Disco Elysium - The Final Cut

Play it like a superstar cop, take drugs, drink, say wild things, proposition old women in wheelchairs, suggest you wiped your own memory in order to solve the case. I never laughed so hard in my life, this game is wild.

AAANNNDDD.... It's a 4/5. Why? Well, the writing and artwork are brilliant, but in the end, your choices didn't really matter. So yes, my recommendation: play an INTERESTING character! You will have to read a lot, so make it enjoyable for yourself by choosing what works for you.

35 hours - that was the lenght opf my first playthrough. I did it in 3 or 4 days and sat in silence as the credits rolled. From a mechanical standopint the game is prety good and I found few niggles that spoiled an otherwise perfectly good expierience. They will not affect the score as I cannot seem to remember them, prving they weren't much of a big deal. The completionist in me suffered a bit since some options that are no longer available linger in one part of the menu which is a bit of an annoyance. The mechanic of red and white checks seems like a good idea since if you really need to you can just save-spam something. On the other hand if you don't you can get stuck with no way to proceed at one or two points in the game. As a person who saves diligently and on multiple saves this was not an issue but otherwise... not sure. There is no combat mechanic to speek of. Just checks and your decisions and the game gives you just enough to slip foward and different skill compositions give you alternate options of both means of proceeding with the plot and flavour text. It's a bit of a trip this one. You feel as if you're grasping bit's of a greater whole as you are suspended in a hole of unknown. The feeling is reminiscent of the wah I felt when I played Planescape: Torment but more intense. You feel more detached from the world while suffering from it's limitations. The atmosphere is thick and depressing at many points. Desolation and broken dreams litter the ground wherever you go. If you are into that kind of stuff (as I am) this game is a gold mine. The game might not be perfect but it's damn close and If you are into narrative driven games this one is a must.

An RPG that lets you actually play your role the way you want to, and where it is fun to do so. The game doesn't really encourage you to tell everyone that the proletariat must start a revolution or that their house is cursed, but I did it because I wanted to play the role of a communist cop who believes in the supernatural. If you're looking for action, this is not the game for you. It consists almost entirely of text, which would be a bummer if the writing wasn't this good and often outright hilarious. The only 'actions' you can perform take place in dialogue - with other characters, with your clothes, with inanimate objects in the world, or with different parts of your persona. There game could have used more proofreading in some parts for minor typos and weird syntax. Some dialogue that the developers intend to happen early also makes very little sense if you only stumble upon it later in the game. But considering how much text is in the game these are rather minor nitpicks. The only real criticism I have are the abrupt ending and the overly complicated clothing system. Having to change attire before and after most skill checks isn't fun, breaks immersion and takes away from the roleplaying: If I want to walk around in a certain outfit, the game shouldn't punish me for it by making clothes such a major factor for skill checks. I am already looking forward to replaying this as an entirely different character once the Final Cut is released.

Most of the 1 or 2 star reviews will tell you "you move SO SLOW" or "the devs are COMMUNISTS" or " you can't finish the game!" or "why is there so much propaganda?" These people didn't even try to play this game. First of all, double click-and-hold to run. It's easy, if just a bit tedious. Second of all, who cares what the devs' views are? Third of all, I've found but ONE potential softlock, and that requires you to suddenly decide to interact with an item you should find Day 1 in the final, I don't know, 2 hours of the game, for the first time? Otherwise, the game provides fail-safes for pretty much any skill build to be able to work, such that bad rolls pretty much cannot lock you out of finishing the game. Fourth of all, there's a lot of "propaganda" because the game takes place in a world ravaged by civil revolt, its opposition, and its consequences. Naturally, people are going to have opinions on this. Other than a relative few characters, most won't actually push politics on you unless you prod them with your OWN views first. And if you get closer to the end of the game, and really explore it, you'll find good reason for the player character and those around him to be invested as such. Now to address MY review: This game is great. Your exploration of the world is aided, or impeded, by your 24 different skills, each of whom is now a voiced character, which you can make more vocal and more effective based on how you build your character, a disaster of a human being, recovering from a world-ending deluge. You interact with many good, terrible, and complicated characters, nearly all of whom I find to be interesting and, often, compelling. Some of them will be off-putting, such as the foul-mouthed delinquent children, or the vocal racists. But using your Empathy and Logic stats, you'll understand at least some of them. My one criticism, really, is that the last act is pretty much locked down. Solving the crime is anticlimactic. But that's kinda the point.