Polished remix of a legend – Pathos: Nethack Codex Review

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!
Review by DrewK629 on Pathos: Nethack Codex.