Pathologic Classic HD

Pathologic is a rather ambitious and unique psychological horror themed adventure game mixed with survival mechanics in a real time open-world. The plot is really interesting, very intriguing. Solving the mystery surrounding the town is not easy task and will take you a lot of time and effort but there is something really entertaining and satisfying about it, you really feel implicated in the story, you really feel the need to learn more about it. The game does have some flaws like the fact that you need to talk to some important people in a specific order to advance in your quest even tho sometimes it seems unnecessary which is particularly frustrating when you don’t know about it and just loose precious time wandering through the streets. In fact the game has so many flaws it will take the whole afternoon to talk about all of them but even if it’s far from perfect it’s a really unique and enjoyable experience. This really is the kind of game where you need to put a lot of time and effort into it before being able to truly enjoy it but when you do it’s amazing. The atmosphere, the environments, the people you meet, this enigmatic music playing in the background and this feeling of being able to change the course of things while being totally overwhelmed by the events at the same time, it’s incredible. Like every niche title it is hard to recommend it because in the end it’s either you like it or you hate it, there is no in between. I personally think that anyone looking to play something different should give it a try, Pathologic might be rough around the edges it offers the player something that he will never find anywhere else.

I usually enjoy games with interesting stories and atmosphere, huge emphasis on exploration, unconventional design, etc. No matter how hard I've tried I couldn't force myself to enjoy Pathologic though. While there actually are a lot of intriguing ideas going on in the game, I think despite all the good effort, it just turns into a confusing and hostile mess. My last effort of finding some enjoyement in the game was when I started to use console commands for a playthrough (and thus skipping all the annoying walking), but didn't matter because I got lost in the chaos of annoyingly overwritten plot anyway. I recommend watching video essays and reviews covering the game instead, those may probably be much more fascinating than trying to achieve anything meaningful by playing the game.

Most reviews around this one will show how gruesome and painstaking this game is to play. Although most are deliberate choices by the game-makers, this is an old "cult classic" game, before buying you should read Quintin's review on Rock Paper Shotgun of if you are lazy, like me, watch Hbomberguy's recent review on Youtube, it has spoilers but it shows what you are facing. The genius and problems in this game can annoy most players, myself included, but it a masterpiece nonetheless And you always can do like me and buy the Pathologic 2 that is suppose to improve on the game pace overall and is the most likely to be a more bearing experience. I hope....

The plot, music, atmosphere of the game as a whole are simply magnificent. She is quite worthy of her film adaptation. The only drawback is the bad mechanics of the fight, but this can be tolerated for the sake of everything else. 10 out of 10, nothing less.

Pathologic is a very unique game. At least I know no other game quite like it. It consists of story for the most part. Other than that there's a lot of walking, which can unfortunately get quite boring at times. The story is about a plague in a small town, in which 3 doctors arrived, for different reasons, now trying to fight the plague. You have to play one of these three doctors. There are various quests you have to fulfill. The side quests sometimes have rewards that you can make use of, and as for the main quests... If you fail to fulfill those before the day ends, well something bad happens. Your actions in the game matter. There are many choices to make, most of which have at least some minor impact on the game. As for the gameplay, it's challenging. You have to eat and sleep regularly, so that you don't die of exhaustion or starvation. There are many enemies in the town, one way or another, you'll have to fight other's at some point, with a combat system which consists of either shooting with weapons, which never takes long, because most of the time a single shot with a weapon is enough to kill someone, including the player, or of running back and forth, with each time you're running forth, you attack and each time you're running back, it's mostly to dodge enemy attacks. And then there's the disease. (You can of course abuse saves to never get infected, or waste so many drugs on healing yourself that you won't have any drugs left for others). Overall, I can say Pathologic is not a game for everyone to enjoy, but it is unique in it's own ways, and if you like rather challenging survival games with a lot of walking and reading, you should be enjoying this. Personal rating: 7/10 Neutral rating: 5.5/10 Note: This review was shortened because of GOG's limit of letters. I have a slightly longer version of this review on the Steam page of this game! I am also currently doing a playthrough of it on my Twitch channel, the link to which you can find on my profile.