Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous - epic RPG out now

[Sly Boots]

Launched yesterday, and it swallowed up my entire day more or less. It's really, really good.

Not going to do a major review or anything yet, but suffice to say that among the features I'm really appreciating in a cRPG is the ability to rotate the camera and, more particularly, switch from real-time with pause to turn-based at the press of a button. It means that you can stick with real-time to wade through trash mobs, but when you hit a harder encounter you can drop into turn-based and make it more tactical.

And it looks beautiful. Very impressed. I'm looking forward to hearing what Wrath makes of it

[Wrathbone]

I’m eagerly awaiting it tomorrow evening when I get back from my holiday.

Did you ever give Kingmaker a whirl in the end? For all its problems it remains one of my favourite RPGs for many years, and I’m excited by reviews saying the sequel improves things across the board.

[Sly Boots]

I didn't, I guess I got a bit put off by all that was said during its troubled launch, though reading around now I understand it's a lot better.

I'm massively enjoying this, though, I'm a bit in love with it in fact, so I'll definitely be picking up Kingmaker after this.

Edit: And my bloodrider just got a pet sabretooth tiger

[Sly Boots]

Also, a big example today of the benefit of including both RTwP and turn-based combat.

I hit a big setpiece encounter that's basically a last-stand base defence, and playing it at first with RTwP I got utterly curb-stomped, first TPK of the game. When I reloaded, I instead went turn-based and it was like night and day. Suddenly, instead of getting confused by the sheer scale of the melee and what was going on, I was able to strategically block off choke-points, pick off enemies at different entry points and just generally make use of better tactics. Still just about survived because it's a massive battle, no party members dead but everyone was clinging on a bit. It was a really cool moment to get to the end of it successfully.

The one downside of it was that that one battle lasted well over an hour (there's a huge number of allied and enemy combatants to process turns for each round), but it was definitely the way to go.

[Rusty]

For the first time too, I had to remap my mouse buttons as certain commands can't be swapped. - I'm looking at you rotate the view. Middle mouse button? So unnatural, switched my right click to be rotate and my middle click to be right click (which doesn't get used very often). Annoying when I forgot to switch off my profile and wonder why my web navigation doesn't work...

[Sly Boots]

Are you sure? When changing key bindings previously I found you couldn't assign a button to a command until the command that button was previously assigned to was cleared manually - unlike most games it doesn't replace them automatically.

[Wrathbone]

To be fair, if that’s among the worst issues then they’ve come leaps and bounds since the initial release of Kingmaker. I’ll never forget entering a new area only to find one of my party members had been cloned and there was two of them wandering about.

[Sly Boots]

People have been complaining about the crusade aspect of the gameplay, and having reached that part myself.... eesh. Yeah, that's not much fun. It just seems like an unnecessary addition that gets in the way of the good stuff.

[DjchunKfunK]

After my experience with the first game I think I will leave this until they have fixed most of the issues before I jump in.

[Sly Boots]

After my experience with the first game I think I will leave this until they have fixed most of the issues before I jump in.

I'm not seeing any issues as such, those who played Kingmaker say the launch for this is like night and day in comparison. It's an excellent RPG with a weirdly undercooked HOMM-style RTS element tacked on. But it all works.

[Wrathbone]

People have been complaining about the crusade aspect of the gameplay, and having reached that part myself.... eesh. Yeah, that's not much fun. It just seems like an unnecessary addition that gets in the way of the good stuff.

I’ve not got that far yet, but the kingdom management in Kingmaker divided opinion to the point where they added the option to automate it entirely. I really enjoyed it, though, and found it core to feeling like a monarch dealing with near-impossible pressures from all corners.

WotR is great so far, though good grief have they ever plunged the story in at the deep end! No pootling round bucolic valleys killing rats and goblins this time. I’m scared to contemplate what the endgame insanity is going to be like given the scale of the opening.

[Sly Boots]

People have been complaining about the crusade aspect of the gameplay, and having reached that part myself.... eesh. Yeah, that's not much fun. It just seems like an unnecessary addition that gets in the way of the good stuff.

I’ve not got that far yet, but the kingdom management in Kingmaker divided opinion to the point where they added the option to automate it entirely. I really enjoyed it, though, and found it core to feeling like a monarch dealing with near-impossible pressures from all corners.

WotR is great so far, though good grief have they ever plunged the story in at the deep end! No pootling round bucolic valleys killing rats and goblins this time. I’m scared to contemplate what the endgame insanity is going to be like given the scale of the opening.

Haha, yes it's pretty epic from the get-go, and some 30 hours in the pace hasn't let up yet.

[DjchunKfunK]

After my experience with the first game I think I will leave this until they have fixed most of the issues before I jump in.

I'm not seeing any issues as such, those who played Kingmaker say the launch for this is like night and day in comparison. It's an excellent RPG with a weirdly undercooked HOMM-style RTS element tacked on. But it all works.

It might not be as bad as the last game but I know people who have run up against a number of issues so I am happy to wait.

[arqueturus]

I bought Kingmaker a few weeks ago now and I'm slowly chipping into it. Really enjoying is so far - in particular the ability to switch between RTwP and Turn Based. The only negative I'll put is the timers on things - I'd like the option to remove them - I just prefer to pootle at my own pace. It's given me the most Baldur's Gate vibes than any of the recent-ish efforts so far.

[Sly Boots]

I bought Kingmaker a few weeks ago now and I'm slowly chipping into it. Really enjoying is so far - in particular the ability to switch between RTwP and Turn Based. The only negative I'll put is the timers on things - I'd like the option to remove them - I just prefer to pootle at my own pace. It's given me the most Baldur's Gate vibes than any of the recent-ish efforts so far.

Yeah, I've seen people commenting on the timers in the first game. They've been all but removed for the sequel, thankfully.