Disco Elysium (2019)

Disco Elysium is a text heavy CRPG in the Planescape Torment mould. With all that dialogue to read through (or listen to, post update), the writing really needed to be top notch. Fortunately that's the case here; the writing is superb. It's intelligent, creative, witty and engaging, all in equal measure. There were a few moments that went over my head, or had me skim reading when the politics got a little heavy, but mostly, I was along for the ride.

And what a ride it is.

Rebuild your shattered mind and body in this beautifully stylised, deeply immersive world, and maybe have a go at solving a murder while you're at it. The complex character system really impresses, allowing you to play a number of detective-like roles.

Here's a short list of some of the things you can get up to during a play-through;

1. Have a heart attack whilst getting dressed.
2. Proposition a suspect.
3. Punch a child (don't worry, he deserves it)
4. Debate morality and race with a xenophobic-nationalist.
5. Fail to knock out a xenophobic-nationalist.
6. Tie people up with your impressive logic.
7. Leap across buildings.
8. Breakdance. Become one with the music of the universe. Disco Elysium, baby!
9. Substance abuse.
10. Talk to yourself.
11. Argue with yourself.
12. Love yourself.
13. Substance abuse.
14. Karaoke.
15. Become a communist.
16. Become a capitalist. 17: Eat a sandwich!
17. Hunt for creatures unknown to science.
18. Solve complex bullet telemetry in your head.
19. Read a book.
20. Introspection.
21. Sleep.
22. Throw-up.
23. Substance abuse with some homeless men.
24. Play Boules with a veteran.... and much, much more.

If all that doesn't make you want to play, I don't know what will. Maybe try substance abuse?

9/10

I played this in fits and starts, in part because it is a game that requires some focus and rewards the attention that you put into it. This is mostly because of its prose - the narration and dialogue is far more sophisticated and novelistic than even the most prestigious games out there. Separate of its politics, which are interesting in and of themselves, this game is an achievement simply because of the quality of the text that propels the story forward.

I was new to PC gaming when I began this, so its dice-roll mechanics and isometric camera angles were somewhat exotic to me. I'm a completionist at heart, so when I got into the meat of the game and began pursuing different quests to completion, I would often exhaust every dialogue option I could. I eventually understood that the game doesn't really want you to do that so much as replay with different politics and priorities.

My only complaints are about the opacity of the systems, especially the dynamic between skills and the "Thought Catalog." I liked the Thought Catalog as an index of experiences derived from the story, but as a player I was much more inclined to simply use my skill points for skills. I didn't really see what the Thought Catalog process needed to be based on the skill point system.

The art style and overall ambience are probably what takes the game from "great" to an all-timer. It feels like one of the only games I've ever played that had an honest-to-god point of view about modern life, and in that way it retains a pure mark of authorship. It stands to reason that in 2022 the studio that made it was gutted by the summary firing of key creatives by financial stakeholders who are primarily concerned with making a quick buck on the runaway success of this game. (Ironically, one of the subplots in the game is that of an overambitious game studio that ended up shuttered.) Further proof that it is a masterpiece that's frankly too good for this industry. They should continue the story in novels.

Played digital version on PC. Partly the 2019 version and partly the "Final Cut" version released later.

I am not wired for this type of game. At my core I enjoy games most for their game play loop. Everything in Disco Elysium is brimming with fun and creativity aside from game play. The joke is "this is the best novel I have ever played", which is true but I go to games to be in a different mind set besides books. What do I know though, I enjoy nonfiction the most.

As well the story to me was a bit dense in gobbledygook - non of it was too complex to not understand the gist but I always felt like I only knew the context of the world at 70%. I wanted more detective game as well. The lionshare was just doing silly fun side quests and then the climax was sort of pointless for me.

I still had a ton of fun and enjoyed the art direction and then voice acting was impeccable. Really inspired by the atmosphere everything set. The NPCs were incredible.

Would only recommend to DnD fans or people that I know would be into this type of thing.

I get it's groundbreaking and a masterpiece, but did I have buckets of fun? Sure, but not that much.

I've spent months playing this game, and to try to encompass it all in this review would take nearly as long, so here are just three moments that made me glad this game exists.

All of these are from very late in the game, so spoiler warning for everything.

Al principio el juego se me hizo duro, tenía una cantidad ingente de texto... Pero pasadas un par de horas no pude evitar engancharme. Esa personalidad, esos diálogos tan bien escritos, ese sentido del humor tan absurdo y tétrico y, sobre todo, esos giros de guión de una historia genialmente escrita. Lo detectivesco, lo político, lo social, lo humano y lo paranormal se unen de forma que no te esperarás.

Para mí, ha sido una experiencia fantástica llena de un ingente cantidad de sorpresas. Lo único que puedo criticar, por poner algo, es que el final-final no sigue el ritmo de giros que le precede y que le falta un resultado algo más climático tras su resolución.

I’ve never played anything quite like this before. It took a little while for it to sink its teeth into me, but as soon as I became engrossed in its universe, I didn’t want to leave.

The scale of the world the developers build with a relatively small playable area and a dozen or two characters is remarkable (if a bit much, at times). I also appreciate that there’s something for everyone in the lore—being an uncultured philistine, I was not particularly interested when characters would discuss art or politics at length, but there are conversations to be had and side quests to be pursued that imply incredibly interesting things about the science, technology, and the very physical make-up of the world. Without spoiling anything, this is not some alternate history Earth: the world here is very different to our own, in a way that makes me wish more media set in this world was available. I’m interested to see how the TV adaption ends up.

Even minor characters tend to have a substantial depth, if you’re interested enough to really talk to them, and by the end of the game your opinion on some characters will no doubt be totally different to how you first perceived them (or not, considering the sprawl of possibilities from the wide skill system, combined with your own personal choices). While I liked him from the start, Kim Kitsuragi may be one of my all-time favourite video game partners. I’m very glad I played The Final Cut and got to play the game with him fully voiced.

There are a couple of criticisms I would level at the game, however. Some of the skill checks, if failed, yield outcomes that I would consider highly dissatisfying on a story level. I know this is the nature of the beast with CRPGs, but I’m here for the story, so I’m not ashamed to admit I did save-scum on a couple of occasions. It didn’t feel good, but the outcomes I avoided felt worse. The main ones that come to mind are Ruby blowing her brains out before I got any information out of her, and how I somehow managed to fail every single check during the tribunal and got probably the worst possible outcome.

Additionally, I found the politically-based dialogue options to frequently lack enough nuance to be engaging. There are four main political leanings: communist, fascist, ultraliberal, and moralist (centrist). However, those options were usually presented as laughably extreme views for the first three, or a milquetoast non-opinion for the centrism option. Fine if you’re leaning into the crazy-cop role play, but in general I rarely found the options to match what I thought my Harry Du Bois would believe. The game did rib me for being a boring centrist via dialogue options and even an achievement, which I appreciate. It’s not a funny game, but there’s a good amount of absurdist humour.

It’s a minor one, but I also wish you could access the inventory while in dialogue. Clothing affects stats, so needing to fully exit a conversation before a skill check, change clothes, then jump back in feels like an unnecessary inefficiency.

One thing that has struck me upon finishing the game is that, while I could play it a dozen times and have a dozen completely different experiences, I actually don’t think I ever want to play it again. I feel some genuine attachment to the world I built around the characters, and I don’t really want to wipe that away for something different.

I expected the game to get boring or for me to grow tired of it after a couple of hours. Little did I know that 30+ hours into it I would be sad the game had finally come to an end. The characters, story, world, sense of humor, unique art style, and very gloomy tone made this quite a memorable experience. What could have been yet another point-and-click game ended up being so much more! The gameplay is very minimal, you click things, you make conversation, manage inventory, and you level up skills. What truly makes this game is the very colorful and memorable characters, its intriguing murder mystery, and what I was most taken aback by, its wacky sense of humor. I am very fascinated with what this studio makes next, hopefully, they continue making similar games and I pray they are on the same level of quality as Disco Elysium.

At its deepest core, Disco Elysium reminds me of the old Sierra point-and-click adventures of the 90s. Where it rises above those games is in the fact that you can't really get "stuck". Disco Elysium expects you to fail at tasks; but then you can still carry on and work your way toward the game's ultimate conclusion. While the pacing can get a bit slow at time, you never feel like you hit a wall in your progress.

While it would seem like this design would lead to a massively branching & complex story; it didn't really feel like that was the case on my playthrough. Failures felt more like they just chipped a small part of the story away, never to be seen again, and then the lumbering giant of a main story still lurched toward its ultimate conclusion.

Overall the game told a good story. While I enjoyed the main murder mystery, the storytelling often veered into some wildly pretentious philosophical bullcrap, and frequently demonstrated a massive fixation on politics.

While I felt completely satisfied with how I solved the murder case, the ending felt underwhelming. It was mostly just a text-dump debrief of the typical approach I tended to take with different situations throughout the game. The whole origins-of-my-character's-amnesia storyline just kind of fizzled away into a wet, foamy fart -- sort of addressed near the end, then teased with more potential choices and info, and then nothing.

Graphics-wise.... The oil painting aesthetic is executed brilliantly. While there's not a whole lot of animated action ever happening on the screen, it's still a very pretty painting to look at.

The voice acting is very well-done. Every once in awhile, the game would recite a voice line that was completely out of place for the text that was supposed to be read on the screen. And occasionally, a character would speak their line using a completely different voice actor & accent.

The music for the bulk of the first part of the game is forgettable elevator music. Eventually some better tunes work their way into the soundtrack.

It was a good enough game. Just not enough to pull me in for another 30+ hour playthrough using another political alter-ego.

SPOILERLY SUMMARY OF MY PLAYTHROUGH:

The game made it pretty clear that the murder was carried out by a faraway sniper, so I let Ruby & Klaasje go.

I got the night clubbers & the programmer to live in harmony. I found the 2mm void. Then I invented the ultimate Anodic Dance Music for Egghead, and I got Kim to dance to it.

I got back my badge; but not my gun. I did an unarmed intervention at the Union/Merc standoff, got shot twice, and kept Kim safe.

I let my ex-girlfriend go.

I found it somewhat frustrating that the island was walled-off for so long after I felt confident that's where the killer was. I got the sniper on the island to confess, and talked to the cryptid that hung out with him on the island.

I never found out about The Pale.

I shaved and got rid of The Expression.

And politics are dumb.

Disco Elysium, for PC

Rating: 9.2/10; masterpiece

Played 2020

Highly recommend for fans of classic Interplay/Black Isle/Bioware rpgs, point and click adventure games, and any kind of story rich experience.

Disco Elysium is an adventure game with rpg elements. It plays very similar to old school Dungeons and Dragons rpgs, such as Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment; isometric viewpoint, click to move around in beautiful 2D landscapes, and choosing dialogue options during the game's many, and lengthy, conversations. There is no combat system though. You will not be fighting off hordes of goblins, shooting ruffians in dark alleys, or having an epic show down with the big bad evil. Rather, the game is more like a pen and paper adventure that favors social interaction and intrigue. Every challenge is handled via skill checks during dialogue, including potentially violent actions.

The game begins with setting your 4 core attributes, which directly affect your base and maximum skill levels. They roughly correspond to: intelligence, wisdom/charisma, strength/constitution, and dexterity. There are many possibilities that can drastically alter the gameplay experience, from being a dumb brute, nerdy Sherlock Holmes, gunslinging assassin or trying to be balanced. Your character then wakes up in a room with such a raging hangover that he has complete amnesia. From then on, the character is a blank slate that the player chooses to rewrite as they see fit. However, along the way you will find out about his past self. The parallels with Planescape Torment are striking, as the character must struggle with realizing who he really is and whether past actions should influence his present and future self. You will soon find out that the protagonist is a detective whose job is to solve a murder. Investigate the scene, interview witnesses, figure out who did it and bring them to justice. This is the main story, though there are plenty of side things to explore along the way. The player can choose to be anything from a by the book upstanding officer of justice, to a drunken drug addict lecherous child beating corrupt cop that has no problem stealing, hurting and otherwise abusing his authority. Of course I am sure the game mechanics have an optimal style to achieve the best rewards. But do you want to max out your numbers, roleplay a certain way, or see hilarious dialogue?

The primary mechanic in the game is the skill check. Passive checks are done all the time to give little bits of info or entirely new conversations and dialogue options, and are of the skill >= X variety; you either have a high enough skill or you don't. Active checks that you choose to make are done as dice rolls, with chance to auto fail or auto succeed regardless of your skill level. Unfortunately, this encourages save scumming. Any time an outcome is random and allows the player to save before hand, save scumming will occur, even if the player has to sit through minutes of dialogue again. To partially mitigate this, some skill failures result in hilarious outcomes or even rewards. Sometimes you need to fail to open up new dialogue or avenues of investigation that will allow you to try the check again with bonuses. But still you can save scum the ones that have no benefits for failure, or even make sure you fail certain checks for the best rewards. White checks can be attempted again by putting a skill point in the appropriate skill, and the game journal keeps track of these checks. I especially like how you can assign skill points while in conversation, which means it is not necessary to plan out your build. You can instead hold skill points in reserve to use as needed on the fly. The same is not true for items though. Healing items can be used at any time to heal your health and mental points (game over if either reaches 0), but equipped items cannot be swapped during dialogue. All clothing comes with skill bonuses, and often penalties, so there is a degree of playing dress up to match skill bonuses to upcoming checks rather than just wearing what you want for style. This further encourages save scumming, and I found it annoying to mouse through my entire wardrobe to find the best bonuses. A way to auto sort/equip to max out a particular skill would have been handy, or better yet a more simplified equipment system that does not encourage lugging around a couple suitcases worth of stuff. There are also useful tools that you need to have equipped to complete certain actions, like the pry bar, bolt cutters and gun. Oh by the way, drugs give xp for first use and temporarily raise skill caps for permanent long term gains. So remember kids, measured use of cocaine and meth can be a good thing. Sarcasm aside, I suppose it is no worse than the portrayal of drugs in other games. The other major progression system is thoughts, which function like perks or feats in other games. They need to be discovered through dialogue, at which point you can assign them to be learned. They usually take many in game hours to learn and give a penalty during that time for having your head in the clouds. The final results could be anything from simple skill bonuses, to unique effects with penalties. There is no way to tell the final results in game, and it costs skill points to permanently forget thoughts, which is user unfriendly and encourages looking thoughts up outside the game. Money is used to buy things in the game and is gained mostly from scrounging around like a bum; picking up loose change, begging, taking bribes and picking up bottles to recycle. Beware of hobocop! I did not like how you can't even sell clothing, which only exacerbates the tedium of sorting through the laundry. I was also disappointed with the recycling. It is literally equipping the plastic bag to pick up the few bottles that are laying around. As far as I could tell they do not respawn, so there is far less potential than there could have been. I am thinking a more abstract system where you click to use the bag to automatically scavenge around, screen fades to black and time fast forwards showing what you found. This would have been useful for passing time too, since reading the same books over and over to pass time is not fun.

Disco Stu would probably not recommend this game because it leans more towards being an interactive book than video game. There is a lot of reading, or listening if you prefer the audio book style narration. The writing is masterful though, easily rivalling a good novel, much like Planescape Torment again. Excellent world building, characters, themes, dialogue and voice acting combine to make this a must play for anyone looking for a cerebral experience.

Finished. Having trouble rating this one. This is why I like the 5 star system. I could easily cop out and throw up a 3.5 on this one, but having to choose really makes me think about it. Is it a 3 or a 4 for me? I'm unsure. I got sort of fed up with it by the end, and it is a little up its own ass. But still, I think it was really well made and a fantastic proof that you can take a formula (in this case CRPGs) and still spin them into something unique.

I'll rate this one eventually.

Started out 10000% on board with this, but after 13 or so hours it's beginning to get laborious. It's funny, I always wished for a game like this. But now that I've got it I realize just how important other encounters really are. If this game was only 10 hours long I'd probably sing its praises.

Don't get me wrong, it's not bad. It's just that I'm just about ready to wrap this thing up, and there an entire corner of the map I haven't explored yet. I might just charge headlong into the main story and just finish it off.

I think if you love Dungeons and Dragons, or Visual Novels, then you will love Disco Elysium. But I don't love those things, so I don't love Disco Elysium. I gave it a shot, but after 90 minutes, I couldn't do it anymore.

Side note: I died in the first minute of gameplay and had to recreate my character and go through the opening dialogue again. I had a 78% chance of successfully grabbing my tie off a ceiling fan, and when I failed, the punishment was death. I think this is absolutely horrible game design. The game taught me that if I fail a check - even for something very easy, like "getting dressed" - I will lose so horrifically that I need to restart the game. So what I learned from that was to never initiate a dice roll. The risk is too high.

Inadvertently teaching your players "don't play with this fun mechanic we've created" is horrible game design.

I hate to be a stick in the mud on this one, but I'm really struggling to get through Disco Elysium. It has been probably the most boring and disappointing visual novel I've ever tried to read (yes, I said it, it's not an RPG) and I'm probably going to end up giving it a one or two star review.

Seems like another case like Red Dead 2 or Bioshock Infinite or many such games where I really should have just listened to my gut on this one instead of buying into the hype.

Disco Elysium - First Impressions

Excellent.

Took me a bit to get situated, the way the game's structure and themes is so loosely connected just to match the style of meandering around solving a case required getting my head used to it. Once I did though I was marveling at the game's spectacularly crafted writing and prose, as well as oozing the political cold war underbelly out from every topic of conversation. The mind cabinet is fucking cool as hell too, just interacting with it to solve problems was a delight and often a laugh.

Only a few hours in, but definitely one of the better games that came out this year. Also what is it with me and running into stories I enjoy with supercop/soldiers that have lost their memory?