Disco Elysium - detective RPG out Oct 15th

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Disco Elysium - detective RPG out Oct 15th

Post by Sly Boots » Wed Sep 18, 2019 3:04 pm

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person around these parts who has this on their radar.

It sounds really interesting, an open-world RPG where you play a detective and your background and attributes will have a huge effect on how quests and encounters play out:
“This game has layers. Peel another one back and find more: when I played as a more imaginative detective I saw only that the bar’s menu board had been wiped clean after MONDAY; when I played as an intellectual I noticed details about the handwriting. I found a girl outside a book shop and she told me it was cursed. Her mother said she was lying. I tried to break through a mysterious locked door in the back room, but could not. Neither could I persuade the mother to open it. That door consumes my thoughts. I spoke to two old men playing boules in a crater left over from an old war they’d fought in. I roundhouse kicked a giant man. I failed to assert dominance over a horrible child who was high on drugs and throwing stones at a body.”
It also has a lovely watercolour-style aesthetic, and innovative aspects like conversing with your own skills.

It's out on Steam and GOG in a little over a month's time, and will be keeping a close eye on review scores as they come in... if they're as good as I hope they will be then I may have to break open the piggy bank for this one.

Obligatory launch trailer:


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Re: Disco Elysium - detective RPG out Oct 15th

Post by DjchunKfunK » Wed Sep 18, 2019 6:10 pm

Hope it's not bad.

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Re: Disco Elysium - detective RPG out Oct 15th

Post by Medicine Man » Wed Sep 18, 2019 8:22 pm

:lol:

Kind of how I feel about most games I like the sound of.

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Re: Disco Elysium - detective RPG out Oct 15th

Post by Raid » Thu Sep 19, 2019 7:01 am

I'll keep an eye on it, pending reviews.

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Re: Disco Elysium - detective RPG out Oct 15th

Post by Wrathbone » Tue Oct 15, 2019 7:17 pm

Just started playing this. Right off the bat it's one of the weirdest RPGs I've ever played, and also one of the funniest. I'm not yet convinced it's meant to be a comedy, but the sheer disaster of a character I've created has had me in stitches as he tries to pretend he's a proper human being and a real cop who hasn't (apparently) left a trail of calamities in his drunken wake. I think I may be playing a genuinely terrible person and I love it.

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Re: Disco Elysium - detective RPG out Oct 15th

Post by Sly Boots » Tue Oct 15, 2019 8:07 pm

Seeing lots of positive reports about it. At £35 it's a bit steep for me right now, but will be keeping my eye out for deals.

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Re: Disco Elysium - detective RPG out Oct 15th

Post by Sly Boots » Tue Oct 15, 2019 8:11 pm


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Re: Disco Elysium - detective RPG out Oct 15th

Post by Wrathbone » Tue Oct 15, 2019 8:41 pm

My first impressions after a couple of hours are entirely positive. A lot of RPGs take a while to get to grips with, or they throw a lore-dump at you, or bombard you with game mechanics. Not this. There’s not a word of instruction for what the hell is going on or what you should do, and somehow it works. Confusion works well thematically, but it’s also refreshingly straightforward. More importantly, I gelled with it from the get-go. I have a very good feeling about this.

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Re: Disco Elysium - detective RPG out Oct 15th

Post by Raid » Tue Oct 15, 2019 8:52 pm

I am really quite tempted, having watched RPS' review.

Sadly it doesn't yet have ultrawide support if the Steam forums are right, which is a big turn-off for me these days. It's supposedly coming later.

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Re: Disco Elysium - detective RPG out Oct 15th

Post by Raid » Wed Oct 16, 2019 8:03 pm

So I decided the lack of ultrawide support wasn't enough to put me off, which is just as well as I've found myself staring at the right-hand quarter of the screen for 80% of my playtime and I don't have to twist my neck quite as far in 16:10.

This really isn't my usual genre, but I have to say it grabbed me immediately; it's something to do with how your first interaction takes place entirely within the confines of your struggling brain, and the game constantly shows your character's thought process which is determined by your dialogue exploration and skill choices. It's extremely well written for the most part, though some characters are more enjoyable to speak to than others (which obviously makes sense given the context).

So far I've been playing my detective as a pretty straight, part-noir, part-Joe Friday detective interested only in the facts, but apologetic for his debauchery. I'm seeing him as down on his luck rather than completely self-destructive, though the sheer ferocity of the bender he precedes the game with seemingly doesn't give a lot of wiggle room on that. I *did* lose a battle of wits with a drugged-up teenager initially, but most of the conversations I've had have gone my way.

I do have a minor complaint; while I really enjoy the train-of-thought conversations you have with yourself, it'd be nice if it made it a little more clear as to whom you're responding. I did at one point ask a girl what a book was, thinking I was still prying knowledge from the clouded remnant of my mental faculties. It's led to some slightly awkward conversations revealing things I'd prefer to have kept to myself. I also haven't quite worked out the colour coding on the icons for interactive elements of a scene, with occasional purple and yellow ones popping up around my character that you seem to need to click quickly before they vanish.

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Re: Disco Elysium - detective RPG out Oct 15th

Post by Wrathbone » Sat Oct 19, 2019 7:28 am

I have one criticism after 5 or 6 hours, which is that almost everyone in the dilapidated area you start in is an expert in sociopolitical philosophy and can’t wait to have a extensive and fundamental debate with you about such things. The game is impressively self-aware of other RPG tropes and will sometimes question if you’re doing something simply because you could click on it, and yet it seems oblivious to the fact that 90% of the population is fine with discussing the nature of reality with a wandering drunken cop.

Otherwise it’s fantastic.

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Re: Disco Elysium - detective RPG out Oct 15th

Post by Sly Boots » Sat Oct 19, 2019 8:11 am

Wrathbone wrote:
Sat Oct 19, 2019 7:28 am
I have one criticism after 5 or 6 hours, which is that almost everyone in the dilapidated area you start in is an expert in sociopolitical philosophy and can’t wait to have a extensive and fundamental debate with you about such things. The game is impressively self-aware of other RPG tropes and will sometimes question if you’re doing something simply because you could click on it, and yet it seems oblivious to the fact that 90% of the population is fine with discussing the nature of reality with a wandering drunken cop.

Otherwise it’s fantastic.
Is it set in the same universe as Deus Ex? :lol:

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Re: Disco Elysium - detective RPG out Oct 15th

Post by Wrathbone » Sat Oct 19, 2019 8:33 am

Some of the dialogue deals with similar ideas, yes! Disco is far more irreverent, though.

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Re: Disco Elysium - detective RPG out Oct 15th

Post by Asherons » Sun Oct 20, 2019 4:28 am

I'm on my 3rd game right now, havn't reloaded my save after a death. I feel like that's how I should be playing it. I've adjusted my stats based on how I died or failed the previous time, currently trying a strong and stupid type and haven't made any of my previous mistakes.Gotten lucky on some roll that was like 4% which I think saved my life at one point in this play though.

I was hoping for more action but possibly I just haven't made it far enough in the game, or taken the right paths.

The game is alright, not sure I'd recommend it to any of my friends unless they asked me about it first.

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Re: Disco Elysium - detective RPG out Oct 15th

Post by Sly Boots » Thu Apr 23, 2020 9:43 am

Did any of you guys ever finish it? Thoughts?

I played it last week, and have been mulling on what to say about it since. I think it's one of the most unique RPGs I've ever played. I love the fact that it's as much about discovering things about who you are as much as it is solving the murder.

And judges you for a lot of it. At the beginning, when it was clear how epic was the bender my character had previously embarked on, I set about trying to make it up to people, apologising for my behaviour and generally trying to be nice... only to be informed my archetype was 'Sorry Cop', with a fairly unflattering description. I began to be a bit bolder and gradually shifted onto other archetypes, and shied away from the political extremes to try to find the moral centre of every situation, all of which was reflected in my character. By the end I'd lost the 'Expression' and shaved off my distinctive mutton chops, and looked like a rather sad, shabby old man, but at the same time felt that through my actions I'd helped him reach an inner peace he'd not had before, and I was satisfied with my ending.

It's also a surprising game. No combat, but it's still possible to 'die', the first time came as a shock. I went to see the union boss, and after he said something about my gun my character's morale started dropping. 'That's interesting', I thought... then it hit zero, my character had a mental breakdown and quit the force, game over. 'Huh', I thought, discovering I'd been lazy with saving and had to replay about an hour of the game. It's to its credit that it didn't bother me that much. I did learn to save more regularly though.

And the ending. That was a bolt from the blue. No specifics, but when a seemingly innocuous side quest I'd followed to its lengthy conclusion suddenly came to the fore just as you solve your case, and immediately overshadows everything... that was a proper wow moment for me, that I rarely get from games these days when everything is usually so tropey. And that it managed to tie into everything else you'd been doing, amazing.

It's a game that makes you feel like a cop. But, more than that, if I had to compare it to something it would be Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently books, where weird, unconnected things happen until at the end you see the interconnectedness of everything and it's a moment of revelation.

I loved it. I'm not sure whether I'll replay it as my first run seemed perfect and I kind of want to keep it the way I had it. It's a game that has stuck in my head over the week since I finished it, and keeps recurring in my thoughts in quiet moments.

It's a wonderful, weird, unique, unsettling, uncomfortable, surprising, joyous experience.

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