Pathfinder Kingmaker 2022 RPG Review! - It's...Complicated.

[@Tundrawrath]

After 3 playthrough in kingmaker and 2 in wrath , I must say that I prefer the kingmaker story you, the time you pass with your companions is gold , you get attached to them as time passes, in wrath some of them are very good. One of my favorites for sure!

[@Heffalord]

I preferred kingmaker as well, but mostly because in wrath all you do is fight demons for 200 hours and that got old

[@WoA596]

This was a game I really wanted to enjoy but ended up putting down, for a lot of the reasons you've pointed out here. The next game, Wrath of the Righteous doesn't quite fix all those issues but does improve them substantially, and I enjoyed that game to the end. A big problem with the dice roll and randomization systems in these computer version of tabletop games is that there isn't a DM to make failures fun or interesting, and there are no other players to share the significance of that failure with. Even still, I'm very glad these campaigns are being adapted this way, and look forward to their next game.

[@EmceeProphIt]

Yup, I def agree. Failure can be fun in an open-ended setting with friends. In a computer game, it's just...well, failure. You either reload or accept that you can't do something.

[@BlueZirnitra]

The system as portrayed in CRPG's works fine, it's just that the games have struggled to match the quality-for-the-time of the greats they're trying to copy. The adapted game style is compelling in it its own way and the lack of a DM is compensated for by the accelerated pace and ability to reload. Once you accept that certain implied gaming rules like save scumming are out the window, it becomes a DnD based puzzle where you're the one in control of all the characters and the flow of time. It really works if you have an astounding script and story, all the art and audio comes together, and the programming is good enough to make it all feel good. That's what Baldurs Gate 2 achieved in its time and nearly every influenced game to come of it has made several missteps.

[@robertmoorhead2406]

It’ll be interesting to see how Owlcat handles Rogue Trader after Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous Funnily enough, I’ve always felt that Kingmaker the tabletop module was a play on the WFRP module Renegade Crowns. A lot of early Pathfinder modules felt like they were translating WFRP ideas to a DnD style game.

[@TrueKoalaKnight]

D&D 3e was the one that was criticized for being too complex (aka too crunchy). D&D 3.5e was created to fix 3e. It was streamlined and made a bit less crunchy and added more options. Pathfinder came out of 3.5e as a new setting with further streamlining and even more character options. And on a side note... I laugh when I hear people say that Pathfinder 2e is too complicated since it is actually highly streamlined and simplified compared to its first edition.

[@luisgusta]

I think the easiest and more objective way to understand Good/Evil alignments in RPGs, without getting into a moral hellrole, it just treat it like: Good = Altruistic Evil = Egoistic Lawful = Authoritarian Chaotic = Anarquist Being Good is getting out of your way to help others, even if it means harming yourself doing so. Being Evil is doing things for yourselves, even knowing that they will being harm to other people. Regongar may not be a psycho, but he is someone who will defend his own interests above others to the point of bringing them harm. Hence Evil. He is Chaotic because he is against slavers, against rules. I think the idea of Chaotic Evil being lunatic uncotrolled psychos came just from a long line of bad written characters stabilishing that trope. The same could be said about the Lawful dumb alignment.

[@Evilfrogma95]

On my second playthrough I stumbled ass backwards into the secret romance, and it's hard to not choose it every time I want to replay it

[@Ghi102]

On the difficulty of 3.5: That 3.5 is a difficult TTRPG is kinda more of a modern opinion. It is quite a lot more complex than 5e, but D&D wasn't as mainstream enough back then for it to be an issue. Players were a lot more dedicated to the game than an average 5e player is today, in large part because the casual market was much smaller. 4e was Wizard's first attempt at grabbing the casual market and it was so hated that Pathfinder was created by Paizo to continue 3.5 since 4e had very, many issues. Funnily enough Pathfinder 2.0 can be probably seen as a better D&D 4e as well

[@stevemanart]

3E was derided heavily in the changeover from 2E into 3E for being an overcomplicated mess of a game. It just got forgotten by the 3.5 era because that's how it goes and always went. A small handful of people never forget their grudges, but overall they tend to fade into the background and people who were only barely aware of the conversation remember it as far less heated than it was. I saw a man get stabbed with a fountain pen over how "needless complicated" D&D3E was.

[@gryffehondor4236]

Honestly, version 3.5 isn't even "hard", it's just extremely tedious, the reason being content inflation. The system is extremely rigid and lacks any hint of modularity so the only way to expand it moving forward was to shit out new classes and feats until we ended up with a 500 entries feat tree, 95% of which are trap options, very situational or setting dependant. If you just pick up a base copy of D&D 3.5 rulebook and play it as it was on release, the game is simple. If you open a wiki and try to make head or tail of the 300 classes available you can spend two weeks of your life reading before you even begin your character.

[@BlueZirnitra]

Modern, young gamers just don't have the patience for what was considered an acceptable level of nerdy stat wrangling 20 years ago. I'm fond of it as someone who grew up with it but I can understand why fresh blood has a different ethos about how a game should play.

[@80000V]

Going through it right now, and it's... a journey. I've dropped it probably 4 times in the last 2 months, but I pick it back up like 2 days later lol!

[@EmceeProphIt]

Dude that was EXACTLY my experience for a while~

[@paStLife463]

Currently playing and having a blast! It's not perfect - especially in technical terms as a port on XBox series X- but I have so much fun. I like it much more than both Pillar games. Probably the best Crpg I ve played since Baldur's 2. Even Kingdom management I like.I don't understand why people complain about it. As I see it 's probably because everything in game requires some thought 🤔

[@tombaker3731]

Alignment may not be great for video games but I genuinely do like it a lot for TTRPGs. Yes it obviously is impossible for 9 boxes to properly represent the true complexity of morality, and yes there is a lot of debatability within alignment itself, but to me that's what makes it fun in a roleplaying scenario. Alignment as a jumping off point and then exploring the complexities within it from there, with only supernatural beings being actually hardbound to the purist ideas of those alignments.

[@jorixpalorn3738]

While still not a perfect game by any means, I think you'll like Wrath of the Righteous even more than Kingmaker. They made a lot of improvements, and I find it to be better in just about every way.

[@EmceeProphIt]

I'm playing it now and I'm working on a first impressions video for next month, and I agree. I like Wrath a lot so far. The characters in particular are really great, every party member is really interesting so far.

[@quinnkdev]

Great and nuanced review! Your voice as a critic has developed so much. Also, oooof on the way this game portrays gay men. :[

[@TZerot0]

I think this game might have one of the most beautiful UI's I've ever seen.

[@EmceeProphIt]

The tabletop maps in particular are really nice. Plus there's the gimmick that most of the quest/journal content is written by Linzi, one of your companions.

[@budbear4127]

A sentiment I've seen echoed in the comments is also mine" This is my favorite bad game. 3.5 is seen by "Uncomplicated for the time" by a lot of people and it's less that and more we just had less of a player pool so we defaulted to... well, what everyone was likely to have. We also didn't have PDFs yet. Physical tabletop RPG books. It was definitely an era.

[@johngun7418]

I love this game but ya I probably couldn't play this on the table top. Too much number crunching.

[@yellowbelt]

Oh yeah the merciless gm that is the computer can make me want to pull out my hair. Clerics are really good, but to your point they are only really great with healing(in the table its also oddly undead summoning). Wizards/Sorcerer can be nearly as effective spell wise, outside of healing, So if you want that raw magic force go wizard. Cleric also tend have a lot of self buff spells, which if you make more a "cleric" like Tristan just are pointless on him. So I tend to make "crusaders/warpriest" so I can use most of the spell list.

[@EmceeProphIt]

Yeah, I loved Tristian but his subclass/encouraged playstyle just seemed...lacking. Hence I made him a Druid with summons, badass animal friend, and crowd control. My MC was a frontliner who made full use of all the group/self buffs, and he was the second tankiest human behind Valerie for most of the game. Warrior Clerics are super fun.

[@yellowbelt]

@@EmceeProphIt the subaclass he is very support like. Action the table top version compared to the games. You didn't get the buff ability. You just became a cleric who had more divine power.

[@stevemanart]

About Clerics being overpowered. Back in the 3.5 era of D&D, Cleric and Druid supremacy was so rampant the community had a term for it; The CoDzilla. It referred how it was virtually impossible to make a bad cleric and if you were a War cleric who used your spells on yourself you were a better fighter than a Fighter and Paladin combined and how if you tool a single feat you then became a powerhouse who could summon monsters with healing magic while in the form of a bear or smilodon. About alignment Gygaxian Alignment was intended to be you declaring what team your character was on. Originally it was if you were Civilization (law), Nature (neutral), or Barbarism (in the "we came up with this system in the 1960s based on novels written in the 1920s usage of the term; Chaos), but in AD&D it shifted to being slightly more nuanced with ethical and moral axes. But it was still, like everything about character creation in TSR-era D&D, about the broad archetypes you as the player want your character to represent. Detect Evil changing from detecting malicious intent and fiends, to being able to see an aura of evil in 3E and newer editions, and the inclusion of detect chaos/good/law it changed alignment from being a broad archetype you set as a behavioral goal for your character into a supernatural identity. Especially as the rules for alignment became less strict about changing alignment and the removal of penalties for doing so. While YOU the player choose tour alignment, it isn't something you chooses for themselves. Instead being and aspect of their identity they need to learn about themselves... and if you know a cleric or wizard they can just magic it out for you. Honestly the supernatural identity was there in older D&D too, just less emphasized via low-level spells. Religious scholars knew which behaviors lined up with which afterlives and the spirits that come from those afterlives had names for their moral outlooks; diabolic, demonic, celestial, beatific, etc. Edit: This is not to make you "Like" Gygaxian Alignment/9-Point Moral and Ethical Abstraction. Just having some context might help you develop your opinion on it a bit more and maybe even let it not hurt your play experience as much as your minirant here made it feel like it did.

[@EmceeProphIt]

Thank you for the extra info, I knew a bit of it but not all. It did help me understand the system a bit more. I can def see it being more relevant when it comes to supernatural/godly beings related to afterlives and other planes. I'm actually gonna try Planescape relatively soon, and I hear that really dives into the morality systems, so I'm curious to see if that changes my view at all.

[@stevemanart]

@@EmceeProphIt Planescape Torment is my favorite of the D&D licensed games, and yes. It goes into it. Planescape, the setting, is effectively a cultural hub city frequented by the various afterlife spirits and other magical entities and is situated in a manner as to make it function as a trade hub, cultural center, and neutral ground. Sorry for being vague, I don't want to spoiler it. PS:T is super good (imo) and you deserve to go in without a single word more than the basic context every D&D fan in the era would have had their first time playing it.

[@GabrielPerez-ng2jt]

Yo emcee love your vids man, are you gonna continue your Pokémon or FF9 series?

[@EmceeProphIt]

The pokemon one definitely. And since ff9 is my fav, I'll probably revisit it eventually with a more 'normal' review, and talk more about it's impact on me as a kid and as an adult. Thanks for the compliment dude! Glad you enjoy my stuff :D

[@kylescott2235]

Great review

[@HH-hd7nd]

1:30 Not exactly. The problem with TableTop RPG rulesets (not just D&D/Pathfinder, this is the case for more or less all TableTop RPGs) is that they start at a point where the rules are simple and the character options limited. But what then? The publishers want to keep selling books after all, so what shall they do if everyone and their dog already has the core rulebook? The answer is obvious: Publishing more box with extended rules, new character classes, more spells, more magic items, more everything. However this naturally complicates things. Let's take spells and feats for example. Many of them allow tweaks to core mechanics by creating exceptions, like "movement in difficult terrain works like this until you have feats x, y or z etc. The consequence of that is that Tabletop RPGs get more complicated over time simply because the variety of options increases. When Pathfinder 1st edition was replaced with the 2nd edition the original number of spells, character classes, feats, magic items etc had been blown up tenfold. In the core rulebook there where 11 character classes - that's it. However even with the first expansion book, the Extended Rules, 7 entirely new classes where introduced....and new archetypes for all classes including the original ones, and all of these archetypes altered the classes in some way. Let's take the fighter for example - there's the core rulebook version and in the extended rules (which is just the first expansion book) there's 10 archetypes on top, all of which alter the base fighter's abilities. And it is the same for all the other classes. In short - even the most simplistic RPG rules can get very complicated very quickly. And when the rules get so complicated that new players have a hard time getting into the game, that's when the publishers release a new version. D&D alone has had so many editions (more than just 5 actually - there's D&D 1, AD&D 1st edition, AD&D 2nd Edition, D&D Basic, D&D 3e, D&D 3.5, D&D 4 (and edition basically no one liked) and D&D 5e). When D&D 5e was released the rules where simple - however due to all the additional rulebooks released since the launch in 2014 the game is already way more complicated and I wouldn't be surprised if D&D 6e is already in development. Here are just a few examples: The Dark Eye (the most successfull German RPG, outselling even D&D here in Germany) is currently at its 5th edition; Shadowrun - 6th edition; Vampire: The Masquerade - 5th edition; GURPS - 4th edition etc.

[@IMBREISGAU]

Kingmaker is pain in the ass. Not a noob RPG (cRPG) enjoyer here, I played them all, yes all of them, You mention them, I played them, From the BG to PoE2. TLDR The pacing is fucked (Poe2 has a lot better pacing *and* story), the Kingdom Management is Tedious as fuck, encounter design downright war criminal (unlike BG2) -- I spent 300 hours and only reached Pitax ONCE and never futher, I mentioned the game hours to gatekeep casuals who somehow finished this game on normal (i.e. BELOW the nonexistence CORE) and feel the urge to defend it. ------ ALL OF THESE ARE RECTIFIED IN WRATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS. Also I disagree: Everything *MUST* tied with the roll. It's just the design of Kingdom Management is bad.

[@alliesfrench]

WhY cAn’T i DaTe YoU had me rolling

[@julian_arness1320]

If you target evil people but don't follow the laws of your society, then you are chaotic good. Chaotic because you're working outside the legal framework for fighting evil. One example could be a paladin initiating the attack of and killing a blackguard without being attacked first just because the blackguard is a follower of an evil god. If he had killed the BG in self defense, then it would be lawful good.

[@EmceeProphIt]

First.

[@danielross6744]

You keep uploading and I will keep watching. I have watched your videos for years and I love them all. Interesting game. I don't think I've come across one with gay characters.

[@EmceeProphIt]

Thanks for sticking around dude~ It means a lot to me that people enjoy my stuff :D And ye, sadly representation is still kinda rare even now. It's slowly getting better tho.

[@jhudsu1]

3.5 is actually the second most popular and well received version of the game of all time, the description of it as contentious here is just not accurate.

[@zarddin]

I finished the game many times. I hated the kingdom management every single time. For a roleplaying game it did really punish me for playing chaotic evil when I did just kill anyone I could and banish the rest as I had no companions and created the mercenaries but they had that stupid -5 to kingdom management in everything because they were mercenaries not companions :/ Like the Chaotic Evil playthrough was great from a roleplaying point and it was great to kill Jubilost, Ekundayo, Regongar, Octavia, Nok-Nok the moment I met them and to kill Tristian later. And to kill Bartholomew Delgado, Tsanna, Lander Lebeda personally ;) I only kept Jaethal with me as in my head she was my way of becoming an immortal undead in future. It was great to make everyone miss the Stag Lord and cursing the day they met me and it was great that I made both Surtova and Aldori much weaker by letting many of them be killed by Barbarians and then killing who was left and the game let me to kill and killing the barbarians after that. (Going after Tristrian first instead of going to help Brevoy against barbarians as my personal revenge was more important). The roleplay part was great. Kingdom management was painful.

[@monkeybtm6]

happy to say the LGBT rep in the sequel is FAAAAAR better and more nuanced.

[@EmceeProphIt]

I'm a good few hours into Wrath and I def agree. Wrath is an improvement in everyway so far, and I REALLY love the cast.

[@monkeybtm6]

@@EmceeProphIt wrath has its issues, some of kingmakers issues are still present in wrath, but it kinda crept up more in my feelings toward it as i played it. by the time i completed it i had found it to be one of my fave CRPG's.

[@appleseed8282]

It's a fart-knock life boios

[@aaronrothwell6504]

This is my favorite bad game. Luckily the sequal is much better

[@TiagoMorbusSa]

It's not complicated at all: the writing is atrocious and full of purple prose, and the combat requires you to min max the hell out of your party. Avoid.

[@Heartdrive]

God damn I really hate you using the word Queer to describe gay people. Its jarring to say the least but Im fairly old school in hearing it as a slur. Still I think you focused far too much on this aspect considering that were less than 1% of the world and seems pretty accurate from that perspective. I do get it though its a fantasy world and would be nice to have options.

[@bluefacestan1826]

At lest my evil gay necromancy boi was happy lol

[@VICTORZITOSS]

ALgorithm help this video good makeit bless with lots of watchers and lots of opportunities yadda yadda something add to the notability and show in feeds and stuff