Restfinder: Restmaker!

This game is a frustrating mess. I don't care how much you love Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment or even Baldur's Gate 1/2, this game will test your patience and make you hate isometric RPGs. Sure, the game is attractive, feels good, commands reasonably well, with tons of quality of life features. It routinely inspires you to play it. Great mechanical depth makes the game feel like an evolution of old-school isometric RPGs. The foundation and potential is obviously there in spades. The problem is the game is flawed...everywhere and all the weaknesses overwhelm the experience and soon the title becomes torturously awful.

- Crashing? Sure. Problems with saves disappearing/corrupting? Occasionally. Issues with bad game mechanics forcing you to replay tracts of the game again? Definitely. The game has an abysmally designed kingdom-creation mechanism that fails to teach you about how to play it. It also fails to adequately warn you about deadlines, priorities and other important story elements. The result? You're routinely punished for exploring the world, in an *isometric fantasy RPG*. If that entire concept seems counterproductive, that's because it is. On a dozen occasions, I left my kingdom with no open/visible quests, in the hands of my lieutenants, with HUNDREDS of days left before the next story development, only to return a few weeks later and find out that my kingdom was destroyed because I wasn't babysitting the process constantly.

Unfortunately, exploring the world is *impossible* while you're dwelling back in your throne room (not to mention painfully boring). Traveling long distances requires *continuous* resting sessions on the map, causing large amounts of time to go by, punishing you for your ever-present Sword of Damocles-like kingmaker duties. Your advisers and lieutenants often fail at their quests, projects and goals, regardless of how hard you try to develop them as leaders. Consequently, you're hemorrhaging empire stats *constantly* and many such projects/goals will appear and disappear while you're exploring the actual world and enjoying the game. Some failed kingmaker events will penalize you to such an overwhelming degree, that you'll find your kingdom being destroyed often, leading to reload and replay entire pieces of the quest over and over again.

None of these issues or responsibilities are adequately explained or tutored in the game.

- Juvenile, politically charged SJW story? Present. Characters are pulled out of tacky fan-fictions. None of the companions are especially likable. Some are tolerable to be sure and, yes, moments can sometimes exist between your character and some of your team mates, but genuine character development is practically non-existent. Oh sure, they go through often obnoxious character arcs but they never really change socially. Every resting event, of which you'll experience THOUSANDS of times, consists of two of such characters sniping at each other, regardless of alignment, smugly insulting each other over their personal beliefs. Alignment, past experiences and camaraderie have literally NO effect on these acerbic and tiring exchanges.

The Valerie romance is painful, and Valerie is constantly painted an atheist feminist. Seriously, that's pretty much her only personality elements. She's an atheist. She's a feminist. Believers are idiots. Blah. Beauty is stupid. Blah. I'm equal to any man. Blah. Even when she's served as your right arm for *years* and no one questions her abilities, she'll rub them in everyone's face in some ♥♥♥♥♥hat brigade attempt to push an agenda. Valerie isn't an atheist, however. She believes in the gods, she simply doesn't worship them, despite the power that can be channeled by worshipers on the world. The writer obviously wanted to push an agenda but failed utterly at the attempt.

Valerie is a smug, joyless nag that will pick a fight with you constantly if you don't consistently lavish her with feminist odes to her equality and self-worth. Flirting with her is about as much fun as prison foreplay. I never thought I'd see a game romance so boring that I actually couldn't care less that the relationship survived, after spending hours cultivating it. Healthy relationships hinge on sharing vulnerability with your partner. Valerie is literally a cardboard cutout that punishes you for wanting to further your relationship. Enemies and allies all communicate with modern-day colloquialisms, expressing concepts or language that is alien in a fantasy setting. One example is when a barbarian cleric referred to the concept of renting. Would a barbarian really understand something like that? Would kings use modern vernacular colloquial lingo?

The writing is awful and the characters aren't the only weakness. The story consists of you earning a kingdom over one plot armored event after another. The big bad, a faerie queen of the like, couldn't be more boring and her machinations are rarely explained. The game consists of her sending waves of attacks/threats at your kingdom. You face these threats predominantly from your throne room, wherein your kingdom gets punched in the face over and over and over and over, until you manage to advance to the next level of hostilities. After awhile, you literally stop caring about her plans, your kingdom and pretty much every ungrateful, obnoxious companion. I know I stopped caring long ago.

- Pathinder is obnoxiously colorful, cartoony and yet flat in design/aesthetic. A key example of this transpires when you arrive at Irovetti's feast and you see him for the first time. It describes him as a having a doublet, with refined, powdered features. Instead, you're presented with an uninspired barbarianesque warrior portrait missing all the aforementioned. He is hardly clever and doesn't seem all that threatening once you meet him in person. Magic permeates and floods every centimeter of the world, with Elder Venomous Dweomer Hydras taking the place of bears/wolves in any other sane fantasy setting.

- Glitches abound with many quests breaking or simply failing to trigger properly.

This game would be great if a real development team could step in and spend a year polishing it but as it stands, this game is nothing more than a boring, overdone, uninspired foray into isometric RPGs. This could have been a great experience but only the hardest of the hardcore Icewind Dale/Baldur's Gate junkies need apply.

Not worth the time. You'll find better games elsewhere.

6.5/10.

Restfinder: Restmaker! This game is a frustrating mess. I don't care how much you love Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment or even Baldur's Gate 1/2, this game will test your patience and make you hate isometric RPGs. Sure, the game is attractive, feels good, commands reasonably well, with tons of quality of life features. It routinely inspires you to play it. Great mechanical depth makes the game feel like an evolution of old-school isometric RPGs. The foundation and potential is obviously there in spades. The problem is the game is flawed...everywhere and all the weaknesses overwhelm the experience and soon the title becomes torturously awful. - Crashing? Sure. Problems with saves disappearing/corrupting? Occasionally. Issues with bad game mechanics forcing you to replay tracts of the game again? Definitely. The game has an abysmally designed kingdom-creation mechanism that fails to teach you about how to play it. It also fails to adequately warn you about deadlines, priorities and other important story elements. The result? You're routinely punished for exploring the world, in an *isometric fantasy RPG*. If that entire concept seems counterproductive, that's because it is. On a dozen occasions, I left my kingdom with no open/visible quests, in the hands of my lieutenants, with HUNDREDS of days left before the next story development, only to return a few weeks later and find out that my kingdom was destroyed because I wasn't babysitting the process constantly. Unfortunately, exploring the world is *impossible* while you're dwelling back in your throne room (not to mention painfully boring). Traveling long distances requires *continuous* resting sessions on the map, causing large amounts of time to go by, punishing you for your ever-present Sword of Damocles-like kingmaker duties. Your advisers and lieutenants often fail at their quests, projects and goals, regardless of how hard you try to develop them as leaders. Consequently, you're hemorrhaging empire stats *constantly* and many such projects/goals will appear and disappear while you're exploring the actual world and enjoying the game. Some failed kingmaker events will penalize you to such an overwhelming degree, that you'll find your kingdom being destroyed often, leading to reload and replay entire pieces of the quest over and over again. None of these issues or responsibilities are adequately explained or tutored in the game. - Juvenile, politically charged SJW story? Present. Characters are pulled out of tacky fan-fictions. None of the companions are especially likable. Some are tolerable to be sure and, yes, moments can sometimes exist between your character and some of your team mates, but genuine character development is practically non-existent. Oh sure, they go through often obnoxious character arcs but they never really change socially. Every resting event, of which you'll experience THOUSANDS of times, consists of two of such characters sniping at each other, regardless of alignment, smugly insulting each other over their personal beliefs. Alignment, past experiences and camaraderie have literally NO effect on these acerbic and tiring exchanges. The Valerie romance is painful, and Valerie is constantly painted an atheist feminist. Seriously, that's pretty much her only personality elements. She's an atheist. She's a feminist. Believers are idiots. Blah. Beauty is stupid. Blah. I'm equal to any man. Blah. Even when she's served as your right arm for *years* and no one questions her abilities, she'll rub them in everyone's face in some pussyhat brigade attempt to push an agenda. Valerie isn't an atheist, however. She believes in the gods, she simply doesn't worship them, despite the power that can be channeled by worshipers on the world. The writer obviously wanted to push an agenda but failed utterly at the attempt. Valerie is a smug, joyless nag that will pick a fight with you constantly if you don't consistently lavish her with feminist odes to her equality and self-worth. Flirting with her is about as much fun as prison foreplay. I never thought I'd see a game romance so boring that I actually couldn't care less that the relationship survived, after spending hours cultivating it. Healthy relationships hinge on sharing vulnerability with your partner. Valerie is literally a cardboard cutout that punishes you for wanting to further your relationship. Enemies and allies all communicate with modern-day colloquialisms, expressing concepts or language that is alien in a fantasy setting. One example is when a barbarian cleric referred to the concept of renting. Would a barbarian really understand something like that? Would kings use modern vernacular colloquial lingo? The writing is awful and the characters aren't the only weakness. The story consists of you earning a kingdom over one plot armored event after another. The big bad, a faerie queen of the like, couldn't be more boring and her machinations are rarely explained. The game consists of her sending waves of attacks/threats at your kingdom. You face these threats predominantly from your throne room, wherein your kingdom gets punched in the face over and over and over and over, until you manage to advance to the next level of hostilities. After awhile, you literally stop caring about her plans, your kingdom and pretty much every ungrateful, obnoxious companion. I know I stopped caring long ago. - Pathinder is obnoxiously colorful, cartoony and yet flat in design/aesthetic. A key example of this transpires when you arrive at Irovetti's feast and you see him for the first time. It describes him as a having a doublet, with refined, powdered features. Instead, you're presented with an uninspired barbarianesque warrior portrait missing all the aforementioned. He is hardly clever and doesn't seem all that threatening once you meet him in person. Magic permeates and floods every centimeter of the world, with Elder Venomous Dweomer Hydras taking the place of bears/wolves in any other sane fantasy setting. - Glitches abound with many quests breaking or simply failing to trigger properly. This game would be great if a real development team could step in and spend a year polishing it but as it stands, this game is nothing more than a boring, overdone, uninspired foray into isometric RPGs. This could have been a great experience but only the hardest of the hardcore Icewind Dale/Baldur's Gate junkies need apply. Not worth the time. You'll find better games elsewhere. 6.5/10.