CRPG according to the excellent Pathfinder desktop system, https://sister-site.org/slotonights/ with Chris Abellon in the screenwriters, upon closer examination, is exactly what you expect from it. There is even nothing to explain something-so carefully chubby volumes with the rules are translated into the language of the code. And if you are a longtime fan of Pathfinder, then in the game from Owlcat Games you will feel like an experienced rolevik in the forest near Moscow.
But what is it like a simple lover of computer role -playing games?
Ears
Without jokes: Kingmaker's perception will very much depend on how you feel about the Pathfinder system. Because the desktop ears here do not just stick out of each gap – they are carefully washed and decorated with diverse earrings so that you immediately pay attention to them. Say, if your party performs a certain action requiring a check of the parameter and throwing a cube, you can see with your own eyes what happened on the twenty -game, and find out why the test was successful or not very.
Each unsuccessful throw is a missed opportunity
Burned role -playing, for whom each throw of dates is equivalent to a priesthood, this approach will probably drive into religious ecstasy. But for my taste this is a minus: I believe in such a gaming design that as best as possible covers the naked nature of mechanics, without forcing the player to spray attention to mathematical parameters. Give me the chances of success in percentage so that I can comfortably enjoy the decision -making, and everything else – from the crafty. Why do I need extra numbers where the car still does the calculations? I better concentrate on history.
The level of complexity is associated with the types of original rules. Cool idea!
The desktop -centric approach is traced in the combat system. It is very unhurried: the heroes of do-oh-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ogs are shut up, they switch from the target to the target, and to distribute targeted orders, such as the use of abilities or drinking therapeutic potions, you have to resort to auto-pause.
Eye-wide bard reconnaissant found a cache, and my inner Mancleke is already joyfully rubbing sweaty hands
Due to the tremendous scatter in damage (thanks to the cube), almost every blow can be lethal-both for the enemy and for the member of your party. In the end, you sit and say: Come on, come on! Wediers here should smile happily, but for me all this is somehow too slow and randomized. Sometimes it seems that even a step -by -step battle would seem more dynamic … But what is there, in the same Divinity: Original Sin It is really more dynamic!
If you inflict too much damage, the enemy is "section". And it would be okay from magical strokes, but even an ordinary arrow can create this!
So far, there are only four characters under your leadership, you can still adapt to this slowness, but when the party grows to six members, you already spend a lot of time on hanging buffs at the beginning of the battle. And when some kind of disorientation spell flies to the group of allied heroes and they scatter with cockroaches throughout the map, simultaneously flaunting from enemy archers, I just want to cry.
Inventory window: I was upset by tiny objects and a weak 3D model of the hero
The development system is also quite ruthless. All according to hardcore: levels in the specialty, pumping characteristics, choosing new abilities. If you love this, you will get a lot of pleasure: there is really where to turn around.
However, in some places the authors tried to make a difficult role life more pleasant. For example, I was very pleased when the game when leaving the location for the first time suggested that I choose all the wrong things from the corpses of enemies – here is literally one click. I already with pleasure devastate each chest and rummage each body, and then they will also remind me unobtrusively if I suddenly missed what I missed. At such moments you feel the care of developers.
Navigation on the global card is inconvenient, and the developers attached a mini-card to it
But the locations cards are very detailed and functional
Heart
If the role system is definitely designed for connoisseurs, then the world itself and interaction with it will please everyone without exception. Eyeal characters regularly find a dile with objects, and even full caches with secret levers. Traveling on a global map, you often get into some skirmishes or just stories-through random meetings, developers at times even promote the main plot. The locations are very pretty, however, they are empty: there are enough trees and bushes, but there are a shortage of active objects. Divinity in this regard, I frankly pushed us – maybe the guys from OWLCAT Games It was worth taking this into account when creating Kingmaker?
Puzzle. Simple, just in the spirit of desktop modules
… but the reward is depressing. There is a bunch of things in the room, but only a chest is active
In the hole, they did not let me under the roots at all. Maybe later?..
A separate song in the musical of random events is the halt: here you can manually configure, who will be on guard and coat! And if you choose an unsuccessful place for the night … Oh, it’s easier to tell with an example.
Fighted out, it means that somehow my group is from a flock of wolves, and after a couple of screens I decided to put a camp-lick bites. The mats calmly spread … And then the problems began: no one could catch dinner, to camouflage the camp – too. So they went to bed on an empty stomach, the sentinel also turned off soon – and after a couple of hours a couple of young wolves woke up the whole group, with the appetite of the legs of our barbar.
Privalov management is important! Hungry fighters will experience weakness, an unmasis camp will easily find enemies, and a sleeping guard will crushing the threat
Somehow they fought back and decided to settle down right here, among the defeated wolves: after all, the guys never ate, did not get enough sleep, each hung the effect of fatigue. On the second attempt, the business went well: the hunt ended successfully, the guys reprimanded properly, even dinner did not burn! The cheerfuls woke up in the morning, gathered, literally one and a half screen went-and there the camp of some merchants ruined by the same flock of wolves.
And you understand that the world is thought out, the world lives.
It seems to be for dinner today Volchatin ..
The game is an excellent generator of stories – and it is for such experience that we dive into the role worlds! It is for the sake of this that it is worth mastering the system if you are not yet its fan. As soon as you stop noticing the mechanics, Kingmaker immediately throws a portion of first -class adventures – and it does not matter if you follow the plot or just hang out idle.
The plot here, by the way, is Awellon's entertaining-at least in the part with which I managed to get in touch. The vigorous beginning, quite unexpected development, intriguing characters … and good dialogs in which there is a lot of play.
But all these wonderful elements are mixed with a musty aroma of secondaryness. And the fault of this is the interface.
Camp of the robbers that I slaughtered to dump the Shy-Pozdorov. Now we will blur the plug!
Skeleton
From the point of view of interface developments, we have an almost complete copy Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire. The same pop -up tips in dialogs, text quests, visualized with the help of illustrated books, even the usual editor of combat constructions is available.
And here I see a big problem: CRPG is a very archaic genre, and Kingmaker is in no hurry to arrange a revolution and extend the established framework. All isometric role -playing in recent years boldly experimented: Pillars of Eternity returned interest in the genre, Tyranny put in the center of the history of villains, Torment: Tides of Numenera showed a very unusual world with crazy tasks, and the series Divinity: Original Sin I turned everything over.
Combat Building Editor. Just like Pillars of Eternity II and another game car!
When you see the solutions that were used in another novelty, is irresistibly pulling them to begin to compare them. And here the game from Obsidian will give one hundred points of handicap to the creation of OWLCAT Games – at least at the current stage. Graphics in Pillars of Eternity are prettier, more dynamic, and in general it seems better thoughtful. However, it is not surprising that the project from the masters of the genre, who at the role -playing games have a whole dog shelter, are felt much more folding.
When leaving the location, we are offered to pick up things from the bodies of opponents. Ideal mechanics for speedrains
Of course, something will have time to change to the release … But now Kingmaker does not seem to be so much a competitor for Deadfire as it is a “sugar-replacement”-a game where people go in search of similar sensations, along and across the original. Someone can say that this is also a worthy niche, but it seems to me that an ideological project is a wonderful role-based role-based role-based project to transfer a wonderful idea! – worthy of personal glory and his audience. Alas, repeating the achievements of Pillars of Eternity, you will not go far from it.
Even more screenshots from Pathfinder: Kingmaker
As a computer implementation of the desktop system, Kingmaker works fine. In my opinion, it is made even too meticulously: the protrusion of orthodox mechanics is more likely to dive into the game world. The obvious similarity with the new products of the conservative genre also does not benefit the project. But if you close your eyes and dive into the plot in its entirety, Kingmaker will grant a wonderful adventure experience – and it doesn’t matter if you played before Pathfinder or not.