⋆ review: pathologic (2005) !

PATHOLOGIC (2005) is an open world horror survival RPG set in a remote Russian town at the beginning of an outbreak of a deadly plague. Players take on the role of one of three healers - the Bachelor, the Haruspex, or the Changeling, each with different stories and gameplay mechanics. The game was remastered in 2015 as PATHOLOGIC CLASSIC HD, and a sequel / reboot was released in 2019 as PATHOLOGIC 2 - however, P2 only has one playable route, the Haruspex, and PATHOLOGIC 3 is set to be released shortly, which will be the Bachelor's route! this page will cover my thoughts on all of the games, as plot-wise, they are much the same, and i do intend to 100% every single one of these games as they come. and, be warned - rampant spoilers ahead! i'm going to be talking freely about this game, it's endings and themes and everything inbetween under the assumption that you've got some knowledge of the core basics of this game and what it's about.

there's gonna be a fair bit of yapping here so here's some links to specific sections:
initial thoughts ✸ pathologic classic hd ✸ pathologic 2
pathologic 3: quarantine ✸ pathologic 3
videos & other stuff about the game

initial thoughts:

i'd heard about this game, probably like many others, through video essays on youtube that kept trying to tell me i would hate this game if i played it. and i took that personally.

the main consensus around pathologic, namely the original game and it's remaster, seems to be: it's absolutely fantastic, if you can slog your way through it. it's unforgiving, it's hard, and it is a LOT of slow walking and reading. luckily, i'm a DISCO ELYSIUM fan, and all of these words are good things to me. and to be honest, my hot take is that the game isn't really that hard - it's just not explained very well. once i got into the groove of things, i managed completely fine. it's difficult, for sure, but manageable! it's also a remastered 2005 video game, so you just gotta know how to exploit it's inhernt jankiness and you'll be just fine. why risk your health by fighting enemies when you can just enter the nearest building to despawn them! easy!

you're gonna hear me call this game a difficult nightmare and an awful game quite a fair bit in these reviews but i mean this from the bottom of my heart: i love challenging games. i had so much enjoyment out of finishing days in pathologic classic, but god knows i had an awful time doing it- but that's what drew me to them in the first place! i love a challenge, the second i learned that there was several paths and endings, i had pretty much decided i would be 100%ing these games entirely.

Pathologic: Classic HD (2015)

steam page ✸ achievement progress: 25/42

first off, i played the classic HD version in order, following a spoiler free achievement guide just to make sure i didn't miss anything! here's how it went.


THE BACHELOR

the premise is this: you are daniil dankovsky, bachelor of medicine, a doctor and researcher from the capital who has come to the town to speak to a 150yo man who may be the key into his research - to cure death itself. the bachelor route is the recommended starting route because he is entirely a newcomer in town with no prior connections to it or it's traditions, much like the player.

first of all, my favourite thing about the bachelor's route is that when you look up guides on his run, they all say "DON'T LET HIM BE MEAN TO PEOPLE IT WILL TANK YOUR REPUTATION" and i thought, not that bad surely? and then i opened one (1) dialogue box and realised this guy is such an asshole. miserable prick. i love him.

i actually found the bachelor's run to be particularly challenging, despite it being the first one you're supposed to do, and that's simply because it throws you right into it and i had not realised how difficult time management would be, and i was terrible at reading the map. i found it very tedious to get through, but i think that's only because i already knew how the bachelor's route ends, so i had no real motivation other than just Getting It Done. but i can tell you one thing, the video essays telling you it's slow and boring to walk everywhere really do not effectively convey exactly how slow and boring it is to walk everywhere. i ended up having to walk sligtly diagonally for the end half of the game just because it makes you walk sliiiiightly faster and i needed every millisecond on my side. it was ridiculous.

i was managing pretty fine during this run until about day 9, when they introduce the army and, with them, a new obstacle in town called the flamethrowers, which are people with big fuck off flamethrowers that torch anything that might even have the vibes of infection. that includes the plague-infested rats that were constantly chasing me around town, and so i kept being baited into the line of a flamethrower and borderline torched to death and forced to restart my game. i got very good at quicksaving and quickloading before turning corners, i tell you.

maybe it's cheating, but i kind of very quickly gave up making an effort to cure myself of the plague if i did get infected. it's difficult dodging the infection; those plague clouds come out of nowhere, you have to visit infected districts occasionally, the goddamn rats, etc., however the cure items were all so much more valuable than 3 real life hours of my time that i very frequently just ended up loading earlier saves if infected.

all in all, the bachelor run took me 27 hours to get through. my ultimate ending choice was to destroy the town and save the polyhedron - recognizing this is the "wrong" choice, but knowing that it's the bachelor's ideal ending (also, after the gruelling, frustrating hours i had spent running around doing fetch quests for ungrateful assholes i actually personally found a tiiiiiiny bit of satisfaction in flattening the settlement). i did every side quest and got all of his achievements, and i enjoyed it!


THE HARUSPEX

the haruspex is artemy burakh, a surgeon and son of a local healer who has returned to town to find that his father has been murdered, and he is the primary suspect. you start the haruspex's run right after being jumped by three men; half health, high exhaustion, and abysmal reputation so bad that the people in town will attack you on sight, and the local stores will not sell anything to you to help.

right off the bat, starting with the haruspex feels like a completely different game. the first thing you do, after the self defence murders, is find out that you can take dead people's organs out and use them to barter with certain people. you get thrown instantly into the shady underworld of the town, as well as tangled up with the kids and orphans. despite all these differences, i had a much easier first day as the haruspex. i knew the map, i knew how to be prepared for day 2, and there was a lot less running around through identical buildings to figure out who the hell i'm supposed to be talking to.

cruised along pretty comfortably for the first 6 days before getting my first inevitable infection after being jailed in a small room with two unavoidable plague clouds. it was gonna happen eventually, high immunity or not. something else that's making this run exceptionally easy is that the haruspex gets to make all sorts of twyrine mixtures for immunity boosts and i was getting along VERY comfortably before this (and possibly a little complacent LMAO). the horrors perist but i stay silly. halfway there so far.


THE CHANGELING

TBA

overall thoughts (so far): i'm enjoying the flow of this game. i don't mind janky games, so that doesn't bother me too much - even if i am sideways strafe walking to go 0.2s faster to stop myself from going insane over the time constraints. i like that all three of our characters are tied into this narrative and playing as the next two characters, i will presumably get to interact with them there as well. very excited for the haruspex run, though i know he's much more difficult. i do also loooove this soundtrack, like a whole lot. it's very gritty and industrial, there's some real off-putting and unsettling tracks in there. this game has a phenomonal atmosphere and does it's job at pressuring you into feeling like you don't have time for everything exceptionally well. it wormed it's way into my real life dreams as well this week, so that's quite an achievement.

i am enamoured by the story and lore of this little town. there are traditions and culture and healing practices that occur in the steppe that are only ever alluded to in the bachelor route, as an outsider, but are elaborated on much more in-depth and play a major part in the haruspex route. there's impossible geometry and some magical realism and some absurd surrealism that i think comes together so perfectly to give you that unsettling sense that something is very odd in this town and there's much more to it than you think. AND - i'm not even going into the overaching theme here of theatre, and how this is all just a play, and nothing is even real and your entire existence here is in the hands of two bored little kids at a funeral but that is way beyond the scope of my quick little reviews here. i'll link a bunch of videos that analyse the proper, true themes of this game at the end of the page.

Pathologic 2 (2019)

steam page ✸ achievement progress: 5/50

I haven't fully started on this one yet as i really want to get through classic HD first - but i did stream day 1 to some friends who were curious but didn't want to get the game. first thoughts: wow holy shit it looks BEAUTIFUL! what a stunning upgrade, there's a SPRINT MECHANIC! i also particularly like that there's three difficulty modes: easy story mode (unintended unless you want to literally just watch the story unfold), easy mode (the game but with minor handicaps to make things easier) and hard mode (intended difficulty to play). i will be playing the hardest mode, of course, and will write everything up some time after i get through the rest of the first game.

Pathologic 3: Quarantine (2025)

steam page ✸ achievement progress: 00/14

soon

Pathologic 3 (TBA)

steam page ✸ achievement progress: ??/??

TBA - expected 2025!


& if you think that all sounds cool, but don't wanna play it...

i don't blame you! this game is a chore LMAO but here's some of my favourite video essays, analysis and plot summaries on the game that i think do a very good job of immersing you in this world without having to play <3

PATHOLOGIC IS GENIUS, AND HERE'S WHY - hbomberguy
this is the video that introduced me to pathologic initially! it's a great in-depth video into the story & gameplay

PATHOLOGIC, FOR THOSE WHO WILL NEVER PLAY IT (ACT 1) & (ACT 2) - Codex Entry
VERY in depth play-by-play videos about the bachelor route! voice acted by various youtubers, very very good videos and jumping off point if you wanted to bypass classic patho and go straight into the second game, imo.