Pathologic 2

An essential companion piece to the original, while still sitting comfortably in the shortlist for the best games ever made.

I haven't beaten pathologic 1 yet (I'm on day 3 bachelor so it'll be a while) so I will do my best to keep everything i know about pathologic 1 out of this review. I've seen all the multi hour analysis videos on it, and pathologic 2 stands pretty separate in both themes and characters so it should be easy. I'll open with what I feel is the biggest overall change from 1 which is the gameplay. It took me until the end of act III to fully process the complexity of all the games systems. Due to their complexity the game uses each of your failures/deaths as teaching moments. The first 10 times I died I was pissed off, but I think I ended with 30 deaths or something so at some point my masochism took over and I started looking forward to the new dialogue. This game is very difficult, but the preponderance of your struggle will be mental. As you grow fonder and fonder of the characters, the story, and the world; your failures will feel less like “oh damn I have to do this again” and more like “what am I willing to put myself through to save the people I love?” That's fucking deep. I had caught the plague on day 3 I think and knew the hell associate with so when I needed to get infected to save murkey my ass had a serious philosophical quandary over whether or not I should kill this innocent girl so I could play the game slightly easier. The best way to experience the gameplay is to pay close attention to the story and characters, make a genuine connection with the ones you care about, and do everything in your power to save them. On my run 6 people died, and I regret 2 of them. The rest of the deaths were either intended by me or inconsequential to my experience. One thing that I haven't seen talker about very much are the sprites of items in your inventory. Reminded me of stalker in the way each of them are instant classics but there's so many items. That goes hand and hand with the character designs, which are copy and pasted due to the game being theater, and leads into the art direction of the game. The architecture is this non euclidean meld of vast industrialism and cult-like steppe people which is both unnerving and intriguing. The land is bitter and brown, but the lighting makes it all beautiful. Night is drab and dangerous, while day is peaceful and lively. But the days get shorter, the infection spreads, and soon all the smiles fade. As much as the writing is realistic and captivating and the world is mystical and unique the game remains stressful and depressing. But I wouldn't call any moment oppressing, actually rather welcoming. The game knows its hard but wants you to get invested and carry on through the pain. You're Artemy fucking Burakh, son of the great and wise Isidor Burakh. By the end of the game they've forgotten about blaming you for murdering your father and three innocent men because the plague is so horrible that it doesn't matter. You're a video game protagonist immortalized by YOU the player and they sense your omniscience and thus put their faith in you. Every character reaches the pinnacle of Desperation, and typically it falls on you to help them find solace. It all connects back into the themes of accepting loss and failure and I can say pathologic 2 made an impact on how I view these things in my own life. It doesn't go meta into the “you think your life is bad?” But it's hard not to think that when playing a game like this. Artemy is torn between his passion as a surgeon - or maybe he became a surgeon to escape the war or his father - and his roots as a member of the kin. The steppe was once kin alone, but the Kains brought in their magical engineering with promises of science and immortality and crushed the hive like nature of the kin to mere puppets of capitalism. As a member of the working class that's pretty relatable and the kin is my favorite character in the game. Spawns and worshipers of Bos Turokh, this undefinable bull god, and their culture is suppressed to the point of physically damaging the land they walk, which of course is the cause of the plague. Artemy was born during the schism period of the town and that's all he knows. He left and got fully accustomed to the industrial side of the town, and now that he's back he's realizing just how far he'd fallen from his roots. The Kin no longer accept him as one of their own, and you'll find yourself struggling whether or not you should be accepted. These is animalistic, bloody, deformed, lude, and uneducated society and you fell to the influence of the god of capital rather than the god of culture. Do you sacrifice the Kin to save the outsiders, or sacrifice the outsiders to save the Kin. It's a difficult moral dilemma because Artmey lies so close to the middle. He won't help you decide and it's up to you to choose what you think is best. Neither option is good or bad, they have pros and cons which are influenced by your actions. The connotation of an ending can be worse based on your understanding of characters and the world and it compels subsequent playthroughs in order to see the full picture, although its more like the same picture from a different angle. Either way the the earth is the true victim and was fucked long before Artemy was born. The Kin will find a new master, find a new land, they were nomadic and forced to settle down due to the Olgimskys and the Abattoir. There seems to be a heavy implication towards the anthropocenic nature of man to destroy the nature they need to survive, and while you spend hours killing bandits and digging through trash like the fucking rat you are you'll start thinking maybe I'm not that consequential to the story and all these crazy motha fuckas can go die. Great story, realistic characters, captivating and addictive gameplay, and by far the greatest town I've ever seen in a work of fiction. 10/10 MASTERPIECE.

Too obtuse for my tastes

Same as Funger, you can't save everyone, you will lose eventually, enjoy what you can of the journey

"The game tells you, openly, that you will lose. That you cannot save everyone, that it's a fool’s errand to even try. Then with a wink and a smile, it asks you to be that fool."

Played the ps4 version, and it was the worst experience technically wise. The idea beyond the game is intriguing but you can't really feel the game when it's barely holds itself.