loved the enhancements to gameplay, it's a completely different pace than the original, but still induces that same anxiety (even moreso).

changes to the story i liked:
- artemy feels more like a father to his bound. it made sense that the artemy i played would choose the children over running away with aglaya. making murky and sticky more prominent characters definitely added to this.
- i liked how snarky artemy was, he felt more real in this iteration.
- the influence of isidor and his legacy on artemy, providing better reasoning for his motivations.
- the rubin/artemy relationship. in patho 1, rubin sends you threatening letters then immediately apologizes when he learns what happened. i like that in 2 you have to actively convince him to stay with you.
- the scene where you go into the depths and communicate with the udurgh. best part of the game imo.

changes i didn't like:
- they try to force this artemy/aglaya relatonship on us despite her being an asshole to him the whole game. in patho 1 it felt like they had more development through their common goal to destroy the polyhedron. i kind of missed the trial you had at the cathedral, in comparison to them basically forcing destroying the tower on you.
- i feel like they didnt know what to do with lara and were like "childhood best friend love interest" and i just didnt care sorry xx
- the ending... i felt like they were just throwing the meta game aspects at me rather than letting me discover them (again i think this is the negative aspect to the fast pace). it just made me appreciate how much better it was done in patho 1.
- some of the cutscenes were too on the nose for me, but that's my preference.
- rip grief's silly cockney accent. rip lara's pixie cut. rip capella's hair.

changes i'm divided on:
- the relationship between artemy and daniil. it does make more sense that daniil is a dickhead from the get go, but part of me loves the closer relationship they have in patho 1.