WRITTEN on 08-29-2021:
Question time: have you ever longed and wanted a new follow-up to Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, Icewind Dale, and maybe of the old-school CRPG classics from BioWare and Obsidian based off D&D?
And that's exactly here what this here (Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition) feels like - rule sets; leveling; spells; weapons; and all of that seems very similar to the best era of that D&D stuff. It feels similar to some kind of mix b/t 2nd Ed. and 3rd Ed. of D&D; and whatever tweaks & twists they have of their own.
Well...at least, so far, anyways. See, I haven't say got into the Kingdom Management stuff yet, in which you can also set the game's mode settings for Auto-set or set how easy, mediocre, or hard it can be on the Kingdom stuff. This game, at least in its Enhanced Plus Edition, has TONS of difficulty settings and things you can modify.
Yeah, I'm some 10 hours into PF: Kingmaker Enhanced Plus Edition and...I'm really impressed, so far. This feels like a modern day BioWare-made BG games (Infinity Engine style 2D CRPG); and has some of the smartness & modernizations of Dragon Age: Origins (such as having a party-shared Inventory & there's a huge overhead map to roam around).
And yes, full-blown parties of six are here, when you get enough members. If you've been longing for the days of parties of six like old-school BG series - well, you're going to feel very welcome to this kind of party member numbers...and this kind of strategy in CRPG's again.
There's also both Real-Time Modes and Turn-Based modes. There's so many options on Real-Time, that you can get close to turning it into a TB-game...without going there, if you want to. In the Real-Time settings: you can toggle on or off if you want to pause in these scenarios: before a spell gets fully casted, pause after a spell is casted, an enemy's health is low, an ally's path is low, enemy does a melee attack, ally does a melee attack, an ally dies, an enemy dies, etc etc.
This game's also loaded w/ Difficulty Modes now. There are different modes, for different player skills. And yes, there's even a Story Mode here too - for players to just experience the story.
Better yet, you can even go Custom here. You always pick a certain difficulty...and then customize the tons of options for gameplay & difficulty. Or just say start and go Custom from the jump, You can also set how much damage enemies do; how much damage you do; whether you have Death's Door status enabled; etc etc.
What's Death Door status? It's basically a second chance...b/c you don't die, you just get KO'd, for now. Well, when a party member gets KO'd, they resurrect after battle ends and get slapped w/ a injury penalty. While under Death's Door, these party members afflicted w/ this need to rest somewhere safe (i.e. at a major city or a major place like Oleg's) to get rid of this status. Sleeping in a tent...will NOT stop this status. If your party member(s) that get this status don't rid of this status and a party member get KO'd again while inflicted w/ this Death's Door status, they flat-out die permadeath-style, gone from the game - you'll have to go on w/out them party member(s) or re-load and earlier save. Of course, if the lead party member dies while in Death's Door status, the game's over; go reload an earlier save.
With Death's Door set to off - flat-out, someone in the party get KO'd, they're dead. You'll have to resurrect them...if they aren't destroyed to bits into permadeath. There will be certain shots, especially if you're near death, that can kill your allies and permadeath them (just like in BG games); and/or kill you and flat-out end you.
You can go the other way w/ this - and turns off death entirely. So, after a fight, you can just resurrect....and be back in the game, which feels like a setting that's probably more for those who want a Story Mode, so they can experience the Story.
Players shouldn't deprive themselves of the really good story & character development here - well, at the very least so far, it's really good on that story & character stuff and also with its voiceover work; and hopefully, it stays this way throughout - b/c the game's tough as can be on its default Normal difficulty. Just put it on a setting that fits you...and if that don't work, then Experiment & figure out what fits you, the player. I think this is what's great about this Enhanced Plus version of this game: there's so many customizable options for the player, in terms of gameplay modes & difficulty settings, You can tailor-fit so much to suit you, that you should be able to find something that should work for you.
Now, at Normal difficulty, the game's flat-out hard. This is old-school hard; Nintendo old-school hard and BG series type of hard. I would suggest many players from those eras - or heck, any era - should try to customize this game, directly to their wants & needs. There's so many settings here - yes, if you want to Customize it and all - that you should be able to find something that works for you. You are likely, at the Normal setting, going to have to use the right party members for certain battles, have the right equipment for certain battles, and things of that old-school difficulty sort; similar to BG games & also DAO.
You also have to deal with time management. On the overland map, you will use travel time. Some quests, are timed and need to be done within a certain time period. Yes, even the main quest in my current chapter has a timer too. If you have to rest out in the game-world & have camp equipment with you and no enemies are around in a specific area you're in or on the overland map, you can do so. Of course, you can fail not being safe while at camp and get attacked, while trying to rest in camp. Succeed...and then you can rest at camp freely.
On the overland map, you will explore the world, find areas, and/or visit specific locations - which feels out of old-school CRPG's like Fallout 1 & 2; Arcanum; BG series; DAO; and games of that sort. And yes, you can run into random encounters and/or special encounters, while going around the overland map. Besides needing to explore the game-world and overland map, you might even run into VN (Visual Novel) type of situations & encounters also. Feeling right out of the Choose Your Own Adventure Books from the old days and/or from modern-day VN video games - you will often have to make decisions and/or go through certain skill checks and/or stat checks (and succeed in those checks, hopefully), which can shape stuff in the game and its journey...and possibly its outcome.
I've written so much here, that it's really got me wanting to continue to play some more on in this game. I think I need to return to this epic. It's certainly calling for adventurers like me.
