The endgame was so hard even on normal. Those pesky wild hunt petrify half of the party and 4-5 shot everyone. Really enjoyed my 2 playthrough and 160hrs total. Will definitely get the sequel.
Thats why I take Improved Iron will on everyone. I'll do anything to have at least half of my party effective. And all of that is caused by very significant buff that Wild Hunt got in the video game - in p&p when you pass the Wild gaze will save you're safe but here you gotta pass another one.
I had a pure sorcerer MC, so fights themselves were pretty easy for me thanks to 9th level spell Heroic Invocation(which makes your whole party immune to fear and charm effects for 10 mins/lvl) and Freedom of Movement. There were too much fights to do though which definitely got boring towards the end.
@@lukasz1kier Blind Fight is better since it makes you completely immune to the attack
@@cyberninjazero5659 really? You sure? I don't remember blind fight just negating gaze attacks. If yes, is everyone still rolling for miss chance?
@@lukasz1kier I think in p&p you can just fight with your eyes closed versus foes with gaze attacks, and then blind-fight would greatly mitigate the drawbacks. Dunno how it works here, tho. Maybe you could pre-blind your characters with a spell? :D
The fact that you referenced tyranny fills me with joy, God I love that game
18:30 "...can anyone curse a Real sword?"
:sucks air in through teeth:
Curse a Real Sword? Eaugh
a real one? Like with an edge, and metal, and whatall? YEESH... Like a REAL sword?
To be fair, a lot of the weird decisions can be blamed on the Kingmaker Adventure Path itself. The Spider Swarm for Fangberries encounter was in the book to begin with, and as written Bokken doesn't tell you there's gonna be a million spider swarms when you get there. Without some common Pathfinder houserules like Elephant in the Room, a lot of encounters are just that much more deadly. I've heard of horror stories of the Bear.
Still, it's not as bad as Giantslayer with its "CR 1/2" Orcs with Falchions *and* Ferocity so they don't get knocked out at -1 HP, they just keep fighting until they hit their CON score while power attacking you at level 2-3 for like 2d4+6 damage per hit.
To also be fair the adaptation upped the difficulty in a lot of place and until the update that allowed you to build portals between cities it had the added negative of not giving you any fast transportation options (In a game where you can only make Management decisions from your capital) So it did add BS difficulty in both the combat and management portions of it's own (Like giving a certain common enemy in the end game paralyzation as a free action)
Is Kingmaker a decent adaptation of the module then? I've never touched Pathfinder since my group prefers either retro stuff like Fantasy Trip or Jerry rigging 5E into some godless abomination supersystem, but this seems like a neat adventure to try Pathfinder with.
Also, what is the Elephant in the Room house rule you mentioned?
@@cyberninjazero5659 Haha yep you're not wrong, there's also the fact that even on 'normal' monster difficulty your regular bandit seems to have 20 DEX but yeah, the adaptation has a lot of jank, especially the Kingdom system.
@@SunsetSullivan You replied right after my comment. The gist of it is. The video game is a lot more difficult due to a lack of various utilities, the addition of enemies into encounters that were smaller/non-existent in the original and the buffing of certain enemies.
You have the ability to control difficulty but please get the Blind Fight feat before the End Game/Third Act since one particular enemy buff makes the game borderline unplayable otherwise
@@SunsetSullivan In my circle of friends, Kingmaker being cursed is a bit of a running gag, as most people trying to run the campaign seem to have the game die somewhere along the first book of the module (of which there are 6), before any Kingdom management game is done. It's a very slow paced game in general, where exploration takes place and you need to have a lot entertaining encounters prepared else everyone gets bored out of their mind exploring hexes after hexes.
As for Elephant in the Room, you can google 'Pathfinder Elephant in the Room' and find the most common version of it, it basically tries to get rid of near mandatory feat taxes, such as by making Power attack an attack option rather than a feat if you have +1 BAB, or combining the effects of the Dodge and Mobility feat into one feat.
The visual style looks bloody beautiful along with the UI. How refreshing. All the characters look like hand painted Warhammer models where the artist has remembered to thin their paints.
The studio is making a 40k Crpg now, so this comment has aged like fine wine.
I bet you were happy af, when you found YOUR char portrait haha.
And the final scene with the Owlbear made me laugh tears!
I have mixed feelings on this game since i given it a try a couple of times now.
On one hand i freaking love the world the setting and the gameplay, it reminds me a little of the Neverwinter night games which is among my all time favorite games.
I also like how deep they went with all the different paths you can take with your companions, that is ALOT of voice work.
But on the other hand it *feels* like the game almost comes to a screeching halt the moment you become the lord of the land even though there is so much content for you to explore.
I think something that contribute to this is that much of the building and town management can at times feel like busy work when you just want to explore. Not helped by this is that everything is on a doomsday clock timer, mechanics like that can be fun for parts of a game like the start of Pillars of Eternity. But when it is there the whole game when you just want to explore and enjoy this world you feel rushed along.
Another thing i found with this game that might just be me, but i felt the difficulty in combat had 2 modes. Either you were effortlessly steamrolling enemies or you were horribly underpowered. I rarely felt it was anything in between where i had to use my wit to survive instead of just grinding more numbers to brute force my way through. The one battle i felt like i really had to think tactically was the fight with the Staglord.
But despite this i would still recommend this game to people who love crpgs ^^
Re: Halt after act 2. Just turn off the kingdom manager? Set it to auto. It's really as easy as that and you don't even need to restart the game for it. I can see how some people wouldn't like it and nobody will shame you for it lol.
Re: Doomsday clock. I have explored every single nook and cranny of this game and the clock almost never got in the way. It ultimately just tells you when to return back to the core lands for a bit. I think I had weeks of free time before every single deadline quest of the game, and that is - again - with me exploring every nook and cranny of the game world. Don't worry too much about it, it's pretty lax!
Re: Difficulty. Game definitely has a pretty fair amount of difficulty. The difficulty spikes can almost always be solved through the use of consumables or simply resting.
Re: NWN. I've pretty much played all major vidya RPGs since the late 90s and NWN might be one of the roughest of them all. NWN1 is just kinda generic boring, but not aggressively boring. NWN2, on the other hand, is one of the worst, most psychotic RPGs I have ever played. Even ignoring the thousands of bugs, the plot makes no sense, awful voice acting... Just damn...
7:01
That track is called Canvas for the Gods if anyone is curious.
tysm
'Oh Ashes' I shed tear
Kinda sad that Halligan didnt have his own Chaotic Neutral Campaign.
Chaotic Neutral? Let me remind you that Nok-Nok is considered to be Chaotic Evil by this game's standards and even he is less crazy than Halligan and let me remind you, he brought a drunken giant to the capital! At minimum Halligan should be considered Chaotic Evil.
@@The-Samuil nok-nok is a good boye. He is basically a Jesus... but for goblins. The idea that you lugging around a pocket Jesus (not your own, mind you) gives me the chills every time I think about it.
Halligan would be more chaotic evil.
This was a very good review, also one I was looking for. You go really in depth into the different subjects and like me you don’t hate to fail sometimes. Thank you for this video. Really well done!
I just finished this a few weeks ago so it was awesome to see a review here!
PF Kingmaker is one of the best crpgs available. Despite a few huge issues it has it is absolutely worth your time.
Choices in this game and dialogues one of the best , neutral and chaotic kind giving you best type of choices
@@ТАДАМ-ю4ж Was thinking the same thing. I played Druid so was neutral the whole time and had a lot of fun. Thinking about playing evil for the sequel.
@@uba754 also best ending when you become allies with her so good too