Pathfinder: WotR - Review After 100%

[Music] what's going on everybody mortum here this time bringing you my review after 100 for pathfinder wrath of the righteous couple of things right off the bat one i like to review games after 100 them simply because i feel like it lends some credibility and also sets me apart from other reviewers on youtube that said i did actually do a launch review for this game as well as the developer owlcat games provided me with a review copy to do so but nonetheless i was determined to 100 percent it so here we are now that said there might be some minor spoilers throughout this review i'm not going to spoil anything like story wise or major plot points but there might still be some minor spoilers here and there and i did want to mention a couple other things while i was able to get all of the achievements which is not the only thing a review after 100 covers if you're not subscribed to my channel and you go to my channel page the first video you'll see is a video explaining everything i cover in a 100 video which is not just the achievements however on the topic of the achievements while they all do seem to work a couple of them are very touchy and required me to play through the game several times even when i met the criteria for them these are story worth of millennia and sadistic game design sadistic game design in particular seems to be one a lot of people have trouble with and while it did pop for me there seems to be an issue revolving around a optional encounter in act three and i've seen reports where people have pulled up their save files and things after the fact and were able to verify through the use of mods and things whether or not this was completing correctly and basically it just seems that's real inconsistent not even just that particular instance but that combined with sometimes the rest counter on that achievement seems to just stop working in general again it worked for me but it seems to be a little sketchy and only working sometimes but that's about the best i could tell you and the last thing before we dive fully into this review i backed this game when it was in its kickstarter phase which gave me access to the beta because of my videos on kingmaker actually which was the game before this one i was actually invited to that beta anyway but that said i did back it on kickstarter and wound up getting access through that even though alcat did actually invite me to the beta separately as well so i've been playing since the beta i had about 160 170 hours in the beta the pre-release launch version that they sent me to do a review with which was the full game i spent about 75 to 80 hours with and then currently on the full release like actual collective steam hours and things that you'll see if you click on my steam profile on my page you're gonna see a bit over 400 hours so in total i have in the ballpark of 650 hours in this game now you can't get achievements or anything in the beta so actively trying to 100 it or actively making content or whatever you're looking at about 500 plus hours for me personally but that said i'm told i complete games much faster than most people and seeing as i've done playthroughs and everything else for this game that totaled in about 60 hours and that was me going a bit slow for a competition that alcat held you can make of that what you will i suppose now if i don't dive into enough detail in this video on any particular subject for you chances are my channel probably has a video on that specific subject as there is probably no game on this channel i have covered more than pathfinder wrath of the righteous pathfinder wrath of the righteous is an isometric crpg developed by alcat games it is a successor to king maker though not a direct sequel king maker and wrath of the righteous are different adventure paths and they mostly use the pathfinder first edition rule set now adventure paths work similarly to dnd's modules in that they are their own stories so to speak so the crux of this adventure path is that we ultimately see our characters leading the fifth crusade against the demons of the world wound which is a planar rift that is just pouring out demons and the fifth crusade against it is is going to get underway as you play out the events of the game as act 1 kind of thrusts your character into the spotlight and then you are shortly thereafter given control of the crusade and the story kind of advances from there and it is very much so a angel versus demons type of adventure path however you will get the opportunity to play your character as you see fit and the mythic path system which we will talk about a little bit later actually gives you the opportunity to be a variety of things some very evil and how you choose to advance the crusade against the world wound is ultimately up to you when you actually start up the game you're going to pick a difficulty this ranges from casual or story to unfair difficulty and these are across the board in terms of the difficulty spectrum story mode it's almost impossible to lose technically it's still possible but you'd be hard-pressed to do so whereas unfair is quite literally unfair there are different methods for tackling this mode most of them involve cheesing the game in some way or hiring mercenaries rather than using the companions that are given to you throughout the game now in terms of difficulty what i recommend doing is playing around with all of the difficulties and finding a comfortable spot for you me personally i like to play on core most of the time because core i feel really rewards knowledge of the system and just knowing what you're doing whereas unfair i do not enjoy because it is again literally just unfair a lot of the time now from here let's talk about character creation so straight from kingmaker we see a bunch more classes and archetypes added archetypes being similar to subclasses if you're unaware so there are tons of more options just coming from king maker i believe there's around 30-ish regular classes and that doesn't even include the prestige classes which you can't start the game with now that said while these are more than welcome there are some redundant options and moreover there are archetypes that aren't super useful my go-to example for this is the defender of the true world druid archetype which gives you a bunch of bonuses to fighting fae creatures which don't really exist in this particular adventure path but they were a huge thing in king maker so they just carried it over so because of that character creation can feel a little bloated with options that are basically a wrong choice now while you can still use those archetypes and honestly even be okay in things on like normal mode higher levels of difficulty it's just not going to work for you moreover while they are actively patching and fixing this game all the time it's actually received a ton of updates since its launch some of the classes and archetypes have abilities that don't work properly so if you're playing on a higher difficulty mode where you know an ability not working is a huge problem you might want to look into those for instance a big one actually was the demon slayer rangers quarry ability wasn't working properly which for a ranger is a huge ability especially for a demon slayer ranger which gets a bunch of bonuses to this adventure path but that said that particular one was actually fixed recently or at least it was supposed to have been as far as i know but you may or may not run into some issues there moreover character creation is probably going to be pretty overwhelming for someone new to pathfinder there's so many options here there are some less than great picks and because of that that can lead to a lot of problems jumping into this game but if you're dedicated to pathfinder or you just really enjoy crpgs or choice and consequence is your thing then i think this system is worth learning now next up let's talk mythic pads mythic paths are basically the big draw of this game now while you will level up levels 1 through 20 regularly by killing things and gaining experience throughout the game mythic paths offer a separate progression system that happens alongside that mythic pads use a milestone system which is to say as you reach certain milestones in the story you will gain mythic ranks at mythic rank 3 you are able to begin your transition into a higher being so to speak or at least a different being this can be things like an angel or a demon those are the default options that you will also have access to but depending on how you play the game you can also unlock other options as well that are everything from lich and aeon which is like a cosmic judge dread there's also things like a gold dragon a swarm that walks all of these paths and how you unlock them i've made videos about but the point is you can take this on while you progress through the rest of the story and whether you choose to have an evil or good guy play through and how you choose to lead the fifth crusade of the world wound is ultimately up to you now some important things to understand about mythic paths though is that they will dramatically change the story some of them will still play out similarly however a lot of them can drastically change how things play out for instance the swarm that walks will lose all of their companions because no one wants to be around an evil swarm that is walking so things like that i will also say that the angel mythic path does kind of feel like the default option you can tell a lot of work went into that one and i would almost recommend running that particular mythic path first so you get some context to some of the events that go on and then that actually makes the other mythic paths make a little more sense sometimes but another important thing about the mythic paths to understand is that of the 10 ranks you will ultimately get along your mythic path one and two are just kind of freebies they're not connected to your ultimate mythic path so they will have a theme to them at rank three you get to choose the initial mythic path that you go on this will be your mythic path for most of the game and then for story reasons at rank 8 you will actually be given the option to switch this is important because some of the mythic paths are only available in the late game such as the swarm that walks the gold dragon or the devil mythic path which actually also functions a little differently but that's important to note because some of the late game mythic paths get less of a story arc so to speak just because of how late in the game you come into them that said switching from some of the early to the late game mythic paths will actually give you unique dialogue so to speak for instance going from being in a zadah to taking up the swarm that walks mythic path gives you some unique kind of awful dialogue to be honest but it is a thing so you do kind of see some of that at play each individual mythic path usually has a bit of nuance as well not so much the late game mythic paths but the early game ones tend to have like two branching little story arcs within the mythic path for instance the angel can follow the path of justice and vengeance where they become kind of like a righteous warrior or you can go along the path of redemption and become someone who shows mercy to their enemies and things and champions the ideals of just being a good person now speaking of being a good person each mythic path has an associated alignment for the most part now this is important to understand because there's not really a good way to be a good demon for instance and not playing to your mythic paths alignment can cause you some problems now some are a little more loose with this than others for instance angel you really just need to be good lich you really just need to be evil etc now that's important for a couple reasons because if you're playing a class that has a required alignment you're going to want to know that ahead of time and the game doesn't really do a good job of explaining that at all moreover it's important because of all of the mythic ranks only 9 of them are tied to the actual story rank 9 specifically is actually tied to you completing your mythic paths quests which will result in your transformation into the associated being that you've been transforming into the entire game otherwise known as your mythic transformation now in order to successfully complete this it's a lot easier if you follow your associated paths alignment it is not necessarily an explicit requirement in every case but in some instances it's more of a requirement than others for instance the lich path the person helping you become a lich will not help you if you are not evil so that's an important bit but again the mythic paths are very wide sweeping in what they do they affect basically every part of the game from the story to the crusade itself your decisions your alignment your appearance your abilities your powers and picking one that synergizes with your initial starting class is a big deal and i would recommend doing some research if you're new to the game on which path you would actually want to pick because it will dramatically impact the game now from there let's talk world building as i've already mentioned this is of course based on the wrath of the righteous adventure path which sees us exploring the events surrounding the world wound in the ruins of old sarkorus which is the nation that the world wound consumed the world wound was created about a hundred years or so before the events of this game have started and demons have been pouring out of it leading to crusades against it and you are leading the fifth crusade now it is important to understand that this is owlcat's interpretation of this adventure path it is not necessarily explicitly the tabletop adventures version that version can see things play out differently as well as some characters portrayed differently but that said the adventure nonetheless is very pathfinder very classic fantasy in terms of you know good fighting against demons that kind of thing righteous crusade stuff and in terms of world building you can find tons of lore and information on all the previous crusades all of the important npcs you'll meet in game such as queen galfrey who's kind of leading the crusades so they do a really good job of filling out the lore it's there if you want to find it it's not really hidden you can find a lot of books that will explain this stuff npcs that will just tell you about it so if you want to do the reading and kind of deep dive into the lore it is there for you to find moreover a lot of that lore tends to talk about the deities and things involved and in terms of deities i did want to mention that one thing that i really think helps the world building of this game a lot is that regardless of whether or not your character is a class that like requires a deity for instance for their spell casting you will nonetheless choose a deity unless you of course pick the atheist option and character creation now when you pick a deity to warship what you might not realize if you're not using a deity warshipping required class again to get your spell casting or something is that occasionally you can actually see these deities give you special dialogue in certain instances where you can invoke your deity and you can get a buff before a fight for instance if you have someone who's worshipping kalystra at the end of act 2 you can invoke kalystra and get a buff for that boss and there's all sorts of stuff like that with a variety of the deities which i thought was really cool and well done in addition to those things the world building will also see you quite literally leading the fifth crusade you're going to do this through building up the crusade you're going to be managing the armies of this crusade now this starts in act 2 where you'll be controlling just some armies but in act 3 it really ramps up you'll be given access to like your big initial stronghold able to recruit and grow armies recruit your generals and things and you'll use these armies to fight demon armies and take over demon forts which will give you access to different parts of the map now this is important for a few reasons because you need to take over the demon forts so they can become your forts and you can start building them up and once you get so many of them you can then upgrade a select few of your forts meaning a select few in total not like specific ones on the map or anything you can do it to any of them but you'll be able to upgrade those forts eventually to bastions and then to a fortress starting at the bastion level you can put a teleport circle in these forts which will allow you to teleport around the map very easily once per day in addition to this there are all sorts of role playing consequences to leading the crusade there are stats associated with the crusades such as military leadership diplomacy and logistics each one of these you get more experience points by doing certain things for instance logistics you have to build up your initial starting hub as well as your fortresses and things diplomacy is actually probably the easiest you can just buy crusade resources which is how you're going to be building your buildings and things you can increase your daily flow of resources by defeating demon armies etc but you can also just buy them outright with the gold you find in game and doing so gives you diplomacy points military you get strictly from recruiting new people into your armies and then leadership is gotten by simply winning battles against the demons and increasing each one of these up to a rank up to a maximum of eight but five and act three actually you'll then start a council for that particular stat at which point you'll be able to make decisions that will then impact your crusade everything from the buildings you are building to the different types of units you get to use and it's like a whole separate little mini game that complements the main game now this is heavily inspired by heroes of might and magic you can actually fight the demon battles out in that kind of manner as you've probably seen on screen up to this point the generals that you get to recruit will add powers and things to your armies by letting you use those abilities on your turn and it's worth mentioning that a couple of the generals are stronger than others for instance the general setsuna sky is a particularly popular one because he gets an expanded army size and is also a mage general right off the bat mid to end game satsuna is very capable of just killing entire demon armies by himself with his spell abilities before you even actually have to use your units at all now the last thing i want to mention when i'm talking about the crusade here is that it is also impacted by your mythic path that you've chosen so for instance the lich even starting at rank 3 when you defeat enemy armies you'll make skeletons and zombies that will then join your armies as units it will also affect what abilities you can use on the world map which is that little hot bar you've probably seen on the world map here that are available to you that said some of these abilities are kind of universal such as the teleportability as well as inability later called call to arms but there will be some variation on this according to your mythic path and then late game once you've hit rank eight etcetera you can actually start really investing in your mythic path in terms of your crusade and start building up units of troops that are associated with again your mythic path now beyond that in terms of traveling the world it uses the kind of dotted line paths that we saw from king maker and the teleport circles that were also in king maker so kind of more of the same there but i will say that all across the map there are tons of optional encounters that you can kind of get into optional areas that you don't need to necessarily explore but if you do you can find a bunch of encounters that add to the lore of the game and there are some that especially can show off the brutality of the world wound and the war against these demons that has been raging for a hundred years alright next up let's talk combat so combat can be real time with pause or turn based turn based is still a little bit buggy in some instances especially around charging and things but it is getting better they are patching that pretty frequently it is mostly pretty good to use in my experience but combat uses of course the pathfinder 1e system so any knowledge you have of that system is honestly going to take you a very long way moreover combat in pathfinder in general is a much more proactive system than a reactive system meaning that prior to battle especially on like normal and above you're really expected to buff up before encounters and then start those battles like fully powered up already and then dive straight into it because that's what's gonna give your bonuses to attack and ac that are going to allow you to be effective in combat so being reactive where you're trying to cast your buffs and things in the middle of combat really isn't gonna go your way at all but that said if you're struggling just to find like builds and stuff that look interesting to play because again character creation can be a bit overwhelming the build community for pathfinder in general is very much so alive and well and i recommend you honestly just look up some builds i've actually made a few myself that might be fun for you to try out if you're feeling overwhelmed now combat itself is very hard to sum up in a review for this because there's just so much to it i've actually made a combat basics video that i recommend you check out if you're just completely lost but a couple of specific things i did want to mention here are that you can hire mercenaries as early as the beginning of the game like act one to help with your party composition if you don't like the available companions which we'll get into next another big new thing that was added with wrath of the righteous was the mounted combat system if you have a class that gives you an animal companion you can then use that animal companion provided you meet the requirements as a mount some of the animal companions can't be mounts such as the centipede but ones that are available which is most of them as long as it is at least one size category larger than you you should be able to use it as a mount that said most mounts tend to grow in size around level seven so while you might not necessarily be able to start out the game using them outside of a few specific instances it can be an option to you late game as well provided you're using a class that gets an animal companion now there are some fun charge builds and everything that revolve around using mounted combat for instance the cavalier class is actually kind of all about mounted combat for the most part and there are some items in game as well as some abilities that will give you just a ton of charge damage for your charge builds that make them really high damage and fun to use honestly i liked mounted combat it was very buggy towards the start but they've kind of smoothed over a lot of the biggest problems and i actually used a mounted build for one of my playthroughs of the game which was a lot of fun next up let's talk about the companions so companions are always a very subjective thing and my approach with companions and reviews is always to basically gauge whether or not that companion has a story arc see some character progression etc now there are tons of companions for this game there are i believe 12 of what i would consider core companions and then certain mythic paths also get some extra as well for instance the ozotomythic path gets ivu the dragon whereas the lich mythic path can get undead minions to serve as party members as well that act as companions now of all of those companions the core companions that i mentioned all get their own story arc that takes place over the course of the game some of those seem a little less fleshed out than others but most of them are pretty thorough and even the companions i didn't personally like i will still usually appreciate their story but honestly there's a pretty wide range of companions and while i of course have my favorites i think there's a little something here for everybody and between the mythic paths the companions themselves and the option to hire mercenaries you should be very capable of getting a party comp together that'll serve you one way or the other now that said everybody likes a little bit of romance i've actually made a separate video about everyone that's available to be romanced so i won't go over every option here but i will say that a lot of the romances were very well done i enjoyed them a lot especially for a crpg i went through a few of them just to see the different options and things my two personal favorites were arushalay when you are the azoda mythic path i feel like that kind of goes together really well because arushalay is a warshipper so to speak of the goddess desna who's kind of related to the azada's realm elysium and then another favorite of mine was winduag while windwag on her face can seem like a very shallow and straightforward character if you actually do the romance there's a ton of extra layers to that character that i think really peel back if you do the romance that you don't really get a chance to see otherwise and that's honestly the truth with a lot of characters because queen galfrey who can herself be a companion under certain circumstances also gets a lot of her personality and backstory and her reasoning behind things revealed if you choose to go down the romance route but overall i will say that companions are very well done while i do not personally care for each and every one i do think overall there's a very robust cast here and you should be able to find some companions you like and enjoy hanging out with and again most of them have a pretty cool story i can only think of one or two that were underwhelming in my opinion but most of the stories themselves were very well done and i enjoyed them so let's talk some positives some negatives and then come to a conclusion now on the positive end of things the mythic path and its importance to the story of wrath of the righteous cannot be understated they are genuinely game changing which is a massive undertaking to be honest when you consider the amount of mythic paths and how much they change the story and what that does for you dialogue wise quest wise while the base story stays the same from play through to play through you can get a vastly different experience from mythic path to mythic path and that is a very very well done feature of this game and again probably the main draw for the game in addition to this the positives especially coming from king maker are the cool updated visuals especially the spell effects i really enjoyed what they did with the spell effects and just kind of how all that looked it looked very cool and while it's not everybody's favorite i personally really loved the moving map mechanic from act 4 because in act 4 depending on the direction of the camera the map can move around accordingly and i thought that was just a really cool set piece and again it's not everybody's cup of tea but personally i thought that tech was very cool and probably the biggest positive really is just the sheer volume of choice and consequence available in this game choices down to how you build your character how you approach the crusade how you talk to people now while i don't necessarily agree with the alignment tags on each and every one of those choices i feel like sometimes the lawful or evil choices kind of pigeonhole you into a certain type of character that might not be representative of those alignments but outside of that again the sheer volume of choice and consequence is really something to behold now in terms of negatives the game is still a little buggy not nearly as bad they are patching this game all the time just in the two months since launch it is much much better and i imagine that will continue to be done as they push towards pushing out dlcs etc but they are fixing bugs all the time and while it is still very much so a little buggy which is absolutely worth mentioning and a negative i don't think it detracts from the experience too much now my biggest negative for this game is purely that this is going to be overwhelming to new players and while i do think they make an attempt to onboard new players a little better just the sheer volume of things to know about this game mechanics i mean again it took me 650 hours ballpark to actually 100 this title and that's coming from someone who is actually fairly familiar with it to begin with and that kind of commitment is just overwhelming and that's not necessarily a fault to the developers or anything it is nonetheless a drawback from drawing in new players who might then experience this title but that said in terms of content that's obviously a very good value for money proposition when you consider this game as 50 bucks all that said let's actually draw a conclusion here well i won't pretend this game is perfect because again if you have trouble with the pathfinder system like just one e in general you're probably not going to enjoy this it is a bit of an overwhelming experience for new players there are some bugs still present the crusade management isn't for everybody and because of that i won't sit here and pretend this is a perfect game for everyone but i do genuinely believe that this is probably one of the best crpgs made to date and it is made by people who very clearly respect this genre across the board and clearly made this game with a lot of love and it really shows because again i genuinely think as someone who plays tons of crpgs that this is easily one of the best ones i've ever played so for fifty dollars i could not give you a more resounding yes this game is amazing and if you're thinking about playing it you should play it it is worth your time so all of that said truly thank you so much for watching i hope you enjoyed the video if you did please remember to like comment subscribe all that youtube jazz but regardless of any of that truly just thank you guys so much for watching i really do appreciate it may you wander in wisdom and have an amazing day [Music]

Channel: Mortismal Gaming

Views: 278,990

Keywords: Mortym, Mortismal Gaming, Pathfinder, WotR, Wrath of the Righteous, Review, 100%, Achievements, Mythic Paths, Builds, Combat, Guides

Id: Cdxt5siwecw

Length: 26min 36sec (1596 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 13 2021