The Patient Press | Issue #03 | Second Time's the Charm

Welcome to the third issue of The Patient Press! This zine is the collaborative effort of members from the Patient Gamers discord, an off-shoot community from the subreddit of the same name. Patient gamers (the good ones, anyway) wait at least one year from a game's release to purchase it, whether that be for reasons like waiting for a good sale, avoiding the initial hype of a new release, waiting for bug fixes, or for the simple fact that they have an ever-growing list of games already queued up in their backlog.

This issue's theme is Second Time's the Charm, referring to the phenomenon of how the second attempt usually ends up being the best in a franchise. Not only that, but how developers improve upon their own mechanics in future sequels, as one writer explores Final Fantasy developer Square's rehashed Job system in the fifth game; or the jump between the PlayStation 1 and 2, and how changes to the console's hardware brought graphical fidelity and gameplay capabilities forward in the industry of game development; or even how a fan game twists its inspiration's mechanics and storytelling devices into something uniquely its own, and subverts the player's expectations in the process.

We hope you've recently been to the doctor for a shot, because you're about to get a heavy dose of sequel-itis. Enjoy!

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CREDITS:

Design/Editor: @pumkin

Spellchecking:

@marvelousmax

@culturallemur

Articles:

The Playstation 2: Recent History's Best Sequel - @jass5991

Borderlands 2: A Great Sequel to a Unique but Flawed Predecessor - @shane

The Many Tentacles of The Darkness II - @partisan_rohan

Final Fantasy V: A Glorious Second Take at the Job System - @katare

The Second Revival's the Charm? - @corence

I Wanna Take You for a Ride - @depressedmetfan

3...2...1...Knock Out! - @jerychon

How Ori and the Will of the Wisps Improves on the Ori-ginal - @pg

The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe - What Is a Sequel? - @lawnch

Everhood as a Response to Undertale: Rethinking Morality - @bowsori