Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous – Enhanced Edition

I want to start off by saying that I don't think I'm the target audience for this game, which I suspected going in. The story of WotR is thoroughly fleshed out and the characters are engaging, with hundreds of story-influencing choices to be made throughout the game. On a very basic level, this is a solid fantasy RPG.

Here is where I think some people (including myself) will be put off. I'm still recommending that other people play this game because I think there is a very large subset of people out there who will genuinely LOVE it (as evidenced by the ratings and the fact that people are still recommending it today). However, be warned. This game is COMPLEX.

If you're unfamiliar with Pathfinder, it's a tabletop RPG that expands upon DnD 3E. And I do mean "expands." I am not a fan of converting tabletop games into video games because I don't think the elements translate well, and that was my biggest issue with WotR. Absolutely EVERYTHING has an associated mechanic, something to keep track of, interactions with other mechanics, etc. It's intense. It's detailed. And it's overwhelming if you're not already familiar with Pathfinder. I think Baldur's Gate 3 did a much better job at translating ttrpg into video game format, mostly by putting a lot of the little tasks behind the scenes. WotR lets you control everything, and it might be a bit too much control for some players. Tasks that are charming in a ttrpg setting quickly become tedious, monotonous, and draining in a video game setting. I played on the easiest difficulty with as many mechanics automated as I possibly could, and I STILL found it tedious. At times, this game felt like several games mashed together wearing a trench coat, like an unholy offspring of Fire Emblem's army management, BG3's character creation, and Divinity OS's combat hopped up on sugar and speed.

Like I said, not the target audience here.

All in all, I don't regret playing this game. I did have a lot of fun, when I wasn't being overwhelmed by technicalities. If you're looking for a straightforward fantasy RPG, skip this. For the love of all that is good in this world, SKIP. THIS. GAME.

BUT. If you want something rich in lore, challenging, customizable, and very true to the spirit of ttrpgs, then this game is a must play.

I started this game back in 2022 on the hardest difficulty available, because my giga big baba bubu ego looked at it and said:
“Yeah, easy.”
Fast forward to December 2025.
After multiple rage quits, several month-long breaks, and my sanity being slowly peeled away layer by layer…
I finally finished it.
And honestly?
What a feeling.
This game destroyed me.
The difficulty, the encounters, the puzzles...everything constantly pushed back. Every fight felt earned, every mistake punished, every victory hard-won. There were moments where I genuinely had to stop playing because my brain was fried.
But here’s the thing:
I never stopped caring.
Because the world, the story, and the characters are pure love letters to D&D and fantasy nerds. The writing is deep, the choices matter, and the sheer scale of the narrative is insane. This isn’t just an RPG, it’s a full tabletop campaign condensed into digital form.
The mythic paths, the moral decisions, the companions, all of it made me want to keep going, even when the game actively tried to break me. The idea behind Wrath of the Righteous is ambitious as hell, and it commits to that ambition without compromise.
This is not a game you casually play.
It’s a game you endure, learn, and eventually conquer.
And when you finally reach the end after years, pauses, frustration and growth?
That victory hits different.
Ps: I cant recommend the hardest difficulty....it smashed me that much, i tought i lost virginity. Lol. Or maybe im just bad, idk. xD

What's up with the Owlcat Pathfinder games being absolutely amazing in the beginning, and then after about 40 hours, turn into an insufferable slog? "Wrath of the Righteous" suffers a similar fate to "Kingmaker", it lures you in with PHENOMENAL gameplay early on. All the things I love about the classics like Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Neverwinter Nights, and Pillars of Eternity are here, like robust (more like overwhelming) character creation, exploration, and challenging battles. The best part of all is the ability to customize the difficulty...it's the 21st century, there's no need to punish players into a roadblock if they didn't create the perfect character to get through difficult situations. I played the first 50 or so hours on normal difficulty, until I entered the abyss....and started to lose interest after one slogfest battle after another. After the 70 hour mark and having an absolutely miserable time in the Abyss (especially having to rotate the camera constantly to explore further in the city; it gets my vertigo raging) I permanently bumped the difficulty down to casual, as I still want to see the game to the end but refuse to constantly reload failed batttles. I learned from Kingmaker not to even bother with the crusade mode...I'm not sure how much longer this would add to gameplay, but I still have a way to go and I've already put in 84 hours as of this writing. I don't think I could stand another 20-30 hours of filler. It still gets my thumbs up, as I have enjoyed my time more than I have disliked it. I'm just hoping any future Owlcat games trim the fat and stick to the best parts of these games, rather than create tedium just to elongate playtime.

At this point, I’m not sure if I played this game… or if I’ve been living in it.
And despite everything, I’m already planning another playthrough. Maybe this time I won’t roll the same class again. No promises.

Man, I loved this game. So much so that I can confidently say I’ll keep coming back to it and replaying it for years. I recently finished my second full playthrough, and at this point I can honestly say it’s my favorite game of all time, right alongside The Witcher 3. Owlcat Studios won me over with this one, I will play every game they release in the future.
This is easily one of the best RPGs I’ve ever played. The story, companions, soundtrack, and gameplay are all top-tier, but what truly sets Wrath of the Righteous apart from other RPGs is just how deep the character customization goes. The sheer number of different builds you can create is insane, and it makes every playthrough feel fresh and exciting.
Games like this don’t come around often. Wrath of the Righteous is special, and it will always be MY game.

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is a CRPG where you don't just fight evil; you become a mythic force against it. Forget slaying a dragon; you're talking about becoming an angel, a demon, or something even weirder. It's based on the Pathfinder tabletop game, so be prepared for rules. So many rules.

Let's start with the good stuff. The tactical combat is glorious. It's like a symphony of destruction, where you're the conductor, orchestrating spells, sword swings, and sneak attacks with balletic precision (or sometimes you're just mashing buttons and hoping for the best). Positioning matters, party composition matters, and knowing your buffs from your debuffs is crucial. It's deeply satisfying when a plan comes together, and you obliterate a horde of demons without breaking a sweat.

The game's faithfulness to the Pathfinder rulebook is, again, almost scary. It's like they downloaded the collective consciousness of every Pathfinder player and turned it into a video game. Every feat, every spell, every obscure rule about grappling is here, lovingly rendered in excruciating detail. This is a game for the rules-obsessed, the kind of player who knows their character sheet better than their own face.

The writing is also excellent. The characters are compelling, the dialogue is sharp, and the story is an epic tale of good versus evil, with plenty of moral ambiguity and surprising twists. You'll actually care about the fate of the world (and your companions), even when you're busy juggling a million different quests and trying to figure out how to manage your mythic powers.

Now, let's talk about the improvements over Kingmaker, its predecessor. Wrath of the Righteous is bigger, bolder, and more ambitious in every way. The mythic paths add a whole new layer of character customization and story branching, allowing you to become something truly extraordinary. It's like they took Kingmaker, gave it steroids, and sent it to a cosmic gym.

The class system is... complex. It's a beautiful, intricate, overwhelming mess of options. You've got dozens of classes, each with multiple subclasses and prestige classes, and the possibilities for character builds are practically endless. This is a game where you can spend hours just theory-crafting, and you still won't have seen everything.

And be warned, this game is long. We're talking dozens, maybe hundreds of hours. It's an epic journey, but by the end, you might start seeing demons in your sleep and speaking in Abyssal.

Of course, no game is perfect. Wrath of the Righteous, like its predecessor, can be buggy. You might encounter glitches, crashes, or moments where the game seems to be actively conspiring against you. Also, the sheer complexity can be overwhelming for newcomers. It's a game that demands your time, your patience, and possibly a degree in advanced mathematics.

In conclusion, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is a magnificent, maddening, and ultimately rewarding CRPG. It's a game for those who love deep tactical combat, rich storytelling, and character customization options that will make your head spin. Just be prepared for a long haul, a steep learning curve, and the occasional bug that will make you question the nature of reality.

This one was exhausting.
Wrath of the Righteous is a colossal and ridiculously ambitious project, delivering a high-fantasy epic on a scale and level of complexity that puts the competition to shame.
Even though it has plenty of rough edges and presents itself in a very restrictive way, it is a respectable and deservedly successful work, offering an experience with strengths far beyond what its minimal budget should have been able to support, and earning itself a place among the best representatives of the genre.
The presentation is probably the most consistent within this genre, and it doesn’t lag behind productions with much higher budgets. It features strong art direction, managing to retain that sharp clarity of pre-rendered backgrounds while presenting a distinct look with greater depth through richly detailed fully 3D environments and character models.
Even better is the framing of the interface, with flourishes everywhere and a feeling that you’re perusing a storybook and moving miniatures on a table. Pure charm.
Combat animations and effects are nothing special, but they do their job—especially when paired with good sound design and a killer soundtrack, with true epic anthems.

You won’t see anything elaborate like cinematics or dynamic environments, but they delivered the best possible result.
But it definitely has problems. And I wouldn’t recommend the game to just anyone without a long list of caveats.
I paid something like U$1 for it, and for that price I will never again find something with the same level of quality and replay value. But I would be lying if I said the time investment was proportional to the fun.
For something that demands so much dedication, the payoff is a bit disappointing, especially if you already have a decent set of references and are no longer impressed by empty power fantasies and uneven complexity.
The player takes on the role of a character who rises to prominence for mysterious reasons, and is given the supreme task by the local royalty of gathering and commanding armies in a brutal and grueling campaign against the forces of the Abyss, in a war known as the Fifth Crusade.
Along the way, our “hero" goes through various adventures, meets colorful figures, solves mysteries, builds a small political, military, and economic power base, issues decrees that change the course of the war and the lives of those under their command and protection, crushes enemy armies, conquers territories, and turns extraplanar entities into ground meat.
Your character also goes through a kind of super puberty.
The game consists of an interchange between two parts. The main one is a straightforward traditional CRPG adventure structured in the style of the classic Infinity Engine games, where you explore with your party a series of small maps, fighting enemies, solving puzzles, and consuming most of the narrative through an old-fashioned text interface. The other is the infamous “Crusade Mode,” which essentially works as a parallel game meant to simulate the abstraction of controlling troops, conquering territories, etc.
The game’s main appeal is being a highly customizable experience, with a multitude of adjustable difficulties and character creation options. It is meant to be an epic with seemingly endless potential.
Crusade Mode, although justified, works against the core of the experience, killing the game’s pace. It is limiting. Inefficient in its narrative function, it is simply a time sink with no sense of spectacle. It adds very little to your adventure and detracts enormously from it.
Contrary to the idea that the game is extremely intimidating and hard to learn, I’d say the problem is that, once you navigate through the immense number of archetypes, classes, skills, and spells variables, in a system that demands a lot of commitment to be learned properly, you eventually realize that it is nothing more than a more customizable revision of the same worn-out and limited system we had in 90s CRPGs — just with a lot of fluff getting in the way of what actually matters.
Nearly the entire design seems confined to limitations from the 90s. And thus, instead of elevating the genre with immersive dramatic or mechanical possibilities that go beyond simply slaughtering monsters in a ridiculously outdated system — inheriting several inconvenient mechanics that make no sense outside the tabletop—, they double down and throw a big glass of been there done that in your face.
You can hardly expect much more than what Baldur’s Gate 1 offered.

Imagine a version of that with modern QoL features, far more padding, and a terrible sense of structure.
Old but Gold, yeah?
If you’re expecting an amalgam of well-crafted narratives arcs that form an engrossing storyline, with memorable characters, interesting quests, fun interactions, and something meaningful to say, this game is not for you.
This is a min-maxer’s wet dream. Made especially for those who prefer stacking numbers rather than engaging in dynamic tactical challenges or fun conversations. If you enjoy crunching numbers and watching your sheet blossom into an illegible pile of descriptions, you’ll love this game.
If you don’t expect any fun use of the tools the game gives you, any narrative integration or deeper interactions beyond disarming traps, opening chests, and very, very occasionally interacting with the environment in a way more meaningful than just recognizing set dressing, then... well... good for you!
This arithmetic monstrosity that is your characters has little relevance beyond kicking some ass.
And the narrative component, which could have supported all this, leaves a lot to be desired.
The story suffer from a strong tonal discrepancy, showing all kinds of extreme and disturbing brutality, while at the same time presenting cartoonish characters that feel like parodies straight out of the rulebooks, with priorities and behavior that make no sense at all.
The text lacks awareness. Characters seem to completely ignore what is happening or has happened and appear to prioritize their generic roles over the situation they are in, which makes it very hard to see them as people who actually live in that world. Which in turn makes the world feel far less immersive.
Even your companions, are mostly one-note archetypes with a tragic background attached and little more than that. Most of the time it seems like they're not even there.
Quests in general are very basic and don't tell anything, offering little more than a setup that justifies entering a place and killing everything until you reach a “boss” without any sense of antagonism.
I’s hard to care about anything when there wasn't even a single memorable conversation.
The writing lacks wit and has almost no sense of objectivity. There is no tension.
The bloated word count, mountains of boring exposition, and lack of eloquence in the prose comes as a bonus.
The only thing that kinda works is the overarching narrative (the outlines of your military campaign and the progression of power), mainly because of the Mythic Paths, which add a lot of flavor to the game, but frankly, it's just not enough.
At its core, it's an inefficient and ineffective narrative that wastes a lot of time and doesn't build or delve into much, navigating a jumble of themes without a firm grasp on anything. It doesn't create interesting situations for the player to immerse themselves in, it doesn't present engaging problems, and worst of all, it simply forgets choices and stats whenever it's convenient.
Anyway...
This is a time-consuming beautiful mess that requires a lot of effort to sift through before you get to the fun. There's definitely a good RPG here, but you have to dig.
And in the end it might not be worth it.