This is probably the game I reflect the most on. It's the game I use as a yardstick for all others, in hopes one day I might find a game which succeeds it.
You've probably heard this game from one of several youtube videos about it, but those aren't the full picture - none of them are close to it in my eyes, because nothing can convey how you will feel in this game - a subjective fever dream, one which feels lucid enough to remember the details of, but always feeling like you missed something in the act of remembering.
What really sells this feeling is the simple act of walking. Going through the town, the hum of the music, in between rows of houses which look simultaneously bland and something never seen in this world, going past people which all look the same, sells this fever dream/nightmare in a way that no other game has been able to; its successor opts for greater mechanical depth rather than an elusive idea like this. The few buildings which seem to have any kind of identity loom over the town, impossible in design, function and aesthetic, and these edifices seem to be designed for humans as only an afterthought. This contrast of the blandness and the miraculous is what makes the Town on the River Gorkhon have its specific allure.
The identity of the factions and the conflicts between them is something to behold; the kin and the town, the Inquisitor and the General, the Kaines and Olgimskys and Saburovs. All of them have their own beliefs and each of them are principled and, most importantly, none of them are wrong, per-se. The friction between these factions, and how you approach them and interact within them is something which very much makes the game for me; all of them are right, and wrong, and only by playing through again and again do you ever glimpse the full perspective.
Pathologic's real glory is in the writing of each character; I shall not spoil it here, but I remember every character and there is still much to each one I don't understand, or cannot. The writing of the dialogue, like the world, is made in riddles and seemingly nonsensical, but somehow the idea of it still shines through. Perhaps yes, the characters each sound like they are puppets for the developers' bar philosophy, but I think that adds only to the unique charm of it all - the characters stand in the same spot every day, staring and waiting for you to arrive, and you'd want them to be as if human? Instead, they lean into this un-naturalism, and for that I adore it.
I think that the first line of this review shows the futility of it; I cannot chain the miracle to this world. The subjectivity of the game is what makes it great, the playing of the game more than anything else. How you relate to the characters and feel about the world, how you talk and walk through the town is what makes it so special.
You've probably heard this game from one of several youtube videos about it, but those aren't the full picture - none of them are close to it in my eyes, because nothing can convey how you will feel in this game - a subjective fever dream, one which feels lucid enough to remember the details of, but always feeling like you missed something in the act of remembering.
What really sells this feeling is the simple act of walking. Going through the town, the hum of the music, in between rows of houses which look simultaneously bland and something never seen in this world, going past people which all look the same, sells this fever dream/nightmare in a way that no other game has been able to; its successor opts for greater mechanical depth rather than an elusive idea like this. The few buildings which seem to have any kind of identity loom over the town, impossible in design, function and aesthetic, and these edifices seem to be designed for humans as only an afterthought. This contrast of the blandness and the miraculous is what makes the Town on the River Gorkhon have its specific allure.
The identity of the factions and the conflicts between them is something to behold; the kin and the town, the Inquisitor and the General, the Kaines and Olgimskys and Saburovs. All of them have their own beliefs and each of them are principled and, most importantly, none of them are wrong, per-se. The friction between these factions, and how you approach them and interact within them is something which very much makes the game for me; all of them are right, and wrong, and only by playing through again and again do you ever glimpse the full perspective.
Pathologic's real glory is in the writing of each character; I shall not spoil it here, but I remember every character and there is still much to each one I don't understand, or cannot. The writing of the dialogue, like the world, is made in riddles and seemingly nonsensical, but somehow the idea of it still shines through. Perhaps yes, the characters each sound like they are puppets for the developers' bar philosophy, but I think that adds only to the unique charm of it all - the characters stand in the same spot every day, staring and waiting for you to arrive, and you'd want them to be as if human? Instead, they lean into this un-naturalism, and for that I adore it.
I think that the first line of this review shows the futility of it; I cannot chain the miracle to this world. The subjectivity of the game is what makes it great, the playing of the game more than anything else. How you relate to the characters and feel about the world, how you talk and walk through the town is what makes it so special.