I can fix him. I can make him worse
I have to be honest with you, I thought this game was going to be pretentious and overrated. But there was a moment while playing where everything clicked and I was having fun. I was intrigued by the plot. I wanted to know more about the world and the people in it, I wanted to solve the case.
In Disco Elysium you take control of a detective who after a binge has amnesia. As said detective you have to figure out not only who you are but the details of the case you were working on before the bender. Early on in the game you get a companion, Kim Kitsuragi, an officer from another Precinct. He acts as the voice of reason and is one of the best companions in a video game.
The world and characters of Revachol are unforgettable. The atmosphere is somehow oppressive and quirky at the same time. I usually say games with already established TTRPG have it easy since they don’t have to work too hard to establish a world but turns out the lead design made the TTRPG and at the time of this review it has not been out yet. You can tell a lot of work went into this world’s culture and politics.
The watercolor art style is equal parts creepy and beautiful, I know this art style can cause motion sickness so if you are prone to motion sickness I would recommend watching a trailer for the game before purchase. Another funny thing about the art style is that every location looks the same from a distance. The art style can be a problem while playing the game since it’s sort of hard to tell what you can and can’t step onto.
The gameplay is a pretty straight forward point and click RPG. There is basically no combat. You move around the world and talk to NPCs while collecting items to solve “puzzles”. You also have clothing items you can change in or out of to change your stats. Stats are the name of the game baby. There are voices in your detective’s head that help him progress through the world as well as tell you what’s going on inside his head. Rolls determine if you can do certain actions, every dice roll is a gamble depending on what stats you decided to buff. Some checks you can’t roll again so make sure you read what it says before choosing that option in dialogue, or save scum. This game doesn’t want you to save scum, it wants you to accept your failures. That’s why they try to make them as entertaining as possible. I do think this can be a turn off for a lot of players since you won’t be able to pass every check on one playthrough without save scumming.
This game has a lot of replayability, different builds, different approaches to situations, in the Final Cut you can choose different political ideologies and go on a vision quest. My first playthrough took about 40 hours to complete and I know I skipped a couple of side quests. I think it was somewhere around day 2 in game time where I realized that this is a really good game. I’m glad I continued but be warned this game has very mature content please be advised. Disco Elysium does deal with some very serious topics that would definitely be upsetting for a lot of people, so player discretion advised.
Disco Elysium is not for everyone, it’s slow and thoughtful and to some it may be an eyesore. If you can handle it I think you’re in for a very intriguing detective story with interesting characters and an ending that you won’t see coming. I thought I couldn’t handle isometric games like this but it was just too damn interesting and I couldn’t stop playing it.
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