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

[Popiel]

Spoiler

However, I can understand it from a game design PoV. It would be incredibly frustrating to the player if he figures it out early and isn't able to spring it on the suspect; it would make the whole rest of the game feel completely railroaded; whereas allowing for it would make the already gigamegamassive dialogue trees sprout another forest.

Spoiler

But the player absolutely can easily figure this out early/earlier, I mean there is no logical reason NOT to try to go the island before the confrontation. None. That's the part that does and will continue to piss people off.

 

[Zep Zepo]

Sailor Woedica.

I got an early preview (Since Infinitron and Crispy actually wrote it)

DE FIRST LEWK! - By Sailor Woedica

This game is FIERCE! It lewks so cool!

This RPG is super awesomeistic fantastical, sis.

I cry evry teim I can't sleep on a bench!

I will buy you this RPG game game (pls pm Infinitron or Crispy for key)

Woo!

Sailor Woedica.

Zep--

 

[Prime Junta]

Spoiler

I had tried talking to the fisher woman and Joyce in order to get there early and it was frustrating that I couldn't. It is jarring, but then there's only so much reactivity you can put in even with a million words in a relatively tightly-scoped game.

 

[Parabalus]

Spoiler

However, I can understand it from a game design PoV. It would be incredibly frustrating to the player if he figures it out early and isn't able to spring it on the suspect; it would make the whole rest of the game feel completely railroaded; whereas allowing for it would make the already gigamegamassive dialogue trees sprout another forest.

Spoiler

But the player absolutely can easily figure this out early/earlier, I mean there is no logical reason NOT to try to go the island before the confrontation. None. That's the part that does and will continue to piss people off.

Kim addresses it, you're doing the checklist sorted by increasing difficulty. IIRC your VC skill gives the island as <10%, while being the most remote.

What stronger evidence did you get?

 

[Popiel]

Spoiler

I had tried talking to the fisher woman and Joyce in order to get there early and it was frustrating that I couldn't. It is jarring, but then there's only so much reactivity you can put in even with a million words in a relatively tightly-scoped game.

Spoiler

There is absolutely no reason to excuse the devs in this case. None. You go to the island -> bring the old commie to the mainland -> you avoid the confrontation. Your game is shorter by an hour or two and you get to sit on the bench with Kim. Or heck, you don’t avoid the confrontation, which only strengthens one of the themes. Whatever, hell, whatever would have worked better than what we got.

What stronger evidence did you get?

Spoiler

You meanin'...? Game is written so that the island is almost an impossibility as an option, yet the game at the same time gives you chances to pursue similarly idiotic tasks/quests. Why not this one? Why don't go the company rep and say Give me your boat or something something. Why? I'll tell you why. 'Cause devs wanted desperately to tell set in stone story.

They should have written it so that there are no connections to the island before certain point. That would have been fair.

 

[Prime Junta]

Popiel you're quite right logically. However it would've wrecked the narrative tension and pacing. I think I actually prefer it this way rather than having the "best" ending in terms of outcome be a narrative flop.

 

[Parabalus]

Spoiler

I had tried talking to the fisher woman and Joyce in order to get there early and it was frustrating that I couldn't. It is jarring, but then there's only so much reactivity you can put in even with a million words in a relatively tightly-scoped game.

Spoiler

There is absolutely no reason to excuse the devs in this case. None. You go to the island -> bring the old commie to the mainland -> you avoid the confrontation. Your game is shorter by an hour or two and you get to sit on the bench with Kim. Or heck, you don’t avoid the confrontation, which only strengthens one of the themes. Whatever, hell, whatever would have worked better than what we got.

What stronger evidence did you get?

Spoiler

You meanin'...? Game is written so that the island is almost an impossibility as an option, yet the game at the same time gives you chances to pursue similarly idiotic tasks/quests. Why not this one? Why don't go the company rep and say Give me your boat or something something. Why? I'll tell you why. 'Cause devs wanted desperately to tell set in stone story.

Spoiler

So is there nothing other than the VC check?
The island is really mentioned as the last option and you're chiefly going after Ruby. You know there will be a tribunal and you're under time pressure.

 

[Popiel]

Prime Junta Let me put it like this. If you need to selectively take away logic from your story to serve tension, pacing or themes then you're doing it wrong. What I would propose is a fundamental reconstruction of this part of the plot, not a band aid, if I would be one to decide. I’m not and won’t be, so I just point out obvious – and indeed in my opinion biggest – flaw.

Spoiler

You know there will be a tribunal and you're under time pressure.

Funny thing. You're not. Tribunal is plotgated, not timegated. Which is also a major flaw.

 

[Elex]

BUY THIS MOUSE FPS FOR PLAY DYSCO ELYSIUM
wat

 

[Syvere]

JPTFG. As long as you don’t dump both Int and Psy you’ll get a ton of content. Int is chattier but Psy more insightful. And yes do pump Per early, and quicksave frequently until you have enough Nosaphed to deal with the continuous heart attacks.

Fair enough I guess. Though I would like to ask which PSY skill has the most high difficulty skill checks (and would benefit most from signature tagging it)?

 

[Parabalus]

Prime Junta Let me put it like this. If you need to selectively take away logic from your story to serve tension, pacing or themes then you're doing it wrong. What I would propose is a fundamental reconstruction of this part of the plot, not a band aid, if I would be one to decide. I’m not and won’t be, so I just point out obvious – and indeed in my opinion biggest – flaw.

Spoiler

You know there will be a tribunal and you're under time pressure.

Funny thing. You're not. Tribunal is plotgated, not timegated. Which is also a major flaw.

What happens if you don't find anything for 6 days?

The mechanics are less important than what you're character knows, which is that it's being organised and you should hurry up to stop it.

JPTFG. As long as you don’t dump both Int and Psy you’ll get a ton of content. Int is chattier but Psy more insightful. And yes do pump Per early, and quicksave frequently until you have enough Nosaphed to deal with the continuous heart attacks.

Fair enough I guess. Though I would like to ask which PSY skill has the most high difficulty skill checks (and would benefit most from signature tagging it)?

I'd go with volition.

 

[Popiel]

What happens if you don't find anything for 6 days?

I don't know. What I know for almost a fact is

Spoiler

that tribunal does not happen.

I presume that after 6/7 days of doin' jack shit you

Spoiler

die. It's foreshadowed in dream sequences.

 

[HanoverF]

I'll tell you lot who haven't finished it this much: it's gonna suck for you at the end if you don't pay attention to what you're doing along the way.

(In fact it might still suck.)

Spoiler

AFAIK the tribunal and thus the unnecessary slaughter always happens before going to the island, but it looks like if you fucked up the investigation you won't be able to concretely establish the Deserter's guilt and thus fail to conclude the case.

Spoiler

Yeah I figured that much. Still it hurts, and I think I ought to have been able to do better in the tribunal -- seven dead, including the mercs. I also fumbled a Rhetorics roll with Ruby, that was hard. But I did an extremely thorough job on the Deserter -- motive (several actually), murder weapon, modus operandi, physical evidence from the scene, confession, another confession to whacking the previous negotiator, etc. -- my high mindfuck Psyche skills really paid off there, as well as doing a thorough job of everything earlier.

Spoiler

What? You didn't let your compatriot off the hook?

 

[Strange Fellow]

Done. Took me 20 hours, but I skipped a bunch of stuff, some because I didn't have the skills and some because it felt appropriate. Personaly I'm pleased with the length of the game, it felt just right. Overall I feel very similarly to Starwars about it, I think he nailed it.

The not so good stuff:

• My biggest gripe is that skill checks are too easy to manipulate by changing clothes and engaging in substance abuse. Yeah, yeah, "just roll with it, don't switch clothes all the time." But it's so easy! I couldn't resist. And it makes an absolutely massive difference too. Mind you, stat-boosting clothes actually make much more sense here than in most other RPGs, and it makes container-diving more exciting, so it's not a total dud. I think a good solution would've been to let you get dressed at the start of each day, and then not let you change while you're out and about.
• The economy is too lax. Past day 1, I never had trouble with healing items, and could probably have kept myself topped up on drugs, booze and cigs at all times, if I hadn't been saving up for something potentially big down the line (which never came).
• The political stuff was poor. The "muh commie propaganda" people are clueless idiots who haven't played the game, but that doesn't mean they're wrong in saying that, for the most part, the political comments you can make and persuations you can adopt are boring caricatures which aren't even particularly funny. Satire across the spectrum was the right way to go, and the game isn't scared to insult people (except streaming platforms against homophobic slurs ), but it very rarely managed to be clever.
• It's hard to say while only having done a single playthrough, but it feels extremely linear with a lot of false promises of C&C (this seems to be corroborated by other people ITT). Then again there's a lot of smaller stuff you can influence, and the plot and writing make up for it in spades.
• The thought cabinet feels half-baked. As far as I can tell, thoughts just give you bonuses to skills/raise skill caps/affect inconsequential stuff, but don't actually chime in on events or otherwise affect your behaviour like skills do. They're just Fallout perks, really. That's not a problem, but the thought cabinet is not something to hold up as a stand-out feature.
• The voice actor for the reptilian brain.
  
• Spoiler

  The confrontation with Ruby. She's going to watch me slowly and painstakingly make my way towards the sonic transmitter, watch me knock it down, and only then pull out the gun, and shoot herself? I don't buy it.
• Spoiler

  The ending was weird. I'm not sure whether or not I liked it, to be honest. There was some very obvious patchwork in the confrontation with your colleagues, and some jarring, terrible writing (Kim recapping your political views). The shooter I think I liked, and the animal too, although I'm a tiny bit miffed that they included a tangible "supernatural" element when they had played with uncertainty so expertly up until that point.

The good stuff:

• Pretty much everything, to be honest. The writing is uneven sometimes, but at its best it's fantastic, some of the very best in the medium, and overall it's extremely good. Detractors will put their noses up, and it's a shame, because the snippets you see in screenshots are the quick-fire jokes, or pieces of purple prose divorced from their context, when in reality it's the layering of characters, situations and your skills' ongoing commentary that builds into something great, even when the jokes miss the mark. There are some standout pieces - namely the autopsy and the interrogations with the central suspects - which are way too long to fit into a few screenshots, and which contain too many variables for passive reading to give an accurate impression of just how well they work when playing through them yourself, with your own character. In a nutshell: Torment's "dialogue battle" with Ravel, but better.
• Kim is one of the best RPG companions ever, if not THE best, while being the polar opposite of Avellone's strange and extraordinary one-of-a-kind misfits. That's an amazing achievement.
• The story is tight, focused, well structured. It's a hard-boiled detective story I would've read in book form - but which would've been lesser for it; make no mistake, this isn't a visual novel. The stuff you do, the evidence you uncover, the conclusions you draw, they matter. Maybe not to the central beats of the story, but to the tenets of the personal journey your character makes, and to how much you, the player, get out of it. Like Torment, it's variations on a very fixed story, executed very well.
• The visuals are excellent. This is one of the best-looking isometric games out there.

And is it an RPG? Who the hell cares.

This ended up longer than I'd planned. TL;DR: good game.
Time to replay.

 

[Parabalus]

What happens if you don't find anything for 6 days?

I don't know. What I know for almost a fact is

Spoiler

that tribunal does not happen.

What happens instead?

I'll tell you lot who haven't finished it this much: it's gonna suck for you at the end if you don't pay attention to what you're doing along the way.

(In fact it might still suck.)

Spoiler

AFAIK the tribunal and thus the unnecessary slaughter always happens before going to the island, but it looks like if you fucked up the investigation you won't be able to concretely establish the Deserter's guilt and thus fail to conclude the case.

Spoiler

Yeah I figured that much. Still it hurts, and I think I ought to have been able to do better in the tribunal -- seven dead, including the mercs. I also fumbled a Rhetorics roll with Ruby, that was hard. But I did an extremely thorough job on the Deserter -- motive (several actually), murder weapon, modus operandi, physical evidence from the scene, confession, another confession to whacking the previous negotiator, etc. -- my high mindfuck Psyche skills really paid off there, as well as doing a thorough job of everything earlier.

I got all the checks except

Spoiler

2nd bullet hit me (prob unwinnable though), still got 7 dead. Didn't arrest Klaasje though.

What's the best possible outcome?

 

[Prime Junta]

I'll tell you lot who haven't finished it this much: it's gonna suck for you at the end if you don't pay attention to what you're doing along the way.

(In fact it might still suck.)

Spoiler

AFAIK the tribunal and thus the unnecessary slaughter always happens before going to the island, but it looks like if you fucked up the investigation you won't be able to concretely establish the Deserter's guilt and thus fail to conclude the case.

Spoiler

Yeah I figured that much. Still it hurts, and I think I ought to have been able to do better in the tribunal -- seven dead, including the mercs. I also fumbled a Rhetorics roll with Ruby, that was hard. But I did an extremely thorough job on the Deserter -- motive (several actually), murder weapon, modus operandi, physical evidence from the scene, confession, another confession to whacking the previous negotiator, etc. -- my high mindfuck Psyche skills really paid off there, as well as doing a thorough job of everything earlier.

Spoiler

What? You didn't let your compatriot off the hook?

Spoiler

Wrong tendency. Would've shot him myself.

 

[Popiel]

What happens instead?

As I wrote in the edit, you

Spoiler

probably die. It's foreshadowed in the dream sequences.

I would like a confirmation of that however.

 

[Prime Junta]

Let's start a spoiler thread for this shit, these tags are annoying. 3...2...1...

Edit: done https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/disco-elysium-spoilery-thread.130334/

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Tell you what, you actually convinced me to try DE with a character who isn't a complete dumbass and it's a much better experience right from the start.

 

[fantadomat]

Let's start a spoiler thread for this shit, these tags are annoying. 3...2...1...

Edit: done https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/disco-elysium-spoilery-thread.130334/

Nah just speak freely here and let all the spoiler faggots that will never play the game get a massive blood loss from ripped haemorrhoids! And yeah communism did kill the dude lol,the shooter was really retarded wanker!

 

[toro]

Damn well I'm sure am glad I finished the game before Detective Fanta here threw a spoilerific tantrum because he couldn't git gud.

Re: the tribunal and its variables.

Spoiler

Unless the people of discord and on this forum figure out some hidden mystery, it looks like the tribunal does indeed boil down to damage reduction. It seems that at best you 3 innocent people will die (the hardie boy that the female merc shoots, plus Theo and Angus when they charge in.) On top of this you can get Shanky, Elizabeth, Titus, Ruby, and Kim killed (well the latter is merely wounded in the hospital but who knows.) Ruby isn't really a part of the tribunal but I'm rolling her in there because she is yet another preventable innocent death.

Many of the things you did up to that point helps you pass a few checks before the confrontation, which distracts the mercenaries and thus makes the check to actually shoot them easier. If you are a really good shot, you might be tempted to just open fire immediately, but that gets Shanky killed because if you try to draw out the conversation he gets time to get away. On the other hand, if you try to draw out the conversation and fail, Elizabeth will get shot down. If you don't even have a gun in the confrontation, or if you just stand by and let it happen, shit goes to shit and Titus gets killed.

Apparently you might even be able to use a medicinal spirit as a molotov cocktail if you lack a gun, plus there two ways to prevent getting gunned down by the first shot: one is having the cuirass on, and the second having the sword equipped.

Finally, you can try to save Kim, and the check is made easier/harder by your relationship with him.

Yeah, all roads to the tribunal and there isn't a lot of variation besides saving a few lives - you can't talk the mercs into standing down, and you can't save everyone - and this I found initially disappointing, but the more I think about it, the more I find this appropriate. You've got 3 drunken mercenaries with PTSD, one of whom is clearly and vocally insane - people are going to die and the best you can do is minimize the casualties. When you consider that every single death here is that of an innocent whose only fault was trying to make things right for someone else, it gets pretty fucking tragic, and saving even 1 person seems like an achievement (besides Ruby, who was really into some shit, but if anything her suicide stings because its directly caused by you and is also completely preventable.)

At this point I am more concerned how much reactivity there is at the very end. I hope that if you did a truly shit job you can find the Deserter but fail to concretely identify him as the killer, and if you don't take photo of the phasmid the Precinct will refuse to take you back. My worry is that the phasmid is there as a get out of jail free card so that every build, no matter how disastrous, can get a cool ending where they ride back to Precinct 41 with the homies, but I sincerely hope thats not the case.

Spoiler

I've got success on all the checks from than fight except the Reaction Speed and I can confirm that I've saved Kim, Elizabeth, Titus but Glen, Theo, Angus and Shanky got killed in the end. I don't know if the result could have been different.

Also I let Ruby live but you need like 5 Endurance for that (which you can do by using drugs).

 

[Parabalus]

Damn well I'm sure am glad I finished the game before Detective Fanta here threw a spoilerific tantrum because he couldn't git gud.

Re: the tribunal and its variables.

Spoiler

Unless the people of discord and on this forum figure out some hidden mystery, it looks like the tribunal does indeed boil down to damage reduction. It seems that at best you 3 innocent people will die (the hardie boy that the female merc shoots, plus Theo and Angus when they charge in.) On top of this you can get Shanky, Elizabeth, Titus, Ruby, and Kim killed (well the latter is merely wounded in the hospital but who knows.) Ruby isn't really a part of the tribunal but I'm rolling her in there because she is yet another preventable innocent death.

Many of the things you did up to that point helps you pass a few checks before the confrontation, which distracts the mercenaries and thus makes the check to actually shoot them easier. If you are a really good shot, you might be tempted to just open fire immediately, but that gets Shanky killed because if you try to draw out the conversation he gets time to get away. On the other hand, if you try to draw out the conversation and fail, Elizabeth will get shot down. If you don't even have a gun in the confrontation, or if you just stand by and let it happen, shit goes to shit and Titus gets killed.

Apparently you might even be able to use a medicinal spirit as a molotov cocktail if you lack a gun, plus there two ways to prevent getting gunned down by the first shot: one is having the cuirass on, and the second having the sword equipped.

Finally, you can try to save Kim, and the check is made easier/harder by your relationship with him.

Yeah, all roads to the tribunal and there isn't a lot of variation besides saving a few lives - you can't talk the mercs into standing down, and you can't save everyone - and this I found initially disappointing, but the more I think about it, the more I find this appropriate. You've got 3 drunken mercenaries with PTSD, one of whom is clearly and vocally insane - people are going to die and the best you can do is minimize the casualties. When you consider that every single death here is that of an innocent whose only fault was trying to make things right for someone else, it gets pretty fucking tragic, and saving even 1 person seems like an achievement (besides Ruby, who was really into some shit, but if anything her suicide stings because its directly caused by you and is also completely preventable.)

At this point I am more concerned how much reactivity there is at the very end. I hope that if you did a truly shit job you can find the Deserter but fail to concretely identify him as the killer, and if you don't take photo of the phasmid the Precinct will refuse to take you back. My worry is that the phasmid is there as a get out of jail free card so that every build, no matter how disastrous, can get a cool ending where they ride back to Precinct 41 with the homies, but I sincerely hope thats not the case.

Spoiler

I've got success on all the checks from than fight except the Reaction Speed and I can confirm that I've saved Kim, Elizabeth, Titus but Glen, Theo, Angus and Shanky got killed in the end. I don't know if the result could have been different.

Also I let Ruby live but you need like 5 Endurance for that (which you can do by using drugs).

Spoiler

I didn't need Endurance, but Pain Threshold and Rhetoric. You never saw her again after she ran off, right?

 

[toro]

I do intend on buying in some time,unlike any trash game from kwa.

rolfmao

 

[Twiglard]

From minmaxing perspective, most of Thought Cabinet stuff is pretty useless or detrimental. It takes 1 skill point to unlock an additional slot, then another to remove a useless skill. They'd be good had I spoiled myself, otherwise it's a skill point sink.

Regarding the "just keep failing" bullshit: this is an RPG and skill checks are meant to be passed. Even if I can't talk the antagonist to death, this was always the way and why should it not be the way now?

 

[toro]

Damn well I'm sure am glad I finished the game before Detective Fanta here threw a spoilerific tantrum because he couldn't git gud.

Re: the tribunal and its variables.

Spoiler

Unless the people of discord and on this forum figure out some hidden mystery, it looks like the tribunal does indeed boil down to damage reduction. It seems that at best you 3 innocent people will die (the hardie boy that the female merc shoots, plus Theo and Angus when they charge in.) On top of this you can get Shanky, Elizabeth, Titus, Ruby, and Kim killed (well the latter is merely wounded in the hospital but who knows.) Ruby isn't really a part of the tribunal but I'm rolling her in there because she is yet another preventable innocent death.

Many of the things you did up to that point helps you pass a few checks before the confrontation, which distracts the mercenaries and thus makes the check to actually shoot them easier. If you are a really good shot, you might be tempted to just open fire immediately, but that gets Shanky killed because if you try to draw out the conversation he gets time to get away. On the other hand, if you try to draw out the conversation and fail, Elizabeth will get shot down. If you don't even have a gun in the confrontation, or if you just stand by and let it happen, shit goes to shit and Titus gets killed.

Apparently you might even be able to use a medicinal spirit as a molotov cocktail if you lack a gun, plus there two ways to prevent getting gunned down by the first shot: one is having the cuirass on, and the second having the sword equipped.

Finally, you can try to save Kim, and the check is made easier/harder by your relationship with him.

Yeah, all roads to the tribunal and there isn't a lot of variation besides saving a few lives - you can't talk the mercs into standing down, and you can't save everyone - and this I found initially disappointing, but the more I think about it, the more I find this appropriate. You've got 3 drunken mercenaries with PTSD, one of whom is clearly and vocally insane - people are going to die and the best you can do is minimize the casualties. When you consider that every single death here is that of an innocent whose only fault was trying to make things right for someone else, it gets pretty fucking tragic, and saving even 1 person seems like an achievement (besides Ruby, who was really into some shit, but if anything her suicide stings because its directly caused by you and is also completely preventable.)

At this point I am more concerned how much reactivity there is at the very end. I hope that if you did a truly shit job you can find the Deserter but fail to concretely identify him as the killer, and if you don't take photo of the phasmid the Precinct will refuse to take you back. My worry is that the phasmid is there as a get out of jail free card so that every build, no matter how disastrous, can get a cool ending where they ride back to Precinct 41 with the homies, but I sincerely hope thats not the case.

Spoiler

I've got success on all the checks from than fight except the Reaction Speed and I can confirm that I've saved Kim, Elizabeth, Titus but Glen, Theo, Angus and Shanky got killed in the end. I don't know if the result could have been different.

Also I let Ruby live but you need like 5 Endurance for that (which you can do by using drugs).

Spoiler

I didn't need Endurance, but Pain Threshold and Rhetoric. You never saw her again after she ran off, right?

Spoiler

Actually no. I never meet her again.

I think you need Endurance if you don't have Pain Threshold (which I did not have). You take like 4 or 5 points of damage.