I am not a hardcore RPG fan. Actually, I've never finished any, expect Fallout Series. Planescape Torment, great, but I lost interest. Icewind Dale ... ok ... but lost interest. Fallout 1 and 2 ... These I love and finished. Even multiple times. And now I'm hooked on Disco Elysium. Why is that? Because the *WRITING* is incredible. Dialogs are holarious, deep, interesting, well written. The characters are full of *character* :D Imagine that! That is what makes it related to Fallout 1&2, although of course they are very different in the end. But what connects them is the brilliant writing, the hugely interesting world and the obvious passion everyone put in. With Disco Elysium you are entering a deeply interesting world, wonderfully written. Deep, beautiful, controversial. There's no combat, just exploration, decision, situations and ... dialog! The character system is wonderful and will give you multiple playthroughs with whole different parts of the universe opening up. And the Art Direction ... man ... wonderful. Grat Illustrations, fitting music. Just beautiful. This game is a piece of art. And a contender for games of the decade. As soon as it came out on Mac I grabbed it. Grab it. Enjoy it. Dive into this deep story-verse. What a beautiful game.
I have to admit that the very positive reviews and the art style, that looks similar to Darkest Dungeon made me too impulse buy this. Only to be a little disappointed: The art looks great on a screenshot, but just is not as well executed as Darkest Dungeon did it with this art style. The animations just don't work out, like they did there. They just feel unfinished and unpolished. The great tension and forceful feeling of DD just isn't there. Then there's the gameplay: It just feels like made from a checklist for "Hot wo do a Roguelike for Dummies". Just go to a "Ship / Derelict", talk to an NPC, get something for them. That's it. That wouldn't be so bad, if the fight system would be a thrill. But it isn't. For me it feels more like a chore. Something you have to do, not something you enjoy doing, like with Darkest Dungeon. The card / deck mechanic felt very interesting and maybe it is, but that doesn't make up for the very basic feel everything has. The roster is always limited to your 3 guys and if you want to hire someone else, it means: goodbye to one of your team members. So there's no way to have different "teams" at your Overall, this is not a bad game and I am sure that a lot of people can just come to like it very much. For me, it was a disappointment. I expected more depth, that's all! So: three stars that I mean well. :)
