Pathologic 2

I tried to give this game a chance based on the reviews and the general premise of the game, but 3 hours in, on day 2, and I'm still getting my ♥♥♥♥ rocked by people that see me on the street? Doesn't make me empathize with the town at all. If you have more patience then give it a try.

simulador de desgraça jogue na dificuldade pretendida 10/10

Это самая лучшая игра, в которую я играл за последнее время. Сюжет целиком пролетел одновременно как мгновение и как очень долгий сериал с учётом того, что я даже не всё открыл, не со всеми поговорил, да и прошёл только 1 раз и то без длс (пока что). Игра для новичков в данном жанре очень сложная (для меня как раз), но, как оказалось, в этом и вся суть проекта. Со сложностью ты, как игрок, полностью погружаешься в мир игры, чувствуешь себя его частью. Вся атмосфера построена на подобном трудном прохождении. Для себя хотелось бы отметить шикарную речь, которые авторы вложили буквально в каждого нпс в игре, а также саундтрек! Лично для меня эти 2 аспекта + атмосфера всей игры были самыми лучшими и запоминающимися

Очень не обычная, тяжелая ультра душная игра, всем рекомендую проходить ее именно на хардкорной каноничной сложности.

Симулятор кочевания от одной детской площадки к другой. Можно еще заняться лечением народа и спасением города, но это опционально.

Pathologic 2 – Intended Difficulty (+) Brief Thoughts (Spoiler-Free) No, you don’t need to play 1 to play this game, although it helps a lot with understanding what the ♥♥♥♥ is going on. Pathologic games are fantastic when you strap in for ride and don’t wrestle it for a particular experience especially one that it DOES NOT OFFER. I believe the saying “expectations are pre-meditated resentments” are applicable here, but truly when I read about the discourse for this game it makes my blood boil. A majority of Pathologic 2 gameplay is item-hunting and then bartering items to get better items, quite literally dumpster diving every 10 seconds as you walk from one location to another. Call it hobo-economics, hoarding simulator or an item management system whatever but that is the fundamental premise on which all the survival mechanics are based. You have to battle hunger, exhaustion, thirst, infection, and time itself across 12 days where the game pushes you to the absolute edge. Before you realize the game truly makes you engage with each one of its mechanics by balancing scarcity over your head. If you cannot tolerate a game that is all about a bartering economy, I suggest playing LITERALLY anything else. What I can promise you is that this whole game is a one of a kind experience and even if you don’t end up completing it, Pathologic always leaves you different than how it finds you. If you are playing this game strictly for the story and are a new player, I have some unfortunate news, Path 2 has a fantastic, multi-layered story that has many branching narratives but it might just be some of the most confusing pieces of narration you might engage with. Coupled with very questionable story presentation (head bobbing animations as you go through increasingly confusing dialogue), really poorly directed voice acting performances and having to digest new names, terminologies and the like every other moment, Path 2’s story is both convoluted and at times incredibly pretentious, which is not new to Ice-Pick. The story for 2 is a TREAT for returning players, but I fear it is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hard to follow or care for literally anything happening as a new player. This is a fundamental problem to the Haruspex’s story but I’ll touch on that in its respective section, just know that if you don’t understand anything its because the story truly IS intentionally a bit disjointed, allegorical and confusing on purpose but its not all in service of being elitist and filtering plebians who aren’t making a dedicated steppe dictionary but that the nature of the plot is both fantastical and yet grounded in many ways leading to much of the confusion. With the nature of the game being a battle against time itself, you WILL skip out on key events, that is fully intended. This means replaying the game can net you a completely different experience depending on your choice of actions, no 2 playthroughs of this game will ever be the exact same. (+) Gameplay I’ll separate all the mechanics into different bullets but my general point about them is that the gameplay is very competently done and it only sounds this damn confusing when it’s written down, it’s quite intuitive in game the more you engage with it. (+) Trade I was surprised to find myself enjoying all the mechanics of the bartering economy as much as I did. You can almost barter with the WHOLE TOWN, much like Pathologic Classic HD, NPCs are divided into different classes: drunkards, kids, ladies, herb brides, policemen, worm people etc. as you engage with the economy of trade you will remember who to approach for what specific item. NPCs can also fix the wear and tear of your items, some characters only appear at certain times, and all of them exchange for specific items. Even when there is occasional downtime to do nothing you can always anticipate what is to come, sometimes going out for herb hunting in the darkness of night or scourging for food to be better prepared for what is to come. You can be barred from trading if you have terrible reputation which in turn can push you to only trade with some of the shadiest people in town. Trade can change based on what condition a district is in, sometimes NPCs are pushed to trade valuables just to get life saving medication. All the trading items make sense in-universe, the drunkards trade bandages for water because drunks get into bar fights, policemen trade bullets and immunity packs for weapons, kids trade for chalk/marbles/nuts etc. you get the point. (+/-) Combat This is not a combat focused game but I loved how they handled the burned district/nightly/infected districted encounters. Combat is INSANELY easy and everyone who struggles with it truly blows my mind, the worms can give you a bit of trouble I guess. I didn’t have to use a single gun in this game which I had shoved up my whole ass for no reason, if you are a Classic HD veteran this combat should be complete ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ butter to you. Here is how you fight in Path 2, you charge attack, hold up block to recover stamina and walk back slowly, as soon as NPC is in range you charge attack again, rinse and repeat. The Thirst mechanic limits how many charge attacks you can do before going on cooldown but otherwise NO WAY DO PEOPLE FIND THIS COMBAT HARD. (+/-) Healing Mechanics Again, this is fundamental to the nature of Haruspex’s route and any more simplification of it wouldn’t have pushed me to the absolute edge but man its so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ diabolical to manage this on top of everything. I am specifically talking about concocting potions to mitigate possible infection, there is NEVER enough water or herbs to do enough rounds unless you had amazing management and foresight into your affairs. Lets just say I have a love hate relationship with potions, its very intentional in its misery. (+) Infections Yeah yeah rub it in Ice-Pick, absolutely brutal mechanic made everything high stakes. (-) The Hospital I want to have a word with the developer WHO KEEPS MAKING THE “DODGE PLAGUE CLOUDS FOR AN HOUR” MINI GAMES. (+) Infected/Burned Districts I don’t wanna spoil this but once a district is impacted it is free to loot, but looting can take precious time away from other timely activities, and can also be life threatening. I LOVED the idea of these, that being said holy cow I hated hearing the same NPC_aggressive_dialogue.mp3. (+) Story Fantastic as usual, amazing new additions I wasn’t expecting Lara, Rubin and Grief to have the history they did. Some characters like Aspity and Grace have been completely reworked, they somehow made Sticky likable, I loved seeing the Changeling around being cryptic and ♥♥♥♥. Some elements like the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ identity of the killer is so bad oh my GOD I wish it was a bit of a twist. Late confession but I played Bachelor’s Route in Classic HD, not Haruspex’s, I refuse to sit through that torture (premium edition), but Classic HD handled the last quarter in the Bachelor’s Route well enough. It did not feel completely rushed and I actually liked Day 12 more in the original game, in 2 they don’t even render a cutscene for you decision, the fate of the town is just implied as you talk to everyone who survived until the end and then you go to the theater and step out as the actor. I just… didn’t feel anything for this ending, I mean I was holding onto my breath the entire game but Day 12 wasn’t even a sense of relief it was like oh yeah the game is done, hope you got what you wanted out of the experience lol. I think the time with Block spent here is far too limited and there was so much they could’ve explored here. I don’t want to say they dropped the ball completely but you can’t even spare a cutscene? Disappointing. (-) Storytelling / Story Presentation Pathologic fans are gonna drown me in a vat of acid but I did not like the story presentation here. As aforementioned the story is way too pretentious sometimes for its own good sometimes, I got second hand embarrassment from the open

This is a game about stress, time management, and difficult decisions. You are a surgeon trying to save a backwards, somewhat magical Russian village from a mysterious plague. Gameplay is basically, being given 5 tasks and only enough time to do 3 of them. Choose what you want to do each day and run from point A to B to C, while scavenging what you can and trying not to die. It is an improvement on Pathologic 1 in basically every way. I don't think it's for everyone, but if you like games that put stress and pressure on you, if you like interesting and unique worlds, this is one of the best games you will ever play.

Combat is a joke. Voice acting doesn't match the dialogue. Needed a walkthrough for the tutorial because some controls you're supposed to use don't show up on screen and you can get stuck with game expecting you to do something and you aren't aware. It's neither 'ground breaking" nor true open world. Everything feels like a game from 2010, not a decade later. Cool story and idea but poor execution.