Yes, the setting is not the same, yes, we roam in a city and not on various planes of existence, but I came back 20 years ago while playing this game. It brought me to the humor, the cleverness of Planescape: Troment's dialogs. And then I played a couple of hours more, and developed my personality. The game reoriented me from the superstar cop to the boring-communist-hobo-paranormal explorer cop (which, come to think of it, is like I'd like to spend my real life, it's way cooler to propagate Marxist ideas and seize the means of production than develop software for capitalists). It is not a Baldur's Gate like (and not truly like Planescape). Fighting is not the main focus, but rather going to situations where you have to throw a dice and, depending on your character, if you are above or below a certain threshold, you'll get something. While failing a dice-throw is bad, it sometimes is best to miss something to get an unexpected result. Yes, there are "Game Over" that can happen if you really screw up things, but then learn from it and don't try to be in the same situation. But what makes Disco Elysium truly outstanding is its setting. The degree of details, the quality of the writing, and, after a few hours, when things start to click together, the reactions of your cop (or his sidekick) will definitely make you laugh, think, care for them,... So far I have just done one run, and am waiting a bit before starting my second one. I'll definitely try something different, less hobo and more shiny, maybe become a full-on brawling fascist ? But I'll definitely like again to wake up hangover in this hotel room and start big quests like "how to grab my tie from the fan ?" or "where the f*** is my left shoe ?". It really puts the "Role Play" in RPG. The true polar opposite of mindless dungeon crawlers. To sum up, one of the games that I'll remember having played for decades (and in a good way). If you read me ZA/UM, please, I beg you, MORE.
