Quick Look: Disco Elysium

after hearing the beastcast I have suspicion this is not going to be a positive QL.

this was a Vinny game like that John Wick.

I would like Vinny to QL WWE2k20 next

This is my GOTY so far, hands down.

@bathala: Probably actually a Rorie game. It’s a CRPG.

I've played about 6 hours of this and I've really enjoyed this.

It's a very reading heavy game in the vein on Planescape Torment. I'd say it's got closer to the spirit of Torment than any other game in the genre. I bounced off Tides of Numenera very quickly but with Disco I am reading everything.

Lots of laugh out loud dialogue choices and you can actually use them without causing scenarios to instantly fail.

I completely disagree with the tone discussion here, I appreciate the option to not give a fuck like Cumo, but the pull of your damaged psyche towards the shitty option makes trying to be the good guy in this game so much more rewarding. I helped a little girl and she gave me a hat and i smiled in real life because it just felt good.

Baffled by people describing a very absurd, silly game as 'gritty', and confusing bleakness for cynicism.

It was funny how they agreed the writing wasn't good as they mashed through it inattentively. I get that it's a QL, but c'mon.

Definitely some disconnect between the overarching critical reception to this game, and the GB take.

I don't fault anyone at all, obviously personal preference, but this may just be one of those ones that doesn't really click for anyone on staff.

Its more Inherent Vice than True Detective. Wonderful game with so much to unpack. I don't like the preconceived notion(trailer didn't help either) that you are starting your own character. You choose your traits and your path, but no matter what you still start as Harry

I died turning on a lightswitch and my garish necktie is telling me to arrest people.

GOTY? Mayhaps.

The Writing in this is top notch just saying!

In my opinion, this is an incredible RPG with some very good writing, but I don't fault anyone for not being into it.

If you're not interested in doing a lot of reading or if you're not into the writing/tone, you'll almost certainly hate this game.

All the female characters are sexualized? Doesn't happen in my game, maybe you made your character too horny?

@kdr_11k said:

Yeah, aside from the one at the start of the game, who just ended up laughing at me, this game has had a severe lack of sexualization in my experience.

@loktarogar: Yeah, that one woman at the very start isn't the best first impression on the depiction of women. Of what I've played thus far though, that's pretty much the extent of it.

The crew seems to be buttoning past a lot of dialogue/text in recent times. The Indivisible QL with Jan comes to mind. As does that Spongebob game they were playing recently. Ben was just skipping all text, dialogue, and tutorials.

I actually can't say I have a good opinion of the writing on this because to be frank I couldn't read about 80% of it since I was watching it on a tablet and the font in the game isn't big too begin with and they never talked about what choices they were making so my initial impressions of the writing sucking may be off until I can get a clearer example. I could watch this on a PC but Alex even pointed out it wasn't clever so I don't know if I am missing anything, as a huge fan of CRPGs and having played through Torment, Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Divinity Original Sin I can't imagine one without combat.

I wanna say I have been playing this game and have loved it. The writing is funny, the mystery caught me and I got drawn in by the character. Really enjoyed the game, but it is certainly a niche game.

The game is best played by fully roleplaying your character no matter how bad a choice might mean, from going full communist or convincing your amnesia riddled brain you are some kind of superstar. You gotta lean into a character and you'll have a blast, if you try to make "good" or the best choices, you'll have a boring time. Most of the best writing is from the times you screw up, or speak to clothes or parts of your brain out loud or quietly in front of people.

It's a crpg about being whatever you want, except perfect

Absolutely loving this game.

I really love the balance between voicework and just straight-up text. Skill variety in many cases means perspective variety. Skills help you, but going too extreme with them may backfire. The clothing system's "dress like the job you want to have" effect on you. How much dialogue's in the game, and how well written (albeit with some typo's) it is. There's so much to love about this game.

If you're patient, this is IMO a GOTY contender.

The overly sexualised female characters you meet, such as the despondent neighbour, a paraplegic old woman, an angry revolutionary, a lower class lady wondering where her husband is and a bookstore owner.

I don't fully agree. There's one interaction with the first woman you meet which is very clearly a Bad And Stupid idea given how the game starts and is mostly there to make the people who choose it seem completely pathetic. I noticed Abby has basically nothing in interpersonal skills and that's a real shame because having high Empathy and Drama makes it so you can connect with people in ways other than "mean man want hit thing".

This game is incredible and has some of the funniest writing I've seen in years in a video game. I actually thought this would be completely Alex's shit and I hope he gives it a real shot.

The writing is incredible and if you enjoy CRPGS half as much as you said, you will enjoy this game. Nothing in recent times compares. The writing is funny and emotional and so incredibly clever and far more reactive than pretty much all the RPGs you've listed, including Torment. If that sounds ridiculous, yeah, join the initially cynical club.

Do yourself a favour and pay attention to the writing because this is the entire game.

I'm having a blast with this game. Went in heavy on the Inland Empire voice and everything is so mysterious and compelling. Definitely see the PS:T comparisons in the writing, it's top notch.

Only spend a couple of hours with this, but so far I've enjoyed it quite a bit. The inner dialogue stuff seems very interesting and there seems to be quite some variety depending on how you build your character (or your psyche).

I went with the "intuition" archetype, which to me seemed like Twin Peaks style psychic detective. (Also the "inland empire" skill seems to be a David Lynch reference). So far the interactions have been fun. The more physical archetype didn't seem as interesting, tho I haven't tried it.

It doesn't seem you need to exhaust all dialogue options, which seem to work as a way to exteriorize your personality. All three women I've met so far, I was given the option to hit on them, but I didn't do it as it didn't seem apropiate given the circumstances. But you can be a horny sexist asshole if you want, I guess.

I had to chuckle when "How'd you like to roll with me" showed up as an option for the woman in the wheelchair.

I really enjoyed this game, it's essentially a book. But, even though I get why it they were done this way, the more traditional half of the level up mechanics tossed on top of it kind of detract from what the game is. To me they end up making it feel like a 'your choices matter... but not really'.

The other half of the system works well for the game though, and I wish more emphasis was placed on that.

I wish they realized that having 1 int makes their dialogue options much less interesting.

These kind of games are always awkward for a quick look so i dont really mind.

This QL is what happens when a video about a game has to be recorded for the sake of it and not enough time is spent with said game.

Disco Elysium's themes are so broad and it can play so differently based on the stats and dialog choices (you are literally steering different parts of your consciousness and subconsciousness via dialog choices) it's almost impossible to show anything of relevance in a 30 minute video.

After being unable to pay my hotel bill, I lamented to an employee that I didn't know what money really was and so had the concept carefully explained because my character is a huge shitlord. This discussion caused my psyche's "savoir faire" trait to do a skill roll, in which it dropped a reference to an obscure person, which then triggered my psyche's "encyclopedia" trait to do its own roll to explain the reference.

In the end, I am now internalizing a thought about becoming a hobo-cop, a thought that will finish conceptualizing in 3 in game hours.

Pretty good game, if you ask me.

If Abby wanted to be a good cop why spec the character as a high physical bruiser? Going in more of an empathy/intelligence route would open different conversation options.

Sorry, but this is a bad QL. Abby is overly judgmental from the start (tries too hard to be gritty, overly sexualized characters... what?!) and doesnt seem to understand the game in the first place. I'd go so far to say anyone somewhat interested in this game should avoid the QL and watch a different video.

Maybe not the best move to take the girl who doesn't like PC games and wasn't even aware of the term CRPG to helm the coverage for a PC-exclusive CRPG. This is up there with Dan on the Metro QL in terms of being intolerable.

All the themes/tone/absurdity here seems right up my alley, but I'm dyslexic, and the writing is like perfect for tripping up my brain. Reading w/ dyslexia is already absurd: you often slot-in the wrong word, and it totally changes the meaning of a sentence. For example, in the beginning I read, "...the guy thinks some Utopia people hanged a man." Then I'd spend the whole game wondering where i need to go to meet the Utopia people XD Damn my brain.

Looks like the beast crew..

ahem

bounced right off it

It's GOTY season I'm just warming up.

I agree with @Tr0n

It doesn’t seem like enough time was spent prepping for this video. It is a quick look after all but this game seems like it demands more than a couple hours to report on it?

@swazzyswess: I don't know if I'd go as far to say it's a bad QL. While it eventually becomes clear after the fact, that she wasn't completely aware of the choices she was making or how that context made sense in a CRPG, ergo shaping the personality of her character/the interactions, she still does attempt to play the game earnest.

Perhaps, and I know this may be saying too much to the EXCEPTIONALLY pro CRPG crowd here in these comments, CRPG's like this make bad first impressions? Abby clearly was just playing the game as if she'd play any other game, was making her character and dialogue choices as the game gave them to her. While we never got see her create the character in the QL, it doesn't really come off here that on start up the game gives you much in the way of trying to explain it's systems or mechanics in ways that would prevent her from coming to the sort of conclusions she comes to throughout the QL. Ergo, my character is a meathead, I'm getting rewarded for picking dialogue options I don't like etc. If your coming in with mostly adventure experience, as she was it's very easy to come to the sort of conclusions that the QL was showing.

Obviously some of her early character choices played huge roles on how she was going to interact with and be able to solve some of the games problems/characters. But again, I'm not entirely certain the game spells that out upfront. Which sure, you can make the argument someone with more CRPG experience could field this, but I actually think the take that someone without as much experience tries to see what they get in a few hours gets. Which is what this QL ultimately was. As someone who has always respected the CRPG genre but defaulted to friends who had way more experience, there was always something about the genre that gave me bad first impressions. That said, I totally saw after other people helped me, the dense and quality writing many people attribute the genre/the top games of it with such as Planescape Torment, Baldurs Gate etc.

overly sexualized characters? LOL

are you trying to tell me it won't hang?

dude she states several times that it's essentially not her cup of tea but she can see the appeal.

i think people are forgetting that a) quick looks are not reviews, they're just one staff trying a thing out and showing off a little of it and b) for these smaller indie titles- it's less about who does the quick look and rather that the quick look gets done at all. if abby didn't do the QL, my guess no one would have taken the time.

it can be a bummer when a quick-looker's experience doesn't match your own- but it isn't their obligation to champion the thing.

@bonelessspirit: They are honestly the exact same person in this regard.

I dunno, I was going to avoid this game specifically because it was a cRPG and I hate how they look and play, as well as the disconnected perspective. But then I saw a brief video review showing off what the game actually was and I gave it a shot. First impressions were that it was incredible. Impressions now that I'm what I assume about halfway through it are that it's easily my top game of the year, if not the past several years.

As someone who thinks the cRPG genre is full of neat ideas hampered by ancient game design and bad (for me at least) combat, this was an eye opening experience. The lack of combat actually made it better, because it never feels like they're setting up some sort of roadblock encounter to waste your time. There doesn't feel like there's any filler, just good shit after good shit. I don't even like bleak and dreary settings, but the mix of sad-but-thoughtful-if-not-spiteful people in a setting that is both beautiful and tragic feels like a friggin' work of art. I don't even know what Abby meant by overly sexual, it's like one of the least sexual games I've ever played.