Isometric CRPGs have experienced a renaissance in recent years. From Larian Studios’ Divinity: Original Sin 1 and 2 to Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity and PoE: Deadfire, fans of beloved games such as Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights have some truly fantastic games to enjoy on their computers these days. Yet as great as these games are, they still fail to provide the feeling of a true tabletop Dungeons & Dragons experience, like playing a classic module such as Keep on the Borderlands. The Temple of Elemental Evil is one of my all-time favorite tabletop modules that miraculously made it to PC (2003, Troika Games), and I personally feel it’s the closest any game has come to giving me the tabletop experience on a computer.

Until Pathfinder.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker is developer Owlcat Games crowdfunded attempt at bringing the tabletop D&D experience to the computer, and despite some rough edges it delivers in almost every way. Owlcat’s obvious love for D&D, Pathfinder lore, and their attention to the tiniest of details is evident from the opening act. It’s truly an incredible game.

As with most fantasy RPGs, in Pathfinder you create your hero using the tabletop game’s ruleset, choosing a race, class, abilities and other attributes. One early gripe is the lack of character portraits for your newly made character; a truly unforgivable transgression in a modern CRPG. Otherwise the character builder is fairly robust while also doing a good job of distilling Pathfinder’s intricate rules into palatable statistics.

You’ll then add companions throughout the opening act until you’ve assembled a party with up to five additional adventurers. NPC alignment is an important consideration when choosing the members of your adventuring party, as choices you make throughout the campaign will be judged by your companions, and they can choose to depart if they don’t agree with your decisions. If you’re a lawful good paladin, chances are chaotic evil spell-slinger Regongar won’t like it when you save innocent townspeople.

Speaking of intricacy and palatability; Pathfinder can be an intimidating and unforgiving experience for both novice and veteran CRPG gamers since, like a true tabletop experience, your character and party live and die by the digital roll of the dice. Thankfully Owlcat have included a wealth of customization options that allow you to tailor the challenge to your taste, making it easy to enjoy the game the way you’d like to. CRPG vets know that saving often is a must, and Pathfinder is no different. I found the option to have your dead companions automatically revive after combat to be a literal lifesaver for a filthy casual such as myself.

After the obligatory opening tutorial mission, which is thankfully short and interesting, you and your initial companions are turned loose on Pathfinder’s campaign map with a mission and a time limit. And what a map it is.

Pathfinder’s game world is vast, with a myriad of side quests in addition to the robust main campaign that has you progressing from lowly first-level mercenary to high-level adventurer baron and on to king of The Stolen Lands, a region populated by bandits and magical creatures such as owlbears and trolls. You will not run out of things to do or new places to see for a long time, and the story will keep you engaged and invested as you uncover the secrets of this lawless land and bring either freedom and justice or iron-fisted rule to its people, depending on your chosen alignment.

The game plays out like a D&D module, with numerous locations and events experienced through short but well-written narrative episodes that challenge you to use your party member’s skills such as Mobility, Athletics or knowledge of religious lore.

As you venture back and forth across Pathfinder’s ridiculously huge map, you’ll have to camp as your party becomes fatigued. Camping is a mini-game in itself, where you assign party members responsibilities such as keeping watch, cooking a campfire meal, camouflaging the campsite, and performing various tasks that offer you party a beneficial buff, such as a +1 on Competence checks or improved healing while camping. Certain party members are better at certain tasks, so choosing the right party member for the task is important.

Like all RPGs, combat is what most adventurers seek, and in Pathfinder you’ll get plenty of it. Depending on your difficulty settings, you can either sit back and let the game’s AI do most of heavy lifting, or you can manage every aspect of your party during Pathfinder’s real-time combat by pausing and choosing each party member’s actions as the encounter unfolds.

On lower difficulty settings you can charge into battle without too much thought and easily adjust on the fly. But on higher difficulty settings every choice matters, from character positioning to your timing with spells. Some higher-level spells can take multiple rounds to cast, so timing and execution are essential.

Choosing Teamwork feats such as Coordinated Defense and Combat Maneuvers allows your party to gel into a well-oiled fighting machine where characters passively buff each other while working together to flank and engage enemies and protect one another’s flanks. Proper use of your tanks, ranged damage dealers, and spellcasters is critical for success at higher difficulty levels.

Eventually you’ll become the novice ruler of a fledgling barony, where the game introduces a new layer of complexity with barony management. You can set this aspect of the game to autopilot if you’d prefer to focus on adventuring, but there’s great fun to be had in expanding your barony by annexing the wild regions around you, and further pursuing the well-written main story on your quest to become a king and battle dire menaces to your rule. Your companions become your advisors, and they can be sent to deal with various problems, projects and opportunities that arise whilst you’re adventuring. I never found this aspect of the game to be a burden in any way.

Voice acting is notably excellent, with Linzi the Bard as a standout. I never get tired of hearing Octavia say “I’ve broken a nail!” in her lilting voice after failing to disarm a trap or pick a lock. The original soundtrack is so good and so crazy-catchy that I still enjoy hearing it after dozens of hours, and find myself playing the music in my head throughout the day. Yes, I’m addicted.

While Pathfinder’s graphics are nothing to write home about, the game certainly won’t be mistaken for early Baldur’s Gate or Icewind Dale. The graphics are clean and modern and appealing, and the artwork is outstanding. Both indoor and outdoor environs are beautiful and full of little details such as frolicking woodland creatures, and hidden treasures that can only be detected by characters with high Perception. The First World in particular is vibrant and otherworldly, and the eye-pleasing and colorful character models change as you equip new gear, so as you grow more powerful your party’s appearance becomes more impressive as well.

As with any game this meaty, there are issues. You’ll spend a lot of time traversing back and forth across the game map, and you’ll cover a lot of the same terrain over and over. While I didn’t find this to be an issue, some certainly will. The quest log is serviceable, but irritatingly doesn’t include quest locations. So an early quest you kind of ignore can end up becoming a mini-sleuthing game as you travel the map trying to figure out where you need to go next to further or complete the questline. Some of the minor event locations on the map use the same exact landscape. Literally exactly the same; I would enter one of these locations and wonder if I had already been there.

I’ve encountered some minor bugs, especially when interacting with merchants in the game. Nothing game breaking, just minor stuff such as item images disappearing. But overall very few bugs.

I’ve already logged 40+ hours with Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and I can’t wait to sink another 40 or more hours into this game. It’s the closest I’ve come yet to recapturing the magic of D&D in a computer game, and I can’t wait to finish and start over with a new character. I’ll update this post as I progress, and finalize it once I’ve finished the game, but for now Pathfinder hits almost all the right notes for me. It’s an 18 on a d20.