What is better to play now, Pathologic HD or Pathologic 2?

[Krabik Gangster]

I really want to see this story, but from what I heard, there is only one character in the second game. But then DLC came out for the second game, is it the full story of the first character, or just a demo version? What do you recommend, play Pathologic HD now, or is Pathologic 2 + DLC the complete story?

[Dcsmall]

The DLC, the Marble Nest, is only a demo/short story of the Bachelor and isn't connected to the Main Story of the 3 doctors.

If you have both games, I recommend playing both.

Pathologic 2 is a reimaging of the story told in Pathologic 1. But it also fleshes out the whole Haruspex story a lot more. Pathologic 2 is a full game right now even without the other two because the Haruspex campaign can take up to 40 hours.

I'd recommend playing Pathologic 2 first, it's more up to date, got better mechanics, deeper story and looks better.

If after completing it, you want the other two sides of the story, play P1. But Clara's route in P1 after a couple of in game days is very repetitive and thus isn't really completed.

The studio is now working on a Bachelor Alpha so expect to his story arrive in around 2024.

Hope that helps!

May Mother Boddho caress your steps Yargachin!

[Unseen]

Really you can play both at the same time if you want, or either one. Pathologic 2 and 1 take away almost nothing from each other. I guess the only real negative storywise imo for Pathologic 2 is that 2 introduces 2 characters right at the start who were not introduced in 1 till way later in the game. If you're ok at character reveals before they are introduced to the main story than neither one really take away from each other.

If you really get into the storyline I'd suggest playing both 1 and 2, in whatever order you want, but really if you were to look at this game in story order, I'd suggest bachelor in pathologic classic most. Simply cause to me his story in path1 just really feels like an introduction. He's an outsider, he comes to the town to help, but he really doesn't understand the history or nature of the town or what is really going on. So by the end of the bachelor game not much is touched upon as in haruspex and then changeling. Story order I recommend changeling last in pathologic 1 because her story brings about some major revelations and paints the games identity as what it truly is but haruspex and bachelor also give hints at this.

After bachelor I'd suggest either haruspex storylines but both path1 and 2 have different takes on haruspex so don't expect 1 to be the exact same as 2 there are major differences.
As for marbles nest, I'm still trying to figure it out and I think it's suppose to be around mid or after the events in both games but its also not the actual outcome of either. Its the bachelors worst fears manifest basically.

[Toaster]

Play both. They are different games.

[Krabik Gangster]

Originally posted by Toaster:

Play both. They are different games.

I asked because I couldn't decide what to play first to get the full picture of what was going on.

[Krabik Gangster]

Originally posted by Dharma Dude:

The DLC, the Marble Nest, is only a demo/short story of the Bachelor and isn't connected to the Main Story of the 3 doctors.

If you have both games, I recommend playing both.

Pathologic 2 is a reimaging of the story told in Pathologic 1. But it also fleshes out the whole Haruspex story a lot more. Pathologic 2 is a full game right now even without the other two because the Haruspex campaign can take up to 40 hours.

I'd recommend playing Pathologic 2 first, it's more up to date, got better mechanics, deeper story and looks better.

If after completing it, you want the other two sides of the story, play P1. But Clara's route in P1 after a couple of in game days is very repetitive and thus isn't really completed.

The studio is now working on a Bachelor Alpha so expect to his story arrive in around 2024.

Hope that helps!

May Mother Boddho caress your steps Yargachin!

Thank you for explaining what the DLC is! I have already bought both parts of Pathologic, I hope to find time to go through them soon!

[Toaster]

Originally posted by Krabik Gangster:

Originally posted by Toaster:

Play both. They are different games.

I asked because I couldn't decide what to play first to get the full picture of what was going on.

You do not need to play one to understand the other. You can play them in either order.

[Tilson]

Path1 and do not taint your eyes with path2.

Icepick tried their best and, somehow, path2 is worse in every aspect, except graphical. And no, I DO NOT speak about things that were changed or revisioned (like childhood friendship between protagonist, Lara Ravel, Griff and Rubin and other plotwise and characterwise changes, at least as long, as they do not contradict the narrative), I speak about straight up broken things, like bandits grabbing you 3 meters away when you try to flee, slashing you withought animation or from other side of the street, spawning in ridiculous amounts (my personal record is 7 at once, walking shoulder to shoulder, like a wall, blocking path completely and forcing me to reload, because I had no time to finish quest if I had to kyte them) and so on, storywise, like quests made JUST for steam achievement or leading straight to nothing and , thus, could (and should) be completely ignored, characterwise, like having 100% of town's population with unique models in your "IMPORTANT PEOPLE 101" list, while having ZERO, NON. NADA quests and even interactions with 70% of them. So, you are supposed to keep these pale shadows of deep characters from original game alive? Well, you can spend whole day collecting saviour herb, brew your potions, by mistake called tinctures (tinctura in latin means herbal medicine based on alcohol, while Artemy brews his stuff using water, effectevly making them herbal decoctums), then spend rest of the day running around these fools and feeding them these ("it's not like doctor has anything to do, yeah, it's a plague raging outside, but we will NOT visit or only doctor in places and times, comfortable for him, he could stand running around dangerous, disease and maradeur-rigged streets himself, it's not like we are all doomed in case something happens to him" - this must be what these fools are thinking about with A-hole number 1 award going to oldest Khain for sending Artemy into plagued disctrict with ownership papers for house he could not even live in), just to find out that infection chance is completely random and can never go below 1/6 or 16.67%. You can never raise immunity higher than 5/6 and death's roll of dice is decided at 00:00, the very moment area around NPC's house becomes plagued, but is only revealed to you 24 hours later. Disagree with that? Fell free to savescum and replay last 24 hours. And how could we forget majestic quests from part 2? Ranging from walking from walking from furthest left point of map to district in the right with mentioned above papers to walking to the most barren part of map, passing through 2 plagued districts (and it is the only way to that place, surrounded with water from 3 sides) just to hear that Capella can now telepathically speak to you and... be left alone. In the furthest, emptiest part of the map, with no reasons to be at AT ALL, at 20:30. when time - is most precious resource in that game? Well, it's still not the peak of idiocracy. The absolute best comes into play when our beloved doctor, lead by purely humanistic intent hacks apart a girl, who is, by the way, NOT scared, pained or even surprised by the act at all and keeps up a friendly chat with her murderer. Why is even implemented in the game? Well because it happened in original, let alone all the nonsence and the fact, that in original character had a GOOD reason to take a life with a noble cause in mind, but, as we know, road to hell is payed with good intentions.

I am a fan of Ice-pick in general, Pathologic remastered was game of my childhood and I desperatly wanted to see a remaster, but at some point development of path2 went in a terribly wrong direction and it is really a sorry sight to see if you knew how good and deep original was.

My opinion? Play Original AND IF you like it so much, try part 2, just to compare these to games, knowing how it used to be back then and how good part two could (and should) have been.

[Deco Boladasso]

I recommend the first. Its the original, its polished, its finished. The second one is way more beautiful, but poorly optimized and not finished. Combat in the second one changes in a terrible way, where you turn to your attacker (the game has a terrible combat mechanic in both games, due to the fact you're not a fighter, but a doctor or a little girl, deppending on your character).

At least play the first arch of the first one. I did a first play blind, then got a walkthrough and played it with all the caracters. The first character, the doctor, is the best one imo.

[Unseen]

Tislon you might be being a little hard on pathologic 2 but I do agree the abbaitor was a terribly irritating segment, and a real resource chugger on even modern pcs with all those black clouds spammed all over the place. Funny cause other segments with the abbaitor such as the dream and the ending run just fine. Really wish devs would optimize their games a little better.

The whole morbid cutting her up for a spool she has in an odd place on her body was also.... Yea.. I don't get it, and I don't think I've seen even one fan say that segments cool, creepy, well thought out, or adds anything to the story. Its probably the lowest part of this game, I think its even worse than murky myself, cause murky its not like you killed her plague goes after and kills everyone equally. Murky just happened to be an emotional story impact so I guess people feel more bad about it. But a child dying who you didn't want to die is bad, but willingly butchering a girl for some little item that magically creates a heart well... Yea kinda not well thought out and I would of just preferred what pathologic 1 did and give you an option. Also in path1 you don't have to kill willow at all. If you want to make haruspex a creepy killer you have that option, if you want to make him a decent person you have that option. In 2 you don't have any option but to mutilate this girl and its really kind of sick imo. I still love the game and the atmosphere, and I get haruspex looks like a creepy dude.. But its done in a way where it feels like she's almost the badguy her and her posse. Cut us haruspex you're so cute, but i uhhh don't want to...Oh ok. Its so ridiculous and made to look almost like some movie with an older woman seducing an innocent young boy to do naughty things. But instead of sex its morbid mutilation. Good thing it was only words and sound effects and not the actual act. I really honestly wouldn't care if they removed it and redid it, but since they have to work on bachelor and maybe changeling if we're lucky I doubt we'll ever see anything like that changed in haruspex but still, its really a part in the game I hate thoroughly. And forcefully killing the worms who were not really apostates just worms in the abbaitor probably working or whatever, yea kinda adds to the whole psychopath haruspex title. Also some people have told me its probably a hallucination but I don't agree in the context of the game the abbaitor is very real, he has the blood and he crawls out of a well physically only to meet oyun. Oyun acknowledges that he was in the abbaitor and he has the blood, the earth later bleeds just like it was from some underground blood vessel. The abbaitor is not a dream or a hallucination.

So yea I strongly agree with you on the abbaitor, but this game isn't all bad, I don't think the music, atmosphere or story is as strong as 1 but there is a lot of other things that 2 did better that 1 simply couldn't due to the time it was created. 1 is pretty impressive to me for a game from an obscure company out of russia, the music, architecture, story, setting, and just the amount of replay in 1 is amazing. But 2 kind of beats 1 in details and architecture you really have to admit, look at the detail in just a brick wall for example. Go in the buildings and look around, did 1 really have anything near this kind of realistic artistic quality? Ruins and other things also look amazing. 2 is a very artistic game and all parts of the town look really amazing and well done. Now you do have a lot of points as to why 2 wasn't as good as 1, but in other areas 2 is a bit better. The plagues more of a symptom in 2, while in 1 with saves you could just avoid the plague entirely. This system pushes the disease as not just something to sidestep but ever present danger that effects you no matter where you hide. I actually prefer that cause its a plague that's killing a whole town. It should infect you, it shouldn't just be avoided and when I revisit path1 I sometimes find it a little comical side stepping the plague and acting like the plague is just a wild bull and you are some odd matador. So path1, story, music, atmosphere, path2, better weapon animations, guided gameplay, great architecture details, and a better plague system. Path2's inventory and lair system is also a lot better than 1 imo.

But the abbaitor scene is a real low point in this game, maybe they were just trying to link creepy ritualistic sacrifice, but still seems a little out of place since most cultures eliminated tribal sacrifice close to 500 years ago, and in the old world way before that, hell they shut down most human sacrifice around 3k years ago.