Also yeah really can’t stress this one enough. To share my own usage of this, I mainly did the following:
There were a handful of places in the midgame where I nudged a few of the difficulty sliders regarding certain survival mechanics when I felt really stuck in a loop and continually starving to death while trying to accomplish anything, and then returned them to default after a short time of re-establishing myself.
There were two specific encounters where the narrative resolution I wanted to see depended on clearing a handful of combat encounters, and though I felt clearing them was within my capabilities in spite of the clunky ass combat, I got sick of attempting them over and over again, so I juiced myself up with as many combat slider metrics as I could. I returned them to normal afterward.
On what in the moment I assumed was the home stretch of actual gameplay, I turned on God Mode (such as it is) and left it on, because I was exhausted and so invested in the story that I didn’t want to get derailed by anything. I’m not even sure this was strictly necessary to prevent frustration, because I don’t know if it actually helped me overcome or avoid any further misery after all, but it did make the idea of getting frustrated right at the end feel like a remote possibility at most. I’d already made many interesting and difficult decisions by then so it felt like a way to kinda railroad myself on to the denouement.
I can absolutely say in hindsight nothing about any of that detracted from my enjoyment of the game at all.
“where are my subtitles” if you’re referring to the cryptic lines people speak when you initiate a conversation with them, well, that’s one little imperfection with Pathologic 2, I don’t think those are subtitled. The good news is is that they’re rarely if never the important part of the conversation, they’re mostly/just for flavour.
“this game is funny” YES
“traded some rusty scissors for some pills” lemme guess, it was with a child
Though Quarantine was quite interesting and has me looking forward to the full game. We’ll see how well the dense mechanics and structure work - it’s a bit of an odd fit to have this almost board game or perhaps King of Dragon Pass type of system through which lots of dialoging and then quite audiovisually dense and strange walking around segments. I think it does make a good bit of sense for what Dankovsky’s narrative would be. Contrast with Burakh which has this free ranging communitarian sense to it. A lot to chew on. Stray thoughts:
Dont know how much down time the game will ultimately give you. The walking around and thinking about stuff is a core part of Pathologic to this point, and I’m not sure I won’t miss it if it’s diminished or gone. Is the addition of on-screen thoughts the Pathologic 3 approach to this
granted this may not be a representative slice of the final product, but it def seems like it may be dense and complicated enough that 3 could be a challenging entry point for new players
I liked the mental state stuff I think if they tune it right it could get real hairy. Liked the visuals of it and Dankovsky bouncing between bipolar depressive/manic states based on substance use is kind of funny. Reminded me a bit of the underappreciated Dark Corners of the Earth
The Town is very familiar but it seems a lot denser and more populated. More vegetation and junk everywhere. I like the new weird lighting
the visual transition in dialogue between everyone’s weird heads/faces is good. You get a little of that smash cut to closeup jumpscare from good old 2 lol
Noticed the dialogue choices shifting from Dankovsky’s POV to his interlocutor; didn’t grasp what was happening there but it was interesting
didn’t realize Daniil was in such a precarious position in the capitol I think that’s new information
The writing looks strong. Noticed returning + new writers and English literature localizers from 2 are back great news
personally tend to prefer the ambient and electronic Pathologic tracks. Liked what I heard so far. There’s that one walking around on the second day in 2 track that sounds a little like “20 Jazz Funk Greats”, now I notice the “apathetic” track has a “Hamburger Lady” distortion
Not much sense of how the nonlinear narrative will work. Took the opportunity to scour the Mind Map when it gives you the whole thing and it looks complicated
Another thing I noticed from the credits: Elena Alt gets top billing (lol at the credits btw) - she’s listed as Art Director on the studio masthead. She worked on Pathologic 2 ofc but also Indika too just an item of interest
realized there is no autosave after the prologue and lost some data the first time. Whoops.
starting in the end makes me as the player character feel culpable and also hopeful of changing things. It seems obvious that much is beyond player agency or difficult to handle.
the game garners in me an immediate distrust of most characters. In part this is because what they say verbally often does not match the text; in part this is because the written dialogue seems full of assumed motives in a Bakhtinian sense (what they think of me, what I think of them, what they think of themselves). I do not know how reliable the perspective of the player character is, either, as I’m obviously seeing things.
dreams seem strange. The Fellow Traveller seems like a Satanic figure, perhaps the arrival of the plague. He could also be a mirror for the player character, much like the white-headed beings are mirrors for the player character.
the player character seems caught between traditions, at once part of a folk tradition centered on a bull and a respected surgeon. He seems to have some sway - as long as he doesn’t rock the boat too much
being suspected of murder is tough. It seems to be a narrative conceit to force me to make contact with someone sympathetic ASAP, leading to the first significant branched choice (who helps you - if I read the map right there are multiple choices).
In this session I
met a childhood friend who is a crime lord of sorts. I took his advice and got a scalpel
bought a scalpel from the pharmacy
helped give surgery to one of the crime lord’s associates, picking a metal file from his belly (note - the first time, when I hadn’t saved and didn’t know there was no autosave, I totally murdered him and took all his organs because I didn’t understand the surgery mechanic and went ham, something the game seems to encourage by not explaining the mechanic - whoops!)
I gave a naked woman’s blood to a tree (well, maybe. It could have also been my blood) and it gave me an herb, twyre
I met a woman childhood friend (Lara) north. She gave me help. In the dream, I did not defend myself when I was attacked. I met a thief (the Changeling) who seems prophetic. I distrust her almost as much as myself. Now I’ve eaten, rested, and am ready to go out again.
I started playing this game a couple of days ago. doing it on the “normal mode” because I know friction in the way its described wrt pathologic 2 would have me bounce off pretty quick
I think the default difficulty setting is the as-designed “almost unbearable” setup so keep on rockin. No shame in adjusting those sliders if you need to
everything ok so far (day 6). Got lucky and scrounged 3 shmowders (although did get hit by some tough RNG and had to use 2 already) and about to get that early panacea.
@Taliesin_Merlin mentiniong @mikhailbakhtin got me paying close attention to the dialogue - it’s such a smart + cost-effective method to build up characters and relations just through conversations rather than have that stuff be heavy handed Social Link or Cutscene or whatever. Thinking about how for eg your understanding of Lara and Artemy’s relationship to her is affected by your choice of using a Steppe term of endearment to her, and her getting upset about that, and all that can be inferred in the moment and then throughout the narrative from that. And it’s just a single small thread. Great stuff! Also finding it helpful to use soap as a kind of intermediary currency: kids will sell soap for cheap, and the white women will pay a lot for it. It helps keep the sewing supplies coming in when you need to repair your PPE
