Pathos: Nethack Codex Reviews

Polished remix of a legend

DrewK629

Pathos is a must-have game for anyone who likes classic high-fantasy dungeon crawling gameplay. As its subtitle suggests, it’s fundamentally a remixed version of NetHack, a legend in the “Roguelike” genre of RPG dungeon-crawlers, though it’s become a very distinct experience from its kin. Like most of the genre, this game is skewed towards the hardcore side, and even experienced RL players can expect to die early and often until they familiarize themselves with its quirks. Overall, I’d describe Pathos as a Hack rebuilt from the ground up to take full advantage of GUIs and touch controls, and generally be more streamlined, intuitive, and user-friendly, while maintaining the borderline-sadistic difficulty level (minus most of the OHK or delayed OHK cheap shots). Many mechanics have been removed or consolidated: wishing is gone, as are a number of mostly insignificant mechanics (shutting down certain shenanigans in the process), while most of the religion and alignment stuff was rolled into the karma score (which has the side effect of prayer being a more reliable panic button). The crafting system replaces most of the strategic functions of wishing, but artifacts may prove a bit more difficult to acquire (hint: try regicide). There’s more symmetry between players and foes, which can dramatically alter optimal choices for certain strategy archetypes (especially beast-masters or shapeshifters). And even better, if you get tired of trudging through ruins and caves only to get eaten by a dragon yet again, it also has an alternate mode to explore a huge hard-coded overworld map. Be prepared to die a lot on that one too, of course, starting with the Tucker’s Kobold gauntlet right outside your campsite, the mimic infested mall, the trolls across the river.... (And forget about your pet, except possibly a mounted character’s pony. Unless you seriously micromanage, they have about a 50/50 chance of not even reaching the mall.) My one complaint is that it’s sometimes a bit harsh on battery life. Keep your charger handy!

Perfection

Arcturus Athlum

I’ve been playing this one for months, but only now reviewing. I’ll add more specific opinions later, but this was exactly what I was looking for and didn’t know how to find it.

Most solid rogue-like on iOS

Toast102947

This game is one of the few that hasn’t been abandoned by its developer. We get consistent updates and new content. It’s a lot of fun and anyone who enjoys classic rogue-likes would love this game.

Frustrating

King_Ape

I’ve been playing Nethack for 25 years and have played Pathos quite a bit. Recently started playing Pathos again and it seems to me that changes have been made to the game that have made it too difficult and frustrating for me. Or maybe I am just extremely unlucky. I can’t seem to find or do anything that is beneficial for my character. Everything I try to do has negative consequences. It’s too bad because I really enjoyed playing Pathos before but I have played probably 50 games and haven’t gotten past level 5. Also, part of the fun for me in the past was trying to do different things but now every time I try something it has a negative effect so I don’t even waste my time. I just kill monsters and try to keep from starving... boring. Maybe I’ll try it again in another year.

Great Difficult Game

Eddie5647

Absolutely love the game because it’s so hard. Most games are to easy and offer no challenge. If you want to get far in the game you will have to grind to lvl your magic and skills. You will also die ALOT until you get to learn the game and enemies. So prepare yourself.

Favorite Game of 2021 and it’s FREE?

Dgross0818

By far my favorite game on iOS right now! No annoying ads and removed a lot of the tedious bits of Nethack, which make it play much smoother on a touchscreen. I do recommend playing on an iPad if possible, as it makes navigating various menus so much easier. Polymorphed my pet into a dragon and rode him around last game until I underestimated the Elf King and ultimately got eaten by a Vampire Lord!

Would be perfect if it had virtual pad and button

Bkrenfro

I love it anyway.

Too frustrated by lack of mechanics info

Marcia Gaines

As of 30 March 2021: tldr: Be Nethack or don’t, but address the GUI’s widgets and add an in-game accessible manual for the game mechanics since they differ enough from Nethack’s to make it unwise to assume similarity. Only leaving this review after I ragequit this game (after my first 5 sessions) because the only 2 problems this game has are EASILY corrected, and I really hope that happens because I would be playing this, and only this, if that happens. What seems like a minor problem, is in fact, a major one for a 20yr+ Nethack player like I am - namely, that the “Nethack Codex” thing implies a familiarity for the Nethack player beyond just object labels - and yet the mechanics are massively different without ANY way to even interpret results of actions (let alone the info to judge whether or not to take the action in the first place). That, and having GUI widgets be fixed in size and position is just rage-inducing when one or more of the widgets needs to be open constantly but can’t be left open without impeding gameplay. Having to open and close the “tile” widget so often is the same level of irritating as games with player inventory governed by ridiculously few “bag slots.” These widgets should be customizable in position, size, and opaqueness - and it would be a nice bonus if we could reorder them in the widget bar. The GUI widget issue plus the lack of a tutorial, in-game manual, or context for what little info there is, was just too much annoyance in too short a time for me to keep playing.

Incredible

bendbars_liftgates

If you like dungeon crawlers/roguelikes, you’ve hit the jackpot. Pathos is a Nethack clone, but one that refines the original in all the best ways to bring it up to date. Other iOS nethack ports treat the keyboard-input interface like it’s some kind of sacred and essential part of the experience, awkwardly forcing you to bind keys to touch buttons, rather than just scrapping and replacing it like the dated and obsolete remnant if the past that it is. Here we have a full touch interface. You want to move somewhere? Touch there. Want to pick up a thing? Touch it. Want to check it for traps, open it, kick it, lick it, meet its parents? Just touch it. No “q for Quaff, w for wield, period for inspect, comma for take…” it’s all touch menus now, like it should have been since 1990.

What happened?

SpydrMunky

Seems like some main functions have been taken out of the game. I haven’t played in a few months, started up a new game. Tried to tap on my horse to mount, and no options came up. Long pressed my character and no options came up. What’s going on?

Pathos: Nethack Codex Reviews – Page 2