Disco Elysium - The Final Cut

I gotta start by saying that this game took me by surprise. When I first saw it on shop I wasn't too impressed, but after seeing all the good ratings I figured why not give it a chance. And oh boy, I'm thankfull that I did. This is definitely the best game I have played in years. I don't know, maybe ever? The writing is just perfect! The plot is amazing! Somehow the game manages to be incredibly funny and sad at the same time. As a conclusion I'd say that if you like RPGs at all, you're probably going to love this. Maybe only negative thing about this game might be that if you actively dislike reading, then you're probably not going to have that good time. Other than that I can recommend this game to anyone!

Finished at 30 hours, 49 minutes. Hilarious dialogue, and empathetically-written characters. The central mystery is engaging, and the side quests are important. The setting is brilliantly-realized and it's shocking that this is the first game set in this setting. It feels like a game set in a decades-old universe. Can't reccomend highly enough. I don't often write reviews, but felt compelled to give one here. Play this game!!

What to say about Disco Elysium? It is a fever dream whose schizophrenic conglomeration of extremely tender moments, riotous quips, and meticulous world building evokes an experience seldom achieved across any art form. It is exceedingly difficult to maintain a narrative voice like the one in Disco's without it crumbling into sophomoric and indulgent fare, but Disco's writers somehow pull it off. It is the best implementation of a dialogue system I've ever seen, shedding the archaic requirement to navigate every single nested option. The art and music meld perfectly to flesh out the city. The reactivity and choice and consequence are staggering. The world and characters are conscious of your behavior at an unprecented rate. It is a singular experience that no one should miss. It will stick with me for years to come.

So, at the moment I'm reading Crime and Punishment. It only took me thirty-something years to get around to it. In that book the main character, who is struggling to get by in a cold and cruel world, is pushed this way and that by drives within himself which he is powerless against and which he refuses to even admit exist. The story does not go well for him. I mention this because I've never played an RPG before in which your character seems unable to stand against the worst sides of himself - and to deny that these sides, this weight of memory, exists. There is every chance that this guy's story won't go well, either. For all this game's other strengths (the bloomin' excellent writing; the humour; the existential bleakness; the karaoke) and weaknesses (the relatively small patch of city it takes place in; the currency which never feels quite as useful as I'd like it to; the slow pace of the story), I think it's this aspect of the main character which will stick with me. That, and a scene where he's dialling random phone numbers out of boredom and makes one call too many. Studio Zaum have created a protagonist whom you have an enormous amount of power to shape and, simultaneously, very little power to shape - because he doesn't have the insight and the power to shape himself. And, for all his many faults, I ended up really feeling for him. It's a fascinating gaming experience, in a looking-through-your-fingers kind of way, and I'm sure I'll be back to play through it again once I've stopped aching from my first go around.

so far 4 hours in im having a great time. will probably recommend to my friends family and family pet. its a deep thought provoking game. i never thought a detetive rpg would be good. but i am both proven wrong and deeply happy about it. game has a dark sense of humor that only barely covers the truely dark subject matter of the game. the game is a painted art style which i was against untill i saw it in action. rough to move around at first. but once you get use to the system and its ideals and start to learn how the systems work the game kind of becomes amazing.