Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is an obtuse, overly complex, under polished, unbalanced, and at lot of times, a downright unfair CRPG. But if you played the tabletop, or even a lick of DnD then you'll love this. But I haven't played the tabletop. I have no intention to either. So this is a newcomer perspective.

There have been quite a few improvements from Kingmaker, but something that will standout whether you are new or old is the disgusting difficulty spike. You don't realize why until you gain access to the Mythic Paths at the end of Act 1 but until then the game seemingly does everything and anything it can to make you turn down the difficulty. To be fair, you'll only experience the pain I've felt if you decide to be stubborn no matter how bad this game abuses you. And it's like the abuse only gets worse the farther you get. But standing at the end of Act 1, as a newcomer who couldn't bear to play more than a few hours of Kingmaker, I'll be honest here, it clicked. It's like, "Oh, that's why you were assaulting me in the middle of the street like that! I'm still not happy but I get it!"

The game requires a lot of upfront knowledge and research to even get started with Character Creation and as of right now, the knowledge being passed around is still overly niche, outdated, min-maxed to hell, and difficult to understand. Akin to playing a 2-D Sonic, you have no clue what you are supposed to do until you see it. And you'll see it too late. In Act 1 in particular, you have basically 3 rests worth of time to get everything done or you will lose companions, story lines, powers, etc. Don't ♥♥♥♥ around with the research. Seriously. Find a no spoilers guide for Act 1 and follow it. There's no time limit past Act 1 but you seriously don't have enough time within those 3 rests to figure this all out by yourself on your first go. Avoid the pain.

Pathfinder: WotR is absolutly not the best crpg to come out since Divinity Original Sin 2. Nothing has beaten that standard yet. But it's like Pathfinder finally found it's feet among the modern crpg revival genre with this game and it's well deserved.

I cut my teeth on this game for 24 hours to finish act 1 on Core difficulty. I killed the water monster, flawlessly fended off the attack on Defender's Heart, and finished all the quests I was supposed to before the time limit cut me off. Did I mention I was on Last Azlanti mode? Hahahahaha. I was. Hahahaha. It's not ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fun to manage 1 save on a game this punishing. But I did it anyways. Hahahahaha. Imagine almost finishing Act 1 4 times and then you realize you forgot something or ran out of time before the attack. :) I'll jump off the side of a building in Roblox if I have to do it again hahahaha.

This took so much time that I almost resent it, but the testimonies you hear about just needing to "learn the game" aren't 100% shilling (unfair is ♥♥♥♥♥♥ though idc what anyone says). If you need a solid CRPG to add to your library I can recommend this in the same sadistic way one would recommend Elona.

Take your time and if it didn't work, back to character creation you go ♥♥♥♥♥♥.