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

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Fixed missing Kim.

Must have been a rare and/or non-repeating bug, because there haven't been reports of a global spike in suicides.

 

[Terenty]

As much as i'm a fan of Disco, i cant help, but agree with people saying the game has very little to offer as a deep rpg.

I wanted to start a new game on hardcore, but after going downstairs and talking with Kim and bartender my will evaporated.

There's no room for experimentation or trying new builds really. Theres very little variation to dialogue and any new thoughts popping in you head are 95% flavour text.

Completing quests almost has nothing to do with you skills and theres no consequences.

Most dialogues have a lot of different options to choose, but npcs respond with literally the same text.

I completed about 97 tasks out of 100 on my first playthrough, so really there is no incentive to complete them again on hardcore

Its a masterpiece for one playthrough, not so much after that

 

[vota DC]

Completing quests almost has nothing to do with you skills and theres no consequences.

Spoiler

You have only 3% with low skills. Also completing without skills could have a lame reward. For example with high hand/eye coordination and inland empire you solve the mistery (communism is the murderer!) but you will solve the murderer anyway in the long term. Without those skills you will lose much content....funny thing is you can finish the game without taking care of the corpse, the interrogation in the following day can bypass much content.

 

[Terenty]

Completing quests almost has nothing to do with you skills and theres no consequences.

Spoiler

You have only 3% with low skills. Also completing without skills could have a lame reward. For example with high hand/eye coordination and inland empire you solve the mistery (communism is the murderer!) but you will solve the murderer anyway in the long term. Without those skills you will lose much content....funny thing is you can finish the game without taking care of the corpse, the interrogation in the following day can bypass much content.

I'm not sure less content depending on your skills is a good thing.

 

[ItsChon]

As much as i'm a fan of Disco, i cant help, but agree with people saying the game has very little to offer as a deep rpg.

I wanted to start a new game on hardcore, but after going downstairs and talking with Kim and bartender my will evaporated.

There's no room for experimentation or trying new builds really. Theres very little variation to dialogue and any new thoughts popping in you head are 95% flavour text.

Completing quests almost has nothing to do with you skills and theres no consequences.

Most dialogues have a lot of different options to choose, but npcs respond with literally the same text.

I completed about 97 tasks out of 100 on my first playthrough, so really there is no incentive to complete them again on hardcore

Its a masterpiece for one playthrough, not so much after that

Agreed, I had much the same experience. I really ain't mad at it though, because I'll take 30 hours of an amazing experience any day of the week, even if it is just a one time play through.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

It's actually pity they didn't make an alternate patch trailer which replaces the voiceover with just soundbytes from Egg Head.

 

[toro]

As much as i'm a fan of Disco, i cant help, but agree with people saying the game has very little to offer as a deep rpg.

I wanted to start a new game on hardcore, but after going downstairs and talking with Kim and bartender my will evaporated.

There's no room for experimentation or trying new builds really. Theres very little variation to dialogue and any new thoughts popping in you head are 95% flavour text.

Completing quests almost has nothing to do with you skills and theres no consequences.

Most dialogues have a lot of different options to choose, but npcs respond with literally the same text.

I completed about 97 tasks out of 100 on my first playthrough, so really there is no incentive to complete them again on hardcore

Its a masterpiece for one playthrough, not so much after that

The same thing happened to me.

In fact upon finishing the game I was very positive about it (I even posted on the codex) but the reality was that I was confused, I did enjoy most of the time with the game but I was actually shell-shocked thanks to the abysmal ending.

Maybe the game was rushed or some other excuses exist but nobody can deny the fact that the ending robs the player of any previous achievement. Everything you did before the last 20 minutes doesn't matter in the end.

Now, this part is absolutely not acceptable for me ... but it's not only about me: because of this retarded design the game will never become a classic.

You are 100% correct: It's one play through game which you can watch on youtube and that's it.

That being said, meaningless experiences are a perfect match for pseudointellectuals because it allows them to pretend seeing inaccessible deep themes in the narrative ... so deep that they don't exist.

That's why I'm "butthurt" about the game: every retard praises the game without being able to articulate any serious topic which was actually treated in a satisfying way. At this point it's more like a case of "the emperor has no clothes".

That's it. I got my closure and I'm not looking forward to their next game.

 

[Lithium Flower]

hoe's mad lmao

 

[Terenty]

Maybe the game was rushed or some other excuses exist but nobody can deny the fact that the ending robs the player of any previous achievement. Everything you did before the last 20 minutes doesn't matter in the end.

You mean

Spoiler

how you always end up on the island even if you've accomplished fuck all during the investigation? Can you still arrest the guy without any evidence?

 

[toro]

Maybe the game was rushed or some other excuses exist but nobody can deny the fact that the ending robs the player of any previous achievement. Everything you did before the last 20 minutes doesn't matter in the end.

You mean

Spoiler

how you always end up on the island even if you've accomplished fuck all during the investigation? Can you still arrest the guy without any evidence?

Spoiler

Yes. I'm not sure you can fail once you reach the island because the guy basically admits to the murder.

I'm also referring to the fact that your detective skills are worth shit because the game doesn't let reach the island unless you jump through all the aligned loops.

 

[toro]

By the way: None of the comments below are written by me but when reddit has better insight than the codex then something is fucked up in the codexian land.

Spoiler

https://www.reddit.com/r/DiscoElysi...oilers_why_disco_elysium_shoot_itself_in_the/

Why Disco Elysium shoot itself in the foot

Before I get into it I feel that this is mostly a rant that I need to get out in the world not because I disliked the game but precisely because I liked it so damn much and I felt the game prepared me for some better final sprint.

Thing is that the game is quite filled with choices and lore to explore which makes each person have a different perspective on the ending depending on what content they encountered before that but I feel that a good design should be the one where, despite taking different routes, you get to the ending equipped to make the most of it. It could just be that the route I took through the game make the ending boring but if that is so it is still a design failure.

First of all it felt really weird to have a hard skill check guard the progression even if doing other quests in the area made it easier was still a bit off putting that my smooth talking and logic focused cop needed to "listen to the wind" to be able to progress the quest.

Secondly, and this where I get my main gripe with the ending, the murder gets solved deux ex machina style. The whole game I ran circles around Hardy boys, Klaasje, Joyce, Evrat Claire I am lead to Ruby which turns out to be a bust but still an interesting plot development. So far so good. But then....your end up on an island where a guy you had no reason to suspect, no mention of, some totally random dude who simply confesses with relative ease to EVERYTHING!, deus ex machina. Everything I did so far, all the people I "opened up", all my investigations, clues, etc., was a bust, a dead end, a detour that lead to nothing unless I had found this rando holed up on an island that I was given little reason to suspect. I guess my biggest problem with this is the fact that the game gave me no heads up and no reason to care for this dude. Ruby was much better alluded to: the missing hardy member, unaccounted footprints, the lorry with drugs, her involvement in the frame up etc. It all fit together somehow. I`ll admit that there were some hints, like the footprints remain unaccounted for and lack of gunshot reports, but it was far from making this final reveal feel satisfying in any way . It felt like the game went: "alrighty then, you had your fun, now look what the solution was." and you sit there like a 5 year old being shown how the puzzle was supposed to fit together. The game gave you no tools to even remotely suspect how this would play out.

Was this supposed to send a message? That life is random and not really satisfying? That random stuff happens? That the ghost of a long unresolved problems such as the violent crushing of a revolution came back to haunt the city of Revachol?

Maybe all of these but it still an ending that is out of tone with the rest of the game.

Then is the Phasmid, the damn giant bug, that jumps out of nowhere to complicate things further. It`s baffling to me first of all because the game keeps pointing towards some greater supra-natural elements but then back pedals on it. I chased around the mystery of the curse affecting businesses but ended up concluding that it was jun of the mill capitalism and decision making that lead to the downfall. The church ended up pointing towards some interesting directions but it never gave me more ways to explore after I arrested the guys planning to turn the church into a meth lab. I understand by reading that some people learnt more about the mystery of the disappearing sound by having the ravers co-exist with the researcher. Then it`s that whole the Pale thing that isn't really explained much. So there are elements of weird, out of this world, but they are never fleshed out, never established if they are an established part of this world, if they are "real" or just one possibility and people don't really know yet. I treated the whole quest about the bug hunt as a humorous runaround and then this thing jumps up, and it muddies the waters further by telling me that its pheromones drove the old guy crazy. The conversation with it might be all in the characters head(even if Kim admits it is real he never hears any words) but still felt patched on, something that comes out of nowhere just as you had another major plot development. And it appears to you for no real reason and its appearance has no real effect. It is too much, too late, too fast for too little. It would have probably hit me a bit differently if I had experienced different plot lines but then again, i feel that ensuring an even outcome for all plotlines should be a design choice(for example if some other plot choices make the whole ending feel less random and stitched together that is a major design weakpoint just as bad as having none at all).

I loved the Dolores Dei so much more than this, it was a dream sequence but so so informative, emotional and deep. The conversation with the bug is *trying* to be deep but felt more like an exposition dump of new, supernatural info, that feels unnecessary just so you can get to the "i need to do something with my past" mentality.

After all of this you get ANOTHER exposition dump (that is 3 in a row) exposition dump when you meet your team back on shore. They function as an epilogue of some sorts but also fill in a lot of story gaps but many things feel redundant and just piled up.

To conclude: The ending feels out of tone, random and overfilled with information. I feel that the team ran out of time and just condensed several ideas in a short segment of game.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DiscoElysium/comments/djs21p/finished_the_game_spoilers/

don’t read unless you’re finished! spoilers abound.

took me 20 hours, which was less than i expected. i played a motor/phys character though so i think i missed out on a lot of tidbits. for example, i have no idea still how exactly ruby ties into all of it - i let her go and wasn’t smart enough to think of an argument after. i also was shocked that there was a third merc, did anyone figure that out before? or is it always a surprise?

the ending made me really teary though. i’m sure most people did this, but i played harry as a super delusional drunk at the beginning, and slowly made him more optimistic about himself and his future, drinking less and being more empathetic. something about the end with the phasmid and talking to it and kim made me really emotional. it actually made me feel like harry has the opportunity and drive to turn his life around.

i was super disappointed there was no epilogue or something where you show lena the phasmid.

the grilling from your precint at the end is brutal though lol i recruited kim to harry’s station and it makes me so happy to think about them working together forever

how did your guys’ run(s) go? anything you missed? how did it turn out? i’m going to wait a week then do another playthrough because i have a feeling i didn’t even see half the game.

I played mainly psyche with some shivers/drama/perception and was a bit disappointed by the ending tbh Took me ~25h to finish the game and like you it was less than I expected

The last island was pretty underwhelming since you had almost nothing to explore and I feel like the deserter was pretty bland. The guy basically admits to the murder and the whole case kinda ends here without any kind of big final confrontation with the real killer, also his motive is pretty boring I think

Also I was pretty excited about all the supernatural stuff (The hole in the world in the church / The end of the world ? / Martinaise being "cursed"?) I expected the game to talk more about these subjects since it was hinted in so many dialogues that we were "special" (Like with the phasmid at the end)

I think I'm pretty frustrated because the story ended when it became the most interesting IMO. Your old coworkers found you, the murder has been solved but there is still something wrong with martinaise and it just ends. I really wanted to see more information about Dora, the phasmid and martinaise as a whole. Also maybe the aftermath of the case ?

Overall great game, I can't wait to do another run but the ending was disappointing.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Was this supposed to send a message? That life is random and not really satisfying? That random stuff happens? That the ghost of a long unresolved problems such as the violent crushing of a revolution came back to haunt the city of Revachol?

This.

Also make fucking spoilers.

 

[Harthwain]

Maybe the game was rushed or some other excuses exist but nobody can deny the fact that the ending robs the player of any previous achievement. Everything you did before the last 20 minutes doesn't matter in the end.

My impression is that while you can finish the investigation anyway (and that's

Spoiler

thanks to the Alien

), there is a matter of quality to it. Some checks can block you off, thus preventing you from gaining details or insight into suspects' exact methods and/or motives. I was lucky to get the most of it, but that's largely because I was able to get enough rolls where it mattered, due to my build.

However, I completely failed at the Tribunal.

Spoiler

It was a massacre. I think that at the end two Hardies were left alive, and Kim.

I also didn't manage to do everything (open the secret bunker, for example).

 

[Terenty]

My impression is that while you can finish the investigation anyway (and that's Show Spoiler thanks to the Alien ), there is a matter of quality to it.

Wait

Spoiler

the alien appears anyway, even if you fail the red check?

And

Spoiler

can Kim die during the tribunal?

 

[toro]

My impression is that while you can finish the investigation anyway (and that's Show Spoiler thanks to the Alien ), there is a matter of quality to it.

Wait

Spoiler

the alien appears anyway, even if you fail the red check?

And

Spoiler

can Kim die during the tribunal?

first question: no
second question: yes

 

[vota DC]

Spoiler

Still few variables for Tribunal. The disaster results would be good as a middle result.
1)All done correctly: 2 mercenaries dead, 1 wounded and captured so can be interrogated. 1 hardies dead because shot and 1 dead because heart attack like Donny of Big Lebowski
2)Good result. 3 mercenaries and 3 hardies dead.
3)Middle result. 2 hardies survived and Kim wounded.
4)Bad result. Hardies dead, Kim dead, lawyer dead and mercenaries dead.
5)Disaster result. You wake up in another place. Hardies and Kim dead and a mercenary trashed the cafeteria killing everyone inside, then attacked the dockyard until he was put down.

 

[toro]

Some checks can block you off, thus preventing you from gaining details or insight into suspects' exact methods and/or motives.

Spoiler

Unfortunately there is one important difference:
1) skill checks rarely prevent you from "gaining details or insight into suspects' exact methods and/or motives." -> play dress up + drugs -> nothing you learn/investigate/do before the final island matters
2) the game design really does prevent you from "gaining details or insight into suspects' exact methods and/or motives." -> final island is simply not reachable until the design allows you -> the phasmid ending is meaningless.

That was my whole point.

 

[Harthwain]

My impression is that while you can finish the investigation anyway (and that's Show Spoiler thanks to the Alien ), there is a matter of quality to it.

Wait

Spoiler

the alien appears anyway, even if you fail the red check?

I don't know about it appearing, but I think that

Spoiler

it always leaves behind the stuff you need to link the murder weapon with the crime (the scope).

Unless you can only loot it once you pass the check...

Spoiler

Still few variables for Tribunal. The disaster results would be good as a middle result.
1)All done correctly: 2 mercenaries dead, 1 wounded and captured so can be interrogated. 1 hardies dead because shot and 1 dead because heart attack like Donny of Big Lebowski
2)Good result. 3 mercenaries and 3 hardies dead.
3)Middle result. 2 hardies survived and Kim wounded.
4)Bad result. Hardies dead, Kim dead, lawyer dead and mercenaries dead.
5)Disaster result. You wake up in another place. Hardies and Kim dead and a mercenary trashed the cafeteria killing everyone inside, then attacked the dockyard until he was put down.

Oh. So I wasn't a total failure. Nice to know.

Some checks can block you off, thus preventing you from gaining details or insight into suspects' exact methods and/or motives.

Spoiler

Unfortunately there is one important difference:
1) skill checks rarely prevent you from "gaining details or insight into suspects' exact methods and/or motives." -> play dress up + drugs -> nothing you learn/investigate/do before the final island matters
2) the game design really does prevent you from "gaining details or insight into suspects' exact methods and/or motives." -> final island is simply not reachable until the design allows you -> the phasmid ending is meaningless.

That was my whole point.

That's not quite true - you need certain items or clues

Spoiler

(knowledge of the secret passage, for example) in order to be able to talk about it on the island.

Without that you get the bare minimum needed to complete the investigation.

 

[Terenty]

first question: no
second question: yes

That's actually cool.

What about

Spoiler

when you arrive at the island and see the same flowers as the ones on the roof of the bar. Isn't it tied to the red skill check when you must catch a piece of flower with hand/eye coordination on the roof with Kaasje? I wasn't able to pass the check, but for some reason i still could recognise flowers all the same ? Is this a bug or i'm missing smth?

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Spoiler

Still few variables for Tribunal. The disaster results would be good as a middle result.
1)All done correctly: 2 mercenaries dead, 1 wounded and captured so can be interrogated. 1 hardies dead because shot and 1 dead because heart attack like Donny of Big Lebowski
2)Good result. 3 mercenaries and 3 hardies dead.
3)Middle result. 2 hardies survived and Kim wounded.
4)Bad result. Hardies dead, Kim dead, lawyer dead and mercenaries dead.
5)Disaster result. You wake up in another place. Hardies and Kim dead and a mercenary trashed the cafeteria killing everyone inside, then attacked the dockyard until he was put down.

Wow, that's some nice variability here. I've got 3rd and thought there are 2 others outcomes top.

 

[toro]

first question: no
second question: yes

That's actually cool.

What about

Spoiler

when you arrive at the island and see the same flowers as the ones on the roof of the bar. Isn't it tied to the red skill check when you must catch a piece of flower with hand/eye coordination on the roof with Kaasje? I wasn't able to pass the check, but for some reason i still could recognise flowers all the same ? Is this a bug or i'm missing smth?

I don't know the answer to this.

 

[vota DC]

Spoiler

Still few variables for Tribunal. The disaster results would be good as a middle result.
1)All done correctly: 2 mercenaries dead, 1 wounded and captured so can be interrogated. 1 hardies dead because shot and 1 dead because heart attack like Donny of Big Lebowski
2)Good result. 3 mercenaries and 3 hardies dead.
3)Middle result. 2 hardies survived and Kim wounded.
4)Bad result. Hardies dead, Kim dead, lawyer dead and mercenaries dead.
5)Disaster result. You wake up in another place. Hardies and Kim dead and a mercenary trashed the cafeteria killing everyone inside, then attacked the dockyard until he was put down.

Wow, that's some nice variability here. I've got 3rd and thought there are 2 others outcomes top.

Nah that was just a proposal. Right now you have just just these variables

Spoiler

Kim dies or gets wounded
Mercenaries die or get wounded....but not dialogue of them captured so they always die.
Titus, lawyer and another hardies can die if you get wrong dialogues and don't hit mercenary leader.
One hardies Is always shot in front of you, fat one and old one die when you are ko. Always.

 

[Viata]

open the secret bunker

You can't open it. Rolled two six and it didn't open.

 

[Harthwain]

open the secret bunker

You can't open it. Rolled two six and it didn't open.

Can't be! Lies! Heresy!

 

[Verylittlefishes]

open the secret bunker

You can't open it. Rolled two six and it didn't open.

Can't be! Lies! Heresy!

Another fake check iirc is dodging the bullet in fight sequence.