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

[Heroic Liberator]

The imagery, the texts, the voice actors quality, the game design, everything is a hundred times better than your mundane fnvs and poes.

Compare this:


To this:

Well, to make it an accurate comparison, let's compare the ending slides of Dead Money to the ending slides of Dis.. oh, never mind. I guess we'll have to settle for a Dean Domino vs Trant Heidelstam comparison then :D

>muh ending slides

That being said, NV is a decent game.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

End of the 3rd day, 30 hours in. Game is still 10/10, but some critical thoughts:

1. Thought Cabinet is nice and fun, but mostly useless, because there are so many clothes that gives bonuses that you can pass almost every not "Impossible" skill check. Just a way to spent SP without any real outcome.
2. XP system is somewhat broken (not Numenera-broken, of course), there are so many XP and Level Ups for quests and talking, that you can have the Luxury of obtaining ebough free SPs to pass almost every skillcheck, improving skills in the process of conversation/interaction. Also there are too many Nosapheds to be worried about Morale.
3. Drugs are practically useless and have no purpose besides roleplay as drama superstar queen.
4. Politics stuff is starting to irritate me (not real problem, because this is the first RPG in my experience which even tries to talk about this thing)

Still GOTY, though. Cuno and Evrart are outstanding characters that are truly deep.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

I think I will call Disco Elysium the PST "Emotional Sucessor" in my review.

I need to drink every time I play it

just don't use speed, bro

 

[Optimist]

Sunless Sea? C'mon, it is as often boring purple prose as it is interesting and its mechanics make it into a borefest.

I used to love playing trading sims (Port Royale, etc), so I didn't mind the repetitiveness of going in circles to buy and sell. Although I admit that you need to put a few hours into the game for it to start showering you with the best of its content.

And I admit that Failbetter went extra heavy on adjectives, but it still did manage to evoke more wonder in me than pretty much anything around the time it was released. You can't say that the stuff they pulled with Iron Republic or Irem wasn't ingenious.

Spoiler

That being said, what's your opinion on Sunless Skies?

Spoiler

Didn't touch it yet, so the only opinion I could offer would be based on me listening to the OST and a review I accidentally watched. I hope I'll manage to give it a good playthrough this year.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Sunless Sea? C'mon, it is as often boring purple prose as it is interesting and its mechanics make it into a borefest.

I used to love playing trading sims (Port Royale, etc), so I didn't mind the repetitiveness of going in circles to buy and sell. Although I admit that you need to put a few hours into the game for it to start showering you with the best of its content.

And I admit that Failbetter went extra heavy on adjectives, but it still did manage to evoke more wonder in me than pretty much anything around the time it was released. You can't say that the stuff they pulled with Iron Republic or Irem wasn't ingenious.

Spoiler

That being said, what's your opinion on Sunless Skies?

Spoiler

Didn't touch it yet, so the only opinion I could offer would be based on me listening to the OST and a review I accidentally watched. I hope I'll manage to give it a good playthrough this year.

Do share your thoughts once you play it.

 

[Adidas-Clichèd Cringe]

Sunless Sea? C'mon, it is as often boring purple prose as it is interesting and its mechanics make it into a borefest.

Spoiler

That being said, what's your opinion on Sunless Skies?

God, I'd murder for a Sunless Sea + Zubmariner remake with Sunless Skies' UI and some updated gameplay mechanics... That setting is a 10/10.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Sunless Sea? C'mon, it is as often boring purple prose as it is interesting and its mechanics make it into a borefest.

Spoiler

That being said, what's your opinion on Sunless Skies?

God, I'd murder for a Sunless Sea + Zubmariner remake with Sunless Skies' UI and some updated gameplay mechanics... That setting is a 10/10.

I hope we aren't derailing the thread too much, but yeah. I wholeheartedly agree given the mechanical improvements of Sunless Skies.

Not sure if Sunless Skies sold well enough as to justify such a remake of its predecessor though.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

3. Drugs are practically useless and have no purpose besides roleplay as drama superstar queen.

On the second thought, this is very realistic approach.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

3. Drugs are practically useless and have no purpose besides roleplay as drama superstar queen.

On the second thought, this is very realistic approach.

Harry could clearly benefit from some military grade Pervitin.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

3. Drugs are practically useless and have no purpose besides roleplay as drama superstar queen.

On the second thought, this is very realistic approach.

Harry could clearly benefit from some military grade Pervitin.

D-L-C! D-L-C!

 

[MpuMngwana]

>when you play with high physical skills and partake in drug use

 

[Egosphere]

>muh ending slides

They put a nice bow onto an rpg when you're done with it, showcasing how your decisions affected the world which you inhabited. For a game that is selling for the price that it is, a game that puts so much effort into it's art, a game that promises an 'open world' and a 'groundbreaking' experience with 'unprecedented freedom of choice', it's a strange omission, wouldn't you say? Especially after the straitjacket imposed on the player in the last 3rd of the game, where your 'choice' amounts to getting done in like a little psy/int bitch, irrespective of your build and your effort to mitigate the calamity. Getting some closure on the (very well written and, mostly, likeable) characters and locations with more of Rostov's artwork would have been much better.

 

[Prime Junta]

it's a strange omission, wouldn't you say

I wouldn't say. I would have found ending slides to be completely out of place in a noir. Noir endings are always open, more or less, leaving you wondering how things eventually played out.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

>muh ending slides

They put a nice bow onto an rpg when you're done with it, showcasing how your decisions affected the world which you inhabited. For a game that is selling for the price that it is, a game that puts so much effort into it's art, a game that promises an 'open world' and a 'groundbreaking' experience with 'unprecedented freedom of choice', it's a strange omission, wouldn't you say? Especially after the straitjacket imposed on the player in the last 3rd of the game, where your 'choice' amounts to getting done in like a little psy/int bitch, irrespective of your build and your effort to mitigate the calamity. Getting some closure on the (very well written and, mostly, likeable) characters and locations with more of Rostov's artwork would have been much better.

I think they're more of a cop-out. If you want to give closure, it'd be best to do it through dialogue and maybe a distinct (post)epilogue segment of gameplay.

We still don't know (?) if they plan to release any DLC for the game, so leaving things open might be for the best as well instead of some inconsequential fluff that might even constrain the narrative freedom of the DLC(s) and/or sequel.

 

[Haba]

Well, I guess then they could've just done a wrap-up that shows what everyone alive is doing when the game ends.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

could you shut up about ending, please.

 

[Adidas-Clichèd Cringe]

My run should have ended with Harry and Kim high-fiving while jumping in to the air. Freeze frame and roll credits with the anodic dance music track I helped to perfect playing on the background.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Ending slides would imply this is a game where your choices matter, so probably best they were left out.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Ending slides would imply this is a game where your choices matter, so probably best they were left out.

And yet, more often than not, ending slides trivialize in sequels the choices present within them as to not constrain the following narrative too much.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Ending slides would imply this is a game where your choices matter, so probably best they were left out.

And yet, more often than not, ending slides trivialize in sequels the choices present within them as to not constrain the following narrative too much.

Sequels trivialize the choices, because you need to pick some canon ending to carry over. Nothing to do with ending slides.

Plus as we learned with Deadfire, even if you meticulously recreate hundreds of choices from the previous game, people don't really give a shit. It's a pointless feature far as I'm concerned and not really worth the effort.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

the "locker room talk" reference was just a bit too overt and tasteless imo. It's too modern and takes the player out of the game's universe.

Except it is just locker room talk!!!

Spoiler

there was no rape! just ask her!

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Ending slides would imply this is a game where your choices matter, so probably best they were left out.

And yet, more often than not, ending slides trivialize in sequels the choices present within them as to not constrain the following narrative too much.

Sequels trivialize the choices, because you need to pick some canon ending to carry over. Nothing to do with ending slides.

Plus as we learned with Deadfire, even if you meticulously recreate hundreds of choices from the previous game, people don't really give a shit. It's a pointless feature far as I'm concerned and not really worth the effort.

I absolutely agree. It would've been better in the case of Deadfire if most choices were ignored in favor of a few which were not only brought up, but expanded upon properly.

Ending slides are just a narrative tool though, so I'd rather blame the common habit found among many developers of reviving in sequels narrative threads which they've already ended. It's a case of having your cake and eating it too.

 

[Prime Junta]

Did anybody here manage to die from too much nodding yet?

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Guys, SteamSpy says that more than 50000 copies were sold! In nine days.

 

[tripedal]

50k*$40*0.7 = $1.4 million. That pays for about 14 devs for one year. Eastern Europe is probably a bit cheaper so lets say it pays for their team of 30 for one year. Doesn't really seem good enough...and also shows the limited power of good reviews.