Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous - Enhanced Edition Reviews

Great game, great narrative and awesome combat

It’s an amazing game with great storytelling. If you have played Owlcat’s Kingmaker game, it surpasses it fully. Wrath of the Righteous has great graphics, an awesome story and lots of playability and branching choices.

If you, like me, wanted a game to scratch that BG3 itch after you replayed it to death, look elsewhere. I tried, I really tried. I spent at least an hour watching videos explaining how this game works, I made it through the prologue, I did a couple missions. Then the game stuck me into a tower defense battle with a ratio of npcs to pcs of about 10 to 1. When I died after an hour of smacking spacebar to speed up the npcs performing the same animations over and over again, I uninstalled the game. But this review is not after that. This review is after I decided to go back and muscle through it. After another hour, I finally killed the enemy that killed all my pcs the first time, I was down to 2 out of 5 characters, but surely, after THIRTY ROUNDS OF COMBAT MOSTLY CONSISTING OF ME WATCHING NPC ANIMATIONS AT 2X SPEED it would soon end,,, Then I saw an even bigger enemy rock up to the gates and I knew there is absolutely nothing in this game that could be worth sitting through this snorefest. It's also incredibly complicated and not anywhere near clear enough about its systems, but that's an afterthought compared to the sheer boredom it makes the player sit through.

Das Spiel ist vielseitig, tiefgründig und riesig. Teilweise zu riesig und episch - deshalb auch die vielen Stunden. Aber definitiv eine tolle Erfahrung, gerade bei dem Mist der heutigen Rollenspiele. Und alles Aspekte, die einen nicht ansprechen lassen sich reduzieren. Dafür, dass die Entwickler nur wenig Spiele erschaffen haben ist es echt beeindruckend!

I'm new to the entire cRPG category. I've played this, BG3 and DOS2 only, loved all three games. This game is considered finished by the developers, and no new DLCs are coming out, only patches. Latest pack was the Season 2 pack which includes the last 3 DLCs. Combat/Build From the three, this is definitely the one with deepest combat / build system. Near infinite possibilities and build combinations, multi-classing is available from level 2 onwards and all units can be retraining as early as after the prologue. Narrative and Replay value Replay value is enormous due to the Mythic paths one might choose, and writing is superb, leaving room for multiple runs taking different choices. I'd say the writing is overall better than in BG3 and DOS2: narrative is richer, there's lots of text to read to deepen the lore and many NPCs have long conversations with interesting backgrounds. Game length I had a run with 96 hours and wasn't nearly close to finishing it, then after a long break started a new one and am now at around 127 hours and still far from done. Production This game is very beautiful, don't misunderstand me, but compared to BG3 and DOS2 I'd say this is more focused in gameplay mechanics and story than in other production elements such as cutscenes, graphics and voice acting. As in a TT RPG, many scenes have actually no render at all and are written (mostly visions the player character has) and player has to read and use their imagination, which I'm actually quite fond of. There's VA for the most important story elements and party banters only. Cutscenes and animations outside combat are very simple, retaining the isometric view with top down distance from the actors so no individualized dialogue view as in BG3 or facial expressions for the 3D characters. Character creation is, apart from the class and build, very limited in regards to its visuals: haircut, face type, skin tone and clothing dyes are basically the entirety of options when it comes to appearance customization. This is not really a problem for me since the game highly compensates this aspect by giving you full control over the agenda of your character when it comes to dialogue options (you can really roleplay here). I might change and or update my review as I delve deeper into the game and discover new things. So far I'm having a blast!

Thank Pharasma for the toybox mod. This game is horribly balanced with many bloated enemy stat blocks with absurd AC compared to the table top version. Even after two years there are quest breaking bugs that require you to mod around (alignment glitch).  Do NOT buy this game unless you like modding and fixing bugs - the vanilla game is borderline unplayable. 

I tried to like this game, I really did, especially since I was decently into the prequel. But Pathfinder WOTR is just too much of everything. Too much written dialogue without voice acting, too much combat with too many enemies and too many builds to choose from. Last time I dropped the game at around act 5, which is, ironically, just when it "gets good" because the whole game's gimmick is you pick a mithic path and that changes your whole playthrough, and I thought it was because of their terrible army management part of the game, so I came back with it turned off and... no, fatigue once again set in and I just couldn't bring myself to continue past act 3 this time. There's good to be found here, but it's buried in a mountain of text, mechanics and having to bring 6 companions and understand all their builds. It's exhausting. If you want a good Pathfinder game experience, play Kingmaker, the prequel.

While Wrath of the Rigtheous manages to captivate with its stories, lore, and characters, the gameplay quickly becomes a drag. This game was clearly made for hardcore Pathfinder fans - which is fair, since they funded it on Kickstarter. Still I cannot bring myself to recommend this to most others, due to the amount of meaningless and repetitve combat encounters that are thrown your way. While the combat system is very complex (and seems to be faithul to the tabletop) it just isn't very fun. The amount of skills, spells and abilities is absolutely overwhelming, but mastering these systems rarely feels rewarding since you spend most of your time slaying runts. Bossfights are fun but losing them to dice rolls isn't. Unfortunately lowering the difficulty and just playing the game for the story wouldn't really work either, since you'd still have to slaughter your way through hundreds of boring encounters. Visually stunning with an intriguing story, but way too long due to repetetive fights. Not at all surprised that only roughly 10% of players reached the ending.

Compared to its predecessor, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, this game demonstrates remarkable progress, showing significant improvements in nearly every aspect. The visuals are more polished, the mechanics are refined, and the storytelling is deeper and more engaging. The game skillfully intertwines a complex narrative with intricate character development, keeping players invested in its world and rich lore. That said, there are still some drawbacks. The game's sheer scope and complexity may feel overwhelming to newcomers, and occasional technical hiccups could detract from the experience. However, these issues are minor when compared to the grandeur it delivers. For those seeking an epic adventure filled with challenging combat, moral dilemmas, and a sprawling narrative where choices truly matter, this game is an unmissable must-play.

[h1]Insane rollercoaster, not even sure where to begin.[/h1] Firstly the amount of content in the game is insanely overwhelming. At the start of the game you would think: okay so the game takes place in this Kenabres city. And after Act 1 you're hit with a big ass map and countless amount of locations (though, some of them are quite Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V-ish). And once you reach Act 3 you're like: damn, this game never cease to amaze. I was geniunly surprised how the game changed its pace, not letting me stay in my comfort zone. Character creation is so variable to the point that I remember spending over 3 hours just reading about the classes and their abilities. [spoiler]Later in the game you can become one of these extremely OP godlike entities which takes the game to a whole new level. To my memory, it is something that has never been done before in any RPG (usually, in this "chosen" trope the writers choose the origin of the protagonist, but in WotR you choose the origin for yourself and there are about 10 Mythic Paths you can choose from). You can literally become a freaking dragon in this game and have a full gameplay experience as a dragon.[/spoiler] The compainos feel real, they have their own agenda, alignments, their own thoughts about your decisions, their own secrets. Some of the characters might be too archetypical (Woljf, Greybor, Seelah), but that doesn't make them less charming. This game intoduced me to Regill, one of the best and most badass character ever. [spoiler]If you adopted a Lich Mythical Path then some of your enemies can become your puppet-compaions. However, they are not just mindless undead, they still provide interesting commentary from their "undead-foe-willing-to-cooperate" point of view, which I fould extremely amusing. [/spoiler] The dialogues are extremely well-written. The game gives you plenty of dialogue choices and decisions, while staying away from the primitive good/bad options. I mean, they are there but, there are also "grey" options. Some provoke reflections on morality as a social construct, not being subject to cosmic balance. Some made for shits and giggles. I also liked the "Morrowind feature", where you can read about lore-related stuff that was mentioned in the dialogues simply by clickning on the highlighted word. It spares the game from unecessary question dialouges that are so common in CRPG games (which are basically a giant exposition dump). I always hated dilogues that contained questions about the basic principles of the universe/lore as if your character is senile and doesn't know these things. I also liked the fact that you can avoid torturing yourself with long turn-based combat battles and switch to real-time fights with tactical pause, like in Pillars of Eternity or Dragon Age Origins. Not saying that the turn-based combat is trash, I just enjoy following the story more. The amount of choices you can make in this game still amazes me. From minor choices of cheering somebody up or bully them into Abyss to the timeline-altering choices as a Commander of the Crusade. Your decisions MATTER in this game, each time you make a choice you make an impact on the world and the people in it, and it shows. This game have a [b]HUGE[/b] replayability. I just finished my first run of 100 hours and I feel that I barely scratched the surface. [h2]Now the things that disappointed:[/h2] 1. The thing that caused the biggest butthurt for me is the Crusade Mode. This goddamn thing is just straight up broken. I'm sorry, there is no way around it. At first I was having fun creating my own army and battelling demons in this sort of Heroes of Might and Magic mechanics. But ffs, the morale system is just trash, it PUNISHES YOU FOR BEING A SUCCESSFUL GENERAL Like what? In Act 3, I was so invested in this mode that I managed to defeat every demon army and capture every fortress. After that, the morale simply starts to decrease because you no longer have any demon armies to kill and no fortresses to capture. WTF is this? Why is it decreasing? Occasianally a demon army will spawn, however, that doesn't impact the morale in the slightest. I mean sure, if there are enemies on the battlefield it is only logical that in order to keep the morale high you need to battle enemies and defeat them. However, wtf am I supposed to do if there are no enemies and I defeated them all? I feel like I'm LITERALLY the lyrical protagonist for the Dj Khaleed's album Suffering from Success. [Spoiler]Moreover, in the late Act 5, after you defeated literally EVERY demon army/captured every fortress. WHY ARE THE DEMONS KEEP SPAWNING? Like fr I don't undertand, it just distracts you from the main gameplay. And while yes, you can put the Crusader Mode on autopilot in the game settings, I think that is a bad decision as you will be excluding a great portion of gameplay from your run.[/spoiler] Also, CASTER GENERALS. They are OP to an insane point, once you unlock fireball it's over. I have won every single fight with the most trash fighters using only fireball. 2. The game has a weird economy system. I finished my run with over 1 million of gold in my pockets. You know why? Because there is no point in spending it. You always find the best loot in dungeons or get it from bosses. The main source of my spendigs was the Crusade Mode when I needed extra resources for buying mercs. 3. Puzzles. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good puzzle, but this game? I have only one sentence for you: Nameless Ruins – NEVER AGAIN. Dunno, maybe I'm just stupid, but puzzles in this game are unnecessarily difficult to the point that you cannot help but look up solutions for it on the web. 4. As I mentioned, some of the locations feel very copypasted and feels like they were added for the sake of "this one interaction with this particular character". Odd, but understandable. 5. Some classes in the game are just useless and weak and it is no secret. [spoiler]The Assassin class was a big disappointment for me.[/spoiler] 6. The fights can be incredibly challenging if you play on medium or higher difficulty. I love a good challenge, I finished plenty of CRPG games on high difficulty, however, WotR was too much for me. [h2]Final thoughts[/h2] I feel like if the devs took a bit more time balancing the crusade mode, added a more detailed face-creator with lots of options for haircuts, facial features etc for your character; Voiced every character, including the narrator, and did motion captured cutscenes/dialogues, then this game would have been a freaking God Tier GOTY quadruple A type game that even Baldur's Gate 3 would look like Knack 3 in comparison. Just sayin.