Disco Elysium

When I came across this title, the keyword for me in the summary on IMDB, was "detective". I checked the game trailer and the right murky setting, you would expect from a story about a detective, was there, so I did not think twice and one week later I entered the world of Elysium. Oh, boy. Should I say I was not disappointed!

The game starts in a hotel room. You wake up and can't remember even your name. This is how your journey begins. I don't want to spoil anything further. But I think it's safe to say that you remember something about your wife. And something tells you it's a sad story.

The game has its syle. The overall dark mood and all those intellectual conversations you are going to have, help you do dive deep into the Elysium mystery. Plus there are many layers to the story. I think investigating every corner inside the game not only will take time but it also requires several playthroughs. Some information can't be unlocked until you start the game over from day one.

Overall, it feels, especially approaching the finale, that the developers set the bar too high and it was hard for them to keep up. Nonetheless, I think to appreciate the effort at least do few key things before making your opinion about the game: don't miss the night call, the "wake up" moment in the investigation, and the beautiful song (yeah you are not wrong when thinking this game is somehow connected to music).

The case you are to solve is interesting by itself, but for me, that side story, the memories about the wife in the detective's life became the reason I did not give up until the final credits. I strongly encourage you to play this game. The sadness has its name now, and for me, it's Disco Elysium. How simple!

Pros It starts out with intrigue right from the get go. You can't quite remember anything after apparently waking up from some serious binge drinking, but are probably a cop, and are in a strange hotel to investigate a suspicious death.

Curious setting. There's a kind of 50s or 70s vibe, or both, but it seems to be an alternate universe or dystopia in which there is unusual tech, and the way society and politics are organised is strange.

Character abilities are so very different from anything else. The categories of abilities are largely reflective of mental and physical characteristics a detective or cop could benefit from, ranging from empathy to visual acuity, and from persuasiveness to logic and reasoning. These are divided into subcategories for more specific skill sets. And on top of that, raising the level of a skill too high can have both positive and negative consequences.

It really feels investigative. It has a combination of the various items to pick up and decide how or where to use them later, and a dialogue option system built around interrogation.

Cons The characters are also quirky, but often to the point that it feels too over the top or tongue-in-cheek to take it very seriously.

Whereas the first 4 of the above 5 points would each individually be a strength, the combination doesn't really work for me. In trying so many unique and quirky things all at once, it goes a bit too far. The end result is more like an artistic experiment than a cohesive and fun-to-play game. You really need to be in just the right mood to play it for long, but since it's so story and dialogue driven it's also not the kind of game you can just dip into for half an hour here and there.

It's can be a bit too slow.

Overall I'm glad I gave it a try. It's quite the experience. But I'm also glad it wasn't too expensive, because I can't imagine ever finding the time to finish it.

Let's start by saying when writing a review , it's easier to start with what it's like but this game defies categorisation, I guess something had to be first , when doom came along there was nothing to compare it to and now everything is doom like, this is going to create the expression Disco Elysium like.

Your a cop investigating a murder but your an addict and your brain doesn't like you, if that seems odd , well I guess it is but it works.

It's clever and full of choices , drugs and alcohol make your brain work more efficiently but it takes it out of your body , so it's a choice based game , sobriety or brilliant but burn out fast addict , the choice is yours , it's not grim , it's done brilliantly.

The best way of describing this game is to think of its as a thought exercise mixed with point and click for the 21st century.

Unique , clever and brilliant in one amazing package, everyone needs to get play this at least once.

I am hugely excited about Disco Elysium 2 , it's set up for a sequel and it will be glorious.

How is this a "game"? What even is with people highly rating this? You just endlessly talk to random people, roll dice for some stupid outcomes, and click around to painfully walk or run to just keep talking to people and read walls of text. The graphics and animations are utterly pointless when all the game is about is reading walls of text.

There is nothing incredible about the text walls wherein you're supposed to deduce something out of them, it's all mostly just pretentious rambling of the main character's thoughts with equally pretentious voices.

I'd be better off reading a novel if I wanted to read plain text.

I haven't been this excited about an RPG in a long time. It's one of those games that puts most of the rest of the genre to shame IMO. The dialogue, writing and storytelling throughout is top shelf. Every interaction with every NPC has depth, the NPCs feel complex and alive, the worldbuilding is absolutely phenomenal and the weird voices-in-your-head / talent tree system compliments the narrative and artistic style delightfully well.

I love gaming and RPGs as much as the next guy, but the writing in Disco made the writing in some of my all time favorite RPGs seem amateurish by comparison. The way the NPCs deliver dialogue and the content of all their backstories is a cut above what I'm used to in games. It really pulls you in.

It then blends this inspired storytelling with an equally inspired set of gameplay mechanics. Sure, at it's core it's like a d20 style tabletop scifi / neo noir RPG campaign being run by an enthusiastic and erudite DM, but its also got a few great twists on that formula as well.

For instance: your "stats" are represented in the form of personality traits (of sorts) that are accompanied by a corresponding "voice in your head" that will inject itself into conversations with NPCs, urge you to make one decision over another, and just generally be present in the narrative.

They also affect skill checks in the environment and in conversation. The higher that stat becomes (either through leveling them or with bonuses from your clothes that you collect throughout the game) - the more prominent that particular "voice in your head" becomes in the game and in your PC's internal dialogue. What's especially great is that these voices/stats (IE facets of your PC's personality and identity) often disagree with one another and have conflicting agendas. Sometimes they'll argue with each other about how to proceed or what to make of a particular NPC's testimony.

There's also a lot of compelling decisions for the player to make as you interact with the world and move the plot along.

Whether it's a clever illusion or an impressively built-out branching narratives system, the result is that you feel like your choices have a huge impact on how the story plays out. It gives the impression that subsequent playthroughs might be radically different and that there's always more to discover.

The worldbuilding of the game wrestles with politics and culture in a really imaginative way IMO. It's smart but not pretentious or heavy handed at all. It treats the player like a thinking adult capable of coming to their own conclusions about what the story is giving to them - if that makes sense. It's too much of a rare thing in entertainment these days.

I don't mean to give the impression that this game is selling itself as some sort of philosophical masterpiece or biting social commentary - it's not and the game doesn't take itself seriously enough to be so lofty. But it is refreshingly clever and at least in my case prompted some reflection on big ideas and principles. It's still pop entertainment, but at least to an uneducated plebian like myself the story was intellectually stimulating.

The other HUGE pro this game has going for it is what they added with the Final Cut update - namely the voice acting.

There is an astonishing amount of dialogue in this game (weighty, compelling and entertaining dialogue - not the sort of filler you see in lots of games) and somehow they added voice acting for every bit of it. The voice actors did a great job.

I played it on xbox and the controls were wonky, the maps were difficult to navigate and there were a couple of frustrating bugs. It was often hard to tell where the invisible borders were and I spent too much time aimlessly trying to figure out how to get to a given location. But I was so enamored with what this game had going for it that I effortlessly looked past all that jank.

If you're into immersing yourself into a fascinating and complex world of revolution, desperation, righteousness, power and intrigue, and you enjoy games that give the player meaningful narrative control - go ahead and give this one a go. It might not be your thing, but if it does capture your imagination then I think you'll really love this one.