Disco Elysium - The Final Cut

This game is amazing. You can: - punch a kid in the face - pat a mail box and tell it it's doing a great job - get wasted - beg for money - puke - argue with yourself. a lot. just like in real life - steal a dead man's boots and boil them in a restaurant's kitchen for disinfection - cry And many other wonderful things. Be warned though, this game is not for the feint of heart or people who get easily offended. Topics like child abuse, child labor, racism, drug and alcohol abuse, politics, mental health, sex and others are discussed/encountered at every step. This game has it all.

An isometric RPG with a heavy dialogue focus. The gameplay consists entirely of exploring the world, talking to characters and interacting with elements in the environment, and this never stops being interesting thanks to how amazingly good the writing is. Nearly ever line of dialogue is perfect, most being highly amusing and a number also hold great emotional weight and effectively further your intrigue into the world and its characters. The game’s cast of characters is large, and of them each unique and highly interesting to interact with in their own ways. It’s an absolute must play for anyone who loves story and character driven games, the role-playing side of RPGs or anything and everything that’s Disco as hell.

I've spent some time playing this game and it didn't really click until I was informed for the third time that my title was too long...this is a pseudo-noir choose-your-own adventure book made visual. You wake up sporting a hell of a hangover. To make matters worse you trashed your hotel room, your mind is actively working AGAINST you finding out what happened to...everything, and one other thing: you have a murder to solve. What follows depends on you; a booze-soaked, cocaine-laced trip of a game where the lines of reality and madness blur together, a straight-laced tale of redemption through immense adversity, a comedy of tragic errors or something in between. The game's narrative plays out both through the visuals and through exposition. Revachol is a city of history and ruin, grandeur and war. The characters have desires, intentions, phobias and cracks to exploit (assumuing you have the skills to recognize them). Brute force can solve problems that cold analysis or warm empathy cannot - though the opposite is also true. The character that you build will determine how you can proceed to solving the murder and solving yourself. The visuals are quite amazing; they require little computer resources while also conveying a style that emotes something out of post-Revolution France: destruction, decay, decadence and hope somehow mix in the pale colour palette and garish scenery. The art style is a blend of watercolour mixed with a slight acid / weed trip; it not only forces the imagination to fill in details (like any good prose would) but also perfectly mirrors the state of your character. This game is not for everyone; as most reviews attest there is no combat to be found. This is a book made visual so text dumps are the norm. I like something different, something that doesn't require me to split skulls or blow up fuel dumps. This game is, if nothing else, an excellent way to cap off a day before going to bed and dreaming of watercolour and adrenachrome.

Disco Elysium lives and dies by its writing, and it is written very, very well. You can lean into a redemption arc, take things seriously, get deep and philosophical, and really enjoy yourself. OR, you can lean into various flavors of insanity / absurdity, and nearly die laughing. Either way, this game is a very fun time. Just go in expecting mostly dice-based skill checks, like the ones in BG3 conversations, but little to no "combat" per se. Succeeding at them is satisfying; failing is often hilarious, if it doesn't kill you. Mood, atmosphere, and music are also very lovely. I sometimes put the music on separately to read, inspire writing, or sleep to, depending on the mood.

At first I thought this game was a point'n'click adventure and bounced off it 2 times. But then I reassesed my assumptions and played it like an RPG with possible fail states, and my god it's so much better for it. This isn't just searching for solution, but actual role-playing. And immediately I grew in love with the game.