Disco Elysium Review - Page 2
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If you fail a white check, you can retry it once you put more points into the related skill, or by meeting some other requirements. This creates a situation where you may be tempted to hoard your skill points and use them to retry failed checks. In a way, this is similar to Iron Tower Studio's Age of Decadence, but because instead of huge chunks of content, in Disco Elysium these checks usually lead to optional clues that can help with your case or additional insights about your character, saving skill points for later use doesn't feel quite as impactful or game-breaking.
Then, there are the red checks. These work similarly to the white ones, but you can't retry them. On the flip side, failing these one-time red checks can lead to some unexpected and sometimes beneficial results. Win or lose, Disco Elysium's red checks are always entertaining and I wish there were more of them in the game.
Assisting your skill system is the Thought Cabinet. If you stumble onto a particularly puzzling idea you can go into your Thought Cabinet and mull it over, which then will give you an internalized thought. Once internalized, a thought becomes a part of your being and starts providing you with passive bonuses and additional dialogue options. Unfortunately, with some exceptions, these bonuses tend to be fairly lackluster and at times the cabinet feels like a bit of an afterthought. Still, while not amazing mechanically, the role-playing possibilities it opens up allow you to better define your character. Plus, if you don't want to spend your skill points on, well skills, you can also use them to unlock additional thought slots or to forget the ones you have internalized.
Coming into the game with a healthy dose of skepticism I was amazed to find out that it all works. At times things can get a bit wobbly, some skills tend to be underrepresented, the game's world isn't nearly as big or open as advertised, and some of the evidence you get by passing tough checks early, you can simply stumble onto later. But it works.
Unless you're someone who's incapable of treating a game as an RPG if it doesn't offer you plenty of tactical battles, you will likely be surprised by how engaging Disco Elysium can get. Don't get me wrong, I love tactical RPG combat. But there are countless games that already do it, and some of it even do it well. Disco Elysium is simply a step in a different direction, a direction where a lengthy conversation can feel like a tough boss battle.
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Now that we've established how the game works, let's get back to what it's about. From the moment you wake up in a wrecked hotel room with no memory of who you are or how you got there, the game will present you with three separate but interconnected story arcs. Who are you and what made you into the mess of a human being grinning at you from the mirror? Who killed the corpse hanging off a tree behind your hotel? What's going on with the Dockworkers Union strike?
Early on, I was worried that the game won't be able to tie it all together into a coherent narrative. But boy was I wrong. There's this popular dramatic principle called Chekhov's Gun that basically states that every element in a story must be necessary. In my head, I like to modify it into something I call Chekhov's Minigun, a similar principle that states that for a story element to be truly satisfying, it has to be connected to multiple other elements. And while I never had any contact with the game's developers, they seem to be masterfully employing this principle in Disco Elysium.
Creating a story like this takes real talent. Making alterations to it is hellishly difficult, since if you try to change one thing, everything else that relies on it falls apart as well. And most of the time, the added effort isn't worth it. And that's why I can't help but commend ZA/UM's writers for actually pulling this off. Without a shadow of a doubt, Disco Elysium is one of the best-written games out there. It might just be the best, but that's not something I can say with any degree of certainty without playing through the game a few times over several years.
Now, usually, I like to provide examples that highlight my points when writing reviews, but in this particular case I'll be making an exception. The game's story, that starts you off as a middle-aged amnesiac alcoholic, goes places, and even minor hints as to what happens can ruin the plentiful jaw-dropping moments and revelations that put you on the edge of your seat and fill you with existential despair.
All I'll say is that Disco Elysium is a damn fine hard-boiled mystery with plenty of laugh out loud moments, a deep philosophical angle, and an ending that may prove fairly divisive, but if you ask me, it fits the game perfectly.
