Codex Review RPG Codex Review: Disco Elysium

[AwesomeButton]

I'm getting more insane every minute this retarded shit is mentioned on a gaming website despite not being a game discussed by paint huffing simians who don't play games full stop

Allah stay my hand or I will claim many heads

Good boy. Stay.

 

[Dedicated_Dark]

With the way things are going I am assuming we can finally kick out Oblivion from the list of top Codex RPGs.

Let's put DE there at 101th position.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Asking whether a game belongs in this or that category is pointless and stupid.

I asked myself - what about games which are themselves categories?

 

[Prime Junta]

I asked myself - what about games which are themselves categories?

Ask yourself why you need categories in the first place, grasshopper.

 

[Dedicated_Dark]

I asked myself - what about games which are themselves categories?

Dark Souls is the Disco Elysium of RPGs. No actual role-playing but everybody insists it's an RPG.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I asked myself - what about games which are themselves categories?

Dark Souls is the Disco Elysium of RPGs. No actual role-playing but everybody insists it's an RPG.

I thought it's an action game.

I asked myself - what about games which are themselves categories?

Ask yourself why you need categories in the first place, grasshopper.

Categories will not be needed once Communism is built. Until then, they will be indispensible.

 

[JarlFrank]

Trashos I can’t speak for the right, but JarlFrank seems to love the game. Luckmann liked it, too (though he had issues with its simplistic approach to fascism). And they’re, uh, pretty right wing.

I agree with Luckmann that the depiction of fascism in the game is mostly just basic bitch right wing prole stuff. Muh foreigners and muh women, rather than actual fascist doctrine.

I didn't mind it too much because all of the political options in the game are exaggerated parodies more than genuine positions. They're taken straight out of those silly political compass memes. Heck, centrism, the most commonly "reasonable" position that should resonate with most players since most people tend to be moderate and don't care too much about political issues, is literally "I don't know anything about politics and am too indecisive to commit to an opinion" in the game. All of the politial options are poking fun at their respective ideologies.

I recommended this game to some of my nazi friends and they're having a good time with it, too. And not just because of the political stuff, but because of everything else.

The politics is really just a backdrop and something to poke fun at occasionally. The real meat are all the personal relations of the characters, solving the case, and digging up your own past.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Strange Fellow]

you are all my nazi friends

 

[Prime Junta]

Heck

You have gotten careful since that... thing happened.

 

[Luckmann]

in before Luckmann yells at me for mischaracterizing his Strasserite fusion of far left and far right.

Strasserism is leftist and a meme, and it's not "my" fusion, it's basic fucking third positionism, a rejection of false dichotomies!

 

[Sailor Woedica]

I disagree with the reviewer almost entirely but I don't have time for quote wars (at least not at the moment) so here's my opinion where I actually mention more evident flaws:

I've finished the game and all I've said is even more true. The main problem of the game is that it's for one play-through only. Oh, I don't doubt that some storyfags will finish it a couple of times but most people won't find such determination because if you'll play it once you will see almost all relevant content. Stats don't matter much, we're still role-playing the same cop, doing the same things, using the same tools. With INT 1 we can articulate the same responses as with INT 5, the only difference is we won't be able to raise Visual Calculus (or other skills associated with INT) to a high enough level for it to be a useful skill (then again we can always save-scum, which is another problem, a game that allows that is just badly designed, although it's not a major flaw). But we can use a different skill to achieve the same goal so in the end there is no difference, only labels change. As I've said, it's Bethesda level of design. E.g. whether I used visual calculus or just broke the door down the result was the same.

Contrary to what ZA/UM are advertising this game isn't open world at all, we have invisible walls everywhere and in various forms. One such example I've provided here but there are plethora of them. We can't walk to the other side of the town until Wednesday, we can't progress unless Kim is with us (even though we can ask the same questions and observe the same things and his presence changes nothing we still can't advance and if we can we die because of plot reasons, e.g. when confronting a certain person that has both me and Kim under control anyway) and in general we can't do something unless we meet some stupid requirements like clicking on a "conclude day" as if that would change anything. Another example, we can't talk with "Sunday friend" once we walk out even though we know he's in there (unless he jumped through the window) because it's just a scripted scene. Or we can't play the tape unless Kim is with us. Anyway, in no other game I've felt so restrained. Even not having a flashlight prevents us from advancing in a certain area, we can't hurt ourselves trying to do it or just walk by holding our hand on the wall, developers just didn't give us that option and that's it.

Writing is very uneven, sometimes it's good, very good at rare occasions, and sometimes it's just atrocious. What I mean by uneven?

Spoiler

For example Titus guy, one of the more interesting characters in the game and one of the more reasonable ones will still kill us for no good reason. When he did shoot me I was like "OK, he's just some trigger happy brute that is impulsive and unreasonable" but later I've learned he can actually use his brain. Inconsistent writing in my eyes.

In addition that Kurvitz guy must have used drugs a lot and it shows. The ending was ridiculous and one of the weakest parts but that craziness that was often injected in even very well written conversations, spoiled everything for me. Most characters were also comical so unless I would treat it all as parody I can't rate it highly. The phantasmal madness was just retarded, dreams were retarded, characters like the woman with our gun or the guy in the container were retarded, scenes where we were incapacitated by waves were retarded, whole anodic music and that computer plot were retarded. On the other hand they often tried to make an impact by killing someone off, whether it was that near library woman's husband, or Renee or another guy (there were more) to me it felt like a cheap attempt to move us but in my case it had opposite effect mainly because in the end they were some random NPCs which we didn't have much time to get to know.

Once you reach the end some stupidities become evident, for example it makes no sense for hanged man's brother to wait until we advance our investigation and pretend to be a striker when he could just kill all Hardie boys anyway. During that scene I've provided some very compelling evidence that showed they weren't behind it but he ignored it anyway so why the wait when he didn't want to hear the truth but enact revenge only? Also, I hope that we could do that scene knowing who the real culprit was, otherwise the writing is even shittier than I thought and our options even narrower.

Or there are slip ups such as this one:

Kim says we've searched the church but I haven't asked about Ruby there.

Or this one:

At this point I've found Night City and knew what that is.

The world we can explore is very small and with not much exploration and the other part of town that opens up is rather empty, making walking even more tedious (and it is tedious because even running is slow, add to it constant loading and you have a disaster). There aren't that many quests either and although unique, most of them are quite boring. In general gameplay is almost non-existent so if one doesn't appreciate Kurvitz's "sophisticated" humour and writing he definitely won't enjoy the game.

Game is also super easy, at the end I had like 12 or 13 free points and easily passed all relevant checks (and without resorting to using substances/clothes), and I could have more to be honest. I've also had over 200 in Revachol currency and didn't know what to do with it (I wonder though whether it's possible to buy the 700 lamp, I assume it is). And morale/health system is just retarded, e.g. losing morale for thinking about others (and being emphatic), WTF? I would say it's a sign of a healthy person and I should gain a morale point if anything. The dialogue system is also stupid since we can repeat the same conversation and get different results and NPCs won't acknowledge that (compare it to recent The Outer Worlds for example, it's night and day difference):



Well, there is a plus side to this though and that is - sometimes it makes sense that once we find some new clue asking the same question again can get us new information but in general it is a bad thing and is just stupid. Some other example:

Spoiler

I show him my gun and tell him I've found it but a moment later I can ask about my lost gun and he says something along the lines "if you behave you might get it back", lol.

Add to all of it political correctness and SJW content and you have a game very much not to my liking.

What I liked:
+ I couldn't forge letters in the open because there was risk of Evrart's men noticing. Then again I could have written it in the open and they wouldn't know what I'm writing...
+ Music
+ Art
+ Some characters, although the writing was very uneven

All in all I rate it 5/10 but it's more of a "I should give it 4/10 or less when I remember how tedious and boring some parts were" and "but taking into account good parts I should rate it 6/10". It's not your average game which that rating might indicate, it's a rather unique game, with some fresh ideas and sometimes very good writing but due to the above I wasn't enjoying it that much in the long run and what's most important it's highly unlikely I'll replay this game. Like I said, it's a game for one play through only and in my eyes if an RPG isn't fun at consecutive replays it's not a good RPG (hence I consider Fallout, AoD and Arcanum as the best of the best).

P.S.
Here are some screenshots I've made that prove my points one way or another: https://imgur.com/a/YLQVXrV

Ok boomer

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Luckmann]

I recommended this game to some of my nazi friends and they're having a good time with it, too. And not just because of the political stuff, but because of everything else.

Same. At least one of them even paid for it.

Spoiler

On fucking steeeaaaaam reeeeeeeeeee.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

While writing the hauntings bit, I was for the most part thinking of a book by Mark Fisher and the concept of the eerie from The Weird and the Eerie. The mention of Ccru further down the line should have tipped you off.

There are days I fancy myself a bit of an intellectual. Then this kind of shit happens and I realise just how much of a phoney I am.

Whats so intellectual about it?

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Nobody knows what bataille was trying to say, that's what makes it a highly intelectual review.

 

[The_Mask]

Nobody knows what bataille was trying to say, that's what makes it a highly intelectual review.

Ok boomer

 

[luj1]

It *is* good. A good adventure game.

I'd be interested to hear your reaction to MRY's argument that it's not an adventure game: it tracks character state and world state, it's not focused on puzzles, the mechanics are stat and RNG based, and items give stat boosts rather than being used to solve puzzles.

Nebulous considering there are adventure games which fit that criteria.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I'm getting more insane every minute this retarded shit is mentioned on a gaming website despite not being a game discussed by paint huffing simians who don't play games full stop

Allah stay my hand or I will claim many heads

Good boy. Stay.

don't you dare ever quote my shit lest you wish to come home on xmas in a fucking bodybag capisce

Oh look, we've got a badass over here

 

[Heroic Liberator]

I'm getting more insane every minute this retarded shit is mentioned on a gaming website despite not being a game discussed by paint huffing simians who don't play games full stop

Allah stay my hand or I will claim many heads

Good boy. Stay.

don't you dare ever quote my shit lest you wish to come home on xmas in a fucking bodybag capisce

Oh look, we've got a badass over here

Leaked footage of Maksi:

 

[Prime Junta]

Good, good. Less than 30 messages to go before this is the most-commented piece in the News forum.

Spoiler

since my T:ToN review anyway

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Ok thats it, im writing a (peon) review.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Leaked footage of Maksi:

This poor animal has been abused A friend of mine once had to give pills to his dog, make him swallow them. Since then the dog started getting scared from a finger pointed at him, just like the dog in this vid.

 

[Calm]

Very nice,
a lovely and insightful review,
the kind that I almost wish to have written myself.

 

[Lady_Error]

I'm getting more insane every minute this retarded shit is mentioned on a gaming website despite not being a game discussed by paint huffing simians who don't play games full stop

Allah stay my hand or I will claim many heads

Good boy. Stay.

don't you dare ever quote my shit lest you wish to come home on xmas in a fucking bodybag capisce

Oh look, we've got a badass over here

you dont stand a chance

I liked Maxie more when he was cute.