Disco Elysium (PC, 2019)
- Thread starter Ricelund
- Start date
I played it for about an hour just now. It does feel quite a bit like Planescape: Torment with all of the reading and talking and with how you start out as an neutral amnesiac who can choose to be good or bad. I've read that there's no combat, though, and items are highlighted for you in the world, so it also feels a bit like a point and click adventure, but with stats and skills. I'm at a point very early in the game where finishing a task is not coming easily because I rolled a character with high intellect and charm (thinking that that might fit a detective game without combat) when a stronger character would've handled it easily. I'm sure that there will eventually be things that come more easily to this character than a stronger one, though. I'm not digging the controls so far, which feel sluggish, and it's annoying that you can't pan around by moving the mouse to the edges of the screen, meaning that you have to repeatedly click to move longer distances. I'm yet not getting the "this is amazing" or "game of the year/decade" feeling that many Steam reviews express, but I'm only an hour in and pretty sure that I was slow to warm up to Planescape: Torment, as well, so we'll see how it goes.
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Finished it. It's very much a role-playing game, so a lot of the fun is in speccing the main character a certain way, and seeing the world and story react to the character you made. All interaction in the game is through text prompts, even combat, so you better like reading. A few points:
-The skill system is brilliant. Every one of the 24 skills you can upgrade is basically a character in your head with their own personality that will pop in frequently in conversations to give you advice, dialogue options, info, insight or just randomly shittalk you. The more you upgrade it, the more it happens (plus it allows you to pass the many skill checks). Best thing about the game.
-Setting and story are very well-made and original. I liked the writing and the goofy tone, but I could see a lot of people find it obnoxious and up-its-own-ass, so YMMV.
-Moving the character around just sucks.
-It's decently long (finished it in 30 hrs, and went pretty slow), but the scope is kinda limited (especially compared to Planescape:Torment, which is often brought up). You'll spend a lot of time going back-and-forth between the same locations.
I liked it, but I don't think it's for everyone.
-The skill system is brilliant. Every one of the 24 skills you can upgrade is basically a character in your head with their own personality that will pop in frequently in conversations to give you advice, dialogue options, info, insight or just randomly shittalk you. The more you upgrade it, the more it happens (plus it allows you to pass the many skill checks). Best thing about the game.
-Setting and story are very well-made and original. I liked the writing and the goofy tone, but I could see a lot of people find it obnoxious and up-its-own-ass, so YMMV.
-Moving the character around just sucks.
-It's decently long (finished it in 30 hrs, and went pretty slow), but the scope is kinda limited (especially compared to Planescape:Torment, which is often brought up). You'll spend a lot of time going back-and-forth between the same locations.
I liked it, but I don't think it's for everyone.
Trap Jesus
Registered User
- Feb 13, 2012
- 28,686
- 13,456
The writing in this is next-level good, I've never seen anything close to this in a game before. I usually hate RPGs and games that control as a point-and-click adventure, but this turns that on its head for me.
