woah
This game was a love letter to the original Pathfinder adventure path. That's what I believe. The game must have been made with a sort of reverence to the AP. There's just so much here, it would take me an hour to even describe all the systems in this game, all the dialogue choices, how deep everything really is. It's an incredibly faithful adaptation of Pathfinder's tabletop mechanics, and that isn't even the most impressive part of this game. The thing that really blew me away, that actually surprised me, the thing I've really not seen in another CRPG like this, is the depths to which you could roleplay your character, and how much your roleplay actually mattered. Who you are, what you say, what you do, the world reacts to it all. Dialogue changes, events change. I was consistently impressed by how the game acknowledged and respected who my character was. There was never a choice that I remember (long ass game btw), where I thought to myself, "I don't have a way of expressing my character here".
This game is nothing short of Impressive. And yet I have to wonder what Owlcat are going to do next. The Pathfinder system has PROBLEMS, especially when you get to high level play (this stuff is documented elsewhere, I don't want to write a freaking dissertation on a 12 year old TTRPG system). The last act of this game definitely suffered from the Pathfinder system. The other issue is with the encounters. I have to compare this game to Divinity Original Sin 2 (that's how good this game is!!). Encounters in DOS2 all feel handcrafted - the same cannot be said about this game. You will fight trash mob after trash mob, as the resource grind is necessary to make boss encounters difficult (or is it?). It's a limitation of the Pathfinder system. You grind the PCs down, then they fight the boss. It's how it Works. Except this isn't very engaging for a video game. In fact, at times, it's boring. It makes me wonder what Owlcat does from here. They clearly have the chops to produce these amazing ports of tabletop APs, but I can't help but feel like they're sort of trapped. Do they continue to port these games faithfully, or do they start designing fixes? I'm not sure, but I'm excited to see what they do next. I so want these games to be something I can recommend to people in the same way I can recommend DOS2. Like, this game deserves to have a million billion fans, it's amazing. BUT! There are so many issues inherent to it that I can't.
So, for now, I'll remember fondly the time I spent with Wrath of the Righteous. I'll meet it where it's at. I'll praise it for what it is, flaws and all. And, at the end, maybe one day, Owlcat will figure out a way to make the perfect game.
This game was a love letter to the original Pathfinder adventure path. That's what I believe. The game must have been made with a sort of reverence to the AP. There's just so much here, it would take me an hour to even describe all the systems in this game, all the dialogue choices, how deep everything really is. It's an incredibly faithful adaptation of Pathfinder's tabletop mechanics, and that isn't even the most impressive part of this game. The thing that really blew me away, that actually surprised me, the thing I've really not seen in another CRPG like this, is the depths to which you could roleplay your character, and how much your roleplay actually mattered. Who you are, what you say, what you do, the world reacts to it all. Dialogue changes, events change. I was consistently impressed by how the game acknowledged and respected who my character was. There was never a choice that I remember (long ass game btw), where I thought to myself, "I don't have a way of expressing my character here".
This game is nothing short of Impressive. And yet I have to wonder what Owlcat are going to do next. The Pathfinder system has PROBLEMS, especially when you get to high level play (this stuff is documented elsewhere, I don't want to write a freaking dissertation on a 12 year old TTRPG system). The last act of this game definitely suffered from the Pathfinder system. The other issue is with the encounters. I have to compare this game to Divinity Original Sin 2 (that's how good this game is!!). Encounters in DOS2 all feel handcrafted - the same cannot be said about this game. You will fight trash mob after trash mob, as the resource grind is necessary to make boss encounters difficult (or is it?). It's a limitation of the Pathfinder system. You grind the PCs down, then they fight the boss. It's how it Works. Except this isn't very engaging for a video game. In fact, at times, it's boring. It makes me wonder what Owlcat does from here. They clearly have the chops to produce these amazing ports of tabletop APs, but I can't help but feel like they're sort of trapped. Do they continue to port these games faithfully, or do they start designing fixes? I'm not sure, but I'm excited to see what they do next. I so want these games to be something I can recommend to people in the same way I can recommend DOS2. Like, this game deserves to have a million billion fans, it's amazing. BUT! There are so many issues inherent to it that I can't.
So, for now, I'll remember fondly the time I spent with Wrath of the Righteous. I'll meet it where it's at. I'll praise it for what it is, flaws and all. And, at the end, maybe one day, Owlcat will figure out a way to make the perfect game.