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

[Prime Junta]

Judging a game based on the first few hours is hubris.

Come on, that hardly ever happens. It's even rarer than judging a game before playing it at all.

 

[Duraframe300]

 

[Lacrymas]

Come on, that hardly ever happens. It's even rarer than judging a game before playing it at all.

Early judgement is the mindkiller and leads to tearful disappointment.

 

[ArchAngel]

So does the full game still have censored words and can that shit be turned off?
I am never playing this game if you cannot turn off censoring.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

One thing I've realised is the business model for this game is brilliant.

If you know PCgamer etc are going to blow you and give your game a 92 then of course you should price your game at 60 dollarydoos. Not to mention you can make loads of content for cheap because you just need to whip a liberal arts major harder to get some text to fill quests, it's not like you need to animate anything or create gameplay.

God forbid this game could resurrect the game writing industry by proving visual novels can actually make money

Eh, it took them five years to make it. Based on what I saw in January, the last year was mostly spent polishing the game to make it as perfect as possible. That's how they knew they'd get great review scores, but I've gotta imagine a year of development was pretty costly for a studio of ~30 people, even if many of them are in Estonia. Some are in London, though, and London ain't cheap. Plus, whipping a liberal arts major doesn't give you the kind of consistent high-quality writing Disco has in abundance. Obsidian hires creative writing majors. Among others, ZA/UM got a creative writing lecturer (presumably a PhD student) from UC Irvine to work on this thing. On the art side, Kasparov's a goddamned professor.

On top of that, you don't seem to understand what Disco Elysium is. You're not just watching your character walk around and reading text. They animated tons of unique scripted interactions. It might well be cheaper to put together a dozen combat animations that could be reused endlessly across the whole game as part of a traditional combat system.

Spoiler

After learning about your gun in the pawn shop, there are a couple of really obvious candidates to ask about it...but there are no dialogue options. Intended?

About your gun

Spoiler

talk to the union leader

Judging a game based on the first few hours is hubris.

Preview copies went out two weeks ago. It absolutely holds up.

 

[Lacrymas]

So does the full game still have censored words and can that shit be turned off?
I am never playing this game if you cannot turn off censoring.

In a communist regime, uncensoring chooses you.

 

[Clink]

So... (have no time to read all those pages) To buy or not to buy - that is the question. Is it good?

 

[Prime Junta]

9.6 from IGN.

The metacritics score doesn't update to reflect all those 10s and 9.5s

Its a conspiracy i tell you!

Okay but how did they get CoD: Modern Warfare to put Disco Cop in their ad? That's some serious marketing mojo there.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

• Protag has a clear role in the world, he's not a stranger nobody recognises

Which game this line describes?

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Thematically, it seems all the schizophrenic alter egos are cynical and sarcastic, thus presenting virtually every concept (noticeably socialism, fascism & free market) negatively, for player to battle against with his dialogue choices. It causes a weird dissonance, where I'm not creating my character, but running it against a preset character I've been given. I guess it's a narrative mechanism, but it feels weird.

I wouldn't say it's preset. The higher your skills are, the more they talk to you. Fighting against your skills with a high INT high PSY character is a very, very, very different experience from fighting against the skills of a high FYS high MOT character.

The skills definitely aren't ALL cynical and sarcastic. Most of the fysique skills are pretty earnest--they're just kinda crazy.

 

[Haba]

• Protag has a clear role in the world, he's not a stranger nobody recognises

Which game this line describes?

"Protag has a clear role in the world, everyone is pretending they don't recognise him because the protag used to be a giant asshole"

 

[Cross]

Protag has a clear role in the world, he's not a stranger nobody recognises

Most of the characters in PS:T know the Nameless One from one of his past lives.

 

[Prime Junta]

Most of the characters in PS:T know the Nameless One from one of his past lives.

The companions and a few key NPCs do. The people on the street you're interacting with don't though.

 

[Daedalos]

• Protag has a clear role in the world, he's not a stranger nobody recognises

Which game this line describes?

"'FUCK DOES CUNO CARE???"

 

[Prime Junta]

• Protag has a clear role in the world, he's not a stranger nobody recognises

Which game this line describes?

"'FUCK DOES CUNO CARE???"

Who else heard his voice in your head when reading that line, show of hands

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

I think the most impressive aspect of the game is the passive skill check system. Each internal thought gives you advice you can choose to take or not, and each thought has its own personality. Given how many skills there are every playthrough will be different and you'll see different dialogues and thoughts. Pretty cool and also revolutionary.

 

[Rieser]

10 hours in, and so far the narrative just keeps getting more interesting, with increasingly well written characters. For me, I'm rolling a Sad Cop. Regretting and backtracing his mistakes, yet to hapless (i.e. bad skill placement) to do anything about it.

And the skill system is fantastic.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Just wait until the SJW mob will turn on this game and demand censorship. That will be comedy gold. I can't wait.

 

[Ezeekiel]

I don't know if anyone else has ever said this or made the thought, but I feel like I'm playing the fun and memorable NPC while Kim is pretty much the guy who would be the main character in any other RPG who has to deal with a deeply disturbed party member who punches 12 year olds in the mouth.

Kim was originally meant to be the main character, but then the devs started posting here...
Thus the current MC is inspired by fantadomat

 

[Binky]

Went in blind with low expectations. Planescape: Alcoholism is pretty interesting so far. Made me laugh out loud, which almost never happens in games. Even if it completely falls apart later in the game, I'm satisfied it's not Torment: Tides of Purple Prose all over again. No skimming and skipping of text, no eyes glazing over with boredom. So, congrats ZA/UM.

PS. The protagonist (and his fashion sense) reminds me of that goofy Russian guy from the Sopranos.

Spoiler

 

[tripedal]

Kasparov, you guys should add some of those juicy review scores to the steam page...

 

[Adidas-Clichèd Cringe]

I think the most impressive aspect of the game is the passive skill check system. Each internal thought gives you advice you can choose to take or not, and each thought has its own personality. Given how many skills there are every playthrough will be different and you'll see different dialogues and thoughts. Pretty cool and also revolutionary.

It really is. My high Inland Empire skill gave me some rather... peculiar insights about the victim and his death while "talking" to the corpse. The best thing is that I have no idea if any of it is even remotely correct, or if I'm just insane and about to seriously derail the investigation.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Planescape: Alcoholism

Updated my vodka.

 

[ScrotumBroth]

Third Place in the Top Selling list

It's first on Steam top selling, global and local.

Kasparov just served his massive balls on fire to Obsidian, oops.

 

[Prime Junta]

It's first on Steam top selling, global and local.

That's impressive, especially considering they're their own publisher. Long may they keep that slot.