I have never played the tabletop RPG this game is based on, nor indeed any Dungeons & Dragons tabletop game. My experience of the D&D universe is limited to the terribrill film, general pop culture osmosis and most relevant to this review, the isometric CRPGs released by Bioware and Black Isle (later Obsidian).
Of all these titles, Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (and its expansion Throne of Bhaal) was the standout, and I'd still say it's one of the best games ever made. Planescape Torment and Mask of the Betrayer may have had better writing, and the Icewind Dale series better combat, but BG II shone in all areas. It featured lots of different classes which increased replay-ability, a length story campaign with player choice and branching paths, one of the best villains in video game history, memorable and unique companions, relationships with those companions, interesting side quests, a great sense of progression, exciting and varied combat encounters, moral choice, a fantastic soundtrack and some great loot.
It set the bar for future CRPGs and created a template to build on. Many of its features and mechanics becoming commonplace in modern RPGs.
Why all this seemingly unrelated preamble that has nothing to do with Pathfinder: Kingmaker? Well, in the mid 2000s, Bioware, Black Isle (now basically Obsidian) and Larian Studios moved away from isometric CRPGs, and in Bioware's case especially, started making games that were more streamlined and some would say, console friendly. It appeared that 2D was dead and 3D was here to stay. That was until Obsidian's 2012 Kickstarter campaign for a CRPG in the style of BGII and Planescape Torment raised over $4 million. This success opened up the floodgates.
We've since had Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity and its sequel Deadfire, Tyranny, Torment: Tides of Numenera, two Divinity Original Sin games, three Wasteland games, Disco Elysium, remasters, numerous indie games and in 2018, Pathfinder: Kingmaker. All these titles owe something to BGII and could be considered spiritual successors to the 'classic' isometric CRPGs, sharing many of their mechanics and approaches to game play.
Of all these titles the two that come closest to replicating BGII's quality across the board, as well as its tone, are Original Sin 2 and Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and because OS 2 is not strictly isometric (you can rotate the camera and the environment is 3D) and has a slightly different style of combat, the spiritual successor crown has to go to PK.
At times it's uncanny, like you're playing a direct sequel to BGII only with nicer looking pre-rendered backgrounds. The game even features the little green circles around your party members. The D&D setting certainly helps with that feeling of familiarity and while there are differences to classes, races, skills, spells and monsters, there's also a lot that's recognisable to someone like me. From my admittedly limited perspective I'd say that the Forgotten Realms is traditional fantasy to Pathfinders folkloric fantasy (there are Jabberwocky's and Fae, for example).
The main story revolves around a small kingdom in the Stolen Lands and starts off simply enough. There are a number of twists along the way and numerous instances of player choice that can affect the plot. It's all well written by the developers at OwlCat, with help from industry veterans like Chris Avellone. I also want to praise the games villain who is both layered and sympathetic, which is a nice change. She's no Jon Irenicus but there are definitely shades of that character.
The companions are well written and likeable too. They have their own wants but you can still shape and influence them. Like BGII and OS2 there's a lot of humour in the character writing, but it's nicely balanced with more serious stuff. The voice acting, while not used for every line of dialogue, definitely helps bring the companion to life. They all have their own branching quest lines and completing these allows you to gain influence over them, whilst revealing more of their personalities and backstory. These quests generally lead to some kind of moral choice that you can attempt to swing a particular way.
The main story campaign is split into numerous acts and quest lines, and like BGII the game often surprises and delights with where these quests go. There's lots of variety to locations and encounters and even the smallest side quest will have some kind of story line.
The combat also features lots of variety and strategy, and while I do have complaints, I mostly enjoyed it. The sheer number of creatures, classes, spells and abilities makes each encounter a little different and it's nice to see strategic real-time with pause combat again, and done to this level. The similarities to BGII's combat system certainly help, but now we also have fancier particle effects. You're also rewarded with decent loot for overcoming some of the tougher optional battles which can go on for some time. These kinds of encounters require some tactical thought you'll have to manage your party and skills carefully.
An addition to game play not found in BGII is Kingdom management. This involves picking advisers, carrying out tasks and timed events, and managing a kind of fantasy spreadsheet/text adventure. I do have my problems with it, but it can be a nice change of pace from all the combat and exploration.
My biggest complaint is that PK has a reverse difficulty curve, with some incredibly hard enemy encounters early on. These spikes in difficulty flatten as the game goes on but it's almost enough to stop you playing and is a high barrier to entry. The first proper 'boss' encounter is a bandit with some deer antlers on his head. He and his band of merry men pounded me into the ground so many times that I almost quit. There were also normal enemy encounters that wrecked me early on because I didn't have the required knowledge of what spells and gear to use.
After being destroyed by a wisp for the 50th time I looked online for a solution and felt validated by the sheer number of guides for these difficult encounters. There were also many threads with people complaining about the early difficulty, and it's an unfair difficulty as you have to have specific classes with specific spells to make these encounters doable. Forcing a player in an RPG down a specific combat route is not good design but thankfully after act four things balance out a bit. There are still challenging encounters throughout but they don't feel unfair, and I didn't feel limited by my chosen class or abilities.
The sheer number of classes and abilities doesn't help with the initial difficulty or ease you into the game. I think a more tutorialised intro may have helped as I felt pretty overwhelmed despite having some D&D experience from other games.
Kingdom management can also become a bit of a chore later on and the time limit you have on certain quests is not very well explained. The concept of kingdom management is a nice idea but I felt like it was getting in the way of the rest of the game towards the last few acts.
My final issue is with the role-playing and character alignment. Like in BGII you pick your initial alignment, but in PK numerous dialogue choices have alignment specific options and I frequently felt like the specific dialogue choice didn't match up to that particular alignment. It's a small issue, but one that does hamper role-playing a particular way, especially if you want to keep your initial alignment. There were also far more choices for certain alignments which is rather limiting.
These last two complaints are small though and don't really detract from what is a fantastic game. The poor balancing is harder to ignore (if not fixed), but I would urge you to struggle past it if you're a fan of the genre and particularly if you're a fan of that magical isometric CRPG, Baldur's Gate II. It might not match that title in quality (few games do), but it's certainly a worthy enough successor.
8/10
