Só vale a pena se você quer continuar no 3.5E e por acaso se interessou pelo mundo. Qualquer outra situação, o Inner Sea Guide tem quase todo o conteúdo que esse tem (falta o guia de pronunciação apenas) e é mais aprofundado, maior e com ilustrações e cartografia melhores. De qualquer forma, o diferencial de Golarion é só a maturidade com que algumas questões como escravidão, guerra, sexualidade, e os males da humanidade são tratados, no resto é um mundo bem genérico (embora muito bem escrito).

(Re-posting my Amazon review, here)

A lot of this review is going to be negative, so let me start out by saying, I love this world, and this is an excellent source book. I'm nit-picking because I feel there's so much to improve, but where they started is amazing.

Also worth note before I get started: there is a new version coming out sometime in early 2011, so if you can get this book at cover price, it's probably still worth it, but some of the crazy prices I've seen at 2-5 times the cover price are definitely not worth paying. The new version will be an update to the latest Pathfinder rules (this edition is just OGL-compatible), which means you can expect the sections about character classes to change, but that's probably about it. There's not much "crunch" in this book, as one might expect, and so a rules update is kind of tangential to its content. There is also a book about the Inner Sea region coming out (Pathfinder Campaign Setting World Guide: The Inner Sea (Revised Edition)), so if you are specifically interested in that region, you might want to go that route either alone or in addition.

Now to the review. The cover art is blurry. An odd defect, given Paizo's usual standards, but I'll assume this is an artifact of their early rush to print when they were just getting started in the post-Dragon/Dungeon magazines era.

Inside, the book is beautiful. The art is spot-on and really gives a sense of the world. The poster map that comes with the book is excellent, if somewhat more sparse on detail than I would have expected. The races are wonderful. I especially love what they've done with gnomes: a race I previously couldn't care less about is now one of my favorites!

However, as you start to read, you definitely get the sense that someone forgot to write the introduction chapter. You end up having to essentially read the entire book cover-to-cover in order to make sense of the world. An intro that told us, "This is Golarion. Most of the action will take place in or within 1000 miles of the Inner Sea, a temperate sea that acts as the divide between the two major continents...." and so on. Not an in-depth view of the countries and peoples. There's plenty of that later on, but just a quick intro so that I don't feel lost the first time a major country or god's name is dropped as if I'm supposed to know what it means. I actually bought this book because the Adventure Paths were giving me the same lost feeling, and it solved that problem, but only after I slogged through most of the book (starting with the History chapter helped a bit).

In the writeups of the races, I have roughly the same problem. You almost have to start reading them from the middle, because that's usually where they get around to explaining who and what they are, rather than how they found themselves in some historical calamity, but again these write-ups are brilliant. Gnomes are much improved over their D&D roots, but every race has some excellent flavor to it. Elves will definitely be interesting. They're not really very nice, and I like that about them. In fact, between the Elves and the Drow, it's actually hard to choose a group to support, but the Drow have a point in feeling abandoned and wronged by the other elves.

Humans are my favorite race, however. I love the fact that they're not just the everyman white, European analog with a few ethnic minorities thrown in for flavor that most fantasy games have. They're a diverse mix of humanity both fantastic and realistic, and the Inner Sea is ideally located to be a mixing pot of Arabesque and pseudo-Eruopean influences of many flavors.

Overall, this is an excellent resource. If you're looking for a fully realized world on which to base a campaign, this is definitely it. If you're looking for a quick reference, then I suggest picking up the smaller Chronicles books such as Gods & Magic and Guide to Absalom that suit your needs.

You can read my complete review on my blog:
http://rpg.brouhaha.us/?p=2915

A definite must-have for those playing Pathfinder Golarion setting; very useful for DM's, player's that want their PC's to have a more fuller background, and definitely for those that are members of the Pathfinder Society. My only wish is that it was just a little bit more meaty-er (by my tastes).

Extremely well written campaign setting, as stated mostly exposition of setting materials with few actual rules additions (it is a campaign setting book after all).

Richly detailed, excellent take on many of the standars of the genre.

An amazingly well written campaign setting. The book is mostly fluff, but the crunch is very well written, evocative, and balanced, while the fluff draws on some of the best fantasy concepts and giving them a fresh spin. I definitely recommend this title.

This book describes the major races, cultures, and countries of the world of Golarion (where the Pathfinder Adventure Paths and Modules take place) and does an excellent job of painting a picture of what the world is like. I especially liked the write ups of the various human races and the exotic weapons.

Also included is a very nice poster map of the world detailed in the campaign book (the Inner Sea Region).

I have a 18 year experience with role playing games and i must say that this campaign setting is the best i have ever read...
The possibilities are endless, everything has a really good background and in my opinion pathfinder chronicles is what forgotten realms should have been...
Don't miss this...!!!!!!

Negatives: 1) As with any rpg company, this book will have typos, but, I, personally, ignore them. I always consider the resources, labor, and deadlines for this industry, and they never bother me. I'm proud in my own skills as a reader, and rpg fan to spot and correct typos automatically. However, this may be an issue to others, so I mention this nonetheless.
2) There are minor loose-ends, both intentional and not, meant as seeds, or overlooked, and there are minor flavor inconsistancies such as the use of the term "Chelish" etc. For the most part, this is mostly unimportant, but may be for others.
3) Some may not relish changes when the book is revised and reprinted once the new Beta rules become official in a year or so.
4) Only the Inner Sea Region is detailed, with other areas left for later.

Positives 1) With such attention to detail as name choices and language attributes for races, it feels both friendly to old die hards who demand live roleplaying in native speak as well as newbies wanting to know how to fit in and otherwise find it difficult to choose their PC's name.
2) The extraordinary choices that are fleshed out for races, nationalities, regions, classes, countries, technology, and philosophy are brilliantly dynamic and engaging. I feel like a group would be hard pressed not to find "something" of interest to set their game in. There are so many choices, that I feel there will be group tension just on selecting where to start.

Here are my personal pleasures.
1) I adore the appendices, which include sample encounter charts for certain areas.
2) The flags of each country really add to the sense of just how much love went into this book. It's a small detail, but to me it's a wonderful little pleasure.
3) The setting has taken a bold plunge to include guns and psionics.
More Psionics, please!!!

This is by far the best campaign world book I have purchased in years. Some comparisons have been made to the “old gray box” Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting; that comparison is not undeserved. I believe this book blows away the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guides for D&D Fourth Edition and perhaps even Third Edition. It has to offer a lot of diversity, which appeals to me greatly. It even has a place for us Ravenloft fans: Ustalav. Paizo shows that large font type and large full-color pictures on every page are not what is needed to create a quality product (though they have plenty of beautiful illustrations, maps and heraldry). What is needed is detail and polish, and this book has plenty of both.

Outside of Dungeons & Dragons/Pathfinder, I have read campaign books for a variety of fantasy games and worlds. Some of these include Legend of the Five Rings, Talislanta, Earthdawn, and Exalted. I would say that the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting has all the richness of a complex setting like Talislanta, but it does not overwhelm the newcomer with information overload. It is well organized, beautifully illustrated, and edited very well.

Indeed, I will go out on a limb and say this is indeed the best campaign book I have ever purchased. I plan on putting this campaign world any many of the Pathfinder adventures to use in my current D&D 4E game and any future D&D 3.x/Pathfinder games.