Pathologic on GOG - gog.la/SlavicCOVIDTrainingSim THE LIST - docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_K3ziSxT9zcUUGCddS4sF1uNJTWHSbOwB1CQX2Rx4Uo I also made a video on 2/the remake. If this game looks interesting and you wish it had better mechanics it might be for you. ua-cam.com/video/E7uKUgire7Y/v-deo.html
May I suggest you take a look at Zenoclash 1 and 2 at some point, provided they aren't already on your list? Both are fairly short games so it may even fit in a single video.
what happened with Brigade E5 from your list? Devs - Apeiron - made real Jagged Alliance game that's too awesome to pass in. IMHO you can drop idea with How To Make a Video since YT business is slowly going down and streaming is a new god for young folks and my vote goes to Boiling Point - Road to Hell, Anachronox, Disciples 2, Evil Islands, Inquisitor, Myth, Underrail and Severance. For another weird russian games you might try Man of Prey (Marauder) or Planet Alcatraz
@MandaloreGaming Hey so I have a different idea. You should definitely do a review on another Heroes game since pretty much everyone knows how good h3 is but few people talk about the newer games. But you should also do one for h3, it would be a shame not to :)
My dissertation tutor - a specialist in Russian music that spends half the year in Moscow - once told me he has a hobby of collecting Russian newspaper stories that report on people getting murdered in bar fights that start over disagreements about Russian philosophy and literature. I think the idea of your average person getting killed in a pub brawl over high brow stuff goes a long way to explaining why these sort of games exist.
Drunk people tend to talk about the most important things. And when you have nothing, your beliefs are all you have. You know, when you don't know whether you'll see another day because of any new questionable law...
"Russian teacher 'kills friend in heated poetry versus prose argument'. Suspect stabbed his friend to death after victim insisted prose was superior as literary genre" I do hope he was acquitted.
23:46 In the Russian title there is a word play also. "Мор" is not only "mass death" (like from a plague), but it also sounds and spells exactly the same as the name of Thomas More - the author of Utopia. So there's your connection.
@@Oryxification Considering Thomas More was born 400 years before Communism, it's very inaccurate. The lack of private property seen in Utopia is more like the reflection of perfect Christian morality. Things in Utopia are not perfect because More didn't want to talk about a perfect place, but rather a "no-place", an example of how a state can be ran efficiently (as an example for Henry VIII). It's also a showcase of Protestant ideals. Morover, More also wanted to start a debate about the ideal state, he was aware that Utopia was a fun exercise that many people needed to also take part in, and maybe something nice might come out from it.
I remember russian video games journal "Igromania" reviewed this game and gave it 2.5 out of 10. Then they received an avalanche of angry letters from their readers criticizing the low score.
@@Sigismund697 >they were not wrong the 2.5 accounts for that Not really. Igromania often tended to forgive some negative sides of videogames when there is great plot/music/design like they did with Spec Ops, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (this one actually felt purchasable because the rating was extremely high (9.5) which caused a large shitstorm among russians who debated over a game being a horrifying underdeveloped mess made for cod loving kids, completely undeserving of such high praise (that's right, my little slavaboos, the game WASN'T a commonly accepted masterpiece among slavs no matter how western meme junkies want you to believe it), which some time later resulted in igromania reviewers admitting they didn't even go through half of the game), Alpha Protocol, Driver: parallel lines, I am Alive, New Vegas, Vampire, etc - but Pathologic's review wasn't one of those pitying taps on the shoulder. The game was labeled as typical garbage russian shooter for all the wrong reasons completely ignoring its good aspects. The author of the review even went further and called its writing dumb and unintelligent "full of stylisting mistakes" (which was more of an attempt to look smart and not an actual criticism). In the end he admitted that he didn't even go pass one day. Little to say, Igromania has forgotten that review and pretends like it never existed.
They explain in game that the reason the drunks have bandages is because they’re used to getting into drunken brawls, so they always keep healing supplies on them just in case. The children also usually have immunity items because they’re coming from the polyhedron to get supplies and they don’t want to bring the infection into it, since it’s an enclave of sorts for uninflected children. Honestly almost all of the “wait wut” aspects of this game have very reasonable in game explanations but the game doesn’t tell you unless you put the pieces together yourself. It’s really cool imo
@@wilsan806 kids are dumb, they think the jewelry is more important, even in a time of crisis. Same reason you can trade candy/snacks and marbles for actually useful items. They don’t understand the economy of the pandemic as it’s unfolding. They have ammunition because the polyhedron has stocked it up for defense against the military (there’s a side quest about this in the bachelor run)
Honestly, I'd say the explanations are more contrived than they are reasonable. Every time I figured out the reason behind one of the many design choices in the game I've just gone "Oh" instead of "That makes intuitive sense". Just because something's explained using environmental storytelling doesn't mean it's not just a handwave with flavor. I'd go as far as to say nothing in the game is reasonable and it's all just contrived and arbitrary.
Changeling's name in Russian is "Самозванка", literally "Impostor" and as far as I understand, she claims to be a healer while actually being the plague, hence why "Impostor". Also, in one of the interviews, Nikolay Dybowski (writer and head of Ice-Pick Lodge) said that back in early 00's he desperately wanted to make a game, but had no experience or ability. He then managed to hire programmers (without knowing anything about programming himself) and artists (wthout knowing anything about 3d art) and so they began work, but they didn't have an actual game designer that could turn his vision into a game. And then he claimed that now they do have such a person for Pathologic 2 and that it's turning out as he intended it back then. I'm trying not to get hyped, but after playing the Marble's Nest I can't help it.
I was wondering about that since they changed her from "Devoutress". My understanding of "Changeling" at the end is that she was the shapeshifting shabnak sand pest, but was simply unaware of it due to her mastering the art of contradiction/doublethink by being a living utopia. "Impostor" makes a lot more sense in that regard, and I'm wondering how much of the "she's a thief because she stole fate" was also something that was lost in translation. Still even after all the jank Pathologic 2 is one of the top games I'm looking forward to now.
@@MandaloreGaming My theory is that the Changeling is the player, shifting from Bachelor to Haruspex to Clara. A lot of Clara's route relies on prior knowledge, and there are bits of dialogue here and there hinting things Clara shouldn't know. And by day 12 Clara basically doesn't exist and it's the player talking shit to the Bachelor for being a fake muppet in a fake town struck by a fake plague.
@@Di0nysys It's not a remake, it's more like a re-imagining of the same themes. The game will be totally different, the story outline will probably stay the same (plague, town, characters) but differ greatly in details. And it totally makes sense since Pathologic (2005) definitely doesn't make justice for Dybowski's stunning creative vision and writing.
@@Di0nysys it isn't the same. It's like someone took a children painting and made a Louver grade academic art out of it. Or a symphony orchestra out of 8-bit tune. Why? Didn't you ever tried to do better something you had done when you was younger? And like this is not enough, the new game includes completely new content thrown in the mix.
So I just noticed when Mandalore said, "It's ugly and miserable, like a never-ending funeral" in 6:48 he was foreshadowing the true ending of the game with the god children
@@agamaz5650 no, that SCP is based on a scupture called untitled 2004, which was made before Pathologic, so if anything the Pathologic character is based on the original sculpture.
“For the love of god, do NOT get infect-…. Oh god, it’s *here* “ This line is single handedly the best review of this game I’ve ever heard/seen. It captures the vibe perfectly. There is NOTHING more stressful than entering a plague house in Pathologic 1. It makes the plague houses in 2 seem like tutorial island
I love how literally millions of people have watched Pathologic let's play and explanation videos like this yet, only 15% of all global players at time of writing this have passed day 1.
@@theequitableprose very valid point, although the comment brings light to a very damaging trend especially for young minds.. Its up there with reading the end of a book
@@freemanluster5681 i understand where you're coming from, but even a single playthrough before it was analyzed and as respected for its themes, in the west, as it's managed to be (all things considered) all people had to go on were word of mouth. Plot elements are rarely disclosed when a work is recommended positively. The majority of those who got recommended Pathologic had to play through it to understand its relevance. It's only because we played through it and liked what it offered that it's easily available now, but the problem lies more with the fact that that most of the earnest recommendations were from a time when there were a lot less options, and current looks are chosen on those. It's a very available game, now, but there are a lot of really fun options these days. It's easy to love a difficult piece and forget that it's not quite easy to get into. I don't know, that's just what makes sense to me.
@@freemanluster5681 I doubt you finished the game and having played up till day 8 on the changeling doing all achievements up that point I can comfortably say that the game is completely shit if your looking at gameplay, getting a rewrap of what something is isn’t the crux of modern society lol it’s effective use of time
@@freemanluster5681 Trying to compare this game to a book is rich considering just how crap the gameplay is, and whatever story you manage to get from it is 90% due to dialog expositions (which the writers make a point to mock during the endings). This “trend” you speak of is limited to this exact type of outdated media that attempts to tell an interesting story through the use of clunky mechanics that the creators were forced to settle with, not by design but by limitation (yet another fact pointed out in the secret ending by the writers). I’m not trying to be too mean on the game but what you’re saying means nothing if you aren’t actually recommending real books. To anyone reading this I highly recommend checking out the short story notes from the underground and other works from the author Dostoyevsky.
It was supposed to be a play before they made a game out of it. That's why most of the main characters have real photos -- they are actors who were cast to be in that play
@@agamaz5650 it was in some early interviews and on forums, Nikolay was designing board games and some kinds of immersive experiences before he moved to video games, original idea for pathologic was more like a immersive theatre play/game
15:05 "This game is mundane and slow it makes Stalker look like Ikaruga" To be fair, by day 10 when you are in an infected district and have to dodge 3 disease clouds, one red angel and a rat, all coming at you simultaneously from different directions, aren't you playing a bullet hell segment? :P
>how did you get a larger than average eastern european viewer base? Dunno, I just found the channel through youtube recommendations. Saw that you've reviewed Dark Messiah, Space Station 13, Republic Commando, Arx Fatalis, and other games I love; rather than the latest AAA+ dross. And now you even do obscure Russian gamedev, so uknow, why not. Do Dwarf Fortress next you git.
God I would love to watch Mandalore cover Dwarf Fortress, if just to have someone tell me what the hell I'm supposed to be doing in that game. I want to love it!
I don't remember which video I came through, but then I checked the channel - "Huh, that guy reviewed Darkwood and Vangers. I guess I'm sticking around."
Given the ending with children in the sandbox, the sound of children's laughter after the shot takes on the color not of a technical flaw, but of something more important and thoughtful.
"This work is neither very time-consuming nor mundane. And it's definitely more than a mere errand. It's a very important mission." I love this line so much!
23:45 "in Russian game titled Plague. Utopia." and so on about how "plague" in Russian means "destruction". That's... not exactly correct. First of all, the word in the title does not mean "plague". "Plague" in Russian is "чума" [chuma], and the world in the title is "мор" [mor] which is, roughly, "a mass outbreak of death". It's an archaic word and a close semantic analog to English "pestilence". And it's not the coincidence that the word "mor" resembles Latin "mors", or Italian "morte", or French "mort" or even English "MOURge", "MORtal" and so on up to Sanscrit "mrtuy" because all of them are related to the ancient, Proto-Indo-European word "*mor-o-s" - "death". And if you surprised by the fact that one of the most ancient words in the Indo-European family is a word for death... Well, you shouldn't be, I guess. Still a bit MORbid, though.
@@onlook777 стоп, а что я копаю? Это просто справка по семантике и немного этимологии слова "мор". Я не далаю из этого никаких выводов или интерпритаций. В отличии от автора видео, который для этого пользуется еще и неправильным переводом. Но вообще, "мне нравится как это звучит" - самые сложные для перевода выражения. Потому что там очень важны тонкие семантические оттенки, которых скорее всего нет в другом языке. Поиск глубинных смслов и интрпритаций - гиблое дело, несомненно, но семантика слова это важная часть того, как слово "звучит".
Cant you use it like моровое поветрие? моровое as in plague ridden, so cant моp be used to describe plague in an archaic way? I could be wrong and one of the developers was just polish. We can call The plague - mór
@@-Zakhiel- the devs made their games in a form of a dialogue with the player (heard it in an interview) and the difficulty is really meant to be there. You could buff yourself up, but it's like using cheats to play through Dark Souls. You should know what you're pushing aside. I personally loved how the first Dishonored was like a dialogue of the Outsider with the player - tempting with powers and punishing for using them
@@-Zakhiel- it's also just a difficult survival game in the sense that it's no traditional survival mechanics in it. Can't go "ah I need more food" you go "do I need more... Life? Purple? I have a bunch but will it run out or be stolen by the giant... Eye storm?"
@@isnanesavant @Всеволод Рычков I love the visuals, Void is like an art gallery for me. And yeah I get that the game is like a puzzle. But it is just to punishing. I got a life... I mean If I have to replay the game from the beginning because i forgot one time to plant the good color in my garden that's not fun at all... that's just the game telling me "ha ha ! You just wasted 6 hours of your life... Now do it all over again !". Plus I'm not an english native speaker so it only drawn-out everything even more. Dark Soul is not hard. You have infinite lives... and it's not really hard ! People always say "it's the Dark Soul of..." and I don't get it. Dark Soul came out at a time when AAA video games where to easy, that's why people say it's hard. But it's not really.
At 6:50 "(...) like a never ending funeral." That is a line you only truly appreciate the second time you watch. Mandalore, you were good when you started this. Now you have really mastered your art. Congrats mate.
Games like this are always interesting to watch, but something i know i'll never play. Its more interesting to watch you show off the good parts and edit out the bad parts you suffered through, like a highlight reel of a game I know for sure i will never play pathologic, but I'm glad you did, and that you made this video about it.
I get where you're coming from, but - coming from someone who found the gameplay extremely frustrating - I would still recommend you play it for the story. And the experience. The point is that not all games are meant to be fun. Well, that's one of the points. Even reading all the interesting dialogue without playing would not be the same.
@@arthursimsa9005 ´´ The point is that not all games are meant to be fun ´´ That is subjective because I know when I´m home from work that I don´t want to spend my time on a game that I will not have fun with.
@@T-------- I get you. I've been on a binge just watching Mandalore, Indigo and other channels just showcasing these old, high-concept computer RPGs and I love them, but I'm not really that interested in actually playing them. I just love learning about these creative, unique fantasy worlds and being inspired.
23:45 The word "мор" (mor, "plague") is also a reference to Thomas More, the author of "Utopia". Actually, before this video I always thought that this game was based on that book. Then again, I haven't read it, so maybe this is what perfect world looked like in the 16th century.
Yep, it's has a lot of references to More. For e.g. Main reason for writing Utopia was British Enclosure, and "sheeps eaten people" like in game bull's scientifically was beginning of disease, and of course it is closely related to progress. Google translate it, as i'm to lazy to continue: Так, тыж русский, ну вот и продолжим на русском. Ну короче, еще сама бартерная система, поскольку денег быть не должно. Костюмы одинаковые можно тоже к Мору свести, т.к. по-нему все вообще должны были носить балахоны как у пустынников. Ну и сама изолированность и география намекает на остров Утопия. Реки насколько я помню и на острове утопия и в игре совпадают. Крч можно долго проводить сравнения, но авторы курили слишком забористую траву, а я играл давно, да и лень мне.
@@aurochs2449 Ну хер знает, ИМХО слова Мор и Утопия слишком редкоупотребимы в русском языке, чтобы случайно из них составить комбинацию. Главное что интерпретация работает. Можно начать затирать про дискурс и как на самом деле автор лишь его проявляет, но вот это уже будет действительно СПГС.
@@aurochs2449 Видимо, это как раз то, что и Мандалор сам уловил - противоречие между словами мор и утопия (разрушение и идеал). А может, они вообще так назвали чисто для игры слов, а мы тут скрытый смысл копаем)
It's much harder to start schoolshooting for Russian children but sometimes they manage to do it. Anyway, generally they use knifes. Poor kids, such a lack of entertainment.
In the west. People who are sad try real hard to exemplify depression. There is a culture of veneration for the mentally ill and “oppressed”. But, it’s veneration from a position of pity.
In russian word for destruction, calamity and plague is pronounsed "More". That makes the title of the game sound like "More. Utopia". It makes the title a methaphor because it refers to the book by Thomas More that goes by the name "Utopia", which describes a perfect society and at the same time meaning disease and destruction of such
Playing the original western release of this is quite an experience. I don't know what it did to me, but somehow it made me feel light-headed, and dizzy, and it did not end when I turned off the game. It was like I zoned out in an involuntary way, and then stayed zoned out for far longer than I ever had before. It was glorious, but also a bit scary, and I'm not sure if I should try it again.
Honestly, when I saw the previews on Steam I always assumed the graphics were deliberately bad. There's just something about them that's fascinating. Like what you said about the spiral staircase, it seemed to imbue the game with a really specific brand of unsettling aura, and I'm shocked it's genuinely a very old game rather than a retro enthusiast artist utilizing aged graphics.
@@dzejrid no, you see, this is a problem with russians - most of us are so depressed that they cannot believe that there can exist people who are happy most of the time.
One man's pain is another man's tradeable goods for twyre. I have been awaiting for this review since you talked about it during the LP. Thanks for mentioning this channel, I have been watching his reviews, its great stuff.
I think tedious walking builds immersion and creates this feeling of "yep that's my life now, it sucks and I hate it but what can ya do, gotta go rummage through trash bins to buy drugs and stave off ebola for another day". Adding fast travel, quest markers and time skipping would ruin love-hate relationship the devs were going for, leaving you less frustrated but rather pleasantly numb and indifferent, feeling nothing, completely empty and dead inside… like you always do, Bob… which is why you were looking for some weird trippy game in the first place, isn't it?
That's actually a pretty good description. I replayed Pathologic quite recently and while the walking was certainly somewhat annoying (especially since I could have just the dozens of hours being more productive) it is an integral part of the game and I decided against cheating multiple times. There is a way to activate an extremly fast flying/ghost cheat, but I didn't want that. After all walking pretty much is all of the gameplay. Also, the walking part becomes harder and harder as more enemies appear during the day. So atleast there is an escalation in difficulty.
You can have immersion without padding. If you wanna walk for hours and rummage through trash I'm pretty sure you can do that in your city without needing a game. I suppose if all you do is play games it can strike as something extraordinary, but only because it's simply bad design that nobody does for a reason.
this is exactly like what my dreams look like and how they play out. This is giving me chills, all the vague strange rules and information. the opportunity to relive a period of time to get the best result and a looming apocalypse in the background of the whole thing.
I`m from Ukraine, and this game was my doom during my childhood xd Still, I can assure you all that playing it in language you know very well doesn`t make it any easier. Still great adventure, and thx for the video!
Now I only need your review of The Void (Тургор) and my life will be completed. And yes, we're Very vocal, but there're not a lot of us as far as I can tell
The two reviews of both games (pathologic 1 and 2) left me so amazed, i just finished playing the bachelor in the first game and i was so dumb that i went careless on some of the bound and got the bad ending. I am very tired to play again the whole character (i have no save points from the day 11, that is why i would have to re play the whole character) that i left it for now, but anyway it is a great game for what i have played and thank you for giving this kind of videogames some of the respect they deserve
5:57 In reference to the Barren region of Karst limestone. The quote is from one of his lieutenants, about how not being able to kill and bury people makes him feel out of place.
well, maybe with some kind of a new tetris of sorts. Some mad scientist will have a glass of vodka and will built a new genre just out of boredom.. but Russian game industry is a total mess filled with poorly done budgets and addiction to the microstransactions and all sorts of greed. Unless Soviet Union will rise again, - then there would be much more hope for the Slav gaming as a whole.
@@fus132 you are delusional. In Soviet Union computer classes were playgrounds were kids were making their own games and they did, I did. The whole pragmatic system of education was copy-pasted from USSR to USA by the Kennedy. And not only that, USSR was creating it's own computers not on flawed binary logic (yes-no) but on a trinity one (yes-no-I don't fucking know) which would be more beneficial for the whole computer industry and robotic technologies.
Mechanics are shit, graphic is crap, but it's still the best game of my life. The plot, the climate, the music, the characters, the mystery, the charm... Can't wait for Pathologic 2!
Its because they used symbology brilliantly, created some unique worldbuilding and mixed with fantastic sound design. Its unique and different, even if it can be exhausting or stressful at times.
@@KaiserAfini It's not just the symbology that they use to create the story and a great story either; they did a wonderful job honing the mechanics to reinforce the themes of the story. It really is a wonderful example of how to do games right. Ice-Pick Lodge's games are without a doubt my favourite of all time, and Pathologic is the best amongst my favourites, I think.
I read some Steam reviews for Pathologic 2 and they’re hilarious. They were along the lines of “This game made me feel terrible, all sorts of pain, and I want to die. 10/10.”
I just wanted to thank you for your videos, your reviews are great and they are the pure memory lane trip for me, as I played most of the stuff you talk about. It all brings nice memories of the simpler times when I could game for hours at the time and not care for anything else.... Well done Sir.
Have you ever heard of Eador Genesis? It's a Russian made strategy game, which could accurately be described as "lower budget Heroes of Might and Magic, if the creators were on psychedelics". The story is the kind of weird that you seem to enjoy.
@@NoNameAtAll2 well, this is a video about one of cult classics. Many people know underground titles that were great in their own way and lacked good marketing. Also, check out Space Rangers
@NoName Russians seem to be really good at making weird, off-the-wall, and interesting, but unpolished, and maybe poorly designed, games that no one outside of Russia ever hears of. That combination of qualities tends to make for really interesting videos.
>how did you get a larger than average eastern european viewer base? I think I have some ideas, at least about Russian part of the audience (am Russian myself): 1. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl is really popular in Russia. It's review must've attracted some people. 2. If my memory doesn't deceive me, I discovered you from the Joseph Anderson's recommendation. And J. Anderson has a review style that is similar to a somewhat popular Russian video game critic Mr Zulin. And Mr Zulin have mentioned Anderson in one of his videos. 3. You are "specialised" in somewhat more obscure games, than other game reviewers. But what is an obscure game for a westerner might be a cult classic for us, Russians. For example, everyone and their mum played Space Ranger 1 and 2 back in 2000's. So there's a good chance you'll do a review of that, while others won't. I'm definitely sticking around to see that. 4. You have reviewed some games that were reviewed by Mr Zulin as well: Call of the Cthulhu and now Pathologic. It's interesting to compare your viewpoints (they mostly match) 5. Some other games that you've reviewed might be more popular in Russia than in other countries (well OK, maybe not in the entire Russia, but at least in my group of friends). For example, although Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring was not very good, a lot of my classmates played it back then. Dark Messiah as well, there was that disc that changed hands until all of my friends played it.
I just looked it up, yeah, Mandalore's S.T.A.L.K.E.R. review is pretty much the first result when you look up the game on youtube, I often forget how obscure that game really is outside of /k/ in the west.
@@andrewbattleship2420 What are you talking about? According to different sources about 30-40% of Russians know a second language. For comparison, about 22% Americans and 38% Britons know a second language. In Russia English is mandatory in the majority of schools at least to some degree. In my particular school it was mandatory from first grade up to 11th. In my experience the majority of gamers here know English well enough to play games in English. Sorry for lashing out on your comment, just correcting.
@@IvanKhryapov No offence taken. I forgot that due to vast array of ethnicities there are a lot of people in particular republics and regions who are multilingual. However, a brief google search ends up with 5% of russians speaking English. Having a mandatory English class doesn't mean that 100% of pupils end up with actual knowledge : )
I think the contradiction with the changeling (she and her twin caused and cured the plague) is really interesting. Without the player, the events of the game would never happen. But the goal of the game is to save everyone from the disaster that the player caused by booting up the game. Neat!
The soundtrack always reminded me of something in between Eduard Artemiev's work from the 70s, some Popol Vuh and the techno sensibilities of the late nineties/early 2000s, like Coil maybe. Not too much out there in the grand scheme of things, but in a video game you hardly hear similar stuff. It's great.
I always come back to this video, one of my absolute favorites of yours. I would never have the patience to play this game but I found the story so fascinating and explained very well/interestingly.
This game needs more love I finished Bachelor playthrough and fall in love with it, then I played Haruspex I started to hate Bachelor And then Changeling happened, it was weird. This game gave me weird experiences, it's like drugs
How to play as the organ collector? After talking to the fat guy and his children I don't know what to do. The entire city is chasing me and I die from starvation...
@@AntonAdelson keep running around and stealing food when you need too. There are quest day 1 that will restore your reputation so you are not attacked on sight. Pay attention to the clues given to you by letters and shit you get over the day. Whenever you notice a symbol pop up in the lower corners of the game you know you got more mail which hold a potential hint or side quest. Always try to do a whole round around the town every day. Check on your closest followers every day, than follow up on leads and other NPCs who are not your followers for potential side quests. Develops a cycle of going through the town in the most efficient manner every time because Time is your enemy if you do not respect it. Also just beat up muggers whenever you find them, great way to boost rep at night
So another interesting bit of word play is with the name Haruspex. It's from ancient Rome and is the term for someone who divines the future by reading the entrails of animals. The Haruspex needs to harvest organs to give himself a better chance at surviving so he can figure out the mystery of the town, he's using entrails to reveal secrets. But he's also closer to the town, he's an insider, he's someone who knows the area and the people on a much deeper level. The citizens are sort of the "organs" of the town and he's also reading them and not only that but the Haruspex is much closer to the local religion of the town because he's a native. And you mentioned the Haruspex is more able to make sense of the of the plays which can help predict the future of events in the game.
Russian name of the game alludes to the book by Thomas More "Utopia". Last name of the author in Russian is written as "Мор," just as in "plague" or "hunger".
@@johncheshirsky8822 it is not a coincidence. They just thought that the "[Mor]. "Utopia" sounds "cool". But, of course, they have heard of the book before.
@@9numbernine I mean, that's literally quote on Wikipedia from Nikolai Dybovskiy, game designer for the game, where he says it was a coincidence. Also, additional fun fact, proper name is "Mor (Utopia)", wit "Utopia" in parentheses, like the name of Nikolai Gogol's book "Dead Souls (Poem)" where the genre of the book is written in parentheses. Devs said they describe "Utopia" as the genre of the game.
Yesssss, thank you so much for making this! Pathologic and The Void are both my absolute favourite video games!! And you explained Pathologic so well, whenever I started thinking to myself "I wonder if he's going to mention..." you would mention it! Every other UA-cam video about this game is all about how weird and incomprehensible it is (and also only includes footage of the first day as the Bachelor) and it's so clear that they only played it for 40 minutes... oh, and I will not forgive you for saying that the Haruspex's story is less interesting than Daniil's! Can't wait for you to cover The Void!
My favourite game of all time. A brutal, horrible, wonderfully written and evocatively surreal experience. Criminally underappreciated, too. I couldn't think more highly of this game if I tried.
Your reviews, and the games you pick to review is fucking amazing. Some of these games I probably will never play, and have never heard of, but just listening to you talk about them keeps me coming for more. You have a gift, sir.
Im on day 3 playing as haruspex and so far this game's atmosphere is incredible. I dont know if the story will go anywhere (unlikely) but it has the same mystic Lynch's movies do, which is great.
I really liked your review. I thought you just could review casual games more or less good, but you have the understanding and eloquence to develop a thoughtful review like this one. Thanks, bro.
1:40 Original texts on russian is constructed the way much more literaturely and metaphorically so it's made "by design" but probably translation lost this charm so translation was reviewed and updated to being easier to comprehensible. Could be compared as translating jokes of words: if you translate them as is - they are completely pointless on other language.
14:56 The other game that could be described perfectly by that quote is Flower, Sun and Rain by Suda. It, too, features a large amount of running around doing nothing. Yet there's something unique about it which kept me till the end. Loved both FSR and Pathologic.
I'm pretty sure this is what my grandparents told me the Soviet Union was like when I was a kid. Maaaaaaybe minus the worm-people but I'm not even 100% confident there
Wow. Such an on-point review of Pathologic. Very nicely done. Totally agree with you on the walking being the worst part of the game by far - it is excruciatingly slow, boring and frustrating. And something you did not mention: not even considering the bleak surroundings, all of this walking still manages to be stressful (even though it IS boring), because you're under constant pressure to get shit done before the day is over. No single "quest" stays open fo more than one day, you either manage to fullfill it on the day it is given or you fail. I have watched several of your reviews and it's nice to see this one pushing the limits of your format. I mean, generally you dissect the gameplay and atsmophere into tiny bits. It works to some degree; for instance, I like how you talk about sound design, you're the only reviewer who mentions it every time. But then sometimes it fails to really adress what the game is about. You did a nice job on this one. I actually laughed out loud when I saw the length of the "spoilers" section. As for the game, you said it. It is excructatingly frustrating and unfun, and silly at times, but also captivating and brillant. It's really an artists' game - one of the most literary ones out there, along with Planescape Torment and Morrowind. It is frustrating that Pathologic is not brought up more often in conversations on "video game as an art", or even just good writing. And that's not even talking about the 4th wall breaking stuff. I suspect this is due in great part to the game's length. Talking about the 4th wall in very short games like Doki Doki Literature Club or Undertale isn't such a bad spoiler. Whereas spoiling the "true last end" of Pathologic - earned after dozens of hours of excrutiating gameplay - does not feel right.
@@sawyere2496 Interesting you guys found it reminiscent of Morrowind. Was it being a stranger in a strange land? The alien setting? The fetch quests? Hell, even walking slowly, although it is way worse than Morrowind in this regard:P
@@sawyere2496 Interesting you guys found it reminiscent of Morrowind. Was it being a stranger in a strange land? The alien setting? The fetch quests? Hell, even walking slowly, although it is way worse than Morrowind in this regard:P
Always happy to see Ice-Pick Lodge getting some attention. By the way, they have three more games and Pathologic is the most normal of the bunch, no kidding.
Here's a little detail that can help you better understand the whole ending shitshow: In English you guys have two different verbs - "to play" and "to act", which are kinda similar but you can get the exact point right away without context. However in Russian we simply have only one verb for both defenisions (Igrat' - a verb; Igra - noun). That way it could be tweaked around to fuck with you even more. Sadly, most of those kinds of things were lost in translations, but i guess it lies on fundamental differences between our languages, can't do much about that.
I recently had to take a Slavic studies class for one of my degrees’ culture requirements or something, and lots of the shit you were talking about are extremely prevalent themes in Slavic societies. For example, fate, balance, etc. It seems to permeate into every aspect of life, even their games. There are some really cool dark Russian games, like STALKER and Metro, but also some ones that are, in my opinion, too weird to actually recommend, like this game and Vangers. I tend to appreciate these things more than most people, but I honestly don’t think Pathologic was worth my time. I even played it again in Russian, and it just wasn’t good enough to justify. Maybe I just have different tastes, but the dogshit gameplay can’t be made up for by the story, especially when you could just read the story in text format off a website, which is what I wish I’d done in the first place. I’m glad to see someone cover these games though, and I appreciate your realistic warning at the end.
From Dybovskiy's (the head of Ice-Pick Lodge) panel "Playing with chaos" at KRI 2007: "In ideal, when the player passes through some path, when he passes through the game, he must experience such a complicated suffering feeling which Greeks called 'Catharsis'"
Pathologic is the game that changed my perception of games the most. It's so unique nothing really comes close to it, it's hard to even call it a game, it's more like interactive theater, it's a piece of art and not something you play for fun. Most games that make you kill a bunch of badies just because feel too primitive now. I feel like I've become even more of a picky ahole than before after playing this game...
I dunno, I don't think it makes you a picky ahole to dislike the majority of mainstream games these days. There's no interest among the "AAA" publishers in taking risks with some kooky artist's vision, they have hungry shareholders to feed. So we get "Samey Same Sameness 9" every year. It only makes sense you'd get bored.
+ScumWithBoundaries You should play The Void, I would say its somehow even more unique and bizarre than Pathologic (though less tedious and more accessible)
Incidentally, if anyone is interested in learning about the specifics of the game's story without the walking tedium, I would recommend SulMatul's youtube channel. He does a thorough playthrough of the game, as well as a two-hour analysis of the game's story (set the video's speed to at least 1.50 though for the playthrough; you won't feel like you're 90 years old by the end of it).
I don't comment on a lot of youtube videos, but I'm a huge stan for this game, so... If you love stories in games, specifically the kind of story that can only be told in games, PLAY PATHOLOGIC. If you can tolerate the gameplay, by all means, play the game normally. But if you can't (like 99% of people who touch this game)? CHEAT LIKE A DOG. I played the game with noclip on practically all the time, turning it into a glorified VN, and I fucking loved it. You still have choices to make. It's still a test of your endurance. But it's manageable. Most importantly, you get to focus on the text. If you love analyzing stories, this is a story you need to experience. They tried so hard. The writers for Pathologic were incredibly ambitious. PLEASE cheat. I beg you.
@@motivationalmadness10 1 year aftr but whatever. The difference between a VN and a Pathologic is that the second uses (or better, tries to use) the 3d world to tell the story. The text is only part of it, the Town and the visuals are just as much part of the storytelling as the dialogues are. In a better made game, the gameplay itself would have been part of the experience, but honestly I had a better time cramming the last 5 days in a single day worth of gaming by noclipping my way though buildings and AT BEST trying to do actual walking in the relevant parts of the story. Still worth to have done the first part of it like it was some fucking kind of 3d jigsaw puzzle.
@@motivationalmadness10 Did we watch the same video/speaking about the same game? Because EVERYONE knows that Pathologic is a bad game, even those that love it. It's slow, tedious, looks pretty bad and the gameplay it's a glorified series of fetch quests and dialogues. But this doesn't mean that it's not a valuable experience if you have the taste for it. It's not an issue of "So bad it's good", the ideas, the plot and the concept itself are truly good, the issue is that the presentation that was made of it sucks. It's one of those rare games that actually manage to use the medium of "videogame" to be something different from "fun". You know all that charade about "The Last of Us 2 doesn't want to be fun"? Well, Pathologic actually manages to do what that was all about. TLOU2 is still a 3d action game were shooting people heads were gameplay and not the plot or themes, and the "not fun" part was actually just its story, for which the rest was entirely the usual AAA experience. There is nothing actually "meta" about it, while Pathologic has it. It wouldn't make sense without the videogame format, just like Shadow of the Colossus or Drakengard wouldn't. Too bad that Pathologic gameplay is more of the second than the first,
Pathologic on GOG - gog.la/SlavicCOVIDTrainingSim
THE LIST - docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_K3ziSxT9zcUUGCddS4sF1uNJTWHSbOwB1CQX2Rx4Uo
I also made a video on 2/the remake. If this game looks interesting and you wish it had better mechanics it might be for you. ua-cam.com/video/E7uKUgire7Y/v-deo.html
May I suggest you take a look at Zenoclash 1 and 2 at some point, provided they aren't already on your list?
Both are fairly short games so it may even fit in a single video.
what happened with Brigade E5 from your list? Devs - Apeiron - made real Jagged Alliance game that's too awesome to pass in.
IMHO you can drop idea with How To Make a Video since YT business is slowly going down and streaming is a new god for young folks
and my vote goes to Boiling Point - Road to Hell, Anachronox, Disciples 2, Evil Islands, Inquisitor, Myth, Underrail and Severance.
For another weird russian games you might try Man of Prey (Marauder) or Planet Alcatraz
OH MY GOD, DID YOU JUST HINTED TO ANONYMOUS AGONY EPISODE ?!
@MandaloreGaming Heroes 3 ? L.E: Oh I see its already in your list, sorry. Make sure to try the HD mod (fanmade mod, not the HD edition)
@MandaloreGaming Hey so I have a different idea. You should definitely do a review on another Heroes game since pretty much everyone knows how good h3 is but few people talk about the newer games. But you should also do one for h3, it would be a shame not to :)
I saw a Steam review for Pathologic that described it as “like reading Dostoyevsky but the book is beating the shit out of you”
That's hilarious 😂. I love funny steam reviews lol
That's how it feels to read The Brothers Karamazov anyway.
@@sethmoyer my experience trying to jump into Dostoevsky with Demons
so... reading Dostoyevski
@@sethmoyerI see you and appreciate you, King.
My dissertation tutor - a specialist in Russian music that spends half the year in Moscow - once told me he has a hobby of collecting Russian newspaper stories that report on people getting murdered in bar fights that start over disagreements about Russian philosophy and literature. I think the idea of your average person getting killed in a pub brawl over high brow stuff goes a long way to explaining why these sort of games exist.
Drunk people tend to talk about the most important things. And when you have nothing, your beliefs are all you have.
You know, when you don't know whether you'll see another day because of any new questionable law...
Your dissertation tutor sounds like a Pathologic character with an only slightly disturbing hobby
"Russian teacher 'kills friend in heated poetry versus prose argument'. Suspect stabbed his friend to death after victim insisted prose was superior as literary genre"
I do hope he was acquitted.
"Stabbing victim's final words: 'Do you even read Loki, mate?'"
Me: I think Civ games are best played as a pacifist, becaus-
A Wild Russian Hobo (Level 6, Legendary): Omae wa mou shindeiru.
Me: *NANI?!?!*
23:46
In the Russian title there is a word play also.
"Мор" is not only "mass death" (like from a plague), but it also sounds and spells exactly the same as the name of Thomas More - the author of Utopia. So there's your connection.
Indeed,and the author himself calls it as irony,saying that there is actually no connection with Thomas's "Utopia"
Well, I've only noticed it as you told
Utopia the book is more about a communist dictatorship full of human misery and death instead of perfection. Most people never read it
@@Oryxification Considering Thomas More was born 400 years before Communism, it's very inaccurate. The lack of private property seen in Utopia is more like the reflection of perfect Christian morality. Things in Utopia are not perfect because More didn't want to talk about a perfect place, but rather a "no-place", an example of how a state can be ran efficiently (as an example for Henry VIII). It's also a showcase of Protestant ideals. Morover, More also wanted to start a debate about the ideal state, he was aware that Utopia was a fun exercise that many people needed to also take part in, and maybe something nice might come out from it.
I doubt it has anything to do with Thomas More, mor is just the word plague in russian
Unedited footage of a scenic Slavic village
RANK10YGO [Rata] rata wut r u doing here xdd
Such a beautiful place yes
circa 1914
I live in a Slavic village.
I have to disagree with you. We have less stone houses here.
Otherwise it's a perfect fit.
Rata be trading organs for trains
I remember russian video games journal "Igromania" reviewed this game and gave it 2.5 out of 10. Then they received an avalanche of angry letters from their readers criticizing the low score.
Well it is a shit game with an amazing story so they were not wrong the 2.5 accounts for that
@@Sigismund697 in this case fans say: it is not a game! :)
Is this Russian Godhand?
@@thundervolt9764 YES
@@Sigismund697
>they were not wrong the 2.5 accounts for that
Not really. Igromania often tended to forgive some negative sides of videogames when there is great plot/music/design like they did with Spec Ops, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (this one actually felt purchasable because the rating was extremely high (9.5) which caused a large shitstorm among russians who debated over a game being a horrifying underdeveloped mess made for cod loving kids, completely undeserving of such high praise (that's right, my little slavaboos, the game WASN'T a commonly accepted masterpiece among slavs no matter how western meme junkies want you to believe it), which some time later resulted in igromania reviewers admitting they didn't even go through half of the game), Alpha Protocol, Driver: parallel lines, I am Alive, New Vegas, Vampire, etc - but Pathologic's review wasn't one of those pitying taps on the shoulder. The game was labeled as typical garbage russian shooter for all the wrong reasons completely ignoring its good aspects. The author of the review even went further and called its writing dumb and unintelligent "full of stylisting mistakes" (which was more of an attempt to look smart and not an actual criticism). In the end he admitted that he didn't even go pass one day.
Little to say, Igromania has forgotten that review and pretends like it never existed.
They explain in game that the reason the drunks have bandages is because they’re used to getting into drunken brawls, so they always keep healing supplies on them just in case. The children also usually have immunity items because they’re coming from the polyhedron to get supplies and they don’t want to bring the infection into it, since it’s an enclave of sorts for uninflected children.
Honestly almost all of the “wait wut” aspects of this game have very reasonable in game explanations but the game doesn’t tell you unless you put the pieces together yourself. It’s really cool imo
... but what about the little children who will sell you ammunition for jewelry?
@@wilsan806 Russian children, no explanation needed there
@@wilsan806 That's Notkin's gang. They need the weapons.
@@wilsan806 kids are dumb, they think the jewelry is more important, even in a time of crisis. Same reason you can trade candy/snacks and marbles for actually useful items. They don’t understand the economy of the pandemic as it’s unfolding. They have ammunition because the polyhedron has stocked it up for defense against the military (there’s a side quest about this in the bachelor run)
Honestly, I'd say the explanations are more contrived than they are reasonable. Every time I figured out the reason behind one of the many design choices in the game I've just gone "Oh" instead of "That makes intuitive sense". Just because something's explained using environmental storytelling doesn't mean it's not just a handwave with flavor. I'd go as far as to say nothing in the game is reasonable and it's all just contrived and arbitrary.
Changeling's name in Russian is "Самозванка", literally "Impostor" and as far as I understand, she claims to be a healer while actually being the plague, hence why "Impostor".
Also, in one of the interviews, Nikolay Dybowski (writer and head of Ice-Pick Lodge) said that back in early 00's he desperately wanted to make a game, but had no experience or ability. He then managed to hire programmers (without knowing anything about programming himself) and artists (wthout knowing anything about 3d art) and so they began work, but they didn't have an actual game designer that could turn his vision into a game. And then he claimed that now they do have such a person for Pathologic 2 and that it's turning out as he intended it back then.
I'm trying not to get hyped, but after playing the Marble's Nest I can't help it.
I was wondering about that since they changed her from "Devoutress". My understanding of "Changeling" at the end is that she was the shapeshifting shabnak sand pest, but was simply unaware of it due to her mastering the art of contradiction/doublethink by being a living utopia. "Impostor" makes a lot more sense in that regard, and I'm wondering how much of the "she's a thief because she stole fate" was also something that was lost in translation. Still even after all the jank Pathologic 2 is one of the top games I'm looking forward to now.
@@MandaloreGaming My theory is that the Changeling is the player, shifting from Bachelor to Haruspex to Clara. A lot of Clara's route relies on prior knowledge, and there are bits of dialogue here and there hinting things Clara shouldn't know. And by day 12 Clara basically doesn't exist and it's the player talking shit to the Bachelor for being a fake muppet in a fake town struck by a fake plague.
@@Di0nysys It's not a remake, it's more like a re-imagining of the same themes. The game will be totally different, the story outline will probably stay the same (plague, town, characters) but differ greatly in details. And it totally makes sense since Pathologic (2005) definitely doesn't make justice for Dybowski's stunning creative vision and writing.
So "impostor" for Dybowski's own Impostor Syndrome?
@@Di0nysys it isn't the same. It's like someone took a children painting and made a Louver grade academic art out of it. Or a symphony orchestra out of 8-bit tune. Why? Didn't you ever tried to do better something you had done when you was younger? And like this is not enough, the new game includes completely new content thrown in the mix.
So I just noticed when Mandalore said, "It's ugly and miserable, like a never-ending funeral" in 6:48 he was foreshadowing the true ending of the game with the god children
even worse than that, seconds later he foreshadows anonymous agony. This guys always amazes me with how naturally he builds up lord about himself
Ye ye, ye
Here's another contradiction: Pathologic is probably one of my favorite games I never played.
Pathologic 2 is infinitely more playable though! Would definitely recommend giving it a try.
@@milenad.k.2238 as soon as I buy a new computer I'm gonna buy Pathologic 2.
Try it, you coward!
Milena D.K. if only i had the specs for it T-T
Just play it
"Good luck in the SCP dungeon" and "I diagnose you with dead" were by far the two best parts.
And just 30 minuets after I made an S,C,P, 049 reference
do you think the SCP character was inspired by that one in Pathologic?
"I got five kids to feed" is my favorite, because Burack effectively has only children as his bound. He literally has five kids to feed.
@@agamaz5650 no, that SCP is based on a scupture called untitled 2004, which was made before Pathologic, so if anything the Pathologic character is based on the original sculpture.
“For the love of god, do NOT get infect-…. Oh god, it’s *here* “
This line is single handedly the best review of this game I’ve ever heard/seen. It captures the vibe perfectly. There is NOTHING more stressful than entering a plague house in Pathologic 1. It makes the plague houses in 2 seem like tutorial island
I love how literally millions of people have watched Pathologic let's play and explanation videos like this yet, only 15% of all global players at time of writing this have passed day 1.
To be fair, quite a few people played this before achievements were really a thing.
@@theequitableprose very valid point, although the comment brings light to a very damaging trend especially for young minds..
Its up there with reading the end of a book
@@freemanluster5681 i understand where you're coming from, but even a single playthrough before it was analyzed and as respected for its themes, in the west, as it's managed to be (all things considered) all people had to go on were word of mouth. Plot elements are rarely disclosed when a work is recommended positively. The majority of those who got recommended Pathologic had to play through it to understand its relevance. It's only because we played through it and liked what it offered that it's easily available now, but the problem lies more with the fact that that most of the earnest recommendations were from a time when there were a lot less options, and current looks are chosen on those. It's a very available game, now, but there are a lot of really fun options these days. It's easy to love a difficult piece and forget that it's not quite easy to get into. I don't know, that's just what makes sense to me.
@@freemanluster5681 I doubt you finished the game and having played up till day 8 on the changeling doing all achievements up that point I can comfortably say that the game is completely shit if your looking at gameplay, getting a rewrap of what something is isn’t the crux of modern society lol it’s effective use of time
@@freemanluster5681
Trying to compare this game to a book is rich considering just how crap the gameplay is, and whatever story you manage to get from it is 90% due to dialog expositions (which the writers make a point to mock during the endings).
This “trend” you speak of is limited to this exact type of outdated media that attempts to tell an interesting story through the use of clunky mechanics that the creators were forced to settle with, not by design but by limitation (yet another fact pointed out in the secret ending by the writers).
I’m not trying to be too mean on the game but what you’re saying means nothing if you aren’t actually recommending real books. To anyone reading this I highly recommend checking out the short story notes from the underground and other works from the author Dostoyevsky.
"Illegal organ market" is an offensive term. I prefer "Non-consensual organ arbitration."
Oh sseth
Good one
Challenged organ market
Possible opt-in Organ welfare system.
Hey hey people, Mandalore here
It was supposed to be a play before they made a game out of it. That's why most of the main characters have real photos -- they are actors who were cast to be in that play
....how does one start making a stage play and then go "nevermind Imma make a game now?"
where did you get that information from?
@@agamaz5650 it was in some early interviews and on forums, Nikolay was designing board games and some kinds of immersive experiences before he moved to video games, original idea for pathologic was more like a immersive theatre play/game
@@bromanov I didn't know about that and i thank you for that information. I would love to see a play of pathologic with the music and everything. \o/
@@m1m1n0u Haruspik's portret in a game it's a portret of Nicolai. Just interesting fact
15:05 "This game is mundane and slow it makes Stalker look like Ikaruga"
To be fair, by day 10 when you are in an infected district and have to dodge 3 disease clouds, one red angel and a rat, all coming at you simultaneously from different directions, aren't you playing a bullet hell segment? :P
First-person bullet hell
It's just plain regular hell lol
@@Poet482 No need to fear the bullets if EVERYTHING kills you, just in different speeds!
-Gideo Goyjima
>how did you get a larger than average eastern european viewer base?
Dunno, I just found the channel through youtube recommendations. Saw that you've reviewed Dark Messiah, Space Station 13, Republic Commando, Arx Fatalis, and other games I love; rather than the latest AAA+ dross. And now you even do obscure Russian gamedev, so uknow, why not. Do Dwarf Fortress next you git.
God I would love to watch Mandalore cover Dwarf Fortress, if just to have someone tell me what the hell I'm supposed to be doing in that game. I want to love it!
I don't remember which video I came through, but then I checked the channel - "Huh, that guy reviewed Darkwood and Vangers. I guess I'm sticking around."
This guy just made a plenty of russian game reviews. I even suspected he had some russian origins.
I came for Stalker, stayed for Gothic.
Dwarf fortress is for his alter ego
Just noticed Haze at 6:54 ! Well done, particularly given the ye ye video!
That seriously screwed with when I saw the difference in dates.
Holy fuck
I’m surprised Haze didn’t grace us with one of his one liners
i scrolled down to writtis about that haze, I saw the other video today, mandy... you crazy bastard
I WAS JUST GONNA SAY LMAO
Given the ending with children in the sandbox, the sound of children's laughter after the shot takes on the color not of a technical flaw, but of something more important and thoughtful.
Like genuis game desighn
oh god dammit
Oh.....
That's right
...huh...
"And then he went bang bang! Uhahahaha!"
"This work is neither very time-consuming nor mundane. And it's definitely more than a mere errand. It's a very important mission." I love this line so much!
4:58
MandaloreGaming: "This guy? You guessed it"
Guy: *Runs at camera*
Me: "I didn't guess it, I DIDN'T GUESS IT!"
Quite Serious Nejo I see you’ve take an interest in the game fam :)
I was gonna comment this but you already did a year ago. I absolutely did NOT guess that.
You guess it, Frank Stallone
I admit, it's my favourite little bit of the video.
Mandy actually foreshadowed Haze and anonymous agony already in this video. I cant even.
Briggs aswell
MaraTHON
i took severe physic damage upon seeing it
@@samotdengode Nah, Briggs was a call back
Debating the developers as an ending is the greatest thing I've ever seen.
Peachy Peach death of the author my man
@@lmack3024 Yeah that s some postmodernism here
@@lmack3024 what does Barthes' essay have to do with the devs taking to you, exactly?
23:45 "in Russian game titled Plague. Utopia." and so on about how "plague" in Russian means "destruction".
That's... not exactly correct.
First of all, the word in the title does not mean "plague". "Plague" in Russian is "чума" [chuma], and the world in the title is "мор" [mor] which is, roughly, "a mass outbreak of death". It's an archaic word and a close semantic analog to English "pestilence".
And it's not the coincidence that the word "mor" resembles Latin "mors", or Italian "morte", or French "mort" or even English "MOURge", "MORtal" and so on up to Sanscrit "mrtuy" because all of them are related to the ancient, Proto-Indo-European word "*mor-o-s" - "death". And if you surprised by the fact that one of the most ancient words in the Indo-European family is a word for death... Well, you shouldn't be, I guess. Still a bit MORbid, though.
good post! thanks for the info!
Very necessary for you to tell us this.
Oh god... Лишний раз копаете то что копать не надо. Смысла в выражении нет . Как рассказывал разраб " мне просто понравилось как это звучит "
@@onlook777 стоп, а что я копаю? Это просто справка по семантике и немного этимологии слова "мор". Я не далаю из этого никаких выводов или интерпритаций. В отличии от автора видео, который для этого пользуется еще и неправильным переводом.
Но вообще, "мне нравится как это звучит" - самые сложные для перевода выражения. Потому что там очень важны тонкие семантические оттенки, которых скорее всего нет в другом языке.
Поиск глубинных смслов и интрпритаций - гиблое дело, несомненно, но семантика слова это важная часть того, как слово "звучит".
Cant you use it like моровое поветрие? моровое as in plague ridden, so cant моp be used to describe plague in an archaic way?
I could be wrong and one of the developers was just polish. We can call The plague - mór
6:54 when he says haze the main character from anonymous agony appears this man has been playing the long con for years
Now that you've opened the ice pick lodge pandoras box, you have to touch on the VOID
I should reinstall it and try to finish it... But this game is unplayable if you don't add the easy difficulty patch.
@@-Zakhiel- the devs made their games in a form of a dialogue with the player (heard it in an interview) and the difficulty is really meant to be there.
You could buff yourself up, but it's like using cheats to play through Dark Souls. You should know what you're pushing aside.
I personally loved how the first Dishonored was like a dialogue of the Outsider with the player - tempting with powers and punishing for using them
@@-Zakhiel- it's also just a difficult survival game in the sense that it's no traditional survival mechanics in it. Can't go "ah I need more food" you go "do I need more... Life? Purple? I have a bunch but will it run out or be stolen by the giant... Eye storm?"
@@isnanesavant @Всеволод Рычков I love the visuals, Void is like an art gallery for me. And yeah I get that the game is like a puzzle. But it is just to punishing. I got a life... I mean If I have to replay the game from the beginning because i forgot one time to plant the good color in my garden that's not fun at all... that's just the game telling me "ha ha ! You just wasted 6 hours of your life... Now do it all over again !". Plus I'm not an english native speaker so it only drawn-out everything even more.
Dark Soul is not hard. You have infinite lives... and it's not really hard ! People always say "it's the Dark Soul of..." and I don't get it. Dark Soul came out at a time when AAA video games where to easy, that's why people say it's hard. But it's not really.
The Brothers terrify me so much that I cant make myself finish the game
At 6:50 "(...) like a never ending funeral." That is a line you only truly appreciate the second time you watch.
Mandalore, you were good when you started this. Now you have really mastered your art. Congrats mate.
Or if you got that ending. Which is not the end, actually, but anyways.
Games like this are always interesting to watch, but something i know i'll never play. Its more interesting to watch you show off the good parts and edit out the bad parts you suffered through, like a highlight reel of a game
I know for sure i will never play pathologic, but I'm glad you did, and that you made this video about it.
Nanako Glasgow play Pathologic 2
yeah sometimes i just really enjoy a lot of aspects from a game, except actually playing it
I get where you're coming from, but - coming from someone who found the gameplay extremely frustrating - I would still recommend you play it for the story. And the experience. The point is that not all games are meant to be fun. Well, that's one of the points. Even reading all the interesting dialogue without playing would not be the same.
@@arthursimsa9005
´´ The point is that not all games are meant to be fun ´´
That is subjective because I know when I´m home from work that I don´t want to spend my time on a game that I will not have fun with.
@@T-------- I get you. I've been on a binge just watching Mandalore, Indigo and other channels just showcasing these old, high-concept computer RPGs and I love them, but I'm not really that interested in actually playing them. I just love learning about these creative, unique fantasy worlds and being inspired.
23:45
The word "мор" (mor, "plague") is also a reference to Thomas More, the author of "Utopia".
Actually, before this video I always thought that this game was based on that book. Then again, I haven't read it, so maybe this is what perfect world looked like in the 16th century.
Yep, it's has a lot of references to More. For e.g. Main reason for writing Utopia was British Enclosure, and "sheeps eaten people" like in game bull's scientifically was beginning of disease, and of course it is closely related to progress. Google translate it, as i'm to lazy to continue: Так, тыж русский, ну вот и продолжим на русском. Ну короче, еще сама бартерная система, поскольку денег быть не должно. Костюмы одинаковые можно тоже к Мору свести, т.к. по-нему все вообще должны были носить балахоны как у пустынников. Ну и сама изолированность и география намекает на остров Утопия. Реки насколько я помню и на острове утопия и в игре совпадают. Крч можно долго проводить сравнения, но авторы курили слишком забористую траву, а я играл давно, да и лень мне.
"Тут заключена некоторая ирония - к Томасу Мору это никакого отношения не имеет" - Николай Дыбовский
@@aurochs2449 Ну хер знает, ИМХО слова Мор и Утопия слишком редкоупотребимы в русском языке, чтобы случайно из них составить комбинацию. Главное что интерпретация работает. Можно начать затирать про дискурс и как на самом деле автор лишь его проявляет, но вот это уже будет действительно СПГС.
@@aurochs2449 Видимо, это как раз то, что и Мандалор сам уловил - противоречие между словами мор и утопия (разрушение и идеал).
А может, они вообще так назвали чисто для игры слов, а мы тут скрытый смысл копаем)
"Check the school children, they have plenty of ammunition"
You sure this game wasn't made in america?
It's much harder to start schoolshooting for Russian children but sometimes they manage to do it.
Anyway, generally they use knifes. Poor kids, such a lack of entertainment.
@@denist7391 Or axes and hunting rifles
@@markmonoton6224 True. My neighbour managed to kill himself with just a ladder not a long time ago.
that sounds alot more like russian kids
If it were an american, the ammunition would already be inside the school children
So, pathologic 2 dropped on steam.
Gonna do that too? 👀👀
Yes.
MandaloreGaming Ladies and Gentleman we got em.
MandaloreGaming : Ah shit, here we go again.
God I fucking hope so
@@MandaloreGaming Lol, what # play-through are you on now? Also are you doing a %200 difficulty run like me?
Westerners wish they could express depression through videogames with such excellence.
That genuinely made me laugh
Everything good we make is so depressive and/or obscure
There is no point for me playing this game, i can just take a walk outside for the same experience.
@@Sputnik1 don't forget how easy it is to be sent to jail in Russian games.
In the west. People who are sad try real hard to exemplify depression. There is a culture of veneration for the mentally ill and “oppressed”. But, it’s veneration from a position of pity.
@@nks406 Get on my level. I just need to wake up to feel depressed.
Thanks for the subtitles. It is always interesting to see the vision of the game by foreign citizens.
Also interesting to see games from foreign cultures
The way you say "Time for Video Games..." at the start lives rent free in my head any time i start any game. It took me forever to find it again!
4:25 a quiet, pensive aniki, slipping by unnoticed
Gachimuchi mod 😂
Holy shit
RIP Aniki
In russian word for destruction, calamity and plague is pronounsed "More". That makes the title of the game sound like "More. Utopia". It makes the title a methaphor because it refers to the book by Thomas More that goes by the name "Utopia", which describes a perfect society and at the same time meaning disease and destruction of such
@@F33bs , nope, developer talked about it on their podcast and confirmed it.
@@F33bs it's on Ice Pick Lodge youtube channel, but it's only in russian.
For anyone who just came from the recent mandalore streams, the hint to that game he mentions was in this video is at 6:52
Goddamnit
Playing the original western release of this is quite an experience. I don't know what it did to me, but somehow it made me feel light-headed, and dizzy, and it did not end when I turned off the game. It was like I zoned out in an involuntary way, and then stayed zoned out for far longer than I ever had before. It was glorious, but also a bit scary, and I'm not sure if I should try it again.
Irl creepypasta
It's the twyre in bloom.
Someone said they “depersonalized” while playing it, which I think matches the feeling
THE NEWMAKER hbomberguy described a similar feeling, and then someone in his comments said “depersonalized” fit the feeling
Ally Li ah, then dont take acid, while playing it
Please, Mandalore, I have nothing to eat...
"This awkward kid wants your nuts."
@@Godzilla-se8in I'm sorry, kid, I am allergic to NUT
Felinix don't worry. This will keep the hunger pangs away much, much longer.
Seeing references to later Mandalore videos is always surreal. Like I'm in a Marathon game myself 😭 6:54
good stuff
Wait what
My God if you play this
Since when you watch papa Mandalore
SARK
MY MAN
I haven't watched you in forever--like, SeaNanner GMod Hide and Seek days. Fancy seeing you here!
18:45 Mandalore, you can't just put an "OOF" Roblox sound effect after murdering a child
BURN THE BABIES!
I'll make sure to abort a spawn in your honor.
Maybe that was his Sseth personality slipping through.
@@TheBrez As we now know, it's not slipping through.
Yes he can.
Honestly, when I saw the previews on Steam I always assumed the graphics were deliberately bad. There's just something about them that's fascinating. Like what you said about the spiral staircase, it seemed to imbue the game with a really specific brand of unsettling aura, and I'm shocked it's genuinely a very old game rather than a retro enthusiast artist utilizing aged graphics.
Me: "Huh, Pathologic. That means the comments will be filled with more russians than a european CS:GO server in Berlin 1945, eh?"
Comments: "Da"
*soviet anthem in the distance*
You'r right on the money, moi drug.
more like the comments will be full of russian bots
Da
Вот э найс дей фор эназер ютьюб коммент
"This doesn't mean that all Eastern Europeans are sad..."
Yes.
Yes, it does.
Everyone is sad. We just dont hide it behind a fake smile.
"Eastern europeans are sad" - hasn't been to eastern europe once or even met a person
We are sad when we are sad and happy when we are happy. Embrace yourself and your feelings ^^
They're not always sad.
Sometimes they're drunk.
@@dzejrid no, you see, this is a problem with russians - most of us are so depressed that they cannot believe that there can exist people who are happy most of the time.
4:58 "This guy? You guessed it."
Guessed what? What is he supposed to be?! All I feel is terror!
yes share my love pain
One man's pain is another man's tradeable goods for twyre. I have been awaiting for this review since you talked about it during the LP. Thanks for mentioning this channel, I have been watching his reviews, its great stuff.
In mother country we don't say "I love you" we say "share my love pain" and I think that's beautiful
Estevan Phillips I accidentally had a mental breakdown trying to translate it to Russian.
I think tedious walking builds immersion and creates this feeling of "yep that's my life now, it sucks and I hate it but what can ya do, gotta go rummage through trash bins to buy drugs and stave off ebola for another day".
Adding fast travel, quest markers and time skipping would ruin love-hate relationship the devs were going for, leaving you less frustrated but rather pleasantly numb and indifferent, feeling nothing, completely empty and dead inside… like you always do, Bob… which is why you were looking for some weird trippy game in the first place, isn't it?
That's actually a pretty good description. I replayed Pathologic quite recently and while the walking was certainly somewhat annoying (especially since I could have just the dozens of hours being more productive) it is an integral part of the game and I decided against cheating multiple times. There is a way to activate an extremly fast flying/ghost cheat, but I didn't want that. After all walking pretty much is all of the gameplay.
Also, the walking part becomes harder and harder as more enemies appear during the day. So atleast there is an escalation in difficulty.
Why couldn't they add a bicycle
@@ignotumperignotius630 I don't think there are bicycles in town. Or horses. No rollerblades either.
@@ignotumperignotius630 "Now is not the time to use that"
You can have immersion without padding. If you wanna walk for hours and rummage through trash I'm pretty sure you can do that in your city without needing a game. I suppose if all you do is play games it can strike as something extraordinary, but only because it's simply bad design that nobody does for a reason.
"check the school children, they have plenty of ammunition." So far, the most realistic game i've ever seen.
This is what SWERY would make if he were Russian
But it wouldnt be good
thats why he used Deadly premonition music :D
This is honestly the most accurate description of the game I've seen yet.
More like Yoko Taro
This sound like Slavoj Zizek and David Lynch made a video game.
this is exactly like what my dreams look like and how they play out. This is giving me chills, all the vague strange rules and information. the opportunity to relive a period of time to get the best result and a looming apocalypse in the background of the whole thing.
As a fellow Lucid dreamer I understand.
"So things might get desperate"
*sensually massages revolver hammer*
I`m from Ukraine, and this game was my doom during my childhood xd Still, I can assure you all that playing it in language you know very well doesn`t make it any easier.
Still great adventure, and thx for the video!
You alright?
@@Paisly_ yeah, what about you?
Rest In Peace
@@Saltarian1
Now I only need your review of The Void (Тургор) and my life will be completed.
And yes, we're Very vocal, but there're not a lot of us as far as I can tell
Are you sure about that?
@@0xlamon Нет.
@@Sputnik1наших тут хватает, явно.
More than you think.
Товарищ, вы не продаете китайский стол? Повторяю. Товарищ, вы не продаете китайский стол?
Не-не-не. Никакого Тургора. Совсем же сломаете парня. Так он до КР2 не доживёт ведь.
The two reviews of both games (pathologic 1 and 2) left me so amazed, i just finished playing the bachelor in the first game and i was so dumb that i went careless on some of the bound and got the bad ending. I am very tired to play again the whole character (i have no save points from the day 11, that is why i would have to re play the whole character) that i left it for now, but anyway it is a great game for what i have played and thank you for giving this kind of videogames some of the respect they deserve
5:57 In reference to the Barren region of Karst limestone.
The quote is from one of his lieutenants, about how not being able to kill and bury people makes him feel out of place.
Slavs will save gaming with their jank, I swear.
Would be nice to have that honor, lol.
But really, indie games are great all over the world. Especially in Sweden, probably because of the community
well, maybe with some kind of a new tetris of sorts. Some mad scientist will have a glass of vodka and will built a new genre just out of boredom.. but Russian game industry is a total mess filled with poorly done budgets and addiction to the microstransactions and all sorts of greed. Unless Soviet Union will rise again, - then there would be much more hope for the Slav gaming as a whole.
I doubt that, no one can beat the Asians on that territory
@@dimas3829 "more hope for the Slav gaming as a whole."
Party approved only games - hope? Lol, not even close.
@@fus132 you are delusional. In Soviet Union computer classes were playgrounds were kids were making their own games and they did, I did. The whole pragmatic system of education was copy-pasted from USSR to USA by the Kennedy. And not only that, USSR was creating it's own computers not on flawed binary logic (yes-no) but on a trinity one (yes-no-I don't fucking know) which would be more beneficial for the whole computer industry and robotic technologies.
Mechanics are shit, graphic is crap, but it's still the best game of my life. The plot, the climate, the music, the characters, the mystery, the charm... Can't wait for Pathologic 2!
I agree completely.
Its because they used symbology brilliantly, created some unique worldbuilding and mixed with fantastic sound design. Its unique and different, even if it can be exhausting or stressful at times.
@@KaiserAfini It's not just the symbology that they use to create the story and a great story either; they did a wonderful job honing the mechanics to reinforce the themes of the story.
It really is a wonderful example of how to do games right. Ice-Pick Lodge's games are without a doubt my favourite of all time, and Pathologic is the best amongst my favourites, I think.
I just wish they made a novelization so that I can't enjoy the story without having to put up with the shit gameplay
I read some Steam reviews for Pathologic 2 and they’re hilarious. They were along the lines of “This game made me feel terrible, all sorts of pain, and I want to die. 10/10.”
I just wanted to thank you for your videos, your reviews are great and they are the pure memory lane trip for me, as I played most of the stuff you talk about. It all brings nice memories of the simpler times when I could game for hours at the time and not care for anything else.... Well done Sir.
If it's Russian, then it's basically a documentary
Salokin по-человечески пиши, пидор грязный
"The game was rigged from the start" -Fallout New Vegas
ring-a-ding-ding baby
Ta-ta
Have you ever heard of Eador Genesis? It's a Russian made strategy game, which could accurately be described as "lower budget Heroes of Might and Magic, if the creators were on psychedelics". The story is the kind of weird that you seem to enjoy.
It's good...at least the first one was....but it also takes forever to play through.....
wtf is with all these russian game recommendations?
@@NoNameAtAll2 well, this is a video about one of cult classics.
Many people know underground titles that were great in their own way and lacked good marketing.
Also, check out Space Rangers
@NoName Russians seem to be really good at making weird, off-the-wall, and interesting, but unpolished, and maybe poorly designed, games that no one outside of Russia ever hears of. That combination of qualities tends to make for really interesting videos.
@@tripodranger7873 what can you say
russians are weird people
>how did you get a larger than average eastern european viewer base?
I think I have some ideas, at least about Russian part of the audience (am Russian myself):
1. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl is really popular in Russia. It's review must've attracted some people.
2. If my memory doesn't deceive me, I discovered you from the Joseph Anderson's recommendation. And J. Anderson has a review style that is similar to a somewhat popular Russian video game critic Mr Zulin. And Mr Zulin have mentioned Anderson in one of his videos.
3. You are "specialised" in somewhat more obscure games, than other game reviewers. But what is an obscure game for a westerner might be a cult classic for us, Russians. For example, everyone and their mum played Space Ranger 1 and 2 back in 2000's. So there's a good chance you'll do a review of that, while others won't. I'm definitely sticking around to see that.
4. You have reviewed some games that were reviewed by Mr Zulin as well: Call of the Cthulhu and now Pathologic. It's interesting to compare your viewpoints (they mostly match)
5. Some other games that you've reviewed might be more popular in Russia than in other countries (well OK, maybe not in the entire Russia, but at least in my group of friends). For example, although Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring was not very good, a lot of my classmates played it back then. Dark Messiah as well, there was that disc that changed hands until all of my friends played it.
I just looked it up, yeah, Mandalore's S.T.A.L.K.E.R. review is pretty much the first result when you look up the game on youtube, I often forget how obscure that game really is outside of /k/ in the west.
On the other hand, it's still surprising, considering the fact that russians are rarely bilingual.
@@andrewbattleship2420 What are you talking about? According to different sources about 30-40% of Russians know a second language. For comparison, about 22% Americans and 38% Britons know a second language. In Russia English is mandatory in the majority of schools at least to some degree. In my particular school it was mandatory from first grade up to 11th. In my experience the majority of gamers here know English well enough to play games in English.
Sorry for lashing out on your comment, just correcting.
@@IvanKhryapov No offence taken. I forgot that due to vast array of ethnicities there are a lot of people in particular republics and regions who are multilingual. However, a brief google search ends up with 5% of russians speaking English. Having a mandatory English class doesn't mean that 100% of pupils end up with actual knowledge : )
Зулин ван лав) к сожалению в последние годы только стримит.
I think the contradiction with the changeling (she and her twin caused and cured the plague) is really interesting. Without the player, the events of the game would never happen. But the goal of the game is to save everyone from the disaster that the player caused by booting up the game. Neat!
The soundtrack always reminded me of something in between Eduard Artemiev's work from the 70s, some Popol Vuh and the techno sensibilities of the late nineties/early 2000s, like Coil maybe. Not too much out there in the grand scheme of things, but in a video game you hardly hear similar stuff. It's great.
It sounds like music from some of games by Cryo, like Black Moon Chronicles or Atlantis: The Lost Tales.
So its kind of like. E.Y.E Divine, Darkwood, Stalker and Silent Hill ? Oh boy...
@Solar Coffee Yeah I know they are completely different. But the atmosphere for example really reminds me of stalker.
@Solar Coffee Me too ! I love the art and atmosphere.
I always come back to this video, one of my absolute favorites of yours. I would never have the patience to play this game but I found the story so fascinating and explained very well/interestingly.
This game needs more love
I finished Bachelor playthrough and fall in love with it, then I played Haruspex I started to hate Bachelor
And then Changeling happened, it was weird. This game gave me weird experiences, it's like drugs
Airalin
You know they could just rerelease it but not making it suck
That should help
How to play as the organ collector? After talking to the fat guy and his children I don't know what to do. The entire city is chasing me and I die from starvation...
@@AntonAdelson keep running around and stealing food when you need too. There are quest day 1 that will restore your reputation so you are not attacked on sight. Pay attention to the clues given to you by letters and shit you get over the day. Whenever you notice a symbol pop up in the lower corners of the game you know you got more mail which hold a potential hint or side quest. Always try to do a whole round around the town every day. Check on your closest followers every day, than follow up on leads and other NPCs who are not your followers for potential side quests. Develops a cycle of going through the town in the most efficient manner every time because Time is your enemy if you do not respect it.
Also just beat up muggers whenever you find them, great way to boost rep at night
@@130lukas I was wondering what those symbols were... Did I miss an explanation on it in the game somewhere?
12:29 Reminds me of Stalker clear sky
Good video, as always :)
So another interesting bit of word play is with the name Haruspex. It's from ancient Rome and is the term for someone who divines the future by reading the entrails of animals.
The Haruspex needs to harvest organs to give himself a better chance at surviving so he can figure out the mystery of the town, he's using entrails to reveal secrets. But he's also closer to the town, he's an insider, he's someone who knows the area and the people on a much deeper level. The citizens are sort of the "organs" of the town and he's also reading them and not only that but the Haruspex is much closer to the local religion of the town because he's a native. And you mentioned the Haruspex is more able to make sense of the of the plays which can help predict the future of events in the game.
Russian name of the game alludes to the book by Thomas More "Utopia". Last name of the author in Russian is written as "Мор," just as in "plague" or "hunger".
Actually, weirdly enough, devs specifically said that it's not the case, and it's just an ironic coincidence
@@johncheshirsky8822 it is not a coincidence. They just thought that the "[Mor]. "Utopia" sounds "cool". But, of course, they have heard of the book before.
@@9numbernine I mean, that's literally quote on Wikipedia from Nikolai Dybovskiy, game designer for the game, where he says it was a coincidence. Also, additional fun fact, proper name is "Mor (Utopia)", wit "Utopia" in parentheses, like the name of Nikolai Gogol's book "Dead Souls (Poem)" where the genre of the book is written in parentheses. Devs said they describe "Utopia" as the genre of the game.
Hunger, USSR wants to know your location.
A christmas miracle!! Thank you Lord Mandalore
Just caught the Total Recall reference around 19:11 and it out a huge smile on my face! You got me Quaid…
"Ahh shit Quaid...you got me. I'm not even married lol. Now put your f**king hands in the air"
Yesssss, thank you so much for making this! Pathologic and The Void are both my absolute favourite video games!! And you explained Pathologic so well, whenever I started thinking to myself "I wonder if he's going to mention..." you would mention it! Every other UA-cam video about this game is all about how weird and incomprehensible it is (and also only includes footage of the first day as the Bachelor) and it's so clear that they only played it for 40 minutes... oh, and I will not forgive you for saying that the Haruspex's story is less interesting than Daniil's! Can't wait for you to cover The Void!
>Roads in Massachusetts are just like this.
I see you suffer as I do, brother.
Get out of there, man.
@@Zorro9129 Sadly I think I am here to stay. Love it and hate it at the same time.
My favourite game of all time. A brutal, horrible, wonderfully written and evocatively surreal experience. Criminally underappreciated, too. I couldn't think more highly of this game if I tried.
Mandy foreshadowed his Anonymous Agony review years prior at 6:54
Truly impressive Manda-lore
Your reviews, and the games you pick to review is fucking amazing. Some of these games I probably will never play, and have never heard of, but just listening to you talk about them keeps me coming for more. You have a gift, sir.
Im on day 3 playing as haruspex and so far this game's atmosphere is incredible. I dont know if the story will go anywhere (unlikely) but it has the same mystic Lynch's movies do, which is great.
The story did indeed go somewhere.
@@aarondafunchio5610I know I’m a year late but this is the funniest follow up I’ve seen, thank you lol
I really liked your review. I thought you just could review casual games more or less good, but you have the understanding and eloquence to develop a thoughtful review like this one. Thanks, bro.
Oh hell yeah, another creepy Russian game.
tell me a russian game thats not creepy or plain out weird as hell
try Dawn of Magic. Just don't play it with Russian voiceover - it was literally voiced by programmers who wrote an engine for the game.
@@ozisponas1593 Heroes of might and magic V?
@Isaak Dood, I played RE 3 when I was 3 y.o. if someone would think that HOMMV is scary he/she is a fckn snowflake.
@@0xlamon Disciples 2 Russian narrator mas scaring shit out of me when i was kid. And its one more creepy Russian game.
1:40 Original texts on russian is constructed the way much more literaturely and metaphorically so it's made "by design" but probably translation lost this charm so translation was reviewed and updated to being easier to comprehensible. Could be compared as translating jokes of words: if you translate them as is - they are completely pointless on other language.
14:56 The other game that could be described perfectly by that quote is Flower, Sun and Rain by Suda. It, too, features a large amount of running around doing nothing. Yet there's something unique about it which kept me till the end. Loved both FSR and Pathologic.
I hope that you will make a Review of Cryostasis - Sleep of Reason, it is a really interesting game
you might be interested in a "Mandalore jr"'s review of this game.
ua-cam.com/video/I4A85XkHvSU/v-deo.html
It was a lot like F.E.A.R. for me. It's really fun for a short time, but soon becomes boring.
6:54 I finally get the reference. I had wondered about for a looooong time.
Me too
Can someone explain
Go watch Mandalore's androgynous agony review video.
Ah yes, the most Russian of Russian games.
Exactly!🇷🇺
I'm pretty sure this is what my grandparents told me the Soviet Union was like when I was a kid. Maaaaaaybe minus the worm-people but I'm not even 100% confident there
Sounds about right after reading the script of Stalker(1979) i don't know where to find the movie
Seth Leoric yo, it’s officially on UA-cam with subtitles on many languages:
ua-cam.com/video/TGRDYpCmMcM/v-deo.html
Wow. Such an on-point review of Pathologic. Very nicely done. Totally agree with you on the walking being the worst part of the game by far - it is excruciatingly slow, boring and frustrating. And something you did not mention: not even considering the bleak surroundings, all of this walking still manages to be stressful (even though it IS boring), because you're under constant pressure to get shit done before the day is over. No single "quest" stays open fo more than one day, you either manage to fullfill it on the day it is given or you fail.
I have watched several of your reviews and it's nice to see this one pushing the limits of your format. I mean, generally you dissect the gameplay and atsmophere into tiny bits. It works to some degree; for instance, I like how you talk about sound design, you're the only reviewer who mentions it every time. But then sometimes it fails to really adress what the game is about. You did a nice job on this one. I actually laughed out loud when I saw the length of the "spoilers" section.
As for the game, you said it. It is excructatingly frustrating and unfun, and silly at times, but also captivating and brillant. It's really an artists' game - one of the most literary ones out there, along with Planescape Torment and Morrowind. It is frustrating that Pathologic is not brought up more often in conversations on "video game as an art", or even just good writing. And that's not even talking about the 4th wall breaking stuff. I suspect this is due in great part to the game's length. Talking about the 4th wall in very short games like Doki Doki Literature Club or Undertale isn't such a bad spoiler. Whereas spoiling the "true last end" of Pathologic - earned after dozens of hours of excrutiating gameplay - does not feel right.
6:54 MY MAN HINTED AT A GAME 3 YEARS AGO
What are you refering to?
@@eyjay1508 for a second as he says haze in the bottom left the character “Haze” from Anonymous Agony pops up, a game he reviewed three years after.
Haze from Anonymous Agony appears just after the time stamp
This game looks like a mix between Morrowind, Call of Cthulhu and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
That’s incredibly accurate
@@sawyere2496 Interesting you guys found it reminiscent of Morrowind. Was it being a stranger in a strange land? The alien setting? The fetch quests? Hell, even walking slowly, although it is way worse than Morrowind in this regard:P
@@sawyere2496 Interesting you guys found it reminiscent of Morrowind. Was it being a stranger in a strange land? The alien setting? The fetch quests? Hell, even walking slowly, although it is way worse than Morrowind in this regard:P
It's closer to New Vegas combined with Cultist Simulator.
@@arthursimsa9005 all of the above, and the angular ugly character models
Always happy to see Ice-Pick Lodge getting some attention. By the way, they have three more games and Pathologic is the most normal of the bunch, no kidding.
Here's a little detail that can help you better understand the whole ending shitshow:
In English you guys have two different verbs - "to play" and "to act", which are kinda similar but you can get the exact point right away without context.
However in Russian we simply have only one verb for both defenisions (Igrat' - a verb; Igra - noun). That way it could be tweaked around to fuck with you even more. Sadly, most of those kinds of things were lost in translations, but i guess it lies on fundamental differences between our languages, can't do much about that.
I recently had to take a Slavic studies class for one of my degrees’ culture requirements or something, and lots of the shit you were talking about are extremely prevalent themes in Slavic societies. For example, fate, balance, etc. It seems to permeate into every aspect of life, even their games. There are some really cool dark Russian games, like STALKER and Metro, but also some ones that are, in my opinion, too weird to actually recommend, like this game and Vangers. I tend to appreciate these things more than most people, but I honestly don’t think Pathologic was worth my time. I even played it again in Russian, and it just wasn’t good enough to justify. Maybe I just have different tastes, but the dogshit gameplay can’t be made up for by the story, especially when you could just read the story in text format off a website, which is what I wish I’d done in the first place. I’m glad to see someone cover these games though, and I appreciate your realistic warning at the end.
Also, I fucking love your videos, Mandalore, and thanks for actually responding to my email from several months ago.
...there are slavic studies classes? What kind of Meth University is that, holy shit.
I feel the same about Deadly Premonition. That game isn't worth anyone's time, it's better to just watch the cutscenes on UA-cam or something.
@@yogxoth1959 but the dialogue during gameplay is what really makes it great garbage. The directors cut makes the combat less annoying
@@angryvaginasfromspace7718 Do you even know how university works?
From Dybovskiy's (the head of Ice-Pick Lodge) panel "Playing with chaos" at KRI 2007: "In ideal, when the player passes through some path, when he passes through the game, he must experience such a complicated suffering feeling which Greeks called 'Catharsis'"
6:54 I can’t believe he hinted at the Anonymous Agony video 3 years before it was made
6:54 - holy shit I just noticed that reference you hid in the corner how did you do that 3 years before your video on him 😂😂
Pathologic is the game that changed my perception of games the most. It's so unique nothing really comes close to it, it's hard to even call it a game, it's more like interactive theater, it's a piece of art and not something you play for fun. Most games that make you kill a bunch of badies just because feel too primitive now. I feel like I've become even more of a picky ahole than before after playing this game...
It probably won't drive me that far, but yeah it was wild. I'll likely never replay this version, but it's going to stick with me a long time.
I dunno, I don't think it makes you a picky ahole to dislike the majority of mainstream games these days. There's no interest among the "AAA" publishers in taking risks with some kooky artist's vision, they have hungry shareholders to feed. So we get "Samey Same Sameness 9" every year. It only makes sense you'd get bored.
+ScumWithBoundaries
You should play The Void, I would say its somehow even more unique and bizarre than Pathologic (though less tedious and more accessible)
@@nullnull7089 I have a whole playthrough if The Void in my channel :) I like the setting of Pathologic more though.
Tack!
Incidentally, if anyone is interested in learning about the specifics of the game's story without the walking tedium, I would recommend SulMatul's youtube channel. He does a thorough playthrough of the game, as well as a two-hour analysis of the game's story (set the video's speed to at least 1.50 though for the playthrough; you won't feel like you're 90 years old by the end of it).
I don't comment on a lot of youtube videos, but I'm a huge stan for this game, so...
If you love stories in games, specifically the kind of story that can only be told in games, PLAY PATHOLOGIC.
If you can tolerate the gameplay, by all means, play the game normally.
But if you can't (like 99% of people who touch this game)? CHEAT LIKE A DOG. I played the game with noclip on practically all the time, turning it into a glorified VN, and I fucking loved it. You still have choices to make. It's still a test of your endurance. But it's manageable. Most importantly, you get to focus on the text. If you love analyzing stories, this is a story you need to experience. They tried so hard. The writers for Pathologic were incredibly ambitious. PLEASE cheat. I beg you.
If I'm just reading making decisions, I could read a choose your own adventure book.
@@motivationalmadness10 You could say that about any story driven game.
@@motivationalmadness10 1 year aftr but whatever.
The difference between a VN and a Pathologic is that the second uses (or better, tries to use) the 3d world to tell the story. The text is only part of it, the Town and the visuals are just as much part of the storytelling as the dialogues are. In a better made game, the gameplay itself would have been part of the experience, but honestly I had a better time cramming the last 5 days in a single day worth of gaming by noclipping my way though buildings and AT BEST trying to do actual walking in the relevant parts of the story.
Still worth to have done the first part of it like it was some fucking kind of 3d jigsaw puzzle.
@@Hyperversum3 You have to cheat to make a game bearable, why are you wasting your time? That's obviously a bad game.
@@motivationalmadness10 Did we watch the same video/speaking about the same game? Because EVERYONE knows that Pathologic is a bad game, even those that love it.
It's slow, tedious, looks pretty bad and the gameplay it's a glorified series of fetch quests and dialogues.
But this doesn't mean that it's not a valuable experience if you have the taste for it.
It's not an issue of "So bad it's good", the ideas, the plot and the concept itself are truly good, the issue is that the presentation that was made of it sucks.
It's one of those rare games that actually manage to use the medium of "videogame" to be something different from "fun".
You know all that charade about "The Last of Us 2 doesn't want to be fun"? Well, Pathologic actually manages to do what that was all about.
TLOU2 is still a 3d action game were shooting people heads were gameplay and not the plot or themes, and the "not fun" part was actually just its story, for which the rest was entirely the usual AAA experience.
There is nothing actually "meta" about it, while Pathologic has it. It wouldn't make sense without the videogame format, just like Shadow of the Colossus or Drakengard wouldn't.
Too bad that Pathologic gameplay is more of the second than the first,
Your videos are amazing and never cease to amaze me.