Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

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

Catacombs

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 10, 2017
Messages
5,927
I finished The Final Cut this afternoon. It took me just over 40 hours, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I was satisfied with the ending:
Saved Kim from being killed during the tribunal, recruited him to be part of Precinct 41, and the task force welcomed me back to the station, despite continuously drinking and smoking.
 

Sòren

Arcane
Joined
Aug 18, 2009
Messages
2,350
i am not a big fan of the game, but i recognized that the mercenary tribunal sequence was very well done, in all regards. today i stumbled upon the "final cut" and new voice overs of this scene and i can't believe how anyone could have approved that. it sounds so much worse than the original.

just compare for urself in the first minutes:
original


final cut


isn't it quite racist that elisabeth sounds like she just came out of a jungle 15 minutes ago?
 

vota DC

Augur
Joined
Aug 23, 2016
Messages
2,258
With the final cut if I edit the save to get Tribunal on day 1 Renè doesn't appear and there isn't his friend to say he is dead since it is day 3 only. So time travel can save him but you won't see him after tribunal anyway....maybe he is working during the lockdown.
 
Unwanted
Dumbfuck
Joined
Oct 29, 2020
Messages
999
Location
Free Market Paradise
Old school roleplaying RPG games: How many hours is it going to take to defeat the hype swole lich necromancer that be raising graveyards to build undead empires and shit?

Nu-school gaypeegees: How many hours is it going to take to dare ask your partner (gay double meaning ackackack) if he's a faggot?

 

Reever

Scholar
Patron
Joined
Jul 4, 2018
Messages
534
Old school roleplaying RPG games: How many hours is it going to take to defeat the hype swole lich necromancer that be raising graveyards to build undead empires and shit?

Nu-school gaypeegees: How many hours is it going to take to dare ask your partner (gay double meaning ackackack) if he's a faggot?


You'd think that the "Stop obsessing over sexuality" would give them a hint.
 

normie

️‍
Patron
Zionist Agent
Joined
Mar 9, 2019
Messages
3,724
Insert Title Here
It's inoffensive, and sort of funny within the context of using Harry as the lovable, bumbling homophobe to be preachy about how any concern for gay stuff is the person being obsessive and unsophisticated. Look at Kim. He's gay, but he likes heterosexual man stuff, like machines! Look at how irrelevant it is to his character!

The much improved alternative would be to find Kim sucking and fucking with the two homos in apartment 28 lemonparty style during sleep hours after you get him in contact with the local bottom. Perception: you can hear a man yelling "♂️FUCKING♂️SLAVES♂️". Or if any day after you get to go in the room, you can use visual calculus to recreate the gay orgy. "What are you seeing, Detective?; "A man, up to his elbow, in your ass." Instead they straightwashed Kim-boy.

Tbh, in itself, it is one of the better implementations of the thought cabinet mechanic, even if it's wasted a bit in the service of a completely pedestrian point about homophobia.
 

vota DC

Augur
Joined
Aug 23, 2016
Messages
2,258
Old school roleplaying RPG games: How many hours is it going to take to defeat the hype swole lich necromancer that be raising graveyards to build undead empires and shit?

Nu-school gaypeegees: How many hours is it going to take to dare ask your partner (gay double meaning ackackack) if he's a faggot?


Not much to love.
You spend a slot but is useless just like Arno stuff. They put too many useless things in this game while they scrapped combat, also gave 900000 variables to the main encounter but with minimum effort we have 3 armored guys with automatic weapons that will fail to kill 8 people without opposition (2 will always survive).....with maximum effort we have the same guys but one is fatally wounded and another is wounded at eye but they still manage to kill 2 other guys and to injure a cop.
 

toiletwino

Literate
Joined
Oct 27, 2022
Messages
17
Location
Crow Crag
Codex Year of the Donut
I can easily see myself from 30 years ago being VERY impressed with this game.
Well, toddlers are easily impressed.
My youngest brother was very impressed with my video game exploits. The only one. It was all downhill for me after Dragon's Lair.

I got the distinct feeling that this game was targeting a demographic to which I don't belong.

I never regret supporting developers trying to do something different, though.
 

Gamezor

Learned
Joined
May 14, 2020
Messages
306
I finished this, which I can't say about many games. Enjoyed it quite a bit overall.

+ Really funny. There's no other medium where you can do the jokes with dialogue choices like you can here. I laughed out loud a lot.
+ For the most part well written, nicely crafted characters. Really smart to have Kim as the normal guy to my totally insane Harry.
+ Beautiful and atmospheric.
+ Way less SJW than I expected. Every faction and political group gets shit on as far as I could tell.
+ Cuno is amazing. I had no idea I could have taken him to the island at the end if I hadn't saved Kim. That would have been awesome.

- All the political shit is too much. It's boring. The writer is good at characters and humor, not this political stuff. I get that you need some to make the setting work, but come on. The energy and words spent on all the politics could have been better used elsewhere.
- Game censors the word faggot?
- Not clear to me the skill checks matter all that much. I think you may end up basically the same place regardless of what you do or where you put your points.
- This game's formula is going to be copied like crazy, but it only works with good writing, which most people cannot do. So there will be ton of crap.
- Some annoying bugs that have never been fixed.

TBH planescape in this style or this style plus a little combat would probably be a superior game to actual planescape.
 

gurugeorge

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 3, 2019
Messages
7,432
Location
London, UK
Strap Yourselves In
I've finally gotten around to playing this, and while I'm enjoying the game (including the writing, libtard though it is) and appreciate the meticulous way it's put together, I very nearly had to put it down because of the narrator.

Thank God for "Psychological" mode :)

(Not that he doesn't do a great job, objectively speaking, but my inner dialogue in no way resembles a thick-lipped, middle-class-Islington-sounding Magic Negro motherfucker. :) )
 

KVVRR

Learned
Joined
Apr 28, 2020
Messages
594
I've finally gotten around to playing this, and while I'm enjoying the game (including the writing, libtard though it is) and appreciate the meticulous way it's put together, I very nearly had to put it down because of the narrator.

Thank God for "Psychological" mode :)

(Not that he doesn't do a great job, objectively speaking, but my inner dialogue in no way resembles a thick-lipped, middle-class-Islington-sounding Magic Negro motherfucker. :) )
My problem with the narrator is that he also does the voices for the skills. I get that they apparently thought it'd be too much to have wacky different voices for them, but come on, that's how they read anyways! You can always have the different actors tone down the wackiness on the performance if that's really a problem. Having the narrator read the lines a small bit different varying on which stat the skill comes from just isn't enough and it overdoes his work regardless of how good he might sound. You could also just had the lines for the different skills have varying different tones and effects like here:

I also found these while looking for that video, it's a small thing but I could imagine them playing on their respective skillcheck rolls and it'd be awesome.

 

gurugeorge

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 3, 2019
Messages
7,432
Location
London, UK
Strap Yourselves In
I've finally gotten around to playing this, and while I'm enjoying the game (including the writing, libtard though it is) and appreciate the meticulous way it's put together, I very nearly had to put it down because of the narrator.

Thank God for "Psychological" mode :)

(Not that he doesn't do a great job, objectively speaking, but my inner dialogue in no way resembles a thick-lipped, middle-class-Islington-sounding Magic Negro motherfucker. :) )
My problem with the narrator is that he also does the voices for the skills. I get that they apparently thought it'd be too much to have wacky different voices for them, but come on, that's how they read anyways! You can always have the different actors tone down the wackiness on the performance if that's really a problem. Having the narrator read the lines a small bit different varying on which stat the skill comes from just isn't enough and it overdoes his work regardless of how good he might sound. You could also just had the lines for the different skills have varying different tones and effects like here:

I also found these while looking for that video, it's a small thing but I could imagine them playing on their respective skillcheck rolls and it'd be awesome.



Yes I thought that too - I was kind of expecting it actually, given that the "tone" and the colour representing them was all different for each skill. Not enough money I guess.

But really these are fairly minor flaws, the game's a good 'un.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,228
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Martin Luiga sets aside lawsuit matters to talk about the origins of Disco Elysium: https://medium.com/@martinluiga/8-years-ago-the-disco-got-its-start-8c1dacfbe274

8 YEARS AGO TODAY, THE DISCO GOT ITS START​


Not the Elysium, which is a far older matter and dates back to the year 2000 at least — I think, I wasn’t there for the start — it began as a try to make a more Epic version of a bootleg Finnish D&D system while Robert was still a teen, and at first, it was called “Evermier”. Dwarves and elves, it did have. I believe there was some kind of a PnP campaign in that setting as well, but I didn’t make it to that. Most of the engagement was about system-building. The wizard book was supposed to have 350 spells altogether, each with at least half a page story about the spell, in prose. I think about a healthy third of the mage book got done in the end. The name change to Elysium happened before we got rid of the dwarves and the elves, and was in fact suggested to Robert by some fellow on the dragon.ee D&D and LARP forum, but it took him about half a year to sink in and be taken seriously.

In the ‘humanized’ Elysium, three campaigns took place — the Soul Milton’s world autumn campaign, the Riget campaign and the Torson & McLaine campaign. None of these were played to the end, and I would say from memory that they took place during the years 2003–2006, maybe 2004–2006 — the first two were played at Robert’s old place at the concrete block project at Mustamäe, the third one at my place, which was my dad’s place, later we all went to live there when dad died, which I think was also in 2006. This place was in something of a mixed-income suburb. My mom has written a whole book on roughly these times, while placing it in fantasy Poland. One can at the moment listen to 13 chapters of it here: FAKE POLAND — YouTube

By that time, Robert had developed a rather foolproof way of game mastering, which largely consisted of 1) knowing what the story is and 2) knowing the dice, the charsheets and what should or should not be easy to do. I’d say he was very good at this stuff — maybe even too good, as me and Argo, the main players, were good as actors, meaning, at playing the roles, but much worse at figuring out what it is that we are supposed to do at a given moment. But we mostly played roles of fools and children and people who had lost their memory, so it was about fine (the Riget campaigns were literally about a whole bunch of children that went treasure-hunting but were trapped underground by demons that were themselves *also* trapped underground, but wanted to get out, I think they needed the children as vessels. A rather Lord of the Flies type endeavor. Now some of you might want to know whether demons still exist in the Elysium world in some way or form, I’m going to leave it hanging).

When my dad died, I got an inheritance about 1 000 000 kroons in size, which translates to approximately 65 000 euros, and various critics have said that I did nothing useful with it, with which I would disagree. I would say I invested it in true and lasting luxuries, which are the fruits of human thought. Me, Argo and Robert could live without financial worry at my dad’s place for about 2 years — I also supported various other close individuals — and during that time, Robert wrote the first half of “Sacred and Terrible Air” and published Ultramelanhool’s second album, “Materjal”. At the brink of the inevitable commune collapse, the ZA/UM blog and organization were founded — that was in late 2008.

It would seem that blogging was hard work, as Sacred and Terrible Air was only published in 2013, and could be described as a ‘critical hit but a commercial failure’. For Robert, that wanted an actual audience ‘like they do abroad’, it was of course a blow — although for me it remains a mystery whether anyone has ‘actual audience’ here — actual readers, sure, but an audience? Anyhow, that led to experimentation with other forms, which eventually did find an audience.

1*bZy6Q-qHrxt_59X72GpGbw.png

1*WnLKY7bsxj4Xkyat_ekO5g.png

1*LsZg18qoiEshScb0JZhrIg.png

The rest is, as they say, History, but one that will be told on another day.
 

gurugeorge

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 3, 2019
Messages
7,432
Location
London, UK
Strap Yourselves In
It's funny, what this game reminds me of more than anything else is playing Broken Sword with my gf years ago :) In terms of overall feel, it's kind of like an Adventure/RPG hybrid, but instead of those old combination puzzles that used to be so characteristic of Adventure games, it has a well thought-out RPG system (in terms of both "build" system and branching C&C, which are nicely tied together).

The lore and world-building are quite charming too, it has the "solidity" of good world-building where you feel the place could almost be real. Even though I'm not generally a fan of the type of fantasy world-building that has "cool" references to our contemporary world, they do it very well here. I sense there's a strong influence from graphic novels and "mature" comics and bandes dessinées from the 80s and 90s too, as well as a dash of cyberpunk and steampunk.

On the "Marxist" writing side, the influence is clearly there, but the writing is intelligent enough and well-written enough that the influence doesn't feel claustrophobic. e.g. even though (like most libtards) the writers haven't got a clue what Fascism is, they at least (unlike most libtards) make an effort to try and comprehend it and give it a logical place in a broader humanist perspective.
 

KVVRR

Learned
Joined
Apr 28, 2020
Messages
594
Now some of you might want to know whether demons still exist in the Elysium world in some way or form, I’m going to leave it hanging).

I swear some day my schizo theory of "the pale is canonically the byproduct of timelines being erased while haunting the present and a way for the devs' previous campaigns and stories to be somehow connected to the larger universe" will be proven true and I will be vindicated
 

gurugeorge

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 3, 2019
Messages
7,432
Location
London, UK
Strap Yourselves In
Finished. Cracking good game. The ending, from the combat bit to the end, was positively, gobsmackingly symphonic!

I was a bit worried before that, as the "thing" of it was starting to lose some of its magic; about 3/4 of the way through, the game was verging on becoming a bit of a samey chore, and looking like it might not fulfill the promise of being a classic one felt it had to start with. But man, that ending brought it all to a very satisfying, truly poignant and magical climax. Maybe even the best ending to any game I've ever played.

What I like most about the game (and this disperses all the way through whole experience, including the magical quality of the ending) is the way the "scale" of events is kept in a realistic, human-sized frame. For example, the armor feels really special, not like some tat you pick up off the floor, but like something really hi-tech and impressive, and the way it's described and built up really puts some distance between you, as a mere cop and the mercs who wear it, which - among other things - ups the stakes of the combat towards the end, and makes it all the more satisfying - especially considering the thought you put into preparing for it by building and adjusting your character. I would have loved to have had more of that combat though, the way it's done is quite engaging. Obviously not as tactical gameplay, but just as something that feels emotionally like real combat. Not to make it a "combat-oriented" game, but maybe something like 3 times that amount, spread throughout the game, to give slightly more of a sense of danger and excitement on a few more occasions. Perhaps they'll do that in the sequel.

That sense of realism makes the end really fantastical and gratifying - again, because for the bulk of the game, you're in a quotidian frame of mind, at a human-sized scale, with just hints and dreams of something "bigger," so when that "bigger" thing happens, it feels ultra-real in the moment. Also, it's not some cliche (like elves or alien invasions), it's something thoughtful, warm and human, despite its fantasy nature.

I don't feel like another playthrough immediately - in fact it's quite an intense experience that's sufficient in itself. But I would definitely be interested in giving it another playthrough with another character/build a few months down the line. From what little backtracking and checking of alternatives I did, I think it probably does play differently enough with different builds and C&C to make it very replayable.

The writing, despite being naive and libtard in places, is suffused with intelligence, emotional depth and, again, a sense of scope and scale. It covers a lot of philosophical ground, a lot of very different ideas, in a fun way, but settles on a kind of awe and reverence for existence, and for all the positives and negatives of being merely human. Very nice. (Politically, I ended up being both a Fascist AND a Communist - and I bet many Dexers probably did too :) )

And Lt Kitsuragi has to be one of the best-written companions I've ever encountered in a game, one really gets a sense of the relationship between him and your character developing and growing. The little hints at his private personality (like the hubcaps, etc.) were delightful.

I only have a few very minor criticisms and one slightly less minor - e.g. the scroll bar on the map rerolls bit was janky, and the mouse selection of items to use on the main screen bottom right was a bit janky too, but that might have just been an oddity related to my particular system. There was also a bit of weirdness when characters slowed down sometimes when turning or facing. A few piddly things like that. Otherwise it was all pretty tight and functional, except for the way clothing carried such important stats that one felt one had to change clothing quite often. Not a problem as a mechanic in and of itself (and it kind of fits with the character of someone who's not sure of himself and constantly neurotically changing his outfit), but the UI for it could have been a little bit easier to use, given the amount of switching you do (or I did anyway) - perhaps you could have had three or so "sets" that you could fill, play around with and switch between, just to save the old RSI.
 
Last edited:

coldcrow

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Mar 6, 2009
Messages
1,649
A short cursory search on codex didn't show conclusive results, so excuse me if this was brought up before:

Currently I am watching a TV-show from 2014: "True Detective" and Disco devs took quite some inspiration ;) The detective, the criminal scene, soundcues, the ledger .. it's all there. It was quite funny watching the show and having this deja-vu feeling.



Edit: and it goes on, many ideas and subjects of the game were expressed in the show. Probably safe to say that Kurvitz was a huge fan.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Mar 14, 2012
Messages
1,464
Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath
A short cursory search on codex didn't show conclusive results, so excuse me if this was brought up before:

Currently I am watching a TV-show from 2014: "True Detective" and Disco devs took quite some inspiration ;) The detective, the criminal scene, soundcues, the ledger .. it's all there. It was quite funny watching the show and having this deja-vu feeling.



Edit: and it goes on, many ideas and subjects of the game were expressed in the show. Probably safe to say that Kurvitz was a huge fan.

They mention The Wire, Shield, and True Detective as sources of inspiration in interviews.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom