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OK. so here's a short review. The game IS Pathfinder lite, and the story is Crown of the Kobold King. I played actual Pathfinder 2E through CotKK, so it is interesting to see how they changed it into a board game.
Pros:
Good story elements - a whole book is dedicated to story entries, adding good depth and immersion.
Easier for beginners to play than Pathfinder
Unique dice are a plus, in my opinion (D6s with symbols or pips, but not normal), because they give you variety of usage, and allow you to spend you dice in different ways, which increases player agency. But if you're unlucky like me, you don't get to use those very often.
Characters seemed to be well-balanced in power comparison; no character feels more powerful than others.
Stays true to 3-action PF2 action economy
The Time wheel mechanic is solid, and adds good time pressure to quests, once again serving player agency - do you spend time to further investigate or move on? - and not knowing what could happen if you take too long adds good suspense.
Cons:
You always have to 4-hand it, even if playing solo - there is no scaling for the # of players. It's always 4 characters, even if soloing.
Too many character cards to manage, starting at about level 4 - it takes up large amounts of space to display all the cards for each character, and would be for advanced players with a bit of a masochistic streak to 4-hand solo (although you do get to combo maximize). It's almost unmanageable though, by 4th level, with taking so much time to calculate options.
The Undead encounter (lvl 4) at the beginning of chapter 4 is completely broken. The game played fine, and a bit easy for a tactically-minded group up to level 4. Then, all of a sudden each undead is ungodly powerful in this encounter, and there are 4 of them. Two would be a tough challenge, 4 is just a TPK. Don't know if I will continue playing, or how to adjudicate this tremendously unbalanced encounter.
Overall: If you like the D&D Adventure system games like Legend of Drizz't, Wrath of Ashardalon, And Castle Ravenloft, then this game will satisfy and feel familiar. I'm a bit disappointed with this level 4 undead encounter, and don't yet know if that's how the game plays out over the rest of it.
Does anyone know if there's errata for it?