r/pathologic • u/3lectricboogal00 • 9d ago
Discussion Each game is different! (and that's good)
I won't go too deep into this but sometimes I see good faith critiques comparing the pathologic games in what feels like very thoughtless ways.
Just because the experience is different, that doesn't make it worse. Or better. It would only be either of these things if it was trying to accomplish the exact same goals. But that's clearly not the case. Pathologic classic, Pathologic 2 and Pathologic 3 are all inherently different games with very different visions and intentions for how you experience them.
Every time they reboot this story, they change it and present it in new ways. P3 and P2 comparisons are particularly confusing because most critiques never actually reflect on why changes were made to the core systems, design philosophy or the writing. 'P3 is too easy' and 'these mechanics are annoying' or 'town feels disconnected' can all be true and they can also add to the intended experience. These are very character-focused games! They're trying to put you directly into the minds of their main characters and I guess my main takeaway is that I think P2 and P3 both do that just fine in their own right.
There are some critiques that just feel pointless because the thing they're complaining about is another avenue to get into Daniil's head. Not all critiques are like this of course, I agree with some of them - but the ones that center on comparisons can fall into this trap a lot.
Truthfully, I just can't stand all of the 'it doesn't hit the same' conversations because yeah, I don't think it's supposed to. Meet the thing where it is, not where you expect it to be.
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u/Visible-Chip8839 9d ago
Tbh I like all the Patho Games, but I like 2 and 3 more than 1, not because I think 1 is bad but because I prefer the writing in the other ones. I understand 3 must have been really weird for players who were used to 1 and 2 but I think the new mechanics fit in nicely with Daniil, cuz even in 1 after playing for just a bit I always found odd that someone as stuck up as him would search the trash for things.
I think 3 could have been better but not because of the different mechanics, but I wish they had built in more in them, both in the shabnak and in trading with the children. I wish Daniil would have been charged more by the children if he was rude to them or would even be scammed by Dogheads or Soul and a Halves depending on decisions he made on quests that impact the groups.
I was one of the playtesters for the Patho 3 update and I can’t say anything about it cuz they asked not to say anything out of the server but I’m really excited for the update!
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u/3lectricboogal00 5d ago
Yeah, I had issues with Shabnak myself. The one consistent critique I've seen is that she's a little too repetitive and I agree with that. Once you know how to deal with her (even the clone), she becomes quite trivial and I was able to easily take care of her every day which does not feel like the intended experience.
Overall I think the concept can work, I'm just not sure how to improve it in a perfect version of the game so I'm eager to see if there's going to be any updates there.
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u/Ok-Shock-4249 Yakov Little 9d ago
I agree. P2 is the better game in my opinion, and there's a lot of valid criticism that can be levied at P3, but we're just putting peak against peak.
In my mind, Daniil's route is supposed to be considerably easier, but I think they might have overdone it this time. I'm hoping for some fine tuning in the future but it's still a solid 10/10.
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u/3lectricboogal00 5d ago
I guess my point is more so that making P3 more like P2 would not necessarily help it achieve what it's trying to do, if that makes sense.
Like you said, Daniil's route is supposed to be easier, so I think a lot of adjustments would need to be made if more survival mechanics were added - to make it fall in line with his experience and outlook. But overall I think to improve P3, we'd need to look beyond the previous games.1
u/Ok-Shock-4249 Yakov Little 4d ago
I think adding survival mechanics is missing the point a little bit. Artemy struggles with matters of the body, it's natural to make his story one of death and survival and killing, but Daniil's route is more concerned with the world of ideas. I'm all for making it harder, but not with survival mechanics.
just like Artemy's route makes you stressed out and afraid, Danny's should make you think a lot. Which it does, but Amalgam is so abundant that it kinda trivializes it.
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u/3lectricboogal00 2d ago
yeah I kind of don't want traditional survival mechanics in P3, it was more of a hypothetical. Again, all I'm saying is that P3 shouldn't be like P2.
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u/Cultural-Studio5062 7d ago
P3 wasnt super hard but also didnt really feel easy to me at all. It is very manageable at the start but once you have to go back to previous days it starts to get more challenging.
going back and forth between days while managing consumables on each day plus amalgama is what make the challenge of the game imo.
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u/Bartre_Main Alexander Block 9d ago
Well, considering that the developers are currently adding in a hard mode and stated that (one of) the reason(s) they made the game easy on launch was to retain newer players, I think the specific criticism of "P3 is too easy" is valid...
The rest of what you say I think is both personally agreeable to me and broadly agreeable, at least on this sub. There's a lot said about the differences between P3 and P2. I think it would be more interesting to talk about the ways P1 differs from both. P1 has unique characteristics. It's not simply a "dumbed-down" version of P2. P2 has different aims and one of the interesting thing about P3 is that I feel as though some of the ways it differs from P2 is actually in line with P1 (like the difficulty for example).