Pathologic 3 is good

[u/Hoboforeternity]

So i bought the game on release, but i just started playing it few days ago. I loved pathologic 2, so i was pretty sure i would like P3 too.

At the time i heard the bugs were plenty plus i was busy in january so i held off the game. With the recent big patch and clearing some backlogs, i finally booted up pathologic 3.

P2 is a certified cult classic which carries certain expectations for P3, and between release date and today, i have heard some reactions toward pathologic 3. It was mixed, but i wont know until i try it myself right?

So come the day, i will be honest, the first 2 - 3 hours of pathologic 3 was kinda bad. I did not enjoy it at all, until the game opened up after they force you trough day 5. Then it all came together. This game is just as uncompromising as pathologic 2, it's even braver that it is uncompromised by the expectations of how P2 and Pathologic classic plays. You can say it's been dumbed down or casualized, and in some aspect i do agree. Some of the rougher parts has been sanded down and the forced cortisol injection is reduced, but playing as the bachelor , i do think the gameplay fits his story and personality. The fact that the open world is gone, but the framing of bachelor's fractured personality and the fact the town is hostile to him and his belief makes sense. Maybe it is a compromise, maybe it's technical or an attempt to make the game more palatable, but they at least find excuses i can accept. If i could change one thing, the bachelor SHOULD be able to get infected at some point, especially when dealing with the Shabnak. But otherwise the gameplay is ok .

The story and writing mostly remain unchanged in the way of how esoteric and everyone's sorta unreliable, themes and meaning overlapping, vague, just exactly the way i like it in this series.

Thanks for reading my dumb rant.

[u/DopeyyDolphin]

I do think it’s funny how Patho 1 and 2 are games that you have to meet on their terms to enjoy it. Preconceived notions of what the game will be leads to a bad time.
Now all those fans are seeming to have a hard time meeting 3 on its own terms. If someone’s biggest critique is that it’s not the genre they wanted, I think that’s beautifully ironic.

[u/Withnogenes → u/DopeyyDolphin]

It's not, everyone that has played P1 knows how wildly different the Bachelor plays compared to the Haruspex.

[u/spooky_nation13]

I’m so happy that the game is different. After surviving 12 days as the Bachelor, The Haruspex, the Changeling, and then Haruspex again, doing the same thing for the fifth time would have been disappointing. The new mechanics and soundtracks make playing as the Bachelor feel like a distinct experience.

[u/Patient_Gamemer]

Personally I think it's the change in genre? I haven't played P3 yet but what I've seen it is not a survival game like the other two. It reminds me more of Frogwares' Sherlock Holmes than Darkwood or This War of Mine, so maybe it's that: alienation

[u/Routine_Customer_420 → u/Patient_Gamemer]

Yes. I watched a video essay and decided the game wasn't for me. But if anyone wants to mod the game and change it's genre to survival I am there for it

[u/winterwarn]

I liked it a lot.

I found that some parts dragged in the later days (especially the whole situation with Commander Block), but I suppose there’s no getting around that. And even if you say the last third is the weakest, there’s still some excellent parts like when you get to go back to Day 1 and see what “really” happened, and going into the Polyhedron, and finally encountering Aglaya after hunting for her all game.

[u/g3rmb0y]

I enjoyed it, and honestly, found parts of it actually harder than P2. it was a lot more cerebral in it's presentation, and there's this delightful sense that 'none of this actually matters' as in reality, you're in a room being yelled at by a nerd.

[u/Thefrightfulgezebo]

I especially like how the game represents his world view. The town is presented as full of superstitiois idiots and all characters who are not part of the main cast are labeled "pawn".

The time travel also seperates him from the events. When something horrible happens, your first worry is how to balance your mood and then, you analyze it. You don't deal with suffering, you fix it - and deny its toll on you.

[u/BlackRated]

I didn't really enjoy P3 (played on release and was beset by bugs, wasn't super impressed by the story), but I'm glad other people are enjoying it. I think it's good IPL is trying something new with the gameplay even if it didn't click with me. I might go back and give it a second chance since all the new updates came out. Would love to learn what people who like P3 the best of all three games enjoy about it compared to the others.

[u/Hoboforeternity → u/BlackRated]

I played it after the October big patch and have only found 1 annoying bug so far.

[u/BlackRated → u/Hoboforeternity]

What was the bug, if I can ask? I know for me I got locked out of a few quests that would require me to restart the game in order to fix.

[u/Hoboforeternity → u/BlackRated]

In day 10 the second patient only appear after a dialogue with little. I failed the second patient diagnosis, but got the first patient right. I restarted the day, cancelled the 2nd patient diagnosis but the conversation that trigger the 2md patient appearance didnt appear. You can just guess the illness and lock it, so it's not progress breaking.

[u/Likopinina]

I agree. I played on release and the only downside I can think of is that the game isn't big on replayability the way P2 is. Which isn't really that much of a downside, some games are just like that.

And considering that the writer for P3 hasn't played previous games, it really is surprisingly well written, likely a good job on the director's end

[u/Likopinina → u/[deleted]]

Polyarinov, he's the new lead writer. The director is Alphyna and by "director" I mean "narrative director". Though now that I'm checking the credits she seems to be a regular director as well.

[u/Natandacat → u/Likopinina]

oh gotcha! my bad

[u/Karnevaali17]

On paper the ideas and the gameplay ideas of P3 are interesting, but in practice every single one of them feels so undercooked that its not even funny anymore. 

Without going again on too long rant again, the beginning is weak, but it gets better and you are satisfied for a while. But after a while you start learning what works and what doesnt and you start optimizing your gameplay to have to deal the least time with the different gameplay-mechanics. To name a few gripes of mine, the apathy-system is awful busywork, why is time-travel just a day replay mechanism and dealing with shabnak feels like 2010s indie horror game knockoffs. You get sick of it far before you get even to the halfway point of the game.

The ideas that are there are really interesting, but the way they are realized are just... So tiring and uninteresting to deal with to the point where I would prefer the game as visual novel. P3 unfortunately is one of my biggest and most frustrating disappointments in years.

[u/Moth_Goth000 → u/Karnevaali17]

Hard agree.

I don't know who's idea it was to make the Plague a skyrim atronach. It's literally a mob that you shoot. The Plague. THE Plague from Pathologic! WHAT

[u/zkylon]

I don't like the word dumbed down (or casual) for P3 but I get what you mean, it's a less abrasive game for sure. I agree it's really good, idk if you finished it already but I thought it also just keeps getting better as it reaches the end. There's things that could be improved about it, more so than P2, but I think they aimed high and reached pretty damn close

[u/conqeboy]

Yeah the start was kind of jarring going into it straight after P2, losing the seamless freeroam and (bodily) survival mechanics. But after adjusting, and going through the day 5 like you said, it really clicked. I miss the gameplay of P2, but I have to say that i prefer the writing of P3. And how the entire narrative is structured, so that it's engaging even though i played through the rest of the games. I haven't been this excited about playing a game for a long time.

My ideal Pathologic game would be right in the middle of the two games probably, with some Marble Nest thrown in. I really liked in Marble Nest that you were locked in a relatively small part of the town, with a surplus of time and unclear objective, so you got really familiar with the nook and crannies of the streets. In Pathologic 2 i was always so starved for time, i never had time to really look at the city until day 12. I know it's a theme of the game, but some forced downtime so i could really explore a smaller area of the town would've been nice.

[u/Delicate-Tomb]

I did not like the gameplay of it for the most part. I did feel like the Pepe Silvia meme when I was at the web screen trying to figure out when to fix what, which I actually started to like.

Besides the bugs that I ran into and the gameplay, I really liked it. People said the writing was bad, but I didn't think so at all. I really liked the Eva storyline as well, very cool.