#p3 crit

[moputopia]

describing artemy only as "trained in steppe lore and traditional medicine" is also very strange to me. like, yes, he is, but it's cutting out a pretty major part of his character? artemy didn't spend the last 5 to 10 years training as a menkhu, when you start the haruspex route the narrator immediately tells you that he was sent off "to study modern medicine in the academy" and that he's "been travelling from town to town learning theoretical and practical surgery for several years now". this is an important part of his character setup, it's part of why he has a hard time being accepted by his community as his father's heir in both games.

it sort of feels like they're solely focusing the "traditional medicine" side of artemy's character as a way to set him up in contrast to daniil's character, but that really strips a lot of nuance away from both of their characters and their dynamic. the way they act as ideological foils to each other isn't as simple as a "traditional vs modern medicine" thing (which is already a questionable dichotomy to draw), because they don't even fit neatly into that false dichotomy. artemy is trained in both "traditions" of medicine, and daniil literally wants to defy the conventional understanding of modern medicine by defeating death. their differences in how they approach medicine is part of their dynamic, but for most of the game (in most routes) they're collaborating for longer than they're working in opposition. their ideological clash is more in terms of their personal motivations and philosophical perspectives than anything, imo.

[ninakaina]

[moputopia]

speaking of the 7 mildly important new NPCs we're expected to care about, i do think serafina and platon were underutilized. not in the sense that i want them to have any more screen time than they do, they have plenty, but they should have done something to affect the story. as it is, you could have replaced them with two test tubes containing precious samples that dankovsky needed to keep the academy from throwing away, and the plot would have stayed the same. basically they fail the Sexy Lamp Test about poor representation of female characters but for lab assistants.

i think the obvious answer is that one or both of them should have defected against dankovsky and sided with the inspector. serafima would be the obvious choice, since she's characterized as the one who is "devoted to the mission of thanatica, not bachelor dankovsky" — she could be convinced that dankovsky running off on the lab was him abandoning them, or decide that using him as a scapegoat would provide a chance for thanatica's work to continue without him (and isn't that the sort of ruthless sacrifice dankovsky himself might make to preserve something precious, anyway?). though at the same time, platon might be the better choice just for the surprise factor, since he's characterized as more of a loyalist true believer. either way!

P3 is missing something like the day 8 "thanatica has already been destroyed" moment of the classic bachelor route — a big moment of sudden betrayal to confirm for the bachelor that even if he escapes the town, things are hopeless for him and his goals. a betrayal from one of his assistants would provide that, it would give them some purpose for existing as characters, and it would alleviate the problem of the inspector coming across as kind of toothless in your many conversations where he does nothing but yap at you, if he was the one who turned serafima or platon. and even in the interpretation that the inspector dialogues are all in dankovsky's head, i think one of the assistants could still fit as yet another voice of his self-doubt.

[moputopia]

i might try to fit this into a more comprehensive take on pathologic 3 as a whole eventually, but one thing about P3's mechanics that really stuck out to me was the drug crafting/items system. it just didn't gel well at all to me. pathologic 2 has the best crafting system out of the series, the way that you can combine different combinations of twyre to manage different aspects of your physical health on top of the baseline immunity/antibiotic boost is really well-done and feels very seamless. i remember in the late game of P2 the first time i played, i started keeping in mind what type of twyre i wanted to keep an eye out for based on what my health/exhaustion/hunger situation was at that time. the names of the different twyres and tinctures (yas, medrel, zurkh) are unfamiliar, but simple enough and a short enough list to be memorized and categorized over a playthrough.

while P2 has one type of tincture you can craft for exhaustion, one type of tincture you can craft for hunger, etc, P3 has like 10 different items that all give a mania boost of varying strength. it has like 10 other items that give you an apathy boost. and it has a handful of health increasing items. unlike P2 and P1, it doesn't have the added complexity of some health items only working over time while you sleep. the sheer number of items that did the same thing, and the harder-to-remember chemical names of these items compared to P2's twyre and tinctures (and that's from someone who's taken chemistry and biochemistry and had prior familiarity with the terms) means that i never built the same instinctual muscle memory that i had with the different effects of the tinctures while playing P2. instead i was often hovering over to remind myself of whether this was a strong item or a weak one, an apathy item or a health item.

on a weird metanarrative level, this almost works. for some reason P3 daniil has a crafting system even though it's supposed to be artemy's domain, but it's all based around whatever drugs he can scrounge up and they quickly become weaker over time, while artemy can source his medicines from twyre that regrows every day and can use their effects to help carry him all the way to the end of the game. it is fitting.

but on a mechanical level, it just really doesn't work for me because it makes P3 a lot less fun and interesting to play.

[moputopia]

line item #10000 of possible ways to write the "outsmarting aglaya at chess" P3 plot point that would have been smarter than what they actually came up with:

LITERALLY ANYTHING INVOLVING YULIA SHE'S HAD A CHESS SET IN HER HOUSE SINCE THE FIRST GAME AND FOR WHAT. AND IT WOULD HAVE BEEN GOOD FUEL FOR THE YULIA/AGLAYA FIRES...

[bigfanofwomen]

Im about to start complaining about stillwater mischaracterization

[bigfanofwomen]

"I used to think Lara would be around forever." yeah 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 of course you did 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 yeau 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂