History YMMV / Pathologic

* CultClassic: It's hard as hell, notoriously difficult to find (at least until the HD port came about on Steam) and isn't really fun at all, but what it IS is an incredibly engrossing experience that boasts incredible atmosphere and a fantastic story.

* JustForFun/XMeetsY: It's as if the works of [[Literature/TheMasterAndMargarita Mikhail Bulgakov]], Creator/FranzKafka, some works of GermanExpressionism Hieronymus Bosch and Creator/ChinaMieville were thrown into a single pot and cooked thoroughly into a delicious MindScrew horror soup.

* TrueArtIsIncomprehensible: The opinion of many who don't get the story. Might be just a side effect of the BlindIdiotTranslation, though.

* HellIsThatNoise:
** The creepy sound of a baby crying or laughing when your reputation is decreased or increased, respectively. It doesn't help that this usually occurs after killing someone.
*** Similarly, the endless childrens' wailing that you hear when going near a stairway to Heaven is very unsettling. Made creepier by the implication that [[spoiler:Petr may have actually ''captured childrens' souls'' in those constructions, as they were prototypes for the [[SoulJar Polyhedron]].]]
** The sound effect that plays when you get infected. It sounds like a distorted, backwards nails-on-chalkboard sound coupled with creepy whisper-like sounds. It doesn't help that infection level is one of the hardest meters to manage, so this will quickly evoke feelings of dread from players due to gameplay reasons as well.
** The background music for [[http://tindeck.com/listen/ywyn the]] [[http://tindeck.com/listen/vvjz infected]] [[http://tindeck.com/listen/qncn districts.]] It's often a warped, distorted version of the regular town music (which is already a little unsettling), with the OminousLatinChanting and {{One Woman Wail}}s cranked UpToEleven. The infected districts are NightmareFuel incarnate to begin with, and the music doesn't help matters.
** The background music for [[http://tindeck.com/listen/ojsf infected houses.]] It's extremely tense, off-key, and has a RecurringRiff that sounds like an EldritchAbomination is trying to pry into your skull. It's guaranteed to make you extremely nervous and jumpy, especially since there are [[ThePlague very good reasons]] to be nervous and jumpy in the houses. It even plays in cleansed houses, which aren't even that unsettling by themselves (they look exactly the same as normal houses).
** Most of the background music qualifies, really.

** "[[SimonTheSorcerer Simon is a sorcerer?]]"

* CultClassic

** You even get unintentional {{Shout Out}}s like, "[[SimonTheSorcerer Simon is a sorcerer?]]"

* BreakingTheFourthWall or NoFourthWall: Depends on how you look at the theater themes present in the game's narrative.

* BadassDecay: In his own storyline, Dankovski is a fearless and determined BadassBookworm ScienceHero, but in other storylines, he's just a selfish InsufferableGenius.
* BreakingTheFourthWall or NoFourthWall: Depends on how you look at the theater themes.
* CriticalDissonance: A bit of a special example, due to Pathologic being a [[GenreBusting really bizarre game]]. Some reviews (even positive ones) don't even call it a game. Many critics disliked Pathologic and warned against playing it, saying that it wasn't fun in the slightest and was far too bleak. Most fans of the game ''completely agree with this'', but love the game's plot and atmosphere nonetheless.

* HellIsThatNoise: The creepy sound of a baby crying or laughing when your reputation is decreased or increased, respectively. It doesn't help that this usually occurs after killing someone.
** Also, the sound effect that plays when you get infected. It sounds like a distorted, backwards nails-on-chalkboard sound coupled with creepy whisper-like sounds. It doesn't help that infection level is one of the hardest meters to manage, so this will quickly evoke feelings of dread from players due to gameplay reasons as well.

* HellIsThatNoise: The creepy sound of a baby crying or laughing when you kill an innocent or evil person, respectively.

** The background music for the infected districts. It's often a warped, distorted version of the regular town music (which is already a little unsettling), with the OminousLatinChanting and {{One Woman Wail}}s cranked UpToEleven. The infected districts are NightmareFuel incarnate to begin with, and the music doesn't help matters.
** The background music for the houses in the locked districts. It's extremely tense, off-key, and has a RecurringRiff that sounds like an EldritchAbomination is trying to pry into your skull. It's guaranteed to make you extremely nervous and jumpy, especially since there are marauders inside said houses that can jump you seemingly out of nowhere. The cleansed houses aren't even that unsettling by themselves (they look exactly the same as normal houses), but the music makes them almost as creepy as infected houses (possibly even moreso).

* TrueArtIsForeign: Ice-pick Lodge is a Russian indie studio consisting of 8 people.

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel / ParanoiaFuel / NauseaFuel: [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel/{{Pathologic}} Oodles of it]].
** HellIsThatNoise: The creepy sound of a baby crying or laughing when you kill an innocent or evil person, respectively.
*** Also, the sound effect that plays when you get infected. It sounds like a distorted, backwards nails-on-chalkboard sound coupled with creepy whisper-like sounds. It doesn't help that infection level is one of the hardest meters to manage, so this will quickly evoke feelings of dread from players due to gameplay reasons as well.
*** The background music for the infected districts. It's often a warped, distorted version of the regular town music (which is already a little unsettling), with the OminousLatinChanting and {{One Woman Wail}}s cranked UpToEleven. The infected districts are HighOctaneNightmareFuel incarnate to begin with, and the music doesn't help matters.
*** The background music for the houses in the locked districts. It's extremely tense, off-key, and has a RecurringRiff that sounds like an EldritchAbomination is trying to pry into your skull. It's guaranteed to make you extremely nervous and jumpy, especially since there are marauders inside said houses that can jump you seemingly out of nowhere. The cleansed houses aren't even that unsettling by themselves (they look exactly the same as normal houses), but the music makes them almost as creepy as infected houses (possibly even moreso).
*** Most of the background music qualifies, really.

* BadassDecay: In his own storyline, Dankovski is a fearless end determined BadassBookworm ScienceHero, but in other storylines, he's just a selfish InsufferableGenius.

*** Also, the sound effect that plays when you get infected. It sounds like a distorted, drawn-out sound of glass screeching and then shattering. It doesn't help that infection level is one of the hardest meters to manage, so this will quickly evoke feelings of dread from players due to gameplay reasons as well.

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel / ParanoiaFuel / NauseaFuel: Oodles of it.

** You even get unintentional {{ShoutOut}}s like, "[[SimonTheSorcerer Simon is a sorcerer?]]"

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel / ParanoiaFuel / NauseaFuel : Oodles of it.
* {{Narm}} : In the English version, several lines of dialogue that should be serious end up becoming hilarious due to the infamously poor translation.
** You even get unintentional {{ShoutOut}}s like : "[[SimonTheSorcerer Simon is a sorcerer?]]"
* TrueArtIsForeign : Ice-pick Lodge is a Russian indie studio consisting of 8 people.
* TrueArtIsIncomprehensible : The opinion of many who don't get the story. Might be just a side effect of the BlindIdiotTranslation, though.

* CrowningMusicOfAwesome : [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao91HN1dZWk The diseased house music]], [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g4f7ZIqXgs&NR=1 the wandering night music]], and the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQDRjbxXUmc&feature=related main theme]] are especially chilling.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eM90t9bKKA The wandering day]] ambient track isn't bad either (notice the subtle female vocals in its later part).