Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous (2021)

I spent almost 200 hours beating this game. This does include most of the DLCs, yet I still found myself a bit sad to see the game end. The writing, characters, build variety and ambition of this game are top notch. The ambition can be debatably a bit of a downside. There are SO many inter-working systems that it gives this game one of the highest barriers to entry of any game I have played recently. I think this game is more complex than Path of Exile. Even just within one character. You have so much crazy levels of customization. You can choose a class, subclass, background, race, subrace and religion which all have some level of impact on your character and role playing opportunities. You can easily spend hours on just building your character alone. Sometimes even just leveling up can take an hour if you care about your character progression. The game does help a little bit with this barrier of entry. You can choose premade characters that you can level automatically, and you can auto level all of your companions (which is what I did). The problem with the auto level system is you are stuck with the full premade build, otherwise auto leveling will be deactivated for the rest of your run. So you can't modify or swap just one move or spell. This kind of sucks but is understandable.

I usually don't like the chosen one archtype, but it works here thanks to the great writing. Also the sheer roleplaying potential in this game is unparalleled. While my run was a Good character that became a veritable Gold Dragon God (literally I became a Gold Dragon which ruled), I could have instead became the embodiment of an Evil God Lich or an insatiable and all consuming swarm of insects. Evil playthroughs are rarely done as well as it is here. As a Lich/Necromancer you effectively unlock a whole new cast of characters since you can kill a companion or NPC and force them into undead slavery as your new mindless goon. While I didn't do this on my own playthrough, if I ever replay the game I certainly will explore these playthrough options, which would certainly result in a whole new experience. I have no regrets becoming a Gold Dragon God though. That was awesome, especially since I literally one shot the final boss with one spell. Sure that meant the final fight was anti-climatic, yet it still felt satisfying, especially with how I had some really tough fights peppered throughout my playthrough.

Progression in this game is where it really shines and at the same time is at it's least approachable. Again, depending on your class (especially if you are a spellcaster), you can spend more than an hour making or leveling up your character. There are just so many options. You start weak and by the end you are capable of killing Gods and it feels earned.

The combat I do really like. The fact that you can seamlessly transition between real time with pause and turned based is awesome. The game certainly feels more balanced around turned based, mostly because the AI is pretty dumb, but the real time with pause is definitely a great addition, especially with one of my main issues with the game. While I like the combat, there is honestly too much of it. Some dungeons can feel like a slog as you fight through waves and waves of fodder enemies. If you had to engage with turned based combat for all of these encounters the pacing of the game with slow to a crawl. So it's weird to like the combat and yet critique it for having too much. If they cut the combat encounters in half, I think the games pacing would improve. That's my five cents.

Aside from being a traditional Isometric CRPG, it is also an Empire builder with a combat system similar to Heroes of Might and Magic. This Crusader mode is a bit of a mixed bag for me. On one hand, it's cool to build up an army and push through enemy territory. This is needed to progress the main story, since enemy bases will physically block your party from progressing. This actually helps the pacing of the main story, as you have to swap between Empire building and fighting armies to continue your main quest. The issue I have with the system is how simplistic the army combat is and how slow it can be to build up an army. This feels the most half-baked of all systems in the game. The most efficient way to get through this is by building a single death ball army and try to end any combat encounters in a single turn. So yeah, not tactically complex, can be a bit of a slog but it does have pros to it. You do unlock upgrades for both your army and party by beating armies and taking bases. It is neat building up outposts that your party can teleport to and use as forward bases. The best parts of this system is the interactions you have with your war council.

These are events with a ton of great role playing and mechanically features. It's basically a dialogue tree where each party member gives their opinion on a political issue, then you decide. These decisions will often have a direct impact on your army, such as unlocking a new unit that can fight for you, or increase resource accrual. I do like a lot of these council meetings, mostly due to the sharp writing across the board. The whole Empire system is certainly the weakest part of the experience, but I also don't dislike it. It just has plenty of room for improvement.

A lot of people hate on Act 4. I get it, I personally didn't mind how much Act 4 shaked up the formula, but it certainly stands out from the rest of the campaign, for better and for worse. This is the only chapter (technically Act 1 doesn't have the crusader mechanics, but it still introduces the game board with the same movement and exploration that unlocks in the remaining chapters crusader campaign) without the crusader campaign board. I personally didn't mind a break from the Crusade, and while the city doesn't reach the same heights as Baldur's Gate from BG1, it's still a really interesting city to explore with great quests and story lines. It is certainly janky and confusing to navigate. Which to be fair, is intentional.

This is a truly grand adventure. It's got plenty of jank, but just as much passion clearly went into making this game. It's hard to recommend, not only from the absurd time sink required to beat it, but also with it's poor onboarding process and immense barrier of entry. Certainly a terrible starting place for anyone who has never played a CRPG. Pathfinder is the only DnD rule set I never played as a TRPG, though I am familiar with basically all other rule sets. Pathfinder is pretty complex. I didn't mind taking the plunge into this games depths, but it certainly isn't for everyone. I found myself wanting to start a fresh playthrough, but I ref

This is not Owlcat's first foray into Pathfinder 1st Edition: Kingmaker was its predecessor and it truly felt the weight and 'clunkiness' of the system as much as it could have - yet in Wrath of the Righteous Owlcat has found themselves fixing what made most of Kingmaker a miserable experience.

Premise: you need to enjoy Pathfinder as a system first and foremost, if you don't you might as well be paying Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory blindfolded, gagged and naked. And alone. And paranoid.

With this out of the way, Pathfinder in and of itself offers an in-depth characterization that allows you to play the min/max game or go buckwild with whatever your heart desires (will it work? Maybe but you might as well argue the same if you build a Monk with full Charisma specs and dup Dexterity/Strength in 5e) and the translation of system to game works perfectly (unlike in BG3's case).

The companions are varied and they do not ask you to compromise their beliefs with yours (save for drastically opposing views) but it's a shame they do not offer the option of re-spec'ing them like Baldur's Gate 3 does - some of them would need the little TLC needed to make them more valuable against enemies since Owlcat's optimization of the combats is amazing, making every encounter challenging yet not impossible to beat.

At the same time, the game doesn't get max stars because it suffers from the same issues as Baldur's Gate 3: you can optimize your build or stat out a build you wish to play and the game will give enemies buffs that deems it right without a valid reason. Sometimes you will still have a low chance to hit (something I lamented in Baldur's Gate 3 too) despite having a class that can hit the enemy more than fairly - only thing is that Owlcat's absolute 'fudging' of the rules is clear-cut and you can read the various buffs and stats of the enemy - in Baldur's Gate 3 you can read them but that most often seems to not collide 1:1 with what you're experiencing in the game.

Choosing a Mythic Path actually rewards you with something (as in: you can have different outcomes depending on what you're trying to do and have drastically different ends and paths you're going to take).

People have complained about bugs but as of today I have yet to experience anything particularly glaringly wrong.

Haven't played a lot of DnD style games before but I quite enjoyed my extremely long time with this one. Each act of the game I was absolutely sure it was the last one, and then another act comes that's even larger.

Character creation is one of the highlights of the game to me, I spent a lot of time respec-ing my characters once I learned more about the game. Initially though, it was very daunting and my first character was horrible in combat. On easier difficulties they allow you to respec any time you want for free, which I think is great. The difficulty system overall was very good with lots of customization.

The gameplay consists of two different kinds: one is real time / turn based with your character and companions traveling to different locations. The other is the "Crusade" mode that's more of a strategy mode where you control armies and fight turn-based against the demon armies. I actually liked the crusade mode most, it was a huge part of why I continued playing the game. It was really satisfying taking over the map with my armies and outfitting them with generals.

The game looks good and the music is awesome, it reminds me of The Witcher 3's soundtrack. The story was fine, I skipped a lot of it since there was too much for my monkey brain to read. One really annoying act of the game was when you're stuck in some demon world and can't find your way around. I almost quit the game there.

I believe I completed about 90% of the things in the game in 86 hours. That was on the easiest difficulty, with turn-based turned off, and skipping most dialogue. So if you were to do everything in the game, on a hard difficulty with turn-based on and read everything, I would probably look at 200 hours of game time.

7/10