Pathologic 3

Played over 30h for the first playthrough and i understand nothing and am greatly confused. Its far removed from Pathologic 1 and 2 gameplay-wise but is much more focused on creating an accessible narrative. The non-linear approach to the story seems convoluted at first but ties exceedingly well into the story itself and creates an experience, that truly can only be realized in this manner by a video-game. Not a great game, but an amazing experience overall.

Started writing a review and discovered Steam has a character limit that is how much I have to say about it. Not surprising given my (at time of writing) lesbian flag Daniil Dankovsky profile picture. He is Very Important to me. To summarise I guess: LOVED this game!! It was really thematically rich and interesting with mostly well written characters and story. Sort of a slow build to it becoming a truly satisfying narrative but god it was worth it. Most aspects of the gameplay were good - in particular, the hospital diagnosis minigames were excellent and I also really liked the final balance on the mania/apathy system as it had a learning curve while also remaining a little unpredictable to the end. The time travel idea was good in theory and mostly well executed which is truly a feat considering the complexity of story events. I did run into some confusion/bugs but I can forgive given how ambitious it was. I thought amalgam could have been implemented better especially in late game and I had to use console commands as I repeatedly experienced a bug where most of my amalgam got deleted if the game closed unexpectedly. It is a shame that the trading economy was simplified, and I didn't see why the recipe/medicine crafting mechanic was useful. I also really struggled with the euthanasia mechanic but maybe that was just me not understanding it. The plague districts/shabnak seemed a bit silly at first but when I realised the reasoning behind their design I did view it all much more positively. My other small critique and this goes for every game in the series is that the English voice work is simply not good. For such a unique game it seems a shame that such basic/stock voice types and performances are being given (most heinously Clara and Artemy). It sounds like Genshin Impact and it's a real shame. Also the music is not as standout as previous entries (except the new Broken Heart music which is an absolute banger). I thought this added a really interesting new angle to the Pathologic canon and explored existing events in very creative ways (my fave was [spoiler] realising the plague districts and shabnak were Daniil's response to the burning of the steppe woman which I knew happens on day 1 [/spoiler]). Also the 'true' (I guess) ending was crazy and once again pulls you into the game in such a meta way that no other piece of media has ever really achieved for me. [spoiler] Possibly just my interpretation but it felt like I (as in me, the player) in a sense 'was/am' Simon Kain in a way that just made me feel so crazy [/spoiler]. As someone who has long wished that Bioshock Infinite was good I was very satisfied by this game's approach to realities and time travel. Particularly also enjoyed the writing for Artemy, Yulia, Eva and the Stamatins, but felt Lara and Aglaya's stories were a let down in some respects. Daniil was great fun to play as and I loved how he wants to quip so bad but it gives him heart attacks. And the game was tied together by themes of fate and agency that resonated through most characters' stories culminating in Daniil's own in a really satisfying way (to me at least). The addition of new characters was also great and pretty much all of them were intriguing. The framing via the Inspector was interesting, Telman popping up to psychiatrize Daniil was fun, I LOVE Serafima and Platon (and the revelation that Daniil is actually a good PhD supervisor, didn't think he had that in him). Yakov Little has my heart forever and I am never going to recover from what happened to him. Love this game - my game of the year I can pretty confidently say despite this being the only game I've played so far this year. It had its flaws but there is just nothing out there quite like Pathologic and no game can ever come close to the emotional and intellectual experience of playing this and 2. I feel like if you go into this expecting the SAME experience as classic and 2 you're not getting that (and if I was being harsh I would say that this game lacks some of the synergy between mechanics and story that made 2 in particular SO good and SO affecting) but I really like how they've explored new ideas both within the series and with what gaming can be in this one. I always thought the take that Pathologic is good because it is hard is really reductive and never captured what makes these games so special for me, so in that sense I really really appreciate what they've done here. In conclusion, she path on my logic 'til I Simon Kain.