History YMMV / PathfinderWrathOfTheRighteous

* InformedWrongness: Iomedae in Act 5, if you do not take the Legend Mythic Path, is treated as wrong for asking the Commander to give up their mythic powers, with some of your party going so far as to call her a hypocrite for asking you to do so depending on your Mythic Path and choices, and a good aligned Commander can call her out on her request. However, Iomedae's reasoning comes across as fairly understandable in context: she doesn't quite know the full nature of your powers, but knows they are demonic in origin, making the Commander a potential time-bomb that could become a huge threat to the world if not checked. Thus she asks you to give it up so not only the Commander is safe, but the world doesn't have another major threat after the Crusade ends. Her request is also firmly that: a request, and she accepts your choice without much problems unless you pick the Swarm that Walks for obvious reasons. In addition, characters calling her a hypocrite comes across as unfair towards her; Iomedae became a god of her own choice and hard work, whereas the Commander had their power forced onto them, and are not fully sure of the control they have. Not helping is that, even on something like Angel or Azata, Nocticula and Areelu are obviously (and admit to it) still using you to further their goals, making Iomedae's concern understandable. While she should have spoken up sooner and not lied through omission about the Commander being her chosen warrior (which characters can rightfully call her out on), everything else about her request is pretty understandable, but she's treated as wrong no matter what dialogue options you chose if you want to keep your mythic powers.

** Staunton Vhane has received a lot of this. Is he a bitter man who made a terrible mistake out of good intentions and turned to the demons out of desperation for any kind of affection after a 70 year HeelFaceDoorSlam? Or is he a NeverMyFault whiner who blames everyone else for the consequences of his actions and deserves no sympathy for his betrayal? This applies InUniverse as well, with characters like Ember and Seelah advocating for the former, Regill, Daeran and Lann thinking the latter, and his brother Jhoran saying [[TakeAThirdOption it's probably a bit of both]].
** Queen Galfrey, especially due to her actions at the end of Act 3 and all of Act 5. [[spoiler:She strips the Commander of their rank unless they're an Angel and sends them to the Abyss ostensibly to find Nahyndrian crystals and stop the Demons. However, when she takes charge of the Crusade she makes numerous IdiotBall decisions, most notably taking the Sword of Valor out of Drezen in a poorly planned charge and leaving the city open to be sieged despite knowing that it's a horrible idea. Her admittance that she sent the Commander and their party to the Abyss was partly out of jealousy don't help matters. Players think of her as either a Queen who made tough decisions and is cracking after leading a war for nearly a century or a [[TheNeidermeyer neidermeyer]] of the highest order who is one of the biggest reasons the Worldwound hasn't been closed yet.]] Similarly, on the Azata path [[spoiler: she'll chew you out for rushing the Midnight Fane without her despite the enormous tactical advantage you gain by doing so. Does she genuinely think that you needed her help and is chewing you out for taking a big risk or is she angry because this is the first unambiguous proof, not just to her but to the whole Crusade, that you're winning despite her rather than because of her?]] In this light, it makes [[spoiler: her IdiotBall moments seem more like an attempt to [[BeatThemAtTheirOwnGame one-up you]] without understanding why your 'reckless' strategies work.]]
** Is Seelah a good example of a paladin who isn't one of those straight-laced stick-in-the-mud types that give paladins their [[LawfulStupid infamous reputation]] or is she a paladin-in-class-only who should have fallen for being too Chaotic? This will probably never get resolved as long as people have different views on what it means to be Lawful as opposed to Chaotic. [[spoiler: The fact she can potentially disagree with her own goddess in person]] only adds fuel to this. The fact that ''Pathfinder'' in general has much looser interpretations of alignment overall doesn't help.

* MagnificentBastard: [[KnightTemplar Regill Derenge]] is the Paralictor of a unit of Hellknights of the order of the Godclaw, sent to establish an outpost in the Wounded Lands. During the Fifth Crusade, Regill employs ruthless yet effective military strategies to fight the demonic invasion such as executing wounded soldiers to ensure that Gargoyles would not convert them into undead. If allowed to join forces with [[PlayerCharacter the Commander]], Regill will test the Commander to see if they have the character to lead through various underhanded means such as warning the Commander of a demonic siege on a Hellknight Outpost despite him evacuating his men safely beforehand; said attack being used as a pretext to test how the Commander responds to a succubus' temptations. Towards the end of the Fifth Crusade, Regill, aware of brewing conflict between the Crusaders and the Hellknights, organizes a tribunal to allow the Hellknights to judge the Commander. During the tribunal, Regill subtly leads the judges to side with the Commander through his machinations, and then challenges the Commander to a duel after publicly disagreeing with their verdict which he [[ThanatosGambit fully intends to lose]] in order to strengthen the Commander's influence in the Hellknights. Despite this move stripping him of his rank, Regill sees it as a worthy sacrifice given his [[YourDaysAreNumbered Bleaching condition]].

** Mage Generals in Crusade Mode due to their a) being the strongest type of General by far, and b) casting the same spells as player mages but somehow killing ''dozens or hundreds of demons'' with each shot. In particular, General Setsuna Shy[[note]]the most popular General due to not only being a Mage, but starting off with the vital Master of Maneuver feat[[/note]] is often hyped up as the true hero of the Crusade who's stronger than even the most minmaxed Commander.

** The Lich Path is not for the faint of heart. Unlike the more chaotic Demon Path, a Lich Commander's quest is about gradually losing their humanity and all sense of compassion, becoming a cold-hearted tyrant over time. This involves performing some truly cruel actions, not the least of which is condemning some truly virtuous souls to an eternity of pain and servitude, essentially turning them into slaves.
** But none of these compare to the Swarm Path. Consumed by hatred and hunger, it doesn't matter what path the Commander was before. If they commit to being a Swarm, their phyiscal body is destroyed and reformed as a crawling disgusing mass of insects, which is enough to scare away literally every party member, even those who would otherwise be okay with following a Lich or Demon. If you save Ciar and the other mercenary leaders at the City of Iz, you get the option at Drezen to systematically devour every one of your followers. You get a graphic description of each and every one of their deaths at the clawing ravenous mouths of your vescavores. The ending is arguably the scariest one of all, because the Worldwound is still open, and now the Swarm Commander is simply feeding off the endless armies of the Abyss, growing larger and larger until nothing will ever be able to stop it...

** [[spoiler:Nurah, who keeps turning up after acts of sabotage that clearly come from your own camp, is suspiciously holding an incendiary when the camp has been set on fire during an attack (and the enemies don't have fire), has Scrolls of Protection from Good, etc. Even if you don't spot the stuff she carries, the game doesn't really offer any suitable other suspects; Irabeth is your second in command, regularly fights alongside you up to that point, and gets kidnapped and nearly killed, ruling her out. Anevia's married to Irabeth and been alongside the player since the early game, making her too unlikely to justifiably be a mole. Horgus Gwerm is bankrolling the crusade so there's no reason he'd sabotage his own investment, especially if the player has Camellia, who he loves and would be putting in danger if he was. The quartermaster guy actually repeatedly engages the commander to go the extra mile to provide for the troops. Daeran your advisor is both a party member and gets kidnapped by the gargoyles too, and despite his alignment, is firmly against the enemies forces. Nurah meanwhile is the only one that's around not serving any actual role in the camp (ostensibly she's chronicling the crusade but will never ask you about what's going on or accompany you anywhere), but she is never once directly in danger during situations where your other advisors or officers are, making it really easy to tell she's the culprit.]]

* PopularWithFurries: Probably {{invoked}}: the Kickstarter poll race options were kitsune, catfolk, and ratfolk. Gets a bit of TakeThatAudience from Nenio, who gets this line in one PartyBanter moment:

** Related to the above, the Lawful dialogue options have received a lot of flak. While they should tend towards the rule of law or upholding values of society, the majority seem to veer into AllCrimesAreEqual or ObstructiveCodeOfConduct logic, where execution is brought up as the sole punishment for basically any crime, even light ones, or they are too over focused on one aspect of the prompt, and ignore the rest of the topic, such as praising evil actions because they were done per some vague notion of order. Some options are just nonsensical too, [[labelnote:*]]A lawful dialogue option will encourage Sosiel to kill a prisoner he's taken even as he's just brought up that doing so would violate his oath to Shelyn, meaning the "lawful" option is to encourage oathbreaking, when it seems the Lawful option should be reminding him of the oath he swore and being firm about following it, but instead the Good option is the one that does that.[[/labelnote]], making it seem like Lawful choices seem at odds with what they should be for. Because of the aforementioned issue with corner alignment, it can be particularly hard for Paladins to find in-character lawful options to balance their NeutralGood choices, and makes trying to play a Lawful character unappealing, since Lawful options have no Good or Evil influence. Finally, Lawful alignment in the tabletop game often means "sworn to uphold a specific code of action or values", rather than simply obeying all laws everywhere just because they are the local laws. A paladin would ''not'' be honor-bound to obey the laws of the Abyss when there[[labelnote:*]]one might in fact argue that, quite the opposite, they would be compelled to subvert its systems at every opportunity[[/labelnote]]. Even the in-universe law-and-order-obsessed Hellknights follow this convention, openly stating they are free to break any nation's laws, just not those of their own code. However, because the game cannot track potentially dozens of different oaths a character may be sworn to, Lawful player characters are restricted to generically supporting the abstract concept of order devoid of further context, which is a ''very'' narrow form of the alignment and may be too close to PrinciplesZealot for many.

** Blackwater has quickly become an extremely infamous area in act 3. Aside from being a sudden swerve into [[spoiler:science fiction with the enemies all being cyborgs which is quite jarring for anyone unfamiliar with the nearby nation of Numeria and all the alien technology there]], all the enemies are unusual in that they are more durable than your average humans, they passively heal every turn, and they do not die like normal. If you deplete all their health, they simply fall to the floor and begin regenerating unless you A:strike them with lightning element in some way, B:strike them with an adamantium weapon (which is rare, especially at that point), or C:finish them with a Coup de Grace, an ability that all characters possess but the player may have easily forgotten existed. And just as you begin getting used to that, the zone starts throwing ''demons'' with the same mechanics but with the added wrinkle that they are immune to Coup de Graces, meaning you need to have another method to keep them down. It's a taxing level to say the least. The game does make this easier as literally every enemy in the area drops a shock weapon, and wands of call lightning are found by the entrance.

** Depending on who you ask, between one and two thirds of the Mythic Parts feel underdeveloped, content-deprived and/or rushed. As a rule of thumb, this usually does ''not'' hit the Angel, Aeon, Azata and Legend paths, while Swarm-That-Walks, Gold Dragon and Devil, as late game paths, seem to get it the most. Opinions on the remaining three paths are more split.
** This seems to be how the majority of players feel about the "Inevitable Excess" DLC. The DLC promised primarily two things, a sort of PlayableEpilogue to round out the main adventure and the ability to really wreak havoc and take full advantage of your PurposefullyOverpowered endgame status as a 10th-level Mythic being. While this is all there, FromACertainPointOfView, the consensus is that the story potential of such a scenario was barely taken advantage of, with little recognition of your Mythic type or decisions, and very few impactful choices such a borderline divine creature should be able to make at this point, and instead a lot of puzzles, considered a ScrappyMechanic for many.

* SequelDifficultySpike: Compared to both ''Kingmaker'' and the tabletop campaign ''[=WotR=]'' was adapted from. Most enemies in the game after chapter 1 have a lot of extra hit dice, spell resistance, and save values. Arguably this was intended to rebalance the game compared to the original AP (there's six party member slots absent animal companions and summons, and players of the AP criticized its easy combat due to the GameBreaker Mythic Paths), but it renders a lot of spells completely useless after chapter 1 (including anything relying on hit dice to determine effects, like Color Spray) and often verges on NintendoHard even at middle difficulty settings. This was almost inevitable compared to the Adventure Path the game is based on, however, which is considered one of the easiest Adventure Paths Paizo has ever published.

* {{Altitis}}: Given the sheer amount of available combinations of race, subrace, class, subclass, build, alignment, chosen deity and mythic path, it's extremely tempting to restart the game multiple times as you experience the events and begin to wonder if maybe a different character type would be better suited for the direction the story takes or your own playstyle. There's actually a [[AntiFrustrationFeature complete respecc feature]] to help ameliorate the problem, but of course some people just want to roleplay the entire campaign consistently from beginning to end with one character and would rather restart than have their Lawful Evil female Gnome Wizard become a Chaotic Good male Tiefling Ranger in the middle of the adventure.

** Staunton Vhane has received a lot of this. Is he a bitter man who made a terrible mistake out of good intentions and turned to the demons out of desperation for any kind of affection after a 70 year HeelFaceDoorSlam? Or is he a NeverMyFault whiner who blames everyone else for the consequences of his actions and deserves no sympathy for his betrayal? This applies InUniverse as well with characters like Regill, Daeran and Lann advocating for the latter while Ember and Seelah think of him as more the former, and his brother Jhoran saying [[TakeAThirdOption it's probably a bit of both]].
** Queen Galfrey, especially due to her actions at the End of Act 3 and all of Act 5. [[spoiler:She strips the Commander of their rank unless they're an Angel and sends them to the Abyss ostensibly to find Nahyndrian crystals and stop the Demons. However, when she takes charge of the Crusade she makes numerous IdiotBall decisions, most notably taking the Sword of Valor out of Drezen in a poorly planned charge and leaving the city open to be sieged despite knowing that it's a horrible idea. Her admittance that she sent the Commander and their party to the Abyss was partly out of jealousy don't help matters. Players think of her as either a Queen who made tough decisions and is cracking after leading a war for nearly a century or a [[TheNeidermeyer neidermeyer]] of the highest order who is one of the biggest reasons the Worldwound hasn't been closed yet.]] Similarly, on the Azata path [[spoiler: she'll chew you out for rushing the Midnight Fane without her despite the enormous tactical advantage you gain by doing so. Does she genuinely think that you needed her help and is chewing you out for taking a big risk or is she angry because this is the first unambiguous proof, not just to her but to the whole Crusade, that you're winning despite her rather than because of her?]] In this light, it makes [[spoiler: her IdiotBall moments seem more like an attempt to [[BeatThemAtTheirOwnGame one-up you]] without understanding why your 'reckless' strategies work.]]

** Setsuna Shy, one of the generals the player can hire in Crusade mode. Due to being a [[GameBreaker Mage General]] he can trivialize just about any battle he fights in and it's not uncommon for him to annihilate whole armies with one spell. Players claim he's the true hero of the Crusade who's stronger than even the most minmaxed Commander.

** Arueshalae very literally locking herself in horny jail after a certain part of her romance route has become such a meme, that there are a lot of jokes about her being the horny police among the party.

** Camellia's "I am helpful, am I not?" voice line quickly became a meme amongst players due to how often she says it when doing anything. Given she's the second party member the player gets, has good magic support, and can be a reliable trap disarmer, she's considered helpful gameplay wise, making the voice line funnier as a result.

* ToughActToFollow: After the relatively niche appeal of ''Kingmaker'', ''Wrath'' instead became a massive SleeperHit, featuring sophisticated gameplay mechanics, a great story and set of characters, and the extremely beloved Mythic Path system, adding enormous replay value and story branching. This suddenly catapulted Owlcat Games from obscurity to the forefront of developers in the RPG sphere. It's no surprise then that their later games, such as ''VideoGame/Warhammer40000RogueTrader'', would be compared unfavorably to the lightning in a bottle that was ''Wrath of the Righteous'' (particularly with Mythic Paths not being a concept easily transferable to other games).

** One carried over from the tabletop, but level 0 spells, or cantrips, have no scaling damage wise, and do only a d3 amount of damage. Some players dislike this as it makes casters need to use weapons they aren't necessarily stat wise built to use in order to be effective in battle if they aren't going to cast spells, and makes low Strength casters have encumbrance issues due to it - Daeran for instance has primarily healing and support spells and low Strength, so giving him a crossbow puts him at high risk of being slowed heavily while doing low amounts of damage. Some players have commented that even just letting the cantrips add their casters primary spell modifier to the damage would be better than leaving it as is, to the point that one of the more popular mods for the game gives cantrips scaling damage, making them more helpful than the base game. What makes it odder was that Second Edition (which was announced and released after ''Kingmaker'' came out) gave cantrips scaling, but was not carried over seemingly due to the strict adherence to First Editions rules.

*** Unit recruitment refreshes once a week. On paper this is likely meant to balance your army to prevent a player from cheesing the system, but the amount of units you get is so small that a player has to play almost perfectly in order to build a strong army, or else you can hit a wall where you can't progress due to losing too many units and have to keep skipping days so you can get to the weekly reset. This is means your different morale's are going to take a hit because you aren't crusading enough, and can potentially result in demon armies easily destroying their way towards your cities if they spawn. A number of players have admitted to using mods that let them boost the amount of units they have at the moment just to let them progress because of how much hassle it brings.

*** Crusade mode is very slow. Reinforcements are only available on a weekly refresh, meaning you're likely to just skip a ton of days to get them, and it takes several weeks to acquire meaningful numbers of them, especially in early Act 5 where the demon armies are larger and stronger and the map is largest necessitating many armies to play defense and lead offenses, [[spoiler:And all your act 3 armies are gone]]. Reinforcements also only spawn from a single point, meaning they need several days to meet your armies in the front to merge with them.

* ToughActToFollow: After the relatively niche appeal of ''Kingmaker'', ''Wrath'' instead became a massive SleeperHit, featuring sophisticated gameplay mechanics, a great story and set of characters, and the extremely beloved Mythic Path system, adding enormous replay value and story branching. This suddenly catapulted Owlcat Games from obscurity to the forefront of developers in the RPG sphere. It's no surprise then that their later games, such as ''VideoGame/Warhammer40000RogueTrader'', would be compared unfavorably to the lightning in a bottle that was ''Wrath of the Righteous''.

** "[[DeadpanSnarker Thanks Lann]]".[[note]]One of Lann's voice lines has him sarcastically saying "Thanks Lann" when performing an action. Due to his voice actor's funny and charming delivery of the line, and how Lann is a fairly often used party member, a lot of players tend to say it when Lann does or says anything during the story. Notably; when the Owlcat youtube channel posts anything featuring him, there are usually comments just quoting said line.[[/note]]

* EvenBetterSequel: ''Kingmaker'' was generally well received, but most felt it was a good starting point by Owlcat due to some issues and design choices. ''Wrath of the Righteous'' by contrast is widely agreed to be a significant improvement and better game, to the point being a much bigger success and staying power in spite of the flaws and weaknesses it has.

* FriendlyFandoms: A lot of ''Wrath Of The Righteous'' players also get along with the ''Literature/Overlord2012'' fandom, thanks in no small part to the Lich path as well as frequent shared jokes about the numerous buffs that are featured and used in both universes.