Pathologic 2 is one of those games where my heart and mind pull in different directions when it comes to rating.
I absolutely love this game and what it tries to do, and I feel so strongly compelled to give it a 10/10 and recommend it to everyone I know. But when I actually look back at the time I spent with it and see all the janky gameplay and other weird decisions the developers made, my mind tells me to hold back and try to evaluate the game in a more technical and sober light.
Whenever these tensions happen, I almost always side with the mind and, while acknowledging the great aspects, still end up assigning a somewhat lower score. But not this time. I have never played a game quite like Pathologic 2 before and, now that I've finished it, I grow worried that I might never play another game that captures the same feeling for a very long time.
Where Pathologic 2 differs from the other games where I tend to be conflicted about the score is in its cohesiveness. The world it takes place in is interesting and fleshed out, the dilemmas and pressures the gameplay forces on you help to create an atmosphere of oppression that makes the world feel even more engaging. Everything in this game, no matter how big or small, feels like it belongs and that anything that were changed would make everything just a little bit less meaningful.
Even the issues I have with the game almost feel purposeful. The combat is awkward and janky, but that ultimately helps feed the atmosphere and pressure that the game tries so hard to create. Sure, I would have preferred it function a bit more smoothly (but still remain difficult) but I can completely understand why it is the way that it is. Sometimes you can get stuck in a terrible feedback loop where your failures compound on each other and breaking out of the loop feels like drudgery, but that too almost feels like it belongs even if it did aggravate me to no end while actually playing it.
While there are endless little complaints I have about the details of how the gameplay works and plenty of larger grievances about some of the larger mechanics, I also hesitate to actually recommend them as changes. The game feels like a delicate balance of so many interlocking parts that, even if my idea improved this one little bit of the game, it could cause the whole structure to topple over. The flaws do just as much to improve the game as its strengths. And I just don't know how to handle that.
I absolutely love this game and what it tries to do, and I feel so strongly compelled to give it a 10/10 and recommend it to everyone I know. But when I actually look back at the time I spent with it and see all the janky gameplay and other weird decisions the developers made, my mind tells me to hold back and try to evaluate the game in a more technical and sober light.
Whenever these tensions happen, I almost always side with the mind and, while acknowledging the great aspects, still end up assigning a somewhat lower score. But not this time. I have never played a game quite like Pathologic 2 before and, now that I've finished it, I grow worried that I might never play another game that captures the same feeling for a very long time.
Where Pathologic 2 differs from the other games where I tend to be conflicted about the score is in its cohesiveness. The world it takes place in is interesting and fleshed out, the dilemmas and pressures the gameplay forces on you help to create an atmosphere of oppression that makes the world feel even more engaging. Everything in this game, no matter how big or small, feels like it belongs and that anything that were changed would make everything just a little bit less meaningful.
Even the issues I have with the game almost feel purposeful. The combat is awkward and janky, but that ultimately helps feed the atmosphere and pressure that the game tries so hard to create. Sure, I would have preferred it function a bit more smoothly (but still remain difficult) but I can completely understand why it is the way that it is. Sometimes you can get stuck in a terrible feedback loop where your failures compound on each other and breaking out of the loop feels like drudgery, but that too almost feels like it belongs even if it did aggravate me to no end while actually playing it.
While there are endless little complaints I have about the details of how the gameplay works and plenty of larger grievances about some of the larger mechanics, I also hesitate to actually recommend them as changes. The game feels like a delicate balance of so many interlocking parts that, even if my idea improved this one little bit of the game, it could cause the whole structure to topple over. The flaws do just as much to improve the game as its strengths. And I just don't know how to handle that.