Incline Disco Elysium - The Final Cut - a hardboiled cop show isometric RPG

[Joggerino]

But it will make me happy

How would you rate Disco Elysium, from 1 to 10?

 

[JarlFrank]

But it will make me happy

How would you rate Disco Elysium, from 1 to 10?

8.5

 

[Longes]

I remember trying the first fan translation of the book and being filtered the fuck out by the prose. I'll give it another go through the week.
I'm not 100% sure about the timeline but it'd make sense that the official novel translation didn't get released because of all this legal fuckery going around.

There's a good reason it only sold 1000 copies

 

[Sordid MCA/Prosper Hybryd]

I remember trying the first fan translation of the book and being filtered the fuck out by the prose. I'll give it another go through the week.
I'm not 100% sure about the timeline but it'd make sense that the official novel translation didn't get released because of all this legal fuckery going around.

There's a good reason it only sold 1000 copies

At least one reason is its being written in Estonian, a language spoken by slightly more than a million people.

 

[KVVRR]

I remember trying the first fan translation of the book and being filtered the fuck out by the prose. I'll give it another go through the week.
I'm not 100% sure about the timeline but it'd make sense that the official novel translation didn't get released because of all this legal fuckery going around.

There's a good reason it only sold 1000 copies

At least one reason is its being written in Estonian, a language spoken by slightly more than a million people.

I've been reading this new translation and while I'm very early on still it's a lot better than the old one, far more easily readable.
But the real problem with the book (so far, again, I'm very early on) becomes apparent this way. I think this might be near incomprehensible without an understanding of Elysium as a setting, or at least I can see it being really difficult to hook anyone in with it. In the first couple of pages you're already being talked about the pale without any real explanation for it. There's a lot of detours and parallelisms the novel takes from real life events (there's a whole section where it depicts this universe's version of the infamous Stalin censored photo with that one guy) that I can see being confusing if you don't catch what it's talking about. There are even things that aren't mentioned in the game -rail skytrains that use a magnetic system below it to move which produces steam in a way that it looks like they're flying on clouds - that are thrown out without any fanfare. The translation added a depiction of them from Rostov luckily, because I was having trouble picturing them on my head.

I'm really enjoying it so far but I can see why, alongside being only in Estonian, it wouldn't have been a hit among the masses. They really hit the nail on the head starting the game as a totally amnesiac fuckup.

 

[Harthwain]

They really hit the nail on the head starting the game as a totally amnesiac fuckup.

And adding the Encyclopedia as a skill.

 

[KVVRR]

Finished the book. It could get pretty hectic at times but I found it to be pretty damn good, not as good as the game but at the very least it's a very interesting exploration of how the pale works. It has a couple of things that I would've loved to see in the game too even if it probably doesn't make sense timeline wise -- ZA/UM used as a drug/game mechanic fits like a glove. It's a... memory sharing drug with some heavy side effects if I understood it right. Banned pretty much anywhere and not really admissible in the criminal persuits. I could totally see the game giving you the option of using it while interrogating suspects in order to get clues in exchange for Harry's reputation and mind.
I also didn't expect the book to dwelve so deep into the pale machinations.

Spoiler

Basically, the pale can not only dessintegrate matter - but also it can erase things from reality. Not only their physical structure, but memories, names, even photos start to get wrapped without them being present at all. The book follows three characters trying to solve a case of 4 missing girls that they knew since they were boys, and eventually they themselves start to feel the effects as they can no longer remember them, and the little they do makes them go mad. From what I understood, at least, the ending gets pretty fucking weird fast.
The book also has a part of it with a character inside the pale. There's this small little moment that confirms that you CAN fight the pale, with either love, hope, or something similar. And that outside entities, even from long dead people communicating through someone's mind is actually real. Or at least getting information that otherwise you wouldn't know is.

I really liked the characters too. The main trio was pretty fun to see hang around with, kinda makes me wish we'd see them in the game in some capacity even if the game happens (I think?) a year before the book and they were kids then. And yes, Revachol does get nuked. Harry was right, he didn't imagine it. It wasn't the moralintern that did it though, actually kinda surprised how little they show up in this, I'm pretty sure they only get mentioned once.
I'd recommend reading it for anyone who wants more of Elysium as a setting. The only thing I'm hoping now, besides Kurvikz and gang getting the rights back and being able to do more with it, is that I'm fucking right on my schizo pale theory with it/magpies being able to affect the past and change the future. The book is basically THE bad ending of the setting.

 

[Longes]

It wasn't the moralintern that did it though, actually kinda surprised how little they show up in this, I'm pretty sure they only get mentioned once.

The part I liked about the Moralist vision quest, and one of the reasons I hold that for all the game's mockery - enlightened centrism is the correct position. When you talk to Moralintern at the end of the quest and try to assert what an uberspecial super important city Revachol is, the Moralintern radist pretty much tells you that you are a nationalistic retard, and that there are dozens of these "super duper special cities" which will "solve history" and give everyone a cookie. All of the cities in fact.

 

[KVVRR]

It wasn't the moralintern that did it though, actually kinda surprised how little they show up in this, I'm pretty sure they only get mentioned once.

The part I liked about the Moralist vision quest, and one of the reasons I hold that for all the game's mockery - enlightened centrism is the correct position. When you talk to Moralintern at the end of the quest and try to assert what an uberspecial super important city Revachol is, the Moralintern radist pretty much tells you that you are a nationalistic retard, and that there are dozens of these "super duper special cities" which will "solve history" and give everyone a cookie. All of the cities in fact.

And yet they still hold Revachol at gunpoint 24/7 ready to fire at the sight of a spark... Maybe there's a reason why the first thing the Innocence of Nihilism did was glass the previous capital of the world?
I know it's not fair pulling out-of-game resources for the sake of an argument but the novel has a whole page where the new innocence goes off about how people's discontent for how the world is yet refusal to do anything but mope about it is what brought him to be. Moralism ultimately won, but

Spoiler

it still led to the end of the world.

 

[Harthwain]

enlightened centrism is the correct position

In the context of the other in-game ideologies it may appear so. Hell, it even says so on the tin:

Finally! Something normal. Enough of those ramblings – in this world there is also a sensible ideology for people who simply want to do good by everyone. How? By looking at the options on the table and saying: no. I don't want any of those associated with me. [...]

However, Moralism is cranked up to be a parody/mockery of centrism.

I mean, you get phrases like "moderately deadly artillery" or "put all the commies against a neutral wall" that are supposed to mean that you're being so much more reasonable, even though objectively speaking there is no such thing as "moderately deadly artillery" (it's similar to the phrase "friendly fire". It's meant to be ironic) and executing someone "against a neutral wall" doesn't make it any better than a "regular" execution near a less "neutral wall". It's really funny when you spot these little details and how they are manipulating the bigger picture.

Disco's Moralism is a crooked mirror, as are all the other ideologies put in the game. It may be presented a bit more subtly, but it is no less twisted. So, even as an enlightened centrist myself, I disagree on it being "the correct position". I don't think there are "correct positions" there nor there are supposed to be. Moralintern represents various imperialists who pretend to be the good guys. They may appear better because of the context and framing, but that's a facade.

 

[KVVRR]

This popped up in my reccommended. Best interpretation of the pale I've seen so far.

 

[Serious_Business]

Just finished this for the first time. I avoided it for the last years because of my boredom with narrative fiction. I didn't think I wouldn't like it, I just didn't have the energy for it. And yes, I think it was very good, even if I still think narration in game is a huge problem. This doesn't mean that narrative games shouldn't exist, but that they should be carefully handled ; narration shouldn't be a crutch for gameplay and so on. I don't think DE had great gameplay or anything, but the old model of top-down adventure is good enough for this kind of storytelling. A classic quest system lends itself well to mystery-solving ; you can see how the detective theme worked well there.

I do think this is the right successor to Planescape, by all means - it had to come from nowhere. The Numera game was tired from the start. You only can build on a model by being inspired and deviating, not by copying. This mysterious process of "being inspired and deviating" obviously cannot happen when you're doing sequels or are trying to repeat success. It's an obscure process of experimentation that can lead to failure. All the anxiety of economics. Truly a statement for our times, yes.

Regarding politics, I'm sure a lot was discussed over the years, with varying levels of coherence and intelligibility, no doubt. I enjoyed the "as an enlightened centrist" post above, I think it says it all. We're all very enlightened individuals here. The one thing I will say is that the political choices feel like some kind of satire of morality systems in crpgs. You can be good or evil, it doesn't really matter what you say or think, but you can be this or that. Good for you. Perhaps there was a political comment there, indirectly, on the nature ideology : opinions and identities presented as ideas and effective social forces. Most of the political stuff didn't really have an impact on how the world was built and how the conflicts were solved. It just showed the disconnect of political opinions with events, something that was perhaps calculated by the writers ; if not it shows a kind of cleverness. Doesn't need to be intentional. Maybe I'm just making a sophisticated excuse for lazy writing here, to be fair.

I expected the world to be more abstract, but they constructed a whole very peculiar lore for it, with its own laws of physics and everything. I didn't expect it and I'm not sure I liked it, I thought some of it was rather obtuse as it was too contained in the writing and not exposed enough in the game world. I'm sure digging the lore can be its own reward, but I have little patience for it. In the end though, if it's not only alternative history, but fiction with some fantasy elements, so realist politics cannot make sense. You don't build the same kind of theory in another universe. I don't even know how the game is meant to be political. It was just funny, pretty much.

The core of the game, to me, is just the melancholy. It's a game about a fucking break up. Pretty terrible. It hit hard. Maybe I didn't play this for years because I felt it and it terrified me. Well, I liked it. Break-ups are fun to look at, they make good stories, they are the lyrical lamentation par excellence, the essence of poetry. Even if, you know, love wrecks. It kills. It really does. You should avoid it whenever you can, indeed. I enjoyed that there was no closure in the narrative. There shouldn't be... you just have to go on with this shit. In that sense there was a grim, tragic optimism to it. Well, if you ignore the self-destruction. Very masculine. Hardcore, so to speak.

So yeah, the bold choice wasn't the politics, it was having a middle life guy with a destroyed life as a main character in a rpg. A bold choice indeed. It broke down the usual power trip dynamic. No Bioware romance for you. Someone needed to tell Harry that his ex would look like a gremlin after 45, like all women, so he can get over it. But maybe we don't want to get over it, eh?

 

[Perkel]

Started playing it. 2 hours in. I see innovation but I can't say it is good innovation. It feels like I am mostly playing Fallout 4 protagonist where i just choose different style of response and actual action is more or less the same. Sure it sounds better but I don't see much better meaning than this.

The worst part is internal monologue. It's overbearing garbage talk that brings nothing. I picked muscle protagonist and most of checks are pretty dumb "WOW IT DIDN't HURT MY FEELINGS" +5exp. I feel like everything is just waste of words that has no bearing on actual action. If you could actually switch off that internal monologues it would be just adventure game and probably better.

Are my initial thoughts accurate for rest of game ? I prefer meaning over substance.

edit:

I think I know why I don't like it. It tries to think for me. Everytime I hear something important this whole inner voices fire up and instead of focusing on task I hear garbage talk and it forces me to stop thinking about what I am doing but instead focus on that garbage inner monologue.

It's annoying.

 

[Harthwain]

I think it's safe to say you won't like the game. I'd advise refunding it, but you say you're already 2 hours in so it's probably too late for that (Steam refunds games that have less than 2 hours on the clock and were bought less than 14 days ago).

 

[Perkel]

I think it's safe to say you won't like the game. I'd advise refunding it, but you say you're already 2 hours in so it's probably too late for that (Steam refunds games that have less than 2 hours on the clock and were bought less than 14 days ago).

Why would i buy game on garbage steam in first place ? GOG provides you a lot better refunds.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

This popped up in my reccommended. Best interpretation of the pale I've seen so far.

Communism is an answer to every question in Disco Elysium.

 

[KVVRR]

Started playing it. 2 hours in. I see innovation but I can't say it is good innovation. It feels like I am mostly playing Fallout 4 protagonist where i just choose different style of response and actual action is more or less the same. Sure it sounds better but I don't see much better meaning than this.

The worst part is internal monologue. It's overbearing garbage talk that brings nothing. I picked muscle protagonist and most of checks are pretty dumb "WOW IT DIDN't HURT MY FEELINGS" +5exp. I feel like everything is just waste of words that has no bearing on actual action. If you could actually switch off that internal monologues it would be just adventure game and probably better.

Are my initial thoughts accurate for rest of game ? I prefer meaning over substance.

edit:

I think I know why I don't like it. It tries to think for me. Everytime I hear something important this whole inner voices fire up and instead of focusing on task I hear garbage talk and it forces me to stop thinking about what I am doing but instead focus on that garbage inner monologue.

It's annoying.

I can understand that, if the way the skills are put into the game isn't to your liking then you're probably just not gonna enjoy the game altogether. It can definitely be a little overbearing with the explanations at times, I remember the own devs saying that they used the skills as a way for players to remember objectives and details easily.
That being said, the game plays best when you try to just play off of them, especially a dumb high PHY playthrough. Just be a total asshole, crash and burn without any thought, fist fight and start confrontations with everything the game lets you. It's way funnier to lick the dry stain of rum off the counter while your partner watches when prompted than not doing so. Way sadder when you're prompted to jerk off in the middle of the street only to find out you're just fundamentally too broken to get it up.

 

[madrigal]

Just finished a minimum contact run. Interacting with as few characters as possible.
Kim, Garte, Titus and gang, Klaasje, Ruby, Tribunal mercs, Washerwoman, Lilienne, Pawnshop roy, Killer, Precinct 41 gang.

Spent the whole time naked, carrying around plastic bag and prybar. Not interacting with body or investigating anything and in the end I still get praised for solving murder so quickly and treated like I had discovered a new species despite zero proof. Seems like those Precinct 41 guys really do care for Harry.

 

[KVVRR]

Just finished a minimum contact run. Interacting with as few characters as possible.
Kim, Garte, Titus and gang, Klaasje, Ruby, Tribunal mercs, Washerwoman, Lilienne, Pawnshop roy, Killer, Precinct 41 gang.

Spent the whole time naked, carrying around plastic bag and prybar. Not interacting with body or investigating anything and in the end I still get praised for solving murder so quickly and treated like I had discovered a new species despite zero proof. Seems like those Precinct 41 guys really do care for Harry.

The only ending in which they don't take you back IIRC is if Kim gets hospitalized, you don't get terminal Cuno, and you're back to drinking.
It was never really about the case for them, Jean even asks if Harry's fit enough to get back to work at a reduced capacity. They just wanted to know if he was okay at the end of the day.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Did you ever wonder how would Disco Elysium look on a Game Boy? Well, now you know!

https://csbrannan.itch.io/disco-elysium-game-boy-edition

 

[Levenmouth]

I think you all misunderstand this game. It's not about communism, break ups or any of that other shit. It's clearly game about waifus.
Here's mine.

 

[Roguey]

I've given this a spin to see what the buzz was about. The running controls are terrible and I have to block my vision whenever the text scrolls because it induces a nasty motion sickness headache. However I'm not hating it so far since it is in fact possible to avoid most (but unfortunately not all) nonsense by sticking to just trying to solve the case.

I have a question though, I'm in day 2, it's still morning, and I've already seemingly exhausted all new conversation options relevant to the case. Am I really expected to just fuck around until 9 PM or am I missing something?

 

[ferratilis]

I have a question though, I'm in day 2, it's still morning, and I've already seemingly exhausted all new conversation options relevant to the case. Am I really expected to just fuck around until 9 PM or am I missing something?

That's strange, there's definitely a lot to do until 9 PM. It's been a while since I played, but I never felt like having to wait around. Have you found the back room in the bookstore? Have you talked to Joyce? Evrart? Exhaust the dialogue with Kim. There's always something. Keep exploring.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

I've given this a spin to see what the buzz was about. The running controls are terrible and I have to block my vision whenever the text scrolls because it induces a nasty motion sickness headache. However I'm not hating it so far since it is in fact possible to avoid most (but unfortunately not all) nonsense by sticking to just trying to solve the case.

I have a question though, I'm in day 2, it's still morning, and I've already seemingly exhausted all new conversation options relevant to the case. Am I really expected to just fuck around until 9 PM or am I missing something?

Do you know you've exhausted everything? Talked to literally everyone on the map/explored everywhere you're able to?

Unfortunately, unless you buy a book and read it, there's no way for you to pass time quickly. Benches act as time skips but Kim won't let you use it if he's with you. So you really have no choice but to continue doing stuff lol

 

[Hace El Oso]

I have a question though, I'm in day 2, it's still morning, and I've already seemingly exhausted all new conversation options relevant to the case. Am I really expected to just fuck around until 9 PM or am I missing something?

The only thing I recall requiring waiting until the next day is

Spoiler

having the hanged man processed by the police department

.

I packed pretty much everything into 4-5 days.