极乐迪斯科

The most absorbing game I've ever played, extremely well written and provoking. Characters feel so real, depth and voice acting are unequalled. If you're not into reading then it's not likely for you as the world-building and literature are somewhat dense, but if you're the sort to read all the footnotes, then this is about as rewarding as it gets. A masterpiece, in my opinion.

Describing Disco Elysium as a regular rpg doesn't feel right. It's a chracter story, a visual novel of some sorts. You don't play it like you play pillars of eternity, for example. You read, you listen, you observe, you talk a lot, you walk a lot. You will be talking to yourself a lot, arguing with various aspects of your being. Now thats an unsual take. Your inner voices take a big part in almost every dialogue, influencing it and opening new lines, leading to breakthroughs. You have some freedom in choosing your approach and actions, which in turn decides how others will react to you and how the story goes. Feels like a mix between planescape and pathologic, and what a mix it is. Characters are very well done. The main duo and their differences is a stream of endless entertainment. Everything is full of style and obviously artists did their absolute best to bring unique visuals into the game. Picture is accompanied by strong voice acting. Music is outstanding, it sets the game just right from beginning to very end. Some tracks are guaranteed to be stuck in your head after playing it. This game is a like a colorful yet bleak cop story book, but with drugs, amnesia and a bit of dementia in an insane alternative reality. At the core it's a point and click adenture in a form of classic party isometric rpg, but without combat. Everything is decided by skillchecks, even combat is something initiated from dialogue in a very few places. It's perfect for those who seeks unique experiences in their games and likes well written stories. Sadly, there are a few bugs still even in the 'final cut'. World map breaks itself and becomes unusable at the end, there are problems with pacing and you can end up having a boring in-game day walking around doing nothig till evening for the story to progress. Some animations break, some quests don't have desired options, backtracking is annoying, some actions are stupid (hanging coat). Still, deserves to be in a collection.

A great beginning, a strong middle phase and a significant decrease at the end. To make a long story short, yes you can play your character the way you want. There are so many possibilities. So many options for solutions, but they all have one problem: It too often ends in the same result. The further the game progresses, the less meaningful your character becomes. Some skills are only used once or twice, but of course you don't know that beforehand. At the beginning, you can solve riddles in so many ways: Talking to the dead, analyze artworks, even talking to your tie, assuming a sick mind. Only to throw almost everything overboard towards the end and limit it to a few skills in a lack of meaning. Another warning to all whose native language is not English: Difficult dialect is spoken, mixed with French influences. The subtitles help, but since the story consists of extremely abstract thoughts, it requires constant full attention all the time. My recommendation: Buy at Sale. Expect more of an heavy story adventure than a roleplay. Great potential that runs out of steam in the end to keep the story train running.

It's hard to judge a game like this using bulletpoints. But I'll try. Here's what's good about Disco Elysium and what isn't. Pros: - very immersive story: a classic whodunit that has you guessing right up until the end and plenty of side-quests to keep you busy - believable, likable, interesting characters - very good music and cool voicing - small, almost claustrophobic setting in a dystopian world - mindboggling artwork - can be, depending on your player-character, funny, witty, idiotic, crazy, empathetic or erratic - excellent writing even by non-gaming standards Cons: - feels like a railroad on occaision - the story not only borders absurdity, but crosses that border more often than not - has recurring bugs: some overlapping texts, some skill-checks listed on the map that are no longer available, animations that are frequently lagging - amount of text and dialogue is near insane: the reading will wear you out - leaves you with a feeling of guilt: there is hardly any way to play the hero, because the game almost bullies you into taking sides and all of them are problematic - limited replayability: once you finish, all that's left for a second attempt are probably just some skill-checks you failed with your character of choice and some flavor-text that differs depending on your character's skills

Completed Disco Elysium 3 times before posting this review, used different archetypes, played the game on different ways, and one time after the other the game managed to surprise me, show me something different, give me extra details and changing the development of the story based on my decisions, successful and failing rolls. They manage to include a toon of content in this relative small world condensed with details, many stories to tell and some of the most bizarre and lovely characters you could ask. I'm waiting for more content of ZA/UM Studio.