I love this game to bits, but it's an adventure game. You're directed where to go, not given a true sandbox.
playing pathologic 2 is like reading a book that is beating you to death. or atleast, that's how it feels. You are not a hero. You are not strong. You are not the main character. You are immoral. You are weak. You are a supporting character. You may end up murdering children just to survive, or murdering someone as a sacrifice to save someone else. You are punished for being incompetent and rewarded for being corrupt or evil. Most importantly, time. Most of the time in this game is spent running place to place while stressing about what little time you have. Playing this game is a large undertaking, but it's incredible. First playthrough should not be on intended difficulty, otherwise you will just have a bad time.
This game will leave you feeling completely lost, constantly. When this happens, either explore or visit the museum. Your first playthrough will be around 45 hours. Your second? 25. Completely genius writing (second only to Vampire - The Masquerade - Bloodlines), my favourite fantasy world, genius quests, incredible visual style, more and more. I don't think I've ever played a book so good, this actually got me into reading books for the first time. Give it a good chance, have some patience, and you'll find something unforgettable.
This game is absolutely fantastic. A showcase of the design that could've been is that in one of the first few quests, you are tasked to steal a donation box, where you can protest to not do so, and told that it was going to the rich anyways. Stealing it without protesting leads to a loss in humanity (sort of like a score of morality). But if you do protest and get told the truth about the box, you do not lose humanity. Unfortunately, the later parts of the game are not nearly as well designed and it becomes a dungeon crawler. However all the quests, characters and the early levels are all fantastic and i can't say there's a single character or line of dialog that is poorly written. Here's a little story: I bought this game in my "welcome to GOG" deal, and this game was one of the many on the pile of games i bought. I ignored it for months but eventually i ran out of games on steam to play and decided to check GOG. I sorted them by player reviews and this was the top choice (after Deus Ex which my pc was incompatible with at the time because that pc was garbage.) The first time i played it i skipped the tutorial completely and went around on the street and accidentally right clicked, which alerted police and I died pretty quick. I decided after that to actually role play and design my character based on how i wanted my character to be. I made him a persuasive artist that uses vampiric powers to slow down (their perception of) time and shoot people. Little did i know this is the most overpowered build in the entire game.
