In 2019, Ice Pick Lodge released Pathologic 2, a remake/sequel/reimagining of their original title Pathologic. With videos by SulMatul, RagnaRox and MandaloreGaming, the Town on Gorkhon welcomed a swarm of new healers, both Russian and over in the West. It’s praised as an improvement on every aspect of the original, and it’s claimed that Pathologic 2 is what Pathologic 1 should have been.
I did not play Pathologic 2.
I played the HD remaster of the original.
Because that was the legible English version.
Now I can feel MandaloreGaming having the sudden urge to cringe inwards until he forms a black hole at the idea. For he also played the original version and very much explained how you shouldn’t play it. Even hbomberguy made a whole video discussing it at length and explaining it simply so people could enjoy it without the suffering. But it was on sale for a dollar and I chose to give it a shot.
I loved this game. I’m not going to hide it. Sure the original day was a fucking nightmare and I often got in a loop of doing the same 30 minutes of gameplay over and over, but surprisingly I never found the game tedious or monotonous like others did. I obsessed over the story snippets and how the characters felt like random people, with flaws in speech and behaviour and all. There was also something so interesting about how people’s personalities changed with each healer route, seeing friends become strangers or even enemies based on who I was made such a difference.
The biggest criticism Pathologic 1 and 2 get is the amount of walking, especially in Pathologic 1 where you don’t even have a run option. For me, as long as I remember to save somewhat consistently, the walking stretches never seemed like a pain. As someone with autism, walking in circles does provide some relief for me, a type of stimming. In a video game, it provided me with similar room to ponder the story, plan out my activities and day and ensure every dumpster within a 6-mile radius was ravaged through and emptied. In fact, I may be considered a maniac, but walking was one of my favourite parts.
The combat though… Definitely liked that a lot less. I never went out purposefully to cause havoc par a few thief kills to earn extra money (especially before I learned I could sell unwanted items). But I did use console commands to test a theory, and I could stand right in front of a stationary soldier and shoot him in the exact same place, and the majority of my gunshots would not connect at point blank. There was also the pain of shooting one guard and getting mowed down by 7 who all fired their guns instantly into your head. However unlike other games with poor combat (looking at you, Scorn), it is not necessary toward the game completion in any route but the Haruspex’s and even then, you don’t have to complete the main objective each day, only if you wish to keep your Bound healthy until the end. So you can always ditch the quest before that point and take the infected Bound.
I put 99 hours into this game. Part of me wants to play through Pathologic 2 but I’m unsure if I really want to put in another 20-40 hours playing through a plot that’s too similar to the first. I know there are major themes but again, 2 is sort of like a remake. It’s hard to justify at the moment, perhaps if I wait a few months and it goes on sale I can convince myself. No one’s really talked about if it’s worth it either, most got stuck between deciding between Classic and 2, and not many discussed if it was a worthy investment playing 2 after completing Classic. I definitely see it as an option but not now.
Until then, I’ll satiate my hyper fixation with short stories and the Tabletop Simulator version of the board game, which I’ve found very fun recently. I highly recommend you check it out, the simulator’s cheap and you can always add more games to it. As for whether you play Pathologic 2 or Pathologic Classic? Play 2, it’s got better graphics and custom difficulty and is a more refined interpretation of Ice Pick’s original vision, but it never hurts to grab the remarkably cheaper Classic HD version if you’re on a budget. The graphics sometimes aid the surreal feeling.
Keep learning and keep sharing stories.
-Reyes Raine
References:
hbomberguy. (2019). Pathologic is Genius, And Here’s Why [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsNm2YLrk30&ab_channel=hbomberguy
MandaloreGaming. (2018). Pathologic Classic HD Review [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeK36g92zjo&ab_channel=MandaloreGaming
RagnarRox. (2019). Pathologic 2 is an Underrated Masterpiece [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q00T0xxj2o0&ab_channel=RagnarRox
SulMatul. (2019). Dissecting Pathologic 2; Why It’s The Best Game of 2019 [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKhSbZPBEKc&ab_channel=SulMatul
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