This review contains spoilers
its insane how much improvement there already is... the presentation, art, music, new gameplay mechanics and stuff to manage like addiction and withdrawals... very very cool stuff. even the font for days / chapters is just so stunning. tons of new enemy designs, new skills etc. i laughed when i started o'saa's intro and realized you could play funger1 again just as a text adventure. amazing stuff
unfortunately this game is way too much for my adhd... after about 7 hours of playing i only barely managed to enter the city and explore it a bit, which is maybe 5% of the entire game. i dont think i can reasonably beat it, even if i were to cheat and save edit/install a mod to give infinite saves, it would take more time and effort than i can spend so ill take my L. but i enjoyed my time with it: managed to successfully recruit 4 characters, found and tried using 4 skin bibles - realizing vinushka's could help me climb on vertically higher levels was so fun, saw all kinds of enemies and events in the city... most satisfying moment was getting the eagle key and returning to tunnel 7, running into needles and thinking that this run is probably doomed again bc i died to him last time, only for abella to successfully wrench toss into his head so he died. genuinely just had a laugh of relief. but these hard-won moments were just too rare between either getting beaten to death or poisoned to death or infected to death vs aimless walking as i tried to figure out what to do next
i think my big issue is that saving moves time forward. im never particularly good with time limit / time management games, and it frustrates me a lot more than rng / crow mauler of FNH1... ofc its by design but its definitely not for me. im aware it can be circumvented by god of fear and hunger's sigil or getting lucky enough to get a book of enlightenment, but thats still at most 3 time-unaffecting saves if you either built for getting the skin bible or were lucky to find it. i think it would have worked if the game had the same amount of content as FNH1 but it feels a lot more sprawling with all the locations and characters and events that i just get insane FOMO and spend all my time thoroughly Not having fun
EDIT as of 23.06.2023:
my positives still stand, but my negatives... also still stand. the big cast and the battle royale are the draw, and i do like that the game has a real undercurrent of violence to it - you gain more abilities by cutting off the heads of everyone you kill, you can even attack the non-violent moonscorched in town for it, you kill the other contestants to get their abilities - and it really eats at you. i felt genuinely sick after longer sessions of the game. it was easier to detach from the macabre horrors of FNH1, but it wasn't as easy to remove myself from the more realistic murder mayhem of 2. the events that happen in the city, and how you might not be able to intervene in all of them, or you can make things worse sort of reminds me of pathologic 2 in a good way, prehevil feels alive in those moments. there are some fantastic locations too, like the white-mold apartments, or the final bunker for ending A, or the tortured department store - and of course, my beloved prehevil bop. the sigil mechanics are also really nice, especially those that provide a window into alternate dimensions or otherwise inaccessible locations, there's a lot of layers to it.
but i do think that the game also suffers a bit from having so many characters and a far bigger map. and when the currently unplayable charas are planned to be made playable, and the map is only going to get bigger now with the upcoming fishing game update and what not... i don't know if that was really the move. there are still some unique thoughts and events, marina's church event or marcoh's interactions with caligura come to mind, but it's harder to make something as fun as o'saa's confessional booth for everyone. i also feel like ending A is by nature is far more interesting for olivia than for anyone else, while the rest of the endings cannot provide the same depths to other characters. overall, there is this feeling of... unfocusedness? i do not think it's fair to judge it while it might still get many updates from now on, but with more and more characters, locations and events i feel like the game will just get overencumbered.
i also really hated every puzzle in the game aside from the white mold apartment one, it's just so stupid. find 3 logic circuits... find 3 effigies... and oh my god the fucking sewer puzzle. it's not engaging gameplay it's just busy work? i suppose switching between ancient city/true mahabre in FNH1 was similar but maybe because it was the only big puzzle it felt less annoying, while here the map is bigger and there are more puzzles... i don't know how to feel about it really :(
unfortunately this game is way too much for my adhd... after about 7 hours of playing i only barely managed to enter the city and explore it a bit, which is maybe 5% of the entire game. i dont think i can reasonably beat it, even if i were to cheat and save edit/install a mod to give infinite saves, it would take more time and effort than i can spend so ill take my L. but i enjoyed my time with it: managed to successfully recruit 4 characters, found and tried using 4 skin bibles - realizing vinushka's could help me climb on vertically higher levels was so fun, saw all kinds of enemies and events in the city... most satisfying moment was getting the eagle key and returning to tunnel 7, running into needles and thinking that this run is probably doomed again bc i died to him last time, only for abella to successfully wrench toss into his head so he died. genuinely just had a laugh of relief. but these hard-won moments were just too rare between either getting beaten to death or poisoned to death or infected to death vs aimless walking as i tried to figure out what to do next
i think my big issue is that saving moves time forward. im never particularly good with time limit / time management games, and it frustrates me a lot more than rng / crow mauler of FNH1... ofc its by design but its definitely not for me. im aware it can be circumvented by god of fear and hunger's sigil or getting lucky enough to get a book of enlightenment, but thats still at most 3 time-unaffecting saves if you either built for getting the skin bible or were lucky to find it. i think it would have worked if the game had the same amount of content as FNH1 but it feels a lot more sprawling with all the locations and characters and events that i just get insane FOMO and spend all my time thoroughly Not having fun
EDIT as of 23.06.2023:
my positives still stand, but my negatives... also still stand. the big cast and the battle royale are the draw, and i do like that the game has a real undercurrent of violence to it - you gain more abilities by cutting off the heads of everyone you kill, you can even attack the non-violent moonscorched in town for it, you kill the other contestants to get their abilities - and it really eats at you. i felt genuinely sick after longer sessions of the game. it was easier to detach from the macabre horrors of FNH1, but it wasn't as easy to remove myself from the more realistic murder mayhem of 2. the events that happen in the city, and how you might not be able to intervene in all of them, or you can make things worse sort of reminds me of pathologic 2 in a good way, prehevil feels alive in those moments. there are some fantastic locations too, like the white-mold apartments, or the final bunker for ending A, or the tortured department store - and of course, my beloved prehevil bop. the sigil mechanics are also really nice, especially those that provide a window into alternate dimensions or otherwise inaccessible locations, there's a lot of layers to it.
but i do think that the game also suffers a bit from having so many characters and a far bigger map. and when the currently unplayable charas are planned to be made playable, and the map is only going to get bigger now with the upcoming fishing game update and what not... i don't know if that was really the move. there are still some unique thoughts and events, marina's church event or marcoh's interactions with caligura come to mind, but it's harder to make something as fun as o'saa's confessional booth for everyone. i also feel like ending A is by nature is far more interesting for olivia than for anyone else, while the rest of the endings cannot provide the same depths to other characters. overall, there is this feeling of... unfocusedness? i do not think it's fair to judge it while it might still get many updates from now on, but with more and more characters, locations and events i feel like the game will just get overencumbered.
i also really hated every puzzle in the game aside from the white mold apartment one, it's just so stupid. find 3 logic circuits... find 3 effigies... and oh my god the fucking sewer puzzle. it's not engaging gameplay it's just busy work? i suppose switching between ancient city/true mahabre in FNH1 was similar but maybe because it was the only big puzzle it felt less annoying, while here the map is bigger and there are more puzzles... i don't know how to feel about it really :(
Reviewed on May 13, 2023