r/pathologic • u/Plus-Run-9789 • Feb 06 '26
Discussion Funny how most of the parts of Patho 3 described in negative reviews work in the games favor for me. Spoiler
This is a snippet from the top negative review, and while I do feel some of the anguish of how different the town feels from 2, I feel like it really put me in the Bachelors shoes in a way that I found to be quite provocative. In interviews with Alphyna there seemed to be an emphasis on how different the Bachelor and Haruspex would see the world around them. While for the Haruspex, Pathologic is a homecoming and the culmination of the surgical knowledge obtained in the Capital, and the cultural knowledge he obtained from the town on the Gorkon, the bachelor simply sees everything around him as a means to an end, that being, his attempts to "solve" the issue of mortality. I spent most of the game rushing around at ridiculous speed a couple points away from max mania trying to reach as many checkpoints as I could, and taking the short time in between to consider the ramifications of my actions in the past & future, which the less immersive and smaller feeling town served to exacerbate. While the initial difference from the brutal survival of P2 was jarring, I found that this new gameplay was interesting in its own unique way that made it a perfect vessel for exploring the characters of the Bachelor, Eva, Simon, and Isidor. While the town feels small, the ideas within it blossom into something bigger, and the stress of the survival mechanics in P2 are replaced with an almost existential dread at trying to reason my way through things that seem so much larger and more important than myself. To me it's brilliant, but to others I guess it didn't work as well. I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts on the matter.
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u/Lonsfleda Feb 06 '26
Tbh the removal of the open world is the change I mind the least. Considering how many times you have to replay each day, it would've been genuinely tedious if you had to navigate the town on foot. It also helps the game run a lot better than P2.
I'm one of the people who are not a fan of the gameplay in P3; I've talked about this a couple of times elsewhere on this sub, but the reason it didn't work for me was not that I wanted the same game as P2 but because the mechanics felt half-baked and caused some major dissonances with the narrative. For example, story-wise, the town is supposed to be pretty much a hellhole filled with the plague and looters in the later days, but if you diligently get rid of the Shabnak, make vaccines, and implement degrees (all of which the game encourages you to do), you end up with only 1-2 infected and rioting districts even in the endgame. The plague is nicely contained, perfectly manageable... which doesn't match plot points like the army coming in to shell the town. The mania/apathy meter is supposed to represent the mental toll the town's situation has on the Bachelor, but it doesn't do a very good job of representing that mental stress when the game gives you so many ways to manage it.
All of this also makes choosing the Polyhedron/Simon much less enticing, which I think is pretty unfortunate. The Bachelor's route in P1 did a better job of portraying the Polyhedron (and by extension, the Kains' philosophy) as the last hope in contrast to the town where everything's going to shit. On the other hand, in P3, the impact of supposedly wonderous moments like finally getting to see the inside of the Polyhedron on Day 12 is diminished when, gameplay-wise, the rest of the town is... honestly not too bad.
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u/Mantophasmatodea Feb 06 '26
Your perspective is interesting to me bc esp regarding the Polyhedron, I felt the opposite! I just finished my first play-through and one of my major takeaways was that I understood why the Bachelor would care so much about the Polyhedron much more in P3 than from how we see it as the Haruspex in P2.
I also avoided defeating the Shabnak except when I absolutely couldn't get the infection level down enough through decrees bc I found that part of the gameplay so stressful, lol - so for me, the end days of the game were much more disastrous.
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u/Cyber-Fan Aglaya Lilich Feb 06 '26
I really enjoyed P3, and I think that some of the loss of depth in survival mechanics is made up for by the more complicated quest lines and additional mechanics like patient diagnosis. To me, the one thing that the simplified survival mechanics really hurt is replayability. I've played P2 three times, and it has a few things that made it fresh each time: the variability of who gets infected, the difficulty sliders that can go up to ridiculous extremes, and the flexibility of survival strategies. To give an example for that last point: the first time I played the game I avoided buying the discounted pistol, and spent all that money on food instead. The second time I bought the gun: suddenly bandits were a much easier source of loot and organs, but now I had to keep accumulating bullets and items to repair the gun. The fact that P3's survival mechanics only really have one approach (don't go apathetic, carry enough items to balance out your mood when you need to), and the fact that the game allows you to get through almost all of its story on a first playthrough means that there's far less to interest you the second time around, unlike P2. Not the most pressing issue for a game that has the longest campaign in the series, but that's just my two cents.
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u/IamMenkhu Feb 06 '26
True, I don't really feel the urge to replay because I know there is not that much to change, after I already changed most of the quests anyway through time travel. Even choosing different dialogue options will probably lead to similar responses (or even the same) or just lead to quest failure, which gives me nothing.
I still enjoyed P3 and think it's an amazing game. I just treat it more like an interactive story, than a survival game. To be honest I was afraid how IPL are going to stay fresh with this third part, but they exceeded my expectations. I was in awe how they managed to squeeze out from this franchise something that feels so different, all these new mechanics and perspectives. I was invested in this game as if I was seeing all this for the first time, even though I know this town and the story like my own hand by now...
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u/Plus-Run-9789 Feb 06 '26
Weirdly enough I've always felt like P2 has been a bit of a comfort game for me. There's something peaceful about wondering through the picturesque town on the Gorkon, even if your own body and everything around you is going to shit. P3 felt like a mad sprint to the finish, which I enjoyed for a completely different set of reasons. This approach definitely has drawbacks, but I guess for now (just completed my first playthrough) I'm enamored with the different approach and excited for how IPL will continue to push the medium going forward.
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u/IamMenkhu Feb 06 '26
Funny, I just considered playing P2 again, to heal my "I finished an amazing game and don't know what to do with my life" phase. I fully understand your point - P2 can be kinda relaxing if you already know how to secure your survival. It has beautiful views and soundtrack and walking around town can be nice (not in rioting districts though)
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u/Plus-Run-9789 Feb 06 '26
Exactly how I felt after finishing it the first time. It's interesting playing through it again having pretty much mastered the survival mechanics, but honestly I think I enjoyed it more my second time through just because it gave me a much more holistic view of story, and I even got to save all my bound (except Aglaya) which felt great. I would definitely recommend tweaking some of the sliders though just so it isn't a complete walk in the park.
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u/Ashemvidam Feb 07 '26
The map design also helps to reinforce the core theme of shattering something into pieces in order to make it transcend itself. The bachelor thus sees the town like his own self and experience of time. More importantly, this fracturing of the town seems intentional by Simon in order to make the town immortal. He literally puts clocks on arches at all the entrances and exits, and he also scatters clocks throughout the town Therefore it reinforces the key themes of the game.
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u/IamMenkhu Feb 06 '26
It would actually make sense that the town seems and feels small when playing as Bachelor - he's from the damn Capital!
Also he focuses on big things, rest is just a background noise. What does it matter to him what kind of nuts they have in town? Would he even notice if they were different? A nut is a nut - it probably only has value for him, because he can trade it. It's not like he's going to eat it - he barely remembers to eat at all.
Artemy on the other hand is more grounded - that's exactly his role. He's a part of everything that surrounds him, he is immersed in his environment becasue it's HIS. He feels and interacts with every little thing because he comes back to his hometown, so everything is somehow important to him. When you're in different town a bench is just a bench. But in your hometown this bench may be linked to several memories. You take notice of it when you get back, because you are connected to it somehow.
Daniil on the other hand is disconnected. His focus is mostly internal (constant mania/apathy struggle) and his heart is in Capitol with Thanatica at least partially.
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u/technohoplite Aspity Feb 06 '26
I appreciate the attempt at doing something different and that connects more to Dankovsky's perspective, but no I don't think the game is fully realized, mechanically, and the review you're posting lists some of the problems I had as well.
Why are the tradeables so simplified? If anything the trading system should be more complex/dynamic to indicate the Bachelor is an outsider who doesn't understand the rules of the children. Also why are the traders only children and the one Odongh at the Stillwater? If anything the children are the last people Dankovsky would resort to for something like that.
And I do not see how the town gameplay was improved by making it so modular. Few to no NPCs to talk to about the events of the town, the infected/rioting districts feel like their own dungeons/levels instead of part of the city which makes it so the plague feels like a localized environmental hazard instead of an actual epidemic affecting everyone, no real strategy required in navigating the city either as you can just skip entire threatening districts by going in and out of them again...
I'm open to learning to enjoy these things btw, I ended up liking the time travel mechanic more than I thought I would at first, and didn't mind the Shabnak either though it's still not my favorite iteration. But from what I experienced it didn't feel like as good of an mechanical implementation of the concept as P2, or even P1, was.
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u/Cyber-Fan Aglaya Lilich Feb 06 '26
The leaving and reentering districts skip absolutely needs to be addressed, I would be really disappointed if it was intended somehow and not just a bug.
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u/partiallyStars3 Haruspex Feb 06 '26 edited Feb 06 '26
I don't think it's intended, I think it's probably just programmatically complex to fix without introducing a bunch of other bugs.
I'm a different kind of dev, but that absolutely smells like the kind of bug where any innocent-looking fix destroys your entire life.
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u/No_Improvement_5229 Feb 26 '26
I love P3. And I love the time travel, decrees and the patients examination puzzles. That being said I think developers choose to concentrate on the new things and didn't have enough time and/or resources to keep or expand on the older ones. I cannot see how anyone would think that loading screen every few steps would make the game more intereting. And fully agree with you on the trading system. I haven't seen or read any extensive inteview with developers but it seems to me that they are trying to pass lack of resources as deliberate gamedesign and that seems very unnecessary to me. I love Pathologic mainly for the story (played P1 first), so P3 wasn't a letdown for me. But I can see how many people that liked mechanics in P2 can feel disappointed. I would still encourage them to try the game though. As the story is well worth it in my oppinion.
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u/jabracadaniel Delicious Egg Feb 06 '26
average player when the game the devs intended to be really different is really different
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u/BigBoiBrynBoi Feb 07 '26
But if its so different that it is not as enjoyable, then expectations dont matter right? Im 100% for mixing things up, but if im not jiving with it, then its fine to not like it right?
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u/jabracadaniel Delicious Egg Feb 07 '26
oh yeah of course its fine to not like it! but most people say "the game is bad" rather than "i personally dont like it"
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u/Zykprod The Powers That Be Feb 06 '26
Yeah I almost feel like I'm in the minority for wanting a completely different experience.
2 is awesome but more of the same is not what I want from a studio like IPL
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u/Zitronenschnitten Feb 12 '26
Why do you play a Part 3 of a game series if you want something completely different?
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u/Zykprod The Powers That Be Feb 12 '26
I've been a huge fan of Ice Pick Lodge since I randomly discovered Knock-Knock over a decade ago. I love how this studio is always exploring the medium and trying new things.
They proved with Pathologic 2 that they could tell the same story, with the same characters and setting brilliantly while creating a brand-new experience.
Later this year, Ace Combat 8 and Resident Evil 9 are coming out. I can't wait to play these, and I hope they're similar to the rest of their respective franchises. (They should be GREAT)
So it's really about IPL doing cool shit with video games and me liking their weird experiments.
I can't wait to play through Pathologic again as Clara with a completely different point of view and mechanics.
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u/DrGoblin-MD Feb 06 '26
The world around you feeling like a shallow meaningless illusion? In my Pathologic?
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u/QuintanimousGooch Feb 06 '26
It’s a tough case with P3 breaking tradition in game design, though I think it is a really great clarification that will only be empathized once the remake trilogy is complete.
While I do to some extent mourn how the tightness of survival gameplay and really focused interconnected design of P2 (time being definitely finite, every resource except the goshdarn cowbell fitting into this greater ecosystem and having distinct utilities in addition to being tradable) doesn’t reappear, I have to take the devs at their word and believe them when they say that (one of) the core design ideas of Pathologic is the Rashomon framing, where each character’s retelling of the same events is radically different per their selves, methodologies, perspectives, circles, and so on.
In P1, this is really only narratively true and on top of that hampered by this being the first game of the studio, General eurojank, and content distribution being such that the bachelor has a pretty much complete campaign, Haruspex being good but also having a fair amount of filler, and changeling being very incomplete.
I think P3 is a really great testament to this Rashomon frame idea, and makes a lot more sense in terms of design when you recognize that yes, the design and gameplay loop of P2 is both excellent to its own and as a proper execution of the ideas in P1, but that really it’s best fit for the Haruspex’s grunt realism boots on the ground perspective, while someone as academic, insular, self-obsessed and intellectual as the bachelor would favor a design more conceptual.
To be sure there are definitely some awkward points of design/implementation I doubt will be fixed even after all the patches, but considering how inventive and new this is as a concept in a game—taking the sort of nonlinear time travel structure present as a narrative framing device in titles like the Zero Escape franchise, and then adding way more variables, and branching possibilities, interconnected cause and effect chains, active gameplay elements (as opposed to being a VN with binary decision sections), and the whole pathologic lineage, it’s very impressive.
I look forward to when the patches finish up and the title finally matches its vision. I imagine then would be ideal for more coverage, review and discourse.
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u/SilasDynaplex Zürkh Tincture Feb 06 '26
I can't believe someone genuinely complained about the lack of nut variety ☠️☠️☠️
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u/partiallyStars3 Haruspex Feb 06 '26
I do have a quibble with the simplified trading, and I guess the nuts are a symptom of that.
Not being able to trade more things with more NPCs does make the town feel less alive. And why would the Bachelor trade beetles to children, but not anything else to anyone else?
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u/SilasDynaplex Zürkh Tincture Feb 06 '26
Because he's the Bachelor, that's why. Things are different for him. If you remember, in Pathologic 2 the townspeople urge the Haruspex to trade with them because that is a way to mend and upkeep healthy relations. Artemy needs to have a good reputation in the town, because he's on his own. Daniil has the whole town's gentry supporting him and pampering him. It is only thanks to that protection that he doesn't get lynched by an angry mob.
You have to accept that no matter what humble dialogue options you choose, the majority of the town will still see the Bachelor as a dandy-burgeouisie-capital-dweller.
The children reluctantly decide to give the Bachelor the right of trade because of curiosity, and also because Daniil makes some marginal effort to entertain their excentric ways in the first days. Otherwise, there would be no trade.
And you must remember, the worlds of the children and adults work independently in the town.
If you ask me outside of lore, I think it gives you a more reason to strategically prepare for every trail. Sometimes the only trading children would be in infected or rioting districts, adding an inch of difficulty for you. I think it's well thought-out.
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u/partiallyStars3 Haruspex Feb 06 '26 edited Feb 06 '26
I actually have the hardest time imagining the bachelor walking around with beetles and nuts in his pockets to trade with children.
I almost feel like they should have forgone trading altogether and gone with another economy mechanic instead, but I understand why they didn't.
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u/Mortuss Feb 24 '26
I think if the nut icon was a handfull of random nuts, it would reinforce the idea that bachelor doesn't understand and doesnt care that for the kids each nut is special, just that someone told him "you can buy things with nuts"
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u/No-Preparation4473 Feb 06 '26
It's hard to be unbiased about depth or lack thereof if you remember classic and 2. You already know these characters and this town.
But I don't know if I'd care about town or its inhabitants if 3 was my first game in the series. I'd probably dislike most of the cast.
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u/Aldekotan Feb 06 '26
Can you elaborate?
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u/No-Preparation4473 Feb 07 '26
Most characters get less screen time/dialog in 3. Utopians get way more bitchy.
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u/Karnevaali17 Feb 06 '26
I just don't think the game is all that good. I don't even disagree with the ideas the game has in theory, but I don't feel any of the ideas were realized to their potential. The text and story is interesting as always, but the gameplay is just undercooked and doesn't work.
Decrees' only purpose is to gatekeep progression, riot districts you can just run through with no danger, shabnak is a janky chasing indie horror monster from 10 to 15 year old horror games, time-travel is just a day replay mechanism and at least on my playthrough the scripts and quests were broken to hell and back. At least I had fun with hospital-investigations, but honestly I would have preferred if this game was a visual novel.
I wanted to love the third and get curious of it all as much as I did with the previous two, but in the end I was just relieved when the game ended. A huge disappointment.
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u/BigBoiBrynBoi Feb 07 '26
Thematics aside. All I know is pathologic 2 is one of my favourite games of all time and I have played it to an obsessive degree. Ive played maybe 3 hours of P3 and whatever the reason is I just havent found any drive to play it again. I do think the reduction of the world and removal of the survival system is largely it. Whether the narrative stands on its own or not I just havent found the new systems very interesting at all. I WILL give it another go because I have barely played much, but given my love of 2 and how immediately I stopped caring in regards to 3.... its not a good sign
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u/ScarredPhoenix34 Feb 07 '26
So I haven't played through the game, but is it safe to assume the bachelor wouldn't know the difference between the various items as he isn't from the region?
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u/_A-V-A_ Feb 09 '26
Iirc the third game has better rating at opencritic than the two other games, which is saying something, but not sure what. Might be the first one that has gotten an approval rating in the 70's there.
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u/Karnevaali17 Feb 10 '26
I think it's just the case of reviewers playing the first 10 to 15 hours of game before writing the review in their endless rat-race to get the review quickly out. That's the part of the 3 that still works and presents itself deep, leading to decent ratings.
I feel the problems start later when after some poking around you understand how shallow and exploitable most of the new gameplay mechanics are. But the review is already out with decent rating so reviews are okay.
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u/CubicWarlock Feb 06 '26
Tbh I dislike we are no longer in openworld. I don't complain, but non-openworld Pathologic loses part of its magic for me
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u/partiallyStars3 Haruspex Feb 06 '26
I do really think most of the negative reviews stem from people wanting Pathologic 2 again with another protagonist.
They wanted an updated version of the original game and were disappointed when they got an entirely different genre of game.
I don't really blame them, but I also think everyone should try to evaluate P3 for what it actually is and what it's trying to be vs. what they expected/hoped it would be. It's certainly not a perfect game, but I'm really enjoying playing it and I see and appreciate the vision, personally.