Pathfinder Kingmaker on GOG - gog.la/BringTheRope THE LIST - docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_K3ziSxT9zcUUGCddS4sF1uNJTWHSbOwB1CQX2Rx4Uo Sorry this took longer, there was a lot of game to cover.

The Darven's character is that one guy who writes a completely OP character and expects you all to just roll with it. 10/10 realistic tabletop setting.

The Darven questline is like when your DM needs more time to prep for the end of the campaign so they let one of the players DM for a couple sessions and he brings in his OC from his fanfiction as an NPC to show off how cool he is. Then if you try to kill him, the guest DM is like "Uhhh... He casts Greater Invisibility!" "I have True Sight." "...His spell is special and makes him invisible even to True Sight!" Like a kid on the playground with an everything-proof shield.

They even got the "DM put battle music and forget to add another because combat takes too long" right into their soundtracks just like the real tabletop, that's awesome.

"Instead of a nice rest, you're being ambushed by the undead, all because you screwed up making chicken." *"PUT IT OUT, YOU FOOLS! PUT IT OUT!"*

I like how a Darven is so bad a walkthrough which is supposed to be impartial says “Bite the bullet”

This game sound like it was made for people that really want to play D&D but they lack a very rare resource called "friends that play D&D".

I feel like the devs okay'd Darven to complete the TTRPG experience. Let players know what it's like to be in a campaign with "that guy," even just briefly.

Mandalore and Sseth on a boat: Mandalore: "Wow that's some good looking water!" Sessth: "Damn, that's a pretty good lookin' fish."

For anyone interested in the game, don’t worry about the music just stopping in turn-based combat. There’s an option for pauses between track repeats during turn-based combat that’s turned on by default, but you can turn it off.

"always have rope" this is the soul of TTRPGs

Actually it IS possible to side with the Hellknights and get a reward during Darven's quest. It's just REALLY fucking hard because so many options make Linxia hate your guts and the quest tries to railroad you into siding with Darven. Let them do their investigation, don't get mad when they start dicking around with your subjects, and wait a month or two. Eventually the next time you leave the Capital, Darven will interrupt you. Tell him to fuck off and try to arrest him, or just lie that you'll help him. Go to the Secluded Lodge, and when Linxia asks you how you knew she was there, choose the Lawful Neutral option of (Darven told me). When she freaks out and asks why, DO NOT, repeat, DO NOT admit that he wanted you to kill her. You need to tell her that it's none of her business. YOU WILL STILL FIGHT THE HELLKNIGHTS. When Darven tries to sweettalk you after, stab his ass so he runs off. Eventually Linxia will message you and ask you for backup at Brineheart. Go to her, help the Hellknights fight Darven's mercs. When Darven tries to get you to side with again, tell Linxia to go for the kill. YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST NOT ask if there's a peaceful solution. Fight Darven with the Hellknights. In the conversation that follows, DO NOT try to ask for mercy for Darven, just choose the Neutral option. Linxia will begrudgingly admit to you being a fine ruler, and will offer an alliance with the Order of the Rack. This opens up a project where you can officially ally with them, which will give a random chance of raising your stability level, with it being more likely the less stable your kingdom is. Obviously a total pain in the fucking ass to get and definitely not worth it when compared to the shit Darven gives you, but fuck Darven and fuck this quest jesus fucking christ.

"This is their first game" Fucking WHAT? That's crazy! Definitely interested now lol

In a Perfect World, Darven would be a parody of "That Guy" made by fans to put into a cool CRPG they like But this isn't a Perfect World

We were so spoiled by the back to back uploads that I was getting Mandalore withdrawals man

The Darven quest had me rolling. Mostly because I've played enough Pathfinder to know _exactly_ the type of person who would come up with it.

Advice for anyone nearing the end of the game. There is a feat anyone can take called Blind-Fight. It makes you immune to gaze attacks, which is what the Wild Hunt uses to paralyze you. This will make the last stretch far more reasonable.

The berserk music hittin me in my heart RN

THE MYSTERY OF THE DROOODS, THEY ALL HAVE AN ATTITOOD

"This game knows you should always have rope." That statement singlehandedly spiked my interest in the game by several magnitudes.

"...a long dungeon crawl can mean hearing the same two or three short songs over and over..." *LAUGHS IN ARCANUM*

That “hai yo” hits real different now, thanks for the enjoyable video Mandalore

I love when characters unironically teleport behind people and stab them in the back. _"Watch out. You might cut yourself on that edge."_

Darven's quest is absolutely hilarious. It's like that whoever wrote it aimed for Jack Sparrow, and instead wrote a gender-flipped Empress Theresa.

I feel like you're required to side AGAINST Darven, not suffering him is the only reward you need.

Serstan and Briggs is the crossover duo I never knew I needed in my life.

Fun fact: the spider cave actually used to be even harder, until the devs changed it around a bit because people kept getting destroyed by the swarms.

Local man makes Chicken Wings so bad they raise the dead.

I love that I can look at the party that Mandalore is using and immediately tell exactly which moral choices he's made and what alignment Mandalore is.

Lord Mandalore: King of Limbo, Master of the Droods, The Queen.

Thanks for the video! As a developer, I can tell you: there will be no Darven in PF:WotR. Yeah, I know, I know, that's sad, but that's the reality.

I love the broken window bit. Accidentally tossing a pebble a little too hard and completely shattering a window, totally sounds like a clumsy Mandalore type of encounter.

I finished Kingmaker earlier this year and was looking forward to your review. "A passanger in my own body" is a perfect way to describe the Hellknights/Darven segment of the game. At one point the Hellknights were being major a-holes to me and my people, I chose the option to have them arrested... and they just left! Did I fucking stutter? I told my guards to arrest them, not stand still while they leave! Any agency you had until that moment is taken away from you so that Darven can be cool and awesome all the time. Luckily it is given back to you once that fever dream of a chapter is over. It's definetely the sore thumb sticking out of the rest of the game, and it's painfully obvious that it was shoehorned into the main quest to satisfy the backer who created the character. The end section is pretty damn awful too. I enjoyed the game though, and I am happy to have played it. It's an 8.5/10 in my book.

That Druid and Briggs face though, they never get old xD That Berserk ost, RIP Miura-sensei. His masterpiece will never be finished :(

The real question is if Darven was made to be tongue in cheek or if the moneybags backer was completely serious.

Turn based combat mode is a GODSEND. such a brilliant addition. I finally started progressing and winning fights when it got added

16:06 y'all noticed he called his kingdom outer heaven?

Now Mandalore is a true king.

"Never thought I'd die alongside Paizo Publishing." "How about alongside Mandalore Gaming and GOG?" "... ... Aye, I could do that."

The last chapter in the House at the edge of time got me. I don't ragequit often, but it got me. It wasn't even the tedium or "unfair" encounters. It was that the game just decided "I don't like how you've handled this one character's quest line, so I'm going to kill them off with another character." It was a legitimate end to that quest, but Owlcat said no. Just death by railroading. You don't even get a chance to defuse the situation or pick one or the other. You can't even resurrect the one that was killed, although you could usually do that and the corpse was intact. Heck, the killed character was in the main party and therefore much better equipped, and by all accounts should have killed the "turncoat assassin". I just said "screw this" and left, because if a GM tried that crap with me in an actual Pathfinder game, I'd do the same thing.

Dear god is Darven really goimg to be in the sequel. Did that guy pay another $4000 to continue the story.

Dude, the Berserk music killed me, too soon. RIP Kentaro and the pinnacle of dark fantasy and art that was his work. He went on too soon, it's so sad.

This game might be the reason why I need to go to therapy...

Regarding the spider swarms early in the game; the ever burning torch you start with does fire damage when equipped as a melee weapon

* darvens behind you* psssh, nothing personnel, hellknight

For anyone playing this game, something I would recommend turning off is the alignment shift display during dialogue. As shown in the video, your alignment can shift over the course of your playthrough depending on your actions, and there’s an awesome display on your character sheet that tracks each and every change in your alignment, along with a marker that slowly moves across an alignment map, which can change your overall alignment as a whole. I noticed that a lot of my actions tended to be more focused towards the alignment I was currently at rather than what I truly wanted to say. If you’ve ever played Torment: Tides of Numenera, it’s like the tides system in that game. I turned it off early in my experience, and I’m so glad I did. You can totally keep alignment shift notifications on, but actually showing if dialogue choices will affect it will tempt you into playing it to the game’s systems rather than actually roleplaying your character.

Darven literally "Nothin personnel, kid"-ed that dude

Darven reminds me of that time when Path of Exile gave a winner of a race event the reward of designing a monster for the game. And he designed saber-tooth koalas.

The mouseover-for-lore-and-definitions thing is a life-saver. I first encountered it in "Pyre" from Supergiant Games, and I'm surprised it's not more common in all these fantasy worlds with so many Proper Nouns.

A proper gift for graduating

18:46 Rest in Peace, Kentaro Miura, we'll miss you.

Darven questline appears out of nowhere, you cannot avoid it, the game enforces the one and only 'right' way to proceed it via supporting the OC DO Not Steal character all but demanding you like him and penalizing you for acting against him, even if it is within your characters personality. 10/10, authentic tabletop experience.

I started playing this game blind, and even though I wasn't interested in the city/empire management as much as the actual adventuring that wasn't a problem for me. Valorie is an absolute treasure as a companion as well, I wouldn't enjoy pathfinder nearly as much if she wasn't judging the hell out of my chaotic actions while taking 90% of the hits for me in battle. What a babe.

My guy really put in the Berserk music for us RIP MIURA :’(

Protestant Dungeons & Dragons is a wonderful description of Pathfinder that I will use from now on

Im so glad they finally introduced turn based combat into the game, real time combat could be chaotic, and feel like i wasn't getting everything i could out of a fight, pathfinder has so much crap you can do with each turn, and real time felt like i was lossing 50% of what i could have done. Not to mention spell wind-ups can be horrendous at times

I had about 190 numbered saves for Pathfinder and just recently realized that even after I uninstalled the game, the saves were sitting in my AppData folder taking up about 10GB of space (~50MB per save). Really can't wait for Wrath of the Righteous!

Ooooo I wonder what Sins mod hes thinking of. STA3? Prophets? So many good choices.

"Do you have any 1099's? How big is your mom's house?" You're not getting my security question answers, Mandy. >:^)

"Pathfinder is Protestant D&D." As a Pathfinder fan... That is a fair analogy and I will accept that.

I really hope you cover wrath of the righteous, in my opinion its just a straight up improvement in every way. its amazing

Darven straight up pulled a "Nothin Personnel Kid" on that NPC...

Darven: * Teleports behind you * nothing personnel kid

Thank you. Was on the fence about getting this as the Steam reviews were so varied. Your review has persuaded me to get it :-)

I help the Hell Knights. Every. Time.

Serstan's Lore: An expert on Druidic magic. Serstan claims he was robbed of his rightful claim to immortality. Serstan broke a sacred vow and received the ULTIMATE DISGRACE as well as being exiled from his world, now he must venture to restore his power and his honor.

HE DID IT, HE USED ANGRY DROOD AND BRIGGS AS MC PORTRAITS! 😂

This was a very good review, also one I was looking for. You go really in depth into the different subjects and like me you don’t hate to fail sometimes. Thank you for this video. Really well done!

I solo'd the game on Hard with a Wizard Necromancer. Cone of Cold through your own skeletons with no ill effects is awesome.

The combat hits connecting really reminded me of the meaty thunk Diablo 2 gave and I loved it. Glad you brought that up, it’s a really satisfying part of combat in games that doesn’t get enough attention.

Loved the part where you used the Berserk OST. Can't help but feel it was a tribute to the legend we just lost.

Oh, man. I loved this review. Kingmaker was a game I couldn't really recommend to my friends without the addendum of 'but you should really play it on easy if you've never played pathfinder before' even though I really loved the game. But now that Wrath of the Righteous is out and fully released with a few big patches under it's belt (it's release was almost as buggy as Kingmaker's, unfortunately) it's an INCREDIBLY enjoyable experience. Beautiful graphics, AMAZING music (I mean come on, each mythic path has it's own theme song and they're all amazing) CAMERA ROTATION! I've played through the game three times on three different paths, each playthrough around 100-120~ hours and I've already started my fourth. I really hope that some day you manage to work your way through your list to review Wrath of the Righteous as well, I wholeheartedly believe that it's a near complete improvement on Kingmaker.

Monte Cook is the wizard behind Pathfinder. He's also the wizard behind a lot of the books in D&D. (like unearthed arcana for example) He was brought on as a rules consultant. He's quite talented.

First the King of Limbo now the King of The Stolen Lands

Fun fact: this was made in Russia. Mandalore and Russian games. One true pairing.

It's always nice to see another video from MandaloreGaming. You do darn fine work sir.

Because of your great fair review I have purchased the game and all of its DLC and will be streaming it. Thank you! You really did a GREAT review, probably one of the best!

I swear every time Mandy uplaods a video im adding one more game in my wishlist.

Thats what really loved about dragon age, that your decisions early in the game could affect your playthrough completely, and makes you think harder about what you are about to do

Epic ending! ))) Wonderful video-essay: great analysis, humor and demonstrations!

The fact that you referenced tyranny fills me with joy, God I love that game

I've never clicked a video this fast. Pathfinder: Kingmaker is my favourite RPG of the past decade and I am so hyped for the Wrath of the Righteous. Thanks for a great review as always.

I do quite love this game, it had the Skyrim effect on me where I kept replaying it from the start, not because I was getting fed up with it, but because I just wanted to replay the first 5 chapters over and over again. To the point where I had 500+ hours in it until I actually sat down and beat the game.

Use Animate Dead! The skeletons are immune to poison and mental effects, so even if they aren't doing damage they are a phenomenal shield against a lot of enemies.

All the Susumu Hirasawa tracks in your videos warm my heart. Appreciate it Mandy

I've been watching some of your old videos for the past few hours, and now I get this notification? Oh yeah, everything's coming together.

"Darven is a half elf that guys original the character" a-am I having a stroke?

My biggest pet peeve with Kingmaker (which I did love) was how much it was designed to waste the player's time. The characters move slowly, they're always in need of rest on the strategic map, there is even a puzzle in a dungeon that is designed so that you'll go through as many loading screens as possible. My advice? Use mods that make characters move faster out of combat, and remove the weight limit. It doesn't bring anything to the game and it's not even realistic that the land's baron wouldn't use horses or couriers to carry their stuff. About the last dungeon I recommend you soldier through, the ending is surprisingly well written and really took my choices into account, in ways I didn't see coming.

Didn’t expect Hai Yo. You never fail to amaze me. Well done.

'Oh Ashes' I shed tear

Interestingly the Fangberry cave got patched at some point so you no longer need to kill swarms to complete the quest. It used to be nastier.

SOLD! I missed this video before but this looks exactly like what i was looking for.

Great review & channel. Thanks!

18:30 "...can anyone curse a Real sword?" :sucks air in through teeth:

Really good in depth review, got my sub, thanks

Thanks for putting the OST tracks dude. Really, that is pretty cool

Kinda sad that Halligan didnt have his own Chaotic Neutral Campaign.

"some creatures bought 4th" *Me, frantically searching for someone to buy my 4th books secondhand*

This is a great review, it taught me a lot about it. Thanks.

The visual style looks bloody beautiful along with the UI. How refreshing. All the characters look like hand painted Warhammer models where the artist has remembered to thin their paints.