Pathologic 2 Review (No Spoilers) - An Interactive Piece of Art
Pathologic 2 is one of the most unique video games that I have ever played. It's an interactive piece of art. Pathologic 2 takes you through a strange town in Russia where you act through the hands of a doctor over the course of 12 days to help the town survive a plague.
Pathologic 2 is creepy, weird and fairly challenging - but it provides tons of dialogue and interesting characters, a very rich world that leaves a lot open for interpretation and in my opinion can be considered as indirect commentary on the world we live in today and how that world was shaped. In this Pathologic 2 Review I invite you on a 50 minute journey to discover what the game is and hopefully convince you to try it out yourself! There'll be plenty of Pathologic 2 gameplay, but I took a great deal of care to not show anything that would spoil a playthrough for you.
Liked this Pathologic 2 Review? Interested in more Video Game Reviews? Please consider subscribing for more CarbonCola content! If you're interested in a Pathologic 2 Analysis, please do let me know! I've done lots of research in anticipation of creating a Pathologic Analysis video, but I want to be sure there is interest before investing more time (it's already been a very deep rabbit hole)
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Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro video
01:20 - Introduction
06:30 - Setting
10:13 - Survival Mechanics
12:57 - Gamefeel
17:35 - Route planning
21:49 - Art Direction
27:37 - Sound Design
33:39 - Difficulty
38:46 - Ludonarrative Resonance
42:49 - Criticism
46:10 - Conclusion
Some relevant links:
Pathologic 1 on Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/38...
Pathologic 2 on Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/50...
Looking for a new game to play or get some sweet Pathologic 2 links? Come join the conversation on my community discord: discord.gg/MdszAPKnqc
This is one of the few games I have played that makes me think about it long after the final act of the play. Truly a piece of art. I was fortunate enough to find this game through content creators like yourself. Keep up the great work.
Thank you very much Joshua for your kind comment. I am happy that someone who has played the game and thinks highly of it enjoyed my video - means I must have done the game justice.
I love the funbase of this game. It's so weird and funny that such a philosophically depressive game has such a positive and happy community. The amount of fun and memes is through the roof. When I first tried this game, it was so hard for me after casual games I've played before. I died on the day 5, I was squeezed like a lemon and stressed so bad that I thought I would never play this thing again. Never. Ever. I then I came back into it on the very next day. Because I was so intrigued with things that were happening in the game, the amount of thoughts and feelings and the atmosphere that I just couldn't help but started another playthrough. And this time despite the amount of difficulties I managed to finish it, I felt so relieved. I was like I did something great, as if know something now that I have never known before. Sort of revelation. I can name just few games which made me so engaged in the process and impressed me as much as this game did. I've replayed it four times already. I'm a part of the community now, so as well as them I'm waiting for bachelor's route.
Well said!! Thanks for posting your comment - I assume you liked my video so I am happy :) Totally agreed on the irony of the community, it's one of those games with so much depth and such a loyal and loving fanbase - my way to contribute was by making this video and hopefully helping others find their way to this game. So naturally I am also very excited for the Bachelor's route :)
My jaw dropped when looking at the view count and date posted. A review with a informative and digestible script, good visuals with nice editing, and a easy to follow voice. I hope this gets traction upon the release of the Bachelor's Route
Hi Wavepool! Thank you so much for your comment - I'm happy that you enjoyed the video and feel like I did the game justice! It's very reassuring that a Pathologic fan things I did a good job - this has been a bit of a leap of faith for me :P. I have to say so far the video is doing pretty well given the performance of my other videos (with the exception of Factorio - though the first month of that being out it was only getting like 10 views a day). If it continues like this I'd be very happy - but indeed wouldn't mind more traction once the Bachelor's route comes :)
I really liked the people in Pathologic. Even though they were basically re-skins of each other, I feel as though they had more to say than in many other games. The close ups were comforting too.
I actually think it was a good thing that they're duplicates of each other, from a gameplay standpoint it helps you learn the economy of what each npc type trades for and values. From a meta perspective you could even think of them as background extras in the play, like a medium size cast of people trying to portray the whole town
That’s always been my headcanon. The play has more roles than actors!
I haven’t played either Pathologic yet, but a game I played which had a time limit that I really appreciated was the first Fallout. For the first part of the game, you only have 90 days or so to find a water chip or else your home will run out of drinking water, and then afterwards there’s another time limit where the villains will gradually attack the various towns until you deal with the problem. This time limit gets some crap by some people, but I personally find it gives you enough wiggle room to be able to do many of the side quests while still feeling like it matters. To my knowledge, none of the other games in the series have a time limit, which - on one hand - makes some sense since there’s a lot more content and the maps are much bigger, but on the other hand, it kind of makes it feel like the world revolves around the player.
Awesome video about one of my favourite games ever, nice job! But just one thing, you said you can't craft antibiotics but you absolutely can, you have combine infected organs with one of the tinctures you've brewed iirc. I think they even reduce infection by a larger amount than the pills if you get it right
Indeed I got that wrong! I did that and the questline but when I was writing my script I seem to have completely purged it from my memory whoops. Thank you for your comment!
Pathologic is one of those games that you expect to be the hero the one to save everything and every one yet by day 2 you're starving to death tired and have less or exactly half health it's absolutely a groundbreaking game asking should games be fun and only fun is that the only emotion they should evoke it's a game that will break you and then give you the time and space to rebuild into something new rarely if ever does a game change a world view like pathologic a game no a story for the ages. PS : you were 100% right the game actually does take place during the Russian Revolution it's even said in the game, besides all the guns are old-timey so.
Great video! Glad you were able to finish this. Know too well how it is sitting on an unfinished video for a long time.
i'm not gonna lie, around day 6 I quit the game due to an unbearable anxiety it was giving me. however, like you, I got obsessed with this game and for the following weeks I could get my mind off of it. I decided to come back and lowered the difficulty to "Larva". I'm still struggling and honestly this was 1 month ago and I usually play a day/half a day per weekend cause thats the amount of this game I can bear without taking a break. I'm now on day 9 and this got so much into my head that I've successfuly implemented route/time optimization in my daily routine.. ugh this game is a masterpiece
Great job, you articulated what’s special about this game so well that I just had to purchase it immediately. Keep it up!
Thank you very much for your comment. I'm so happy you liked it and that it made you excited to buy and play the game!! I hope you've been enjoying the experience!!! It's comments like yours that really help me stay motivated to work on this channel. Seriously - thank you.
I would love a full Pathologic 2 analysis, i've been interested in the game for awhile and just recently got it, i've been wanting to watch videos on the game but without spoilers, thank you for making this absolute masterpiece.
Thank you so much for your comment. It really means a lot to me - hearing stuff like this gives me so much motivation to keep making videos. I am almost done with the next one and struggling a bit to finish it - this helps a lot :)
Omg, i can’t wait for more content!!
Comment! Still watching so no questions yet...
Konay you are a great dude. Thank you very much for your continuous support - it means a lot. Truly.
Ah, the Pathologic 2 soundtrack. Genuinely one of the best soundtracks of a video game that I have ever heard, and also one of very few game soundtracks to use the noble prepared piano (including in River of Flegm, and also as the melody of Young Vlad's Shack Music). I have a Master's in what essentially amounts to Knowing About Music And Music History and it struck me that the P2 soundtrack does some genuinely very interesting things with essentially "making" an entire fictional culture's musical history using bits of real, pre-existing musicology. The game's animal based mythology mostly centres around bulls but it's set in a region which places a lot of value on horses, and which has music that makes reference to The Gaits Of The Horse. To make its own version of that, the Pathologic Soundtrack uses the sounds that cattle make (most obviously with the voice imitating a cow lowing in Song to Boddho, which you hear when Artemy finds out that his father died in Day 1). Meanwhile Scorn2, which you hear in the Abattoir, also uses not just pitch-shifted cattle sounds but pitch-shifted sounds of industrial meat-processing equipment. It is undeniably really eerie but it also works like... unsettlingly well with the general themes and narrative of that part of the game. It also meshes well with the other Plague Music (particularly Mad Mother Earth, which you only hear the beginning of when you meet the Rat Prophet), which takes one of the traditional elements of the soundtrack (the drum motif for Mad Mother Earth, the Cow Sounds for Scorn2) and twists and distorts it. By the way, the string instrument that you can hear in Odongh is not actually a string instrument but a Jaw Harp. It's basically uh... a piece of metal that you hold between your teeth and wiggle while widening and narrowing your mouth to change the pitch of the sound.
That's so fascinating! I didn't know the soundtracks were this sophisticated/intentional but it makes a lot of sense. Particularly the meat processing plant sounds are quite surprising but damn that's brilliant. Thank you for sharing!
Great video man!
I bought this game yesterday after a couple years of the game eyeing me everytime I go into the ps store. The only thing I regret about the purchase is not purchasing sooner. This game made me a believer and I will never judge a game by its cover ever again.
The NPCs are unsurprisingly still better than Bethesda NPCs.
Give it to me now :D
Wish I could leave 2 likes on this video, your editing is simply excellent
It means a lot to read comments like yours, really. I've been putting a lot of effort into this creative outlet and I am improving a lot between every video, but they still don't do "super well". So hearing comments like this of people genuinely really enjoying what I create makes all the difference. Thank you.
Im glad that another content creator decided to do review od this amazing game! The more recognition the better and i would love you making an analisis ❤️
Great video I love the editing. I'd be really interested in seeing your analysis and interpretation of this game. I've played it many times, 150hrs or so so I have a good grasp on what's going on but there's just so much left for personal interpretation it's really something else.
Thank you very much for your kind comment!! Seems interest is pretty high for an analysis video!! Since you've played the game a lot - do you think I've managed to capture what makes it such a unique game?
A comment to thank you for defending what I came to consider as the best game I've ever played. Also, let's give visibility to Ice-Pick Lodge and Pathologic 2 so that we can help them finishing the Bachelor's route (and make the Changeling's after that, we can always dream...)
Hear hear! I'm so down for the Bachelor's route. I really hope it comes soon!
3:21, correction, you actually are missing out by only playing the second one since the first game you get to experience three perspectives (bachelor, hausprex and the changeling) in Pathologic 2 you only experience the second one, therefore it is incomplete. also and important thing is that something more accessible doesn't mean is it objectively better than something that isn't, for example there are highly inaccessible games that are beautiful and amazing
In principle I agree with you - I think I could have worded myself better. What I was trying to express is that Pathologic 2 stands very well on its own and does not need the first one for the experience to feel "complete" and "make sense" (as much as Pathologic can ever feel complete or make sense). Absolutely agreed that there is "added value" to playing the first one and all three routes. Also - you are right that accessibility doesn't make it a better game, but I do think that the first game is too hard to play. I know it's an important part of the experience, hell I even advocate for it in Pathologic 2, but it makes Pathologic 1 as art too difficult and to experience. Pathologic 2 makes it easier while still providing a very unique and powerful experience.
i feel like there's a certain type of people who are gonna prefer the first one, because of the old and low budget PS1-like graphics or for example TOS:Morrowind good vid btw
Great video as always!
Fantastic video! You really did it justice.
If you did more content on Patho 2, it'd definitely be great
Thanks for your comment and support Alexander! I may indeed come back to the game for an analysis video, but am working on a review for X4: Foundations for now. Stay tuned!
Great video!! Makes me want to play it
Taking time away from my preaching the good word of pathologic to watch this video ♡ It really is fascinating how the game has hooked so many people to the point that it reorientates completely how they look at/play games/art in the future.
Absolutely agreed. It's one of the best examples of how powerful video games can be. It definitely made me more interested in art in general, but as you say also made me more observant with other games.
Excellent review, glad tos ee another review channel
Thank you piggo's alternate account! Hope to keep satisfying you with subsequent videos :)
Thank you for giving this game love… amazing video, amazing game. I cant express how much i love it
Amazing video, would love to see more Pathologic content
What kind of content would you like to see? A story analysis?
I forced myself to uninstall this shit from my computer a few times to stopping role playing Artemy. Thanks to videos like this that really urge me to replay the whole thing all over again.
Khatangher, Yamar goe be
Would love to see more Pathologic content for sure
Thanks for letting me know Barry! What kind of content would you like to see? A story analysis?
Yes. Make the other vid. Here's a thought I haven't seen in other vids on P2: Fellow Traveler = Game Publishing Companies (most likely EA😅). Think about what he gives the player, and also what he takes away. Just sayin.
Interesting idea. I'll replay it and think about this possible interpretation. I was always fairly content with just assuming he is death but now you've gotten me curious!! Did you enjoy my video otherwise? I haven't gotten any feedback from PL2 veterans yet haha
Ah. Yes. I believe he's more of the devil, or evil intent personified. But yes. He's that too. Just like most of the game has a few meta levels, I think the Fellow Traveler does too. The game is a critique on gaming on one of those levels, and what led me to my theory is the "Deviser's" final thought on the post-game day. I'll just leave it there. Very much enjoyed the video. Any content on P1 or 2 is greatly appreciated. I finished P2 with over 100 Shmowder, so I guess I qualify! 😅
Looking forward to analysis video with spoilers :) ive been thinking lately i would like to do a playthrough and post it to youtube. I would give my thoughts and reasons why it means so much to me, it would be fun
You should do it! Send me a link here or on my discord and I'd love to give it a watch :)
This video is very well made )
Pathologic is like a Unicorn to me... I very much want to play it... but I know that if I try to... I won't be able to, lol.
Good thing there is so much Patgologic 2 content online haha
@@Carbon_Cola Yes, I love watching all these videos about it, and the first game too. I think the Bachelor is cooler than Artimy tho, lol.
Thank you!
sometimes you will hear piano playing from afar. search where it comes from.
I've never found anything - have you?
There's one quest on day 5 where you can track down some people playing piano for some lore on Capella's mom, but other than that, as far as I know, any piano sounds you might hear aren't tied to anything.
I LOVE YOU
you actually can craft antibiotics
Oh, I didn't how. How do you do that?
@@Carbon_Cola toss any infected organ and any tincture into the alembic. The type of antibiotic is determined by which color tincture you put into it. The problem is that these antibiotics take up twice as much space as the antibiotics you can buy at the store.
It's honestly shocking you didn't know this, given you have to make a bunch to complete the panacea quest
@@nullvoid3265 Ah see what happened is that I mistook it for painkillers - was a long time between playing the game and actually doing all the recording and this tidbit slipped.
Only healthy organ + tinctures give you painkillers. Infected organs give you antibiotics. They are even more effective than the pills if they are crafted from higher tier organs like brains or hearts
21:06 - "Antibiotics [which] you cannot craft." But you CAN craft antibiotics, in the same way that you craft painkillers, just with infected organs instead of healthy organs. This means that in order to treat one person suffering from the plague, you'll have to cut open the body of someone else suffering from it! Nothing comes for free in the world of Pathologic. I recommend doing a second playthrough, as brewing homemade antibiotics opens up a major quest that I missed entirely on my first playthrough, but has a critical impact on the story. There's so much depth to Pathologic 2's gameplay and narrative, that you can only glimpse a fraction of it on a single playthrough. Also wanted to note that the composer for the first Pathologic was Andriesh Gandrabur, while the second game's ambient music is composed by Vassily Kashnikov as you said.
You're absolutely right with the antibiotics crafting. I actually did do the storyline there but somehow forgot when making the video about antibiotics crafting. Thank you for correcting me on that, and the composer for the first Pathologic. I thought I saw he was credited for fhe first game as well. Did you feel like on your second playthrough you could understand the story and dialogue more?
@@Carbon_Cola Absolutely, my understanding of the lore and character motivations was greatly expanded. It helps that I had also completed the Bachelor route of Pathologic Classic by that point (and watched several video essays), so I had additional context, though the two narratives are not 100% interchangeable. Speaking of Pathologic Classic, if you ever do want to go back and experience any of its campaigns, I am nearly ready to release the first ever balance overhaul mod for the game. I can't claim it makes the game less clunky, but it does make survival a lot more stressful and engaging (within reason)... may be of interest to a fellow Pathologic 2 fan.
@@rosodudersd260 That does sound interesting! You can send me a link once it is available? Maybe I'd finally play through PL1 then.
love the vid! as a "preaching the church of pathologic 2" person, I thank you for your straightforward statement of "this game is NOT --" and the whole bit about expectations because a lot of the major complaints I've seen about this game are just misplaced expectations "the combat is ass-" well maybe you shouldn't be fighting could the combat have been better? yes does it need to be better? no is it poor design that the combat blows? possibly is it intentional that a doctor can't successfully take on 3 guys with only a lockpick? possibly I don't want to write off all the jank as intention, but my point is that the combat isn't the point. if I wanted a good fighting survival game I'd play something else. it can be a disappointing aspect but it shouldn't be the sole reason for why a game is "bad" the reason I love pathologic 2 is the art/story/just the VIBES its such good fucking world building, I get anxiety listening to some of the OST songs and not in a "the L4D tank theme song still gives me anxiety" way in a "there are some forces beyond my comprehension doing things beyond my understanding and this creepy fucking track always plays when that happens" way which is amazing IMO (I also just love tribal and dark ambient music, which most of the OST is) also a side note that all of the characters are morally grey. not one single individual, be it man woman or child, is completely innocent or evil. amazing
Very well said ! Even better than I said in many of my points!! Absolutely agreed. I'm glad you've enjoyed the video and left me your thoughts here!! It makes my day. See you around for the next video ;)