perhaps more explanation than anyone wants but the story is: Pathologic is composed of 3 “routes” as different player characters through one overarching, common plot. The Bachelor, The Haruspex, and The Changeling. In the original Pathologic release, the first two were fully complete and the third was there but pretty slapdash.
The game that would be released as Pathologic 2 was originally pitched simply as a remake of the whole first game. But as the development dragged on, it was decided to release the Haruspex route, then develop and release Bachelor’s and the Changeling’s thereafter. This game was released titled Pathologic 2 bc I suppose development had taken so long and convoluted by that point. The other two routes have not materialized as IPL shifted gears to smaller projects (Know By Heart and Franz) meant to help raise funds and experiment on design ideas in preparation for resuming work on Pathologic.
they put out some promo info under the Pathologic: Bac2ler moniker,
but I assume the motive for the name change to Pathologic 3 is the same as it was for 2: it’s just taking a while and it’s cleaner and probably less confusing from a marketing POV. In short, I think Pathologic 3 is the work they’ve been doing on 2: namely, it;s the Bachelor route in full.
I’d recommend first playing Pathologic 2 as it’s the fuller elucidation of the Haruspex route than that presented in the original game. By all means give the original a go as well, but Pathologic 2 supersedes it apart from the two having very strong, individuated aesthetics/atmosphere. 2 isn’t actually a sequel despite the name
yes Pathologic 2 on PC is the recommended starting point.
Reminder to anyone giving the game a try to refer to this thread for some basic tips and to give it a bump if you want a friendlyPathologic 2 sherpa as you play.
Metaphor: Refantazio seems to be getting rave reviews and after reading a few of them my increasingly sceptical feelings towards it have been all but confirmed by the phrase “it took about 15-20 hours to get my fourth party member”. I am not a big hater of Persona 5 but if there’s one thing that made me dislike the game more and more it was the excessively bloated narrative and an ever present sense towards the end of the game that my time was being wasted, and my impression is that Atlus have doubled down on that side of things with M:R.
I’ll almost certainly end up playing it in the next 12 months but I can’t shake the feeling that it’s going to feel like having a flatly disappointing curry that all my buddies have hyped up.
If the demo’s any indication Metaphor is better paced and less bloated than P5. My main gripe with Persona was characters would sit around rehashing the same stuff ad nauseam and I haven’t seen any of that so far. A handful of things so far sorta happen outta left field with little to no setup. There’s also nowhere near the amount of on-boarding that was present in P5, those opening 2-3 hours in P5 were the worst.
I’m in the seemingly extreme minority on these boards, but I quite liked P5/P5R. They aren’t without flaws, of course, but I had a grand old time with them.
I have been interested in Metaphor: Fantazio since seeing a teaser however long ago.
I love Katsura Hashino persona, but i am worried that i’m not going to have time for it anymore. i’ve never successfully replayed any of 3, 4, or 5, and dabbled in the three remake a bit thanks to gamepass. I kind of dread playing them in the same way that I dread playing a big 200 hour triple A thing (i suppose this IS a 200 hour triple a thing).
They’re good games but I kind of feel increasingly dungeon crawler plus social sim is just a lot of time, especially compared to like, the six hours it takes to play through Tokimeki Memorial on fast forward on a handheld, or the 15-20 hours to do a run of Final Fantasy (just as another fantasy dungeon crawler thing)
Big fantasy RPG is exactly what I want right now but I’m worried that i’m simply not going to have time for it, and it’s a bummer it is tied to my computer monitor. Most of what I see credits on these days are things I can play on my milleu of handheld stuff.
Insert Credit: possibly the only corner of the internet that is lukewarm on Persona 5, but at the same time loves some Soul Hackers 2.
Don’t know if price discounting works similar in Australia to how it does in the US, but if you’re looking to buy physical it shouldn’t be too much of a wait for a significant discount. P3R and SMT V: Vengeance are already half off here.
I’ve been playing the beefy Metaphor demo for what feels like days (5hrs so far) and it kind of unsold for me tbh. I’m big no fan of plight of lordlings and royalties stories (big reason I don’t like DQ11) so feeling meh about initial plot. It got me back a bit with the silly wacko magic election plot but kind of unsold again by possible AoT plot…
Big eyeroll for me is the story heavily deals with racism but there are barely any dark skin people so far in the demo. There are bunch of brownish skin people, including the hero kind of, but I only remember seeing 2 dark skin people (armor shop keeper and weapon shop keeper) and of course they have white hairs lol japan plz. The dark skinned tribe is listed in the race section of the codex but doesn’t look like there are named characters, again at least in the demo.
Anime action bits are so so. Medieval personas don’t look cool. Why didn’t they just put Igor in it?? Will buy at $20.
I love Persona 5 very much. I haven’t tried the demo for Metaphor because I know I don’t need to. I just won’t be buying the game just yet because of time devoted to other games and considerations. Same reason I haven’t bought Persona 3 Reload yet, I just know these games are too long for my current gaming situation. I’ll get to both eventually so might as well wait for a good price or at least me being in a good mood for them
Metaphor seems to have the running around in uncomfortable clothes character design issue that I just cant get past. That messenger bag strap is going to be biting into your neck. Too distracting to think about over a 80 hour game.
yeah even if that bag wasn’t made of leather and metal no strap padding is asking for all sorts of problems. I thought it had a stabilizer strap at least but it was for the sword scabbard.
yeah exactly. Any weight in there and it’ll be swinging out in front and chafing your neck. This is the same reason I couldnt play FFXV those guys all running around a jungle in square toed dress shoes
Oh wait this is real. I just saw the video they posted to YouTube about it. I’m not sure why someone would want this? Seems like any novelty would wear off fast.
Regardless of what it’s been, my body gives a stress response to whenever it hears my alarm sound. Since I use my phone, I have heard it as people’s ringtones and I get a Pavlov effect to immediately being more awake and stressed. The last thing I want is to associate games I like with the stress of waking up.
