Disco Elysium: Final Cut Review
Disco Elysium is a game like no other. Actually, if I were to describe it in short terms I would say that it’s a playable interactive book, a sort of visual novel where you get to create your own character and explore a city with the goal of solving a murder case. Yet, I still feel that it would be quite reductive, as the depth of the dialogues and worldbuilding is at a unimaginable level.
The world depicted is outstanding, both visually, with an oil-painterly style, and musically, with an incredibly nostalgic feeling pervading the whole game.
Remembering the past
The narrative premise is quite simple. A detective (the playable character) wakes up in a room of a hostel cafeteria with profound brain damage, causing most, if not all, of his memory to be erased. While the reasons of this amnesia are unknown, it is deducted that it may be the severe drinking of the night before to have caused it. The detective is an anti-hero who, thanks to the problem aforementioned, lives a sort of redemption arc where the player decides whether to transform him in a hero or definitely drag him to become a true anti-hero.
This expedient is very smart, as it allows to justify all the possible questions about the lore of the world that the player may ask to the various NPCs met, as well as the opportunity of choosing political, social and emotional directions. A blank sheet on which the player gets to role-play as desired.
In the very first minutes of gameplay the detective makes acquaintance with another detective, Kim Kitsuragi, who is the companion the player gets to interact with the most during the story. The goal of the game is to solve a murder case connected to a hanged body found on the courtyard of the hostel. To do so it is vital to collect information by talking with the excellently written NPCs spread across the whole game. In the meanwhile, as mentioned, the player can optionally ask questions regarding basically everything: where is the hostel located, what is the name of the detective, how old is him, and so on. The amount of dialogues and deepening of the lore is impressive, and is explored even more thanks to books and notes found. Nothing is left to chance.
What is even more impressive is the quality of side quests. Every element of the game is accurately written and even the silliest of dialogue can result in a complex quest. At a certain point I was not even interested anymore in solving the main story, as I was invested in the tasks assigned by other NPCs.
Who am I?
While it is a shame that the premise of the story can’t be changed to better represent the role played, the characteristics of the detective can be choosen freely during the creation of the character. A total of twelve points can be assigned to four abilities: Intellect, which dictates the reasoning strength; Psyche, that is connected to the emotional and sensitive intelligence; Physique, a measure of strength and resilience; Motorics, related to reflexes and agility. Each of these abilities is then divided into other six portions, to which the skill points earned during the story can be spent on.
While at first this system seems to be quite restrictive, it is further expanded thanks to another mechanics named “cabinet of thoughts”. As the player progresses through the game it is possible to invest skill points to allocate unlocked thoughts that result, once elaborated, in bonuses and maluses applied to the character. There is a huge number of thoughts that can be found mainly by talking to NPCs and sharing viewpoint on various arguments and represent the personality, the identity of the detective. Unfortunately, while it is a very interesting concept, I found it quite lacking, in that the resulting upgrades are unknown until the thought is internalized and removing a thought requires a skill point.
To complete the identity of the detective it is also given the possibility of changing clothes. These can be found through the walkthrough and usually give a combination of upgrades and downgrades to the skills, so their choice significantly changes the way the player interacts in the world.
Finally beverages, cigarettes and drugs can be consumed to give temporary power ups, allowing to surpass portions of the game.
Rolling the dices
The core gameplay of Disco Elysium revolves around the choices present during dialogues. These can be divided as a function of their consequences.
The first type of dialogues is the most innocuous one and includes everything that does not have any impact on the game. World-building and lore knowledge belong to this category. Then there are political and economical centered dialogues, which change the way the character is perceived by NPCs. While these dialogues have a certain influence, they typically do not preclude any interaction.
Finally, there are the ones requiring a dice roll, which have higher impact. In this case a dialogue option can be highlighted as a white check, meaning it can be tried again, or as a red check, which instead is locked after being tried. Both depend on the skills assigned, making the success probability higher if the required skill is levelled up and viceversa. In the white check case the option to roll the dices can be tried again if the skill required is levelled up afterwards. The red checks instead must be attempted carefully, as they usually have stronger consequences but cannot be tried again.
Failing or choosing a certain dialogue option with respect to another can result in a damage received or in a heal of health and/or morale. Received damage can be restored thanks to items found in the game.
This core gameplay is not really that complex and I wish it was expanded a little more, maybe in the form of a true discussion with NPCs where both parts had health and morale points. Instead it usually feels as the player does not really have control on the consequences of a dialogue, and the health/morale thing kinda seems pointless.
Scattered brain
At the beginning I highlighted the uniqueness of the game. However, everything described thus far does not really sound that special. What is so incredible about Disco Elysium?
In Disco Elysium every interaction is adorned by inner dialogues. As said the skill points are assigned to skills that are directly related to portion of the body of the detective, whether mental or physical. Well, depending on these stats every interaction and dialogue is modified, as hidden checks (purely dependant on the skills) are continuously verified. If the player spends a lot of points in intellect, for example, the character will reason accordingly. Things will be solved in a very logical way, preferring mental reasoning as opposed to physical brute forcing. Viceversa if the player assigns points to physique.
This applies to everything really. From the way NPCs talk to the way portion of the world are explored. It is unbelievable how stratified this component is, and it also encourages multiple playthrough, given the uniqueness of each run caused by the skills assigned.
Final Score
Disco Elysium is an RPG every passionate about the genre should play. There is an unmatched level of detail, where everything matters and gives depth to the experience.
I would however not recommend it to anyone looking for an action packed game, given the lack of whatsoever element of that kind. In fact, the game is entirely playable with a mouse alone, and should be approached as a playable book.
