I've started pathfinder WotR yesterday and it was pretty difficult to adjust to the RTWP after replaying DOS and DOS2 recently. The game is also not newcomer friendly, but sticking with normal difficulty turned out to be forgiving and I even managed to destroy some of the "unnecessary" bosses first try. I was pleasantly surprised by the character creation, not the visual choices, but the variety of builds you can create. Even a generic fighter I went with, can be fine tuned into a lot of different things, EVEN without multiclassing. I also started to enjoy the story quite a bit, even if it felt very clumsy the first 30 minutes or so - the world was presented in a very overwhelming manner, but if you get past the headache and take your time to read all the lore tips, then it becomes clear that the story is worth following. I was happy with the companions as well, their writing is a bit less over the top than in BG3 and they feel like they mean what they say. This is very important, because in BG3 a lot of NPCs and some companions act like if they were immortal or didn't care for their teeth being in place. The graphics and level design are not my cup of tea, but those are never defining factors for me. Overall, PWOTR seems like a good enough game to play until the BG3 releases, but I won't recommend it to players who are intolerant to that kind of slow and dense storytelling and difficult combat.
