Pathologic 2 is like the video game adaptation of Pathologic

It's a game that, no matter how well or how many times you describe to someone how perfect it is, it still isn't enough to fully describe it.

This game is Art,
It's not describable, it's experienced.

¥50,000 huh…… ▋

What the fuck, man. This goddamn game. Suda you’re a fucking madman. I wrote literally two scripts before writing this one. I can’t find the right balance between overtly referencing The Silver Case and articulating my own thoughts, so, fuck it. We’re winging this shit. I’m not going to stress on this review at all. I’m writing freely. This game actually fucked me up LOL. My sleep schedule was ruined by it. Just like Tokio fr!!! Game was insanely captivating and immersive so much so that I couldn’t put it down.

FUCK THE PAST ▋

First off, I have to say I absolutely adore the art style and visual presentation. When I initially found out about The SIlver Case I was immediately drawn in by the art style. For so long I've been striving to find a game that’s reflective of my taste in art. This is that game. It’s so unique and senseless while still having a constructed comfy feel forming an immaculate atmosphere. Everything is weirdly claustrophobic but in a seemingly more focused manner? It’s hard to describe why I love it so much, it’s just my tastes.

FUCK THE BAT ▋

I’m left kinda speechless? Honestly this game caters to my tastes so well that I’m left with nothing but fragments of these memories conspired by Silverization. The past? Perhaps. Can one kill such a thing? The themes present all throughout the game remain strangely relevant while still being reflective of the times. The turn of the century…

FUCK KAMUI ▋

Suda is a weird fucking guy. I think everyone can agree to this. If this is just the tip of the iceberg with how far he can go then goddamn I’m in for a ride. Regardless, I actually really fucking love most of the characters. They’re all unique and the interactions between them are classic. Kusabi and Sumio are favorites with their gayass silly banter. Tokio is my personal favorite, though. I might have to say that I enjoyed Placebo more than Transmitter. The mystery was thicker and I found the simplistic tedious nature of the gameplay loop to be highly enveloped. It’s a more personal take on the grander scheme that Transmitter presents us with. The gaps left in the story of Transmitter get filled in nicely in Placebo. Both parts complete each other to form the stylistic and complex package. Plus Tokio is the most lovable fucking asshole I’ve seen in a game. His character development is also pretty three dimensional I’d say. In his last moments I really felt a sense of purity and oneness with him.

FUCK THE 24 WARDS ▋

Thinking about it more and more I kinda wish the story wasn’t as…rushed? Once you hit lifecut shit just puts itself out into the open and revealed. I think there was defo emotional buildup but it did seem a bit jarring coming off of Placebo which didn’t really resolve much. All in all the fantastic writing stays consistent all the way through so it’s not a deal breaker. The mystery is still there and it looms even after the game’s departure.

FUCK BIG DICK ▋

One last thing, the soundtrack. Haters will say it doesn’t go hard. Every song has the perfect tone to accentuate a scene. It completes the story, in a way. Hitting the extra beats that the story can’t always hit by itself. Masafumi Takada never misses.

FUCK YOU ▋

That’s it, I guess. I’ll still be pondering over this game’s enigmatic existence probably for years to come. I’m glad I finally experienced this batshit piece of fiction (bat lol) after almost a year of it sitting on my shelf. The more games I play, the more games that end up on my damn shelves. Here’s to Flower, Sun, and Rain hopefully being as engaging for me as this game.

FUCK ▋

Sudaheads, one question,
Would you lend him ¥50,000?


Save Log ▋
Your journal has been updated ▋

(Spoiler-Free Review)

It seriously impressed me just how well this PS1 game has aged. Yeah the character models don't look the best compared to what we have now, although personally I think they have charm. Where Metal Gear Solid makes up for that however is the atmosphere, the vibes of Shadow Moses Island are exceptional. The empty echoing warehouses and snowy fields make the player, despite having characters to talk to whenever they'd like, feel isolated and alone.

Gameplay is great! Each room filled with enemies, surveillance cameras and hazards are puzzles that have multiple methods of succeeding and are very satisfying to proceed through. It also makes keeping track of your inventory important, as there will be times when having a certain item will make an encounter significantly less difficult. Also, every boss fight is memorable and requires unique ways of combating their abilities to defeat them. Overall the gameplay has aged very nice!

The part where you need to backtrack to get the sniper rifle to proceed wasn’t that bad in my opinion. And though the keycard temperature puzzle made me roll my eyes at how blatantly obvious the reason for it existing was to pad out gameplay, even that wasn’t very long or difficult.

The story is gripping, and is constantly throwing new information and plot twists to keep the player invested. There were some insane moments that I didn’t see coming at all. Both the good and bad guys have interesting and likeable characters that are backed up by incredible voice acting, especially for 1997 standards.

The soundtrack is so good!! Every ambience, area and combat theme fits perfectly. Introduction, Encounter, Duel, and The Best Is Yet To Come are some of my favorites.

Again it is really awesome just how incredible MGS1 has aged, it might just be the best PlayStation 1 title ever. If you are interested in this series I absolutely recommend this as the entry point. Despite it being over two decades old it's held up exceptionally well and is a must-play experience.

(Btw if you didn’t actually put your controller on the floor during that one cutscene you are weak.)

Max Payne is a special game. It has one of the best presentations and art directions of its era. Comic book style cutscenes, cold wintery ambiance, depressing revenge story, trippy dream sequences.. i can go on and on. Max Payne also has seamless feeling of exploration. If you need ammo and painkillers, well you need to explore every part of your surroundings. Weapon selection is also excellent.

It has two major problems in my opinion. First one is, the gameplay lacks diversity. Whole game feels pretty much the same. Yes game throws at you puzzles, new weapons etc. but, the core gunplay and your enemies gets old very very quickly. I get tired of doing same shit over and over again. Second problem is, oh boy that platforming is god awful. Jumping fucking sucks and whole platforming parts feels like a pain in the ass.

But overall, Max Payne is a huge leap forward in video game visual direction. Some shots between levels are absolutely amazing. It reels feels good. Gameplay holds back but i really love its unique charm. Pretty good game

more than anything else, the silver case is one of the most endearingly cool games i've ever played. every change of the interface the reflect the themes of the chapter at hand, every swing-for-the-fences plot beat, every gruff toothpick-sucking one liner, every new order song title drop, everything we're shown and just as important the deliberate anticlimax of what we're NOT given and NOT shown - it all blends together to create this early masterwork that's still every bit textbook suda51 as killer7 or no more heroes, but so much more subtly grounded (in comparison) to any of his succeeding work i've played.

there's a deliberate feeling of monotony and repetition in the world and gameplay of the silver case that becomes an essential part of its narrative - whether it reflect on the beeline nothingness that is the life of tokio morishima, the scale's juxtaposing shift which grows literally larger but equally smaller and more intimate... there's just this grinding, menial feeling to all of the tasks and days gone by in the silver case. it feels as if nothing really happens until the right pawns are on the board and properly in play. you learn to love basically every person in this game to the point that you look forward to the next mundane conversation with them; you anticipate morishima going home and talking to red, or getting cyberbullied on chatrooms by teenagers, or the ballbusting stakeout chats between kusabi and sumio. so when even the slightest change occurs, it's going to take your heart for a spin. it's by design.

one of the other fine juxtapositions of the silver case is its dialogue, one of the finest localizations i've ever seen. everything about the silver case feels deliberately plastic at first; you're thrust into the world of hardened police officers spouting badass quips and insults - it's almost pastiche. the one-liners will stick around, the cool designs will stick around, but ultimately the story becomes that of broken, aging men who are being asked to examine their world and how it really works for the first time. the story of tetsu kusabi - potential candidate for my favorite character in ANY video game - carries this idea home the hardest. it's the story of a man pure in his mind of absolutes and superlatives essentially waking up for the first time, seeing the world for the pollockian quagmire of intentions, reasonings, and deliberations it actually is. the silver case is a game about hearts and minds connecting in the looming presence of y2kism, a story about the old guard and the new world on the horizon. i'll get more into the thematic underbelly of this game at a later date, because this is far from the only piece i want to make on this game - but its core structure and analysis of the dotcom era, masculinity and what we define that as, grief and trauma, isolation and abandonment, it all rings pretty true now as it did in '99, and i daresay this game even tackled concepts that it would take 2 years for mgs2 to get to earlier and perhaps equally as memorably. i see a lot of influence on death note down the line too, and as far as contemporaries, i'd say silver case is like 1/3 cowboy bebop, 1/3 ghost in the shell, and 1/3 serial experiments lain. it's memorable, powerful, important stuff.

the silver case’s ultimate resolve is pretty simple - the mysteries, the secrets, the twists, it’s all a load of bullshit anyways. it existed in a moment and that moment is gone. it’s in the past. the only way you're going to push through the pain, the grief, the trauma, the anticlimactic goodbyes, the old flames, the words left unsaid, the last memories of people and places you can't ever go back to or relive, is to simply refuse that darkness which cultivates in your past to manifest itself anymore. you have to grow and reflect and move on to become your true self. you HAVE to kill the past if you want to find that first ray of light; hope for yourself, hope for the future.

"Seize that fucking light, Akira."

THE SILVER CASE COMPLETE.
FLOWER, SUN & RAIN IS COMING...

🌕 Dreams Never End
https://youtu.be/WS1X0EBlQ3Y

The 51lver Case:

Do you like books? I personally am very mixed on them, on one hand they have some of the most compex stories and they feel much more personal compared to the other art forms, on the other hand however a page being covered with full of text and nothing else makes me tired to the point where I am focused on finishing a chapter so that I can be done with a book rather than the actual story itself. Visual novels seemed to be fixing every issue I have with reading books; having their own atmosphere, sound design, stylish visuals and gameplay segments to spice things up. As much as I like how visual novels sounded it took me a long time to try some examples from the genre and without a doubt The Silver Case and it's sequel 25th Ward are easily my favorite ones amongst them, they single handedly made me interested in them all over again.

The first thing you will be delighted with The Silver Case once you start playing is without a doubt the aesthetic and the style it has. The menu is like a DJ controller board and every case and reports have their own theme songs playing on the menu. The soundtrack and aesthetic in general is just shouting 90's and I just love it. Every case also has their own art style, not to go into much spoilers but in one case where it's all about visiting somebody's past, the whole case is black and white. In one case about the internet crimes and sketchy websites the whole background is full of green digital codes and loading screens the game is full of details like this which you'll appreciate.

The sound design and the OST is just incredible, no surprise coming from Masafumi Takada he worked on litterally every game I am either interested in or loved playing bro how did I not know you also worked on God Hand, Akira Yamaoka also worked on it too like damn it was bound to be something unforgettable. Can't go without saying the mix between 3D visuals for the environments and the hand drawn visuals for the characters is full of style and life, I just couldn't get enough of it; it's beatiful.

The Silver Case shines the most with its complex narrative, there is a mysterious atmoshpere and it takes place in a world where you really can't trust anybody but you need to if you really want to move on in life. You take control of well yourself, a character you name and you found yourself working in the Heinous Crimes Unit solving some rather interesting crimes. This game is also the start of the famous "Kill The Past" franchise, my first exposure to this franchise was killer7 and that game impacted me probably more than any game did and I just needed to play more from this franchise (please somebody localise Moonlight Syndrome). Kill The Past is an important phrase throughout the whole game, some characters will need to face their past to move on wheter they get rid of it or save it, its a major part of the story you'll need to figure out. The ending of this game will destroy you- just like Killer7 the Suda51 magic is so powerful...

Let's talk storytelling, a topic I legit can't stop talking about when it comes to videogames. The game is divided into 2 parts, cases which you play as yourself as I mentioned and investigate crimes with the other members of the Crime Unit, most of the main story happens here but there are also reports where you take control of Tokio Morishima (best character btw), and to earn a living Tokio is working for some organization as a freelance reporter searching information about some of these crimes and not only you learn extra information here if the cases came off as too complicated and trust me they will but these reports sections have their own characters and stories that ties into the main story in very cool and unexpected ways. I also generally liked the fact that the story had 2 different perspectives, for example since Tokio is always at the computer and not investigating you'll see how e-mails, online chats are structured, how the public learns the news you already know of from the cases. It's also surprising how well the game aged, it originally came out in 1999 for Japan and this is just a remake of that version. A lot of the political topics this game tackles are still as correct as they were and it also makes me wish more modern games would tackle these topics.

For a narrative focused game like The Silver Case the gameplay mostly does it's job, you can't really move freely it's kind of like killer7 where you are on rails and you'll mostly get in contact with stuff while investigating and with some occasional puzzles, there is also exploration wheter you ask bunch of people several questions or just explore a building and honestly it's not that fun to the point where you might say "I'd rather read", the on rails gameplay doesn't really match that well with the exploration but I am the guy who was fine with Silent Hill 4's escort missions so yeah... I didn't really care and it managed to be interesting at times, I am trying my best to convince you the gameplay is fine but it depends on your tolerance.

With a crazy genius fictional world, incredible storytelling and characters The Silver Case manages to be one of my favorite gaming experiences of all time, no game I've played from the current generation has came close to taking risks The Silver Case takes. Suda51 did it again huh, Flower Sun and Rain and that #Case 4.5 book is next and I can't wait to play them. All and all I can't recommend The Silver Case enough, it's an exceptionally interesting and mindbending experience you won't regret playing.