The Pathologic 3: Quarantine Review
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Pathologic 3's free prologue, Quarantine, is out now! Here's a massive list of things I noticed that I couldn't fit into the video:
-After speaking to Artemy, Clara, and the Changeling, you get a Steam achievement called “Talk to ALL the other protagonists.”
-Clara/Changeling seems to have knowledge of all of the events of Pathologic 2, but Daniil does not.
-You get to see scenes in the big city Daniil is from, including an impressive and rather imposing set-piece that sets the tone about as well as Artemy’s giant bull vision did.
-Talking to Eva seems to have some sort of sedative or meditative effect - time passes quicker than it should when you are talking to her.
-Pathologic 3 on Steam offers both keyboard+mouse and controller support. I began playing with a controller. About an hour into the game, suddenly moving the left thumbstick began controlling my PC’s audio levels out of nowhere. It was very disconcerting and at first I thought it was some kind of Ice-Pick Lodge sanity effect. It was not, and I finished out my playthrough on keyboard+mouse.
-I had to do a good bit of graphics/setting tweaking to get the game running in a stable, non-slideshow fashion. This also felt like some sort of Ice-Pick Lodge-esque sanity effect, especially after this same PC was running Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 with no issues.
-I fundamentally did not understand the on-screen UI meter at any given point and at this point I am afraid to ask.
-Daniil has a boat in his house that is identical to the boat the kids were playing with outside. Given how important children are in the Pathologic universe, this seems important.
-I talked earlier about how Daniil doesn’t rummage through trash cans or drink at spigots. Instead, he kicks them. I think doing this slightly raises Mania? Unclear at the moment, need more experimentation.
-Daniil has multiple devices revolving around creating medicines in his office, but they are unavailable in the demo.
-Locations like the Train Station, the Polyhedron, and most of the Town’s zones are unavailable in the demo. That being said, you do see the Polyhedron in the distance during certain points.
-There is a curious lack of Mark Immortel and/or any giant talking rats. Perhaps I have missed them.
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