Pathologic Classic HD

Pathologic is honestly one of the best and one of the worst games that I have had the good fortune and the misfortune to play. For the good, the atmosphere is top notch. The game draws you into the bizare world of a nameless town on the Steppe in Russia, roughly a thousand miles from anywhere else, a unique fusion of early twentieth century and steppe culture. The soundtrack is eerie, and the whole town manages to feel very distinctly wrong, although with no clear reason why. The story is fascinating, and I will say nothing about it here, go experience it for yourself. It's a very unique and memorable game, that I cannot reccomend highly enough. However, it is also a broken and barely finshed mess. The game will probably top out around 80-100 hours if you play all three characters, and the atmosphere can carry you maybe halfway through a playthrough before it starts to get really really dreary. You cannot run, and combat is a broken and barely functional mess of almost nonexistent player hit detection and enemy hit detection which almost never misses. The game is utterly terrible at telling you where you are supposed to be going or what you are supposed to be doing, to the point where I ended up playing through most of it with a walkthrough open on my phone to even know where to go. You can literally lock yourself out of progressing by picking the wrong dialouge options, and having characters clam up and refuse to speak to you. The Survival mechanics, which should be a core part of the game are very easy to break by farming muggers for cash (If you can survive their homing missile knife attack) or by simply finding a gun and murdering looters, at least until the gun's durability goes down and suddenly it has the effectiveness of a water pistol. Due to horrible broken design I cannot reccomend. See my issue here... I was entranced by the story, but hated the part where it actually had to be a game. So I both Highly reccomend and urge you to keep away.

Title above alone is worth of giving 10/10 but let me explain: Original has special place in my heart, especially since I own it on original disk which was localized in my region which was very rare due to overall small market(referring to box itself with manual/game description at the back cover). Game itself was very unique at a time since it was one of the first real life simulators. Being in rural Russia with so many diverse stories to be seen and events to be visited game tells a lot. Unique eerie feeling that follows with great soundtrack makes the atmosphere follow you throughout the game. Classic HD mainly improves on translation, but some in game content is changed so please play original since there are some scenes that I highly prefer in original game. I will not spoil game for you so I will finish my review here and the rest is to be experience when playing the game.

It took me multiple tries until I got into the game. The writing and the mechanics are so obscure, that it takes a lot of time to understand what the dialogue is about and how the game works. The game looks outdated but conveys still a surreal menacing atmosphere. The Good: + Thought provoking story from different perspectives. + Multiple things to consider (health, hunger, exhaustion, desease and time). The Bad: There are a lot of unfair situations that make savescumming a necessary evil. The savescumming turns the thrill of survival into an often frustrating experience.

It's slow at times, the controls are clunky, it's text heavy with pretty bad translations (improved in the ClassicHD version), the graphics have not aged well and the animations are sub-par. And yet, still, this has got to be one of my favorite games of all time! It's survival horror like never before, where you take the role of a healer in a town consigned to the plague and held under quarantine. The secrets of the town run deep; there's always something new to uncover. Everyone lies; but they're the half-truth lies used to manipulate you and keep you from seeing the whole picture. As you play through each of the three characters, more and more of the story comes together. Can you alone cure the plague?

This game is a real mystery. Truly, this is a game that does not want you to finish it. This game does not want to reveal it's secrets, and will only dole them out grudgingly in small amounts. I have completed the Haruspex Path and posted it to Youtube, and I've seen an LP of the entire Bachelor Path, and I have absolutely no idea what's going on, I don't know who started the plague or why, the motivations of the key characters are still obscured in shadows. That's not to say I've learned nothing, I know every character in this entire town as if they were real, they are burned into my memory, I know them all, and I love them. They are all so deep, and so noble in their disreputable pursuits. It's like trying to discover the truth in a room full of liars. The town operates based on ritual and tradition. They have their own rules, which they follow devoutly, and their real motivations remain obscured. There's a lot of politics and factional fighting, the person on top today might not be by tomorrow. The inquisitor was a wonderful character, everyone hated her, but she proved herself, just like they all did. Some characters seem almost like 2d cardboard cutouts at first, but by the end, they serve their purpose, and their motivations are rational, and true. Everyone acts as they do for a reason, and even when this is in conflict both reasons are valid. What that reason is isn't always apparent either. There is so much to say about this game. It's the most hardcore survival game ever made. You may or may not survive to the end. This game is like 3 full games combined into one, the character choices are not meaningless like in other games, each character has a completely different storyline, each character sees the events differently. It is somewhat amusing how foolish each of them appear to the others. The game gives you a lot of freedom, you can complete your tasks as you wish, you can be defeated just as easily by your words as you can by a knife, gun, or plague cloud