• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Disco Elysium The Final Cut [OT] I Am The Law

HotPocket69

Banned
This shit is awesome

3R3mtCE.jpg
e7O1XgB.jpg


It feels like some forgotten in time game from the late 90s early 2000s when people still knew who David Lynch and David Cronenberg were. It just has that weird surreal sorta vibe to me.

And the politics are more hilarious and outrageous than anything. The writing has made me laugh out loud a fucking lot.
 
Last edited:

nowhat

Member
So I got to the ending. Or rather, a ending I suspect, I'll definitely be replaying this, but I'll let it cook in the oven for a bit more before trying it again. Played this on a PS5 and as you know things have been somewhat rough (and I also want to give my brain some time to settle back to where it was), but on the whole, what a game.

But before I start completely gushing about it, there is certainly lots of valid criticism to be made. The technical issues for one, although those seem to be fixed at a reasonable rate, it's a small team after all. Then when it comes to console controls, they work alright for the most part (glad that the devs didn't try to implement a virtual mouse cursor but instead went for a more controller-friendly approach), but sometimes it's hard to get your character to perform a particular action - and if you do, it can be too easy to cancel that action by moving the left stick, even just a tiny bit. It's good that you can do so, but the threshold for it seems way too sensitive for me. At times you have to navigate your character out of sight - this doesn't happen often but it does, especially indoors. Sometimes it's hard to tell what parts of the environment you can traverse and what you can't.

And on a more general level (not just relating to the console port), while it's refreshing that the game doesn't hold your hand all the time, it can be quite obtuse. While I'm quite neutral on save scumming and in this instance I feel it mostly should be avoided, there are at least two instances towards the very end where you absolutely have to pass a skill check, and then you have two "white" skill checks to choose from. The problem with the latter is, sure you can do them again if you can level up a particular skill - but you may already have maxed out that skill, so no matter how much you change your equipment, you can't retry them. A minor complaint, but "save early, save often" applies here as well. As to the ending, I felt it was way too abrupt. I would have liked some more closure, some simple "where they are now" title cards would have done it, but alas, it just ends, in a somewhat unsatisfying fashion as far as I'm concerned (although the phasmid was just amazing).

In the end though, I really, really, enjoyed this. The art style is great and completely fitting for this kind of game, a more photorealistic approach wouldn't have worked at all (especially given the budget). The voicework has a few misses, but on the whole, it's really good and definitely adds to the game. I'm one of those who plays JRPGs with the original audio - partially due to them being original, but more because I can read the line and skip to the next instead of people just blabbing on and on. In this instance though, I listened pretty much everything all the way (unless I was reloading after having fucked up). Special kudos to the devs for one thing - while the gibberish that Cuno and the other little cunt spout is in fact Finnish, their VAs obviously are not. However, Soona has an obviously Finnish surname (well, half of it anyway) and they got a Finnish VA for her, the accent is unmistakable. A small thing, but a nice touch as well.

Then there's the skill tree, items and "thought cabinet". The skill tree is the most original I can remember for a long time, and I like how you don't just have particular stats for an item, but there are the descriptions as well. For example, "white polo shirt": +1 Rhetoric: What's polo anyway? -1 Empathy: No, really, what the hell is polo?. But the "thoughts", what an amazing concept. I love how you don't know beforehand what benefits (if any) you'll get for "internalizing" them (there is some correlation between the time it takes and how useful it is, but not always) and also that you can't just mix-and-match them for a particular scenario - if you forget a thought, it's gone, for good. And again the descriptions, one of the most useful thoughts I found (no, not going to say what it is) has the following stat effects: "Encyclopedia passives give +10 XP and +2 real / -2 Suggestion: Pretentious wanker". Brilliant. (In the bottom-right corner there's an abbreviation for which page you're in in the menus, for the "thought cabinet" it's "THC" - I'm not implying anything, but... well actually I'm implying something, but nothing wrong with that, just an observation.)

Which brings me to the star of the show, the writing. It can be so great. "LOL" is (over)used online constantly, but at least personally I rarely actually laugh out loud. With this game, on so many occasions. The dialogue can be absolutely amazing, some of the events I really didn't see coming (in a positive way, not just "subverting expectations" in a stupid Hollywood kind of way) and there are some great characters. It's not all silly and over the top all the time though either, some moments can be surprisingly somber or touching. But sure, there's a ton of wacky stuff. No complaints from me. As for all the "-isms" in the game, yeah, there are plenty. You can be for or against any number of them, if you're so inclined. But if you're thinking the game is particularly rooting for any of them, you're not seeing the forest for the trees. All are ridiculed in quite equal measure, there are no good guys here.

All in all, while the technical issues did deter my enjoyment a bit, I'm glad that I finally got to play this and will definitely do so again at a later date. Also, while I'm generally skeptical of any movie/TV adaptations of video games, I actually think this could make an epic TV series (which apparently is in the works). I'm not saying it will be epic, but it certainly has the potential, the writing is just so great.
 

Mozzarella

Member
I think Disco Elysium has some of the best dialogue in gaming, the way the dialogue is written is very engaging and the different thoughts of the character personality interact is great and creative. However i dont like how it ties political score to certain lines. It is shallow and stupid in that regard. For example if you say something negative about Women the game assumes you are Fascist which is weird because why the game assumes that if you dislike women you must be Fascist, it implies that you cannot be communist or liberal and dislike women. Why is that? disliking women is called misogynist or sexist and any person of any political ideology can be that kind, so why attach this line with that ideology? or the same if you are defending workers rights, the game assumes its communist trait, except some fasicsts also were pro working class. The whole political score is just shallow and one dimensional and it just assumes stuff out of their asses. I strongly dislike how they offer me a bunch of shallow and stupid lines in order to be attributed to specific political score. The conversations start really well until certain point where it feels full of strawman lines written by someone who barely discussed politics with any mature well educated person.
Other than this the game is mostly very good. I like the art style, the music is fine even though it could use more variety and the premise of the story is very interesting. I like the skill tree but i think the game needed more interactions, a bit more on the side of being a detective and making investigation, gathering some clues and deducing things on the player, maybe add some logic and science stuff to make it seem rewarding, but looks like the game is more about worldbuilding and politics rather than being a detective which is fine but personally i like mystery, crime and detective stories more than politics. I also heard from some people that the game is not really rpg as it doesnt offer much choice, i hope by the time i finish it i will disagree with that.
I like the addition of the voice acting too, makes things easier. Also this Cuno kid is obnoxious, probably the most annoying character i have ever met in gaming.
 
Last edited:

Ivory Samoan

Gold Member
Not sure if this is supposed to happen, but I can only see my skills if I hit square during a conversation (I can't cycle my inventory/mission log etc using R2), as soon as I'm out of the conversation , I can swap using r2 again, this the case for everyone? (PS5)
 

HotPocket69

Banned
Not sure if this is supposed to happen, but I can only see my skills if I hit square during a conversation (I can't cycle my inventory/mission log etc using R2), as soon as I'm out of the conversation , I can swap using r2 again, this the case for everyone? (PS5)

Yeah me too. P sure thatā€™s how itā€™s supposed to be.
 
Incredible game, I've been recommending it to all my friends.

I'm seeing a fair bit of criticism of the political alignment system, which I actually thought was spectacularly well done. I think the problem people are having is that they want to feel good about their political alignment - they want it to be treated "fairly" by the game. This is fundamentally an Estonian game, though, and it has a particularly Eastern European stance on politics. Eastern Europe is notable for its extreme political apathy and disillusionment: just like Revachol, there's omnipresent nostalgia for the failed communist experiment but no actually existing communists, a technocratic liberal center that manages society on behalf of foreign overlords (the EU, international finance and conglomerates) rather than the local population, rapacious oligarchs and hucksters taking advantage of the liberalized economy to turn a quick buck, and fascists/nationalists filling in the gaps left by the absence of communism with their retarded half-explanations.

So none of the ideologies come across as particularly sympathetic, and that's the way it should be in a place like Revachol.
 

Futurematic

Member
Iā€™ve become commie Art Cop but refused the communist thought, which totally works with your excellent analysis. So to see the ideology ending Iā€™ve got to sell out and become ultraliberal Art Cop, I love this game.
 

Rikku-X

Member
Just beat it and what a great game it was. I think it might be going into my top 10 games. I just love original settings like this, with there own world building and technology. You don't really see it much now days. I really hope it sells really well.
 
Last edited:

HotPocket69

Banned
I believe Iā€™m almost finished. Assuming this all takes place within a week, Iā€™m on Day 6. Iā€™ve been pretty damn thorough with side stuff too. The game is fucking amazing and Iā€™m curious to see how itā€™ll end based on how much of an honest goofball Iā€™ve been throughout.
 
Does this game open up Iā€™m near end of the second and Iā€™m still just in the harbour; docks square area. I thought weā€™d be going through a city here. Please tell me thereā€™s a lot
More areas than this.
 

HotPocket69

Banned
What an experience total. I really need to sit on this and soak it in for a bit before a replay. The best kind of detective stories are like that.

Iā€™ve never seen better writing in a videogame or such a confident flow of various attitudes and emotions. It was a rollercoaster. Christ it feels like such a hard game to explain unless you just want to spoil it all for someone. Truly a ā€œYou just need to play itā€ type of experience that we just donā€™t get anymore.

I hope they donā€™t make a sequel or a TV series (the latter is actually supposedly happening) and I canā€™t wait to see what this team does next.

Shit, Iā€™m definitely replaying sooner than later šŸ˜‚
 

Rikku-X

Member
Can I ask why you don't want a sequel? I'm all for companies making new IPs, but in this case I would absolutely love a sequel. The lore and world design here would be such a waste not to use it, it's so good. I would love the next one to be set in Jamrock, having a Encyclopaedia build you learn so much about other places and they sound great.

8yzaWuj.jpg

Martinaise is such a small part of Revachol.
 
Last edited:

HotPocket69

Banned
Can I ask why you don't want a sequel? I'm all for companies making new IPs, but in this case I would absolutely love a sequel. The lore and world design here would be such a waste not to use it, it's so good. I would love the next one to be set in Jamrock, having a Encyclopaedia build you learn so much about other places and they sound great.

8yzaWuj.jpg

Martinaise is such a small part of Revachol.

I guess exploring other parts of the world would be cool, but Iā€™m just not for it. I got what I wanted and Iā€™m glad itā€™s replayable. Not every hit needs to have a sequel.
 
Last edited:

G-Bus

Banned
First day around 6pm. Have exhausted everyone I can talk to ( I think) and haven't gotten anywhere really. Still haven't got the body down. Feel stuck or I'm missing something obvious.
 

HotPocket69

Banned
First day around 6pm. Have exhausted everyone I can talk to ( I think) and haven't gotten anywhere really. Still haven't got the body down. Feel stuck or I'm missing something obvious.

I didnā€™t investigate the body until mid afternoon on day 2 after doing everything I could. Youā€™re doing it right so far.

Though there is a trophy for completing the game without investigating the body at all and I definitely want to do that.
 
Last edited:

Rikku-X

Member
Did anyone do the Committee of la ResponsabilitƩ ending? This game is so good. Going to play Nier Replicant next, then come back fot the other endings.
 

Markio128

Member
Did everyone here just create their own? I totally ignored the base builds.
Iā€™m hopefully going to try all 4 options. I completed the game using the 2nd build, that had good personality stats and built them up from there, so I was incredibly empathetic, but lacked intelligence and physical attributes. Now Iā€™m trying the intelligence build and enjoying being able to influence conversations easier. Next Iā€™ll try the physical build to see what changes. Itā€™s nice to see the dramatic differences in builds, which is why I think they are there in the first place.
 

bitbydeath

Member
Finally beat it.
Was a good overall but I did find myself skipping a number of dialogue scenes out of sheer boredom. (Like everything Measurehead had to say zzzzzz)

That phasmid near the end was a bit WTF

I managed to complete all of my tasks except for singing karoke, I eventually found the tape near the end but didnā€™t get a chance to use it.
 
Last edited:

sloppyjoe_gamer

Gold Member
This game is so damn good!! Playing the PS5 version, and only on day 2 but wow it's totally exceeded my expectations. The narrarator guy who does all your internal musings is fantastic. The VA in general so far has been superb, and i love the dialog and all the weird places it goes to sometimes. Really looking forward to seeing where this wild story ends up!!! :messenger_sunglasses:
 
My goty, what an incredible game. 67 hours of just going through dialogue trees shouldnt be this gripping but it is. A dream game was made into reality. Having VA for all the lines was definitely the right choice as these characters deserve a voice with how memorable they became to me. From Lt Kim Kitsurugi, Oranje Disco Dancer to the Hardies. Everyone was so much more alive with the VA. I never got into the hype of other new age crpg devs, fell off Pillars and Divinity Original Sin 2 after few hours but these guys, they got that special sauce that bioware did so long ago. A sequel to Disco could be the Baldurs Gate 2 of this generation.


oOvgBSj.jpg
[/SPOILER
]
AGVws7q.jpg
 
Last edited:
Does this game open up Iā€™m near end of the second and Iā€™m still just in the harbour; docks square area. I thought weā€™d be going through a city here. Please tell me thereā€™s a lot
More areas than this.
Nah just a small area by the docks. By the end, you realised how grand the sequel can be if they incorporate the entire Revachol city. This is after all, still an indie game.
 
Being a patient gamer and devoid of FOMO I decided to wait until the game was fully patched. Nothing ruins a good game more than bugs and it is at 1.9 now lol. Respect for the devs for sticking with it and not just abandoning it on PlayStation. Better than Beamdog Planescape!

Game art style is beautiful and Iove the cynicism and sarcasm.
I am more on the liberal left of the political spectrum but I can do critical thinking.
Writing is definitely not for extremists who are convinced they possess the Truth.
 

reksveks

Member
Being a patient gamer and devoid of FOMO I decided to wait until the game was fully patched. Nothing ruins a good game more than bugs and it is at 1.9 now lol. Respect for the devs for sticking with it and not just abandoning it on PlayStation.
Waiting as well but cause I want to get it on xbox.
 

sloppyjoe_gamer

Gold Member
Still playing this and im on Thursday now.....have a few white checks i need to do that i currently cant because the certain level attribute needed to do so isnt high enough, and i literally cant figure out anyone i havent recently talked to in the game about new things to give me XP which i need to be able to level attributes up. Not frustrated, just feel like all im doing is wandering around blindly not able to do anything at the moment to advance the story. Here are the things i need to do:

-Establish authority over Titus
-Figure out who called in the body to Police
-Ask about the victims tattoos
-Explore whirlings secret passages
-Investigate window behind hardie boys

I also still cant get into that 3rd room upstairs in whirling, where i assume that girl is that i always see on the top floor when i go to the area where that cuno fuck is lol.

Just wondering if anyone has any tips for the spoiler parts above or an easy way to get XP in general
 

sloppyjoe_gamer

Gold Member
Gonna bump this and ask again lol....still not any further due to the quests that are spoiler tagged above and i cant find anyone to talk to with new things to discuss to get me XP so i can level up. I'm starting to think my game is bugged.
 

Nico_D

Member
I also still cant get into that 3rd room upstairs in whirling, where i assume that girl is that i always see on the top floor when i go to the area where that cuno fuck is lol.


Check out the window in the cafeteria/restaurant in the hotel. I think there's the union guys there already?[

I clicked the window by accident, it was bit obscure. And stupid.
/spoiler]

Why is this in off-topic?
 
Last edited:

sloppyjoe_gamer

Gold Member
Check out the window in the cafeteria/restaurant in the hotel. I think there's the union guys there already?[

I clicked the window by accident, it was bit obscure. And stupid.
/spoiler]

Why is this in off-topic?

I know that's there too....im not high enough of a rank to "see" whats there yet. Just another thing i need to rank up and i cant find people to talk to about new things to get XP to level up
 
Last edited:

Nico_D

Member
I know that's there too....im not high enough of a rank to "see" whats there yet. Just another thing i need to rank up and i cant find people to talk to about new things to get XP to level up

Savescum? Or don't you even get the chance to try and roll for it?

When I played, I was thinking that situation like that could happen. For all the good in the game there's also quite a few flaws.
 
Top Bottom