Disco Elysium - Review @ Gamespot

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Gamespot gives Disco Elysium a perfect 10:

Stayin' alive.

Memories can be painful. Recalling them can result in feelings of regret, anger, shame, embarrassment, and worse. Much, much worse. In Disco Elysium, a mesmerising, hilarious and at times harrowing narrative-heavy RPG, recollecting a memory can prove fatal. For an amnesiac, alcoholic cop struggling with a new murder case with elusive details, and the world's worst hangover, remembering the person he was offers a path to redemption for the person he might become. After all, memories that don't kill you make you stronger.

Disco Elysium presents as an RPG in the mold of Baldur's Gate or Divinity: Original Sin. Indeed, it opens with a nod to Planescape Torment with a semi-naked figure lying on a cold, hard slab before slowly rising to his feet--only the slab isn't in a mortuary, it's in a cheap motel room, and the figure wasn't recently dead, he's just still drunk. Very, very drunk. It proceeds with the traditional top-down view of the world, your party members traversing beautiful, hand-painted 2D environments, pausing to inspect objects and talk to people. There are quests to initiate, experience to gain, levels to up, dialogue trees to climb, and skill checks to fail. Yet in all kinds of other ways--thematically and mechanically--Disco Elysium is very unlike other RPGs.
[...]
Disco Elysium is a mad, sprawling detective story where the real case you've got to crack isn't who killed the man strung up on a tree in the middle of town--though that in itself, replete with dozens of unexpected yet intertwined mysteries and wild excursions into the ridiculous, is engrossing enough to sustain the game. Rather, it's an investigation of ideas, of the way we think, of power and privilege, and of how all of us are shaped, with varying degrees of autonomy, by the society we find ourselves in.

Score: 10/10
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More information.
 
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How is this game ANYTHING like Baldur's Gate or D:OS ? It's not. It's uncool not to praise this game as the best thing ever to hit CRPGs, but give me a break. It's a tiny non open world that shares little to nothing with those games. There are lots of skill checks and an intriguing story to a point. And lots of tedium. But a sprawling fantasy RPG this is not.
 
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mbuddha said:
How is this game ANYTHING like Baldur's Gate or D:OS ? It's not. It's uncool not to praise this game as the best thing ever to hit CRPGs, but give me a break. It's a tiny non open world that shares little to nothing with those games. There are lots of skill checks and an intriguing story to a point. And lots of tedium. But a sprawling fantasy RPG this is not.
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Well it's clear you didn't actually read the review, just saw a sentence you didn't like and quit there. The paragraph you're talking about says that the game "presents" in the mold of BG or D:OS, and even opens like PS:T, but goes on to conclude that it's "very unlike" those games.
 
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Ah I see journalists and game developers still throw names around. Nothing like reading another game is inspired/feels like X when in fact it looks, plays, and feels nothing it.

Just for reference I'm referring to other things then just this article.:)
 
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Hey Couch great to see you back. :) I've been gaming a lot lately and not on this site as much the last few weeks. I saw the release date for the Witcher series and thought about you.
 
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Hastar said:
Hey Couch great to see you back. :) I've been gaming a lot lately and not on this site as much the last few weeks. I saw the release date for the Witcher series and thought about you.
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Is it released yet? As I haven't followed the news about the Witcher series. I remember sharing my negative opinion when it was announced, but I still may be proved wrong.
 
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Couchpotato said:
Is it released yet? As I haven't followed the news about the Witcher series. I also mad my opinion made when it was announced, but I still may be proved wrong.
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I think it releases Dec 21. Was just announced.

Sorry for the off topic :)
 
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Hastar said:
I think it releases Dec 21. Was just announced.
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Thanks. Fingers crossed it's at least good.:fingerscrossed:

Don't worry about going off-topic threads almost dead anyway.:)
 
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I used to agree more with Gamespot - a number of years ago.

This is yet another example of how that's no longer the case.

To be fair, though, this is more a case of Disco Elysium simply not being a game for me - than it being a bad game.

I just can't stand the writing. It's quite like my original reaction to the Planescape Torment writing back in the day.

Both games reek of trying too hard - and going out of their way to not articulate messages in plausible, clear or concise ways.

Which is obviously a subjective reaction on my part.
 
That's like saying you'd find Lord of the Rings quite good, but flicking pages sucks :)

Maybe I missed the rest of the game. Clicking hotspots and rolling dice?
 
No, I think you got it. I meant the game is great for people who are satisfied with reading paragraph after paragraph and just clicking on dialogue choices.

For people who enjoy actual gameplay outside of dialogue, it doesn't hold much appeal. That's why I quit after a couple of hours. No matter how good the writing is, I need more than just that.
 
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Well, I think I might have been able to enjoy the game if I found the writing as good as a lot of people are saying.

I mean, that's how I enjoyed TW3, Last of Us, Bioshock Infinite and a few other games. If the writing of a game is VERY good - I can live with subpar or so-so gameplay for the most part.

Then again, I tend to enjoy adventure games in that way as well - and they tend to have incredibly boring gameplay, at least in my opinion.

In this case, the writing is simply not for me. I do recognise that it's unique and highly stylized. In that way, I guess it succeeds - but I prefer a very, very different approach - and I was never enthralled by that kind of thing.

Obviously, I'm in the minority here - and it certainly seems to have registered with a lot of people.

I'm surprised joxer didn't absolutely love it.
 
Haven't played Outer Worlds yet, but I think DE is my GotY so far too. Mainly due to lack of other choices. It's been a really bad year for new RPG releases. Possibly just as bad as the legendarily bad 2016.
 
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I guess I need to give this another shot when I'm in the mood.

I do have to wonder what people like so much about the writing, though. Is it that it's so unusual - or is it that you think it's actually fantastic?

I guess it's sort of like my relationship with Lynch or Kubrick movies.
 
I really like the game but i can't play more than a half an hour per day. Maybe during weekends that i am not tired i can go longer times. Playing afternoons after office, before my wife gets home and in about a half an hour i'm ready to sleep.

Writing feels a little bit extreme for my taste but in general i'm ok with it.
 
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