Generally agreed with the points already made, but strap in, ‘cuz here’s some more thoughts.
First off, I think “Disco Elysium” is genuinely brilliant. I think it’s somewhat misunderstood on a few key points.
It’s not designed to be replayed. It just isn’t. It’s a one-and-done sort of thing. There are not different ‘builds’ that you are expected to ‘try.’ It is not a traditional role-play in the sense that you are a figuring out its ‘systems’ and wearing different ‘roles’ as a costume. The role you are playing is yourself, and it challenges you in how securely you are yourself. Why do you think the way you do? Can you justify that? And unlike the majority of basement-dwelling mommy-fucking closet-fascists who secrete their gummy residue all over the Codex, I in no way agree that this is some fundamental flaw in Disco’s design. You’re only supposed to play it once.
Let’s get weird. What Disco most reminds me of is actually “The Talos Principle,” a puzzle game put out by Croteam a few years ago. Talos is not by any measure a proper RPG, but it has this system where you constantly get into dialogs with ‘Milton,’ an AI librarian who essentially functions as the game’s analog for a biblican Satan. Your conversations with Milton don’t really affect the game at all. There’s some limited consequence on what ending you get, but it doesn’t change the game at all. You’re still just solving puzzles. No matter what happens with Milton, there are no real ‘choices or consequences.’ However, the Milton dialogs are so weirdly well written, and so exceptionally adaptive to your responses, that Talos ends up being one of the most satisfying RPGs I’ve ever played – even though it’s not ‘really’ an RPG, and the ‘role’ you are playing is, again, yourself. But the Milton dialogs are uncommonly good at tasking you with explaining why you think the way you do, and Milton is very, very good at calling you out on your bullshit and getting into your head in uncomfortable ways. I doubt I will ever replay Talos; after all, the puzzles are always the same. Nothing will really be different. I also doubt I will ever forget it.
I think Disco is sort of the same thing. No, there is very little dynamism in terms of the actual story. I myself thought that the ‘phasmid’ ending was something particular to my playthrough, only to find in this thread that nah, even that is standard. But here’s the thing: It appears to me that the tone of Disco varies wildly, far more than any other game I’ve ever played. Case in point, Disco is repeatedly described on the Codex as some paean to communism. Oh boy, that is so utterly not the game I played. I played Disco as essentially myself – albeit a slightly more alcoholic, drug-sodden version of myself – and the game was crazily adaptive to that. I don’t want to make this too personal, but I’m basically a free market New Leftist, a contradiction in terms. Disco let me play Harry as precisely that, in a way that no game otherwise has ever granted, and it appears to me that the ‘choices and consequences’ of Disco actually pertain to this adaptive tone. The game I played was sardonically critical of both capitalism and communism while generally supportive of laize-faire principles. Zed Duke posted a bunch of screengrabs that show that his playthrough was specifically critical of communism (with dialog options that I myself never received). It seems that the ‘standard’ playthrough of Disco depicted in reviews is generally critical of capitalism and somewhat amenable to communism.
In other words, Disco isn’t dynamic in the sense that the story will change between playthroughs; it is dyamic in the sense that it is constantly pushing you on, again, why you think the way you do. This is precisely why Disco can be hugely variable between playthroughs, yet not very meaningful in terms of ‘replayability.’ You are not going to change appreciably enough between playthroughs for it to matter, but what Disco ‘means’ to each different person in that one playthrough does indeed appear to be very, very different. And while people here are critical of the final ‘evaluation’ dialog at the end, I thought it was astonishing. Kim describes me as “essentially a communist who nevertheless harbors free-market principles. He’s probably psychotic, but it seems to work for him.” I have friends who understand the New Left stuff. I have friends who understand the free market stuff. No one has ever recognized the same existing in me simultaneously, except for these crazy assholes who made Disco Elysium. I’ll always appreciate it for that, just like how I’ll always treasure some bizarre puzzle game called The Talos Principle for engaging me in a dialog on existentialism, spirituality, morality, and religiosity in a far more compelling manner than what I would get from most actual people I know in reality – or from most proper RPGs.
So that’s my point. I think people harangue Disco, especially around here, basically for not being what they want it to be – fundamentally, a power fantasy. They concoct a bunch of specious ‘reasons’ for why it’s not a proper RPG or some such bullshit, which is really just the hall-monitoring typical of broken men without any real power. They babble about how Disco dernt have COMBAT so it’s not a GOOD RPG without realizing that Disco simply obfuscates its ‘combat’ in a different way – the combat is your own internal dialog. But because you aren’t killing another rat for 5 XP, it’s not a true RPG. And because you aren’t given the ‘option’ to build your character as a strengthy ogre vs a roguey elf – and then go kill a bunch of fucking rats in slightly different ways – also clearly means its not a true RPG. Bullshit. I can’t even say Disco is entirely critical of authoritarian fascism, ‘cuz I’m pretty sure it also gives you the ability to play the game as a full-fat jackboot. What Disco truly appears to be critical of is dipshits who accept hand-me-down ideological realities without any personal, critical faculty whatsoever. And sure, I can see why that really pisses off some of the pasty mommy-fucking wannabee Hitlers on these here forums.
That said, yes, the ending is rushed. I agree though that it’s really kind of an epilogue. Also Disco seems to position itself as some sort of film noir, and it’s not that out of the ordinary for a film noir – where it ends up the ‘resolution’ to the mystery never really mattered, was really kind of arbitrary and random. It’s a fairly standard existentialist trope in noir. See also: literally everything from The Maltese Falcon to Double Indemnity. That said, nah, the ending isn’t as well written or foreshadowed as the rest of the game. And personally I hated the whole phasmid ending, because it felt like a big heap of magical realism bullshit plastered on top of what had heretofore been a pretty blunt work of pragmatic philosophy. But the only reason I would be critical in that way is because Disco was so good otherwise; generally I don’t give a shit about lapses into magical realism because, frankly, most RPGs are so absoutely stupid that why would I care?
TL;DR: Disco ain’t supposed to be replayed. You can clutch pearls on this point, or denigrate it as an ‘adventure game’ or an ‘ebook,’ but it’s kind of pathetic to do so. Also, for what it’s worth, only broken morons would actually replay something like Baldur’s Gate more than once – yet that is regarded as a ‘masterpiece’ by Codex churls, and Disco is regarded as some sort of pablum. In other words, the general critical consensus of Codex tends to be established by pseudointellectual basement fascists who severely overestimate their own critical faculty. Disco is more or less the game that Codexers were whining about for a decade, but then they rejected it because MUH COMBAT and because it criticized their childishly unexamined fascist/Superman presumptions.
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