Right on. I‘ve been letting it percolate but I suppose by the end of the game I had already developed feelings regarding the previous 35 hours and can get something down on that. Trying to compose thoughts without referring to what you’ve already written, this is going to be pretty scattershot:
Indigeneity, heritage, legacy, childrearing ... the phrase "it takes a village" ... my brain's vocabulary center feels clogged, I don't have the specific words to describe what else this game brings to mind. "Soviet politics" feels too culture-specific--obviously the writing is informed by that history but the human behavior responsible for Soviet-era infrastructure + authoritarianism + human rights violations is universal, a universality which I think the fictional nature of the setting (and theatricality / dramatic devices, etc) does well to convey. Game's got a lot going on, as demonstrated by the above posts in in this thread (started going through it but haven't finished).
One reason the game is so impressive is everything good about it is woven together, interlocked in a way that you can't really praise (or criticize) any one thing without acknowledging its place in the whole (the _udurgh..._).
That you only have so much time in the day to do everything and must wrestle with your inability to do it all is something I find really compelling. You have to disappoint people. Your old friends, the children, the authorities, those on whom it's important you make a good impression—you're going to let people down every day. Lara, Grief, and Rubin all died. _So I could save the children,_ I told myself. It's not what we might say "matters" in the grand scheme of the game's artistic project but I think it does feel worth pointing out. Then again it pretty well exemplifies the concept of _triage_ (you of course do a good amount of literal victim prioritization too).
The abattoir... what a space. Describing it with words limits its power.
I don't think the death system really worked for me, it mostly scared me into looking some stuff up. I figured taking the deal with the fellow traveler was bad news, and knowing I would thereby continue to have to deal with the consequences of death I didn't want to die 600 times in the abattoir; after a few tries there I did look up a spoiler-free guide explaining how to make it through the odonghe encounters (which I elected to do instead of adjusting the difficulty sliders). Other than that particular bit, though, I liked the pressure of the meters, the "difficulty." As I said not having time to go and do everything is a powerful feeling, and your time is so limited in part because you have to take care of yourself. The meters actualize your material poverty and in that more direct way puts you in the shoes of the Town's people—you understand how hungry they are, how tired, exactly how valuable their stuff is to them, and don't want to steal from them or make them suffer, but are constantly presented with the option, and likely even the need, to do so.
I'll admit I was a little confused by the ending, not when I actually went for it but in the process of choosing one: I thought, _Well... I want to help the Kin and the children. Destroying the Polyhedron wouldn't seem to help the children... but although the Polyhedron protects the children from the plague, is it not just a bandaid on a bigger problem, a problem which affects everyone else regardless? And it is furthermore the **source of the problem**._—also some kids outside your lair even flat out ask you to destroy it because it acts as a kind of Neverland for them, a place where they can hide from Real Life and never grow up, which didn't sound great to me.—_The Polyhedron is like "an arrow in Earth's flesh," and... when you get an arrow in your chest, yes, pulling it out causes bleeding, but that doesn't mean leaving it in is a good idea, right? That's not how healing works._ But then the group of Kin showed up outside the bar on the way to finding the Inquisitor's papers and made it clear they wanted the Polyhedron to remain where it was. I dunno, this wishy washiness on my part isn't really important nor did it affect how I feel about the game in total, but it was a point of some confusion.
As far as themes of connection and lines and thread go—Pathologic 2 does the same thing Death Stranding does, but it did it first, and more cogently, and that's only 20% of what's going on in Patho. I love Death Stranding still, but boy howdy. You know?
At one point I stopped the game to go and transcribe a late-game dream conversation between the Bachelor, Changeling and Haruspex because it felt poignant (one about touch vs. blood vs. mind). I hope they make the Changeling route!
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@“yeso”#p57996 in the nocturnal ending she tells him she’s his mother, and the reaction is genuine surprise.
Not how I interpreted his response, but like the best of the dialogue in the game it's pretty open. She does call him "son," but a couple lines later she calls him _essegher_, "father." I read Aspity as the personified Earth, the mother of the Kin, the Boddho who everyone mentions. Aspity does finish her speech saying she'll caress your step...
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@“yeso”#p57971 What actually happens if Stakh survives past the inquisitor’s arrival? I’ve played the game 3 times and never followed his path through the narrative for one reason or another. I can look it up but I’m wondering if other players have any insight
I didn't follow his narrative on this playthrough—I did get to a part where it says you can find him hiding around Grief's warehouses but I wasn't able to track him down
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2r8k7G7D1_8