Regill the true waifu of this story. May the gods bless that angry gnome.

10/10 if you like an overwhelming amount of content, and a slow-burn experience.

I mean it, this game is the peak of slow-burn. In terms of character progression, the amount of content and depth, the amount of time you need to think about what character you would like to play etc.

For some, this might be a turn-off, and that's perfectly understandable. But I really want to recommend this to everyone.

So, let's take a look at the good and the bad, from my perspective.

GOOD

STORY

I have not yet completed the main story, and it seems like a fairly down-to-earth power fantasy. What that means is that I believe it is a predictable narrative, which is great. Such narratives are familiar and allow the journey to shine.

Think to Dragon Age: Origins. You KNOW you will defeat the big bad in the end, but you have no idea what it will take, what sacrifices will be made etc. Not to mention exactly HOW you'll do it, and HOW you'll approach doing anything at all, really. This is what makes WotR shine, right here. It is not rife with actual narrative choice like in BG3, but it is rife with role-play options. If you want another comparison to BG3, there's simply a lot, a whole heck of a lot more content.

The power fantasy part should be apparent from the trailers: you are the super-powered commander everything depends on. And boy does this game actually allow you to be a commander. More on that in the gameplay section.

What I personally like about the story is how in-your-face it is, from the start. There are huge battles, and quite a lot of such encounters. And the cool part? There is still just as much story, just as much dialogue. Most of it is written, which is great, from a development standpoint (read: there is a lot of it because no voicework was necessary for every line of dialogue).

The narrative deals with war quite closely: the conflicts arising within, without, the moral dilemmas, the effects of war, the politics, just about everything you'd expect to find in some lite version of a kingdom management minigame.

Finally, the "journey" is vastly different depending on your choice of what "myth" you want to take on.

Note: There really isn't much else to say about the narrative. One key thing to keep in mind is that alignment is absolutely tied to progression. You can reset it if you stray too far from your chosen path in terms of alignment, buuut what the alignment resets to is dependent on the alignment of the mythic path. I will not be mentioning story under "bad", because it really is just that great.

GAMEPLAY

Gameplay can be a bit overwhelming, but it's nothing you wouldn't expect from an older type crpg. Get those prebuffs up, use the potions and scrolls, do not hoard them, position accordingly, use the environment to your advantage so you don't get pelted with arrows, and just have fun. If you're an experienced character builder, you'll have a blast with this game. You probably don't need to be told to read those tooltips carefully. Familiarity with the Pathfinder system is not necessary at all, either.

The game IS somewhat bad at teaching players who want this to be their first crpg, however, so it's best you find character builds if you fall into that category. Key thing to remember here is that, just as how YOU can cheese the game, it can also cheese you. If you should find yourself cheesed by an encounter, get those vanish scrolls/ potion out, and leg it the hell out of there.

A really cool thing about Pathfinder is the "teamwork" progression, where you can really emphasize the "bond" your characters develop, i.e., express how they learned to work with each other to achieve greater efficiency. You can make your tank and off-tank tankier with certain feats, for example, or you can make your spellcasters more effective by selecting specific feats (for both spellcasters, or more) that has them work in tandem. It is without one of the more pleasant surprises I was met with. With the game being as combat heavy as it is, you'll have absolute tons of replayability with character builds alone.

BAD

GAMEPLAY

Like I said, the game likes to throw high HD enemies at you out of nowhere, to the point you might just give up on it altogether. If that's a deal breaker for you, perfectly reasonable. I won't try to excuse it or say that it's "satisfying" when you outcheese the game, or anything. I understand that such design can be immersion breaking for some players, and I hear you.

Next, all builds are equal, but some are more equal than others. Be aware of that. You won't always have access to the best weapons, but if you explore every nook and cranny in act 1, you will soon have access to a really nice weapon you can use for most of the act and then some, to get you through the more "niche" encounters. If you need to know the name so it's easier to look up: I am talking about Finnean .

THE SIZE

The game is big. I mean huge. Absolutely ginormous. It might be off-putting, you might not have that much time, or whatever circumstance keeps you from clocking in large stretches of time on it. And there really is no workaround other than playing on lower difficulties and ignoring a lot of the content.

CONCLUSION

Easily the most ambitious crpg ever made. And it delivers on most of this ambition.

Whether it's the story or the characters... I couldn't get into this game.

Let's... not waste anymore time, shall we?

Probably one of the best CRPGs I've ever played with so much replayability. Wish I discovered the Pathfinder series sooner having only played Kingmaker earlier this year. After finishing Kingmaker I had to continue with Wrath of the Righteous and it's been great! I'd even go so far as to say I enjoyed this more than Divinity Original Sin 2 and the Pillars of Eternity series.

What a mythic game! Hundreds of possible builds, party composition, just unbelievable. You could replay without end. Story: flawless. Companions: most of them just great. Daeran is the best written companion in this century. And the feeling of power! Recommend to all who like great CRPG in a fantasy setting.

I guess I'm an old man now

While the game is not bad, i cant really recommend it. The barrier to entry is very big, and difficulty is all over the place.

I think in large part this comes from the choice to be a pathfinder game first and a video game second. Where say baldurs gate 3 is a video game first and dnd second. (note i havent played pathfinder or dnd but this is wat my impression is)

Unfortunately I've been unpleasantly surprised by this game's game breaking bug: each time I started the game crashed after disagreeing with their EULA. I didn't know it had one (nothing in the Steam page about it, just a review). I wasn't asked anything about it until after I was already in-game. I was told I've already played for 3 mins after loading and doing some quick and light reading. Tried it for a total of 3 times which got me the right to review it, so here we are.

This is what I did:
1) added some money to my steam wallet,
2) payed, downloaded and installed the game,
3) started and waited to the game the load,
only to be ambushed in-game by a wall of text which took me disagreeing with it very personally. After finding /Pathfinder Second Adventure/OGL/ I was both pleasantly and unpleasantly surprised by the Reference Document which has some good but limited vanilla out-of-game info (only 4 out of 6 witch archetypes, not witch of the veil for some solo / no party option). I expect the in-game to be probably pretty good like the previous one. I've heard they still have some bad swarm mechanics, it's annoying to have swarms be more deadly then classic deadly threats. Somewhat sadly, I haven't yet got there though. I'll still give it a go, but this does not mean I recommend the game in any way, shape or form!

The EULA has some more standard bad practices but also some more unique ones. Here's the problem: It wants you to agree before installing with it which I could not have possibly done. It mentions how you're naughty-naughty and subject to prosecution if you don't agree. I've decided to agree under duress, though I very strongly disagree with it, but I can't play the already payed, downloaded, installed and launched game if I don't agree with stuff that:
a) I haven't possibly previously agreed with
b) isn't in any way mandatory for the product/service to run (like bug, improvement and marketing BS)
c) the weirdly worded "right to upload software program files to User’s Device" - I've not personally seen anyone else use this wooden language, corpospeak, legalese before
d) seems standard like 4. WARRANTY DISCLAIMER & 5. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY which reads like they have no obligations for the software they provide and you have no rights (or mandatory self incrimination for the user)
e) seems standard like blank checks for their always updating privacy policy and EULA which is - or should be in my opinion - 100% illegal since you can't possibly consent with what you don't know; it's fine if they don't give you new stuff that depends on some changes/updates to those docs, but not if everything is on your shoulders.

Here are some receipts as some call them:
a) "Please read the terms and conditions of the EULA carefully before installing the Software on your personal computer (“Device”). If you disagree with the terms and conditions of this Agreement or you cannot use the Software according to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, please abort the Software installation and/or immediately delete the Software from your Device."
"Use of the Software in violation of this EULA is subject to prosecution."
b) bla-bla-bla "which Owlcat Games needs in order to identify and eliminate problems with operation of the Software, to improve the Software, and for marketing purposes"
c) "the User hereby agrees that Owlcat Games has the right to upload software program files to User’s Device"
d) the whole of 4. WARRANTY DISCLAIMER & 5. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
e) Privacy Policy: "3.2. At all times any information collected and being processed under this EULA will be treated in accordance with our Privacy Policy available at https://owlcatgames.com/privacy incorporated in this Agreement by the reference."
EULA: "7.5. Owlcat reserves the right to revise the terms of the Agreement by updating the EULA on the website located at https://owlcatgames.com/ or by notifying the Users by email (if available). The revised EULA comes into force on the date on which it is published. Users are advised to check the website periodically for notices concerning such revisions. Your continued use of the Software shall be deemed to constitute acceptance of any revised terms."

I normally like CRPGs but I did not like Kingmaker, which is why I never tried this game until I bought it one day because it was like 90% off,. Yet I like this game a lot. They really, really improved what they were doing. Kingmaker was a rough demo compared to them really finding their stride and perfecting their formula in WotR.
Also, and this is my general advice for most CRPGs, if you like the romance element of CRPGs, just download a romance mod for a character that you think youd like lol; the actual cast of romanceable characters is very small and doesn't include a lot of the companions and notable NPCs. I went with Woljif the Tiefling Twink.

There's not much I can say that hasn't been said already so I will keep it short:

If you are someone who doesn't mind spending 80+ hours on 1 game
If you're someone who plays games and doesn't care if you complete them or not
If you're someone who enjoys Pathfinder as a role set
if you're someone who doesn't mind reducing the difficulty to the easiest mode when the game starts its nonsense
If you're someone who can devote their life to one game for months and not mind missing out on other titles

... then this is the game for you as there is a vast depth in lore, story, systems and characters.

I always complain about gameplay padding, were developers stretch out a particular game so that they can meet some marketing gimmick of X amount of hours to complete their game, but this isn't the case. This game is full of content if you're searching for it. So much content that it even gives you more content when you don't want it at all.

As a bastion of the Pathfinder rule set this is probably the best game you can get your hands on for that experience. Including all the stats bloat and excessive spawns of monsters. The late game is just begging for you to use cheat engine as this get a bit silly. I actually wonder if the developers actually played and finished this game after they made it.

Anyway, if my words haven't put you off by now then you know this is the game for you. I'm glad I managed to finish it and experience Pathfinder for the first time in my life. I was thoroughly confused most of the time as to what is doing what and what build is good. But it was worth experiencing at least once. Now I know and now I can move on with my life knowing that my backlog is complete.

On to other games finally!!!

p.s. Pillars of Eternity 2 Deadfire is still the best Real time with pause CRP out on the market in recent decades. Honestly, not even WoTR could stand up to that game.