I first tried to play Disco Elysium in 2021 when I was going through a rough patch mentally. I saw a little too much of myself in Harry and couldn't stomach it so I gave up before I got to day 3 in game. In 2024, a few weeks ago I came back to Disco Elysium, now being in a much better and healthier state of mind and I can say it's quickly become one of my favorite games of all time.

Disco Elysium is a masterclass in storytelling and worldbuilding that got under my skin and for reasons I can't find the words to articulate, I'm rather speechless about what to say on ALL the things this game made me feel. It's funny, silly, heartfelt, tragic, it deals with all these grand political and philosophical ideologies, on the nature of being and what it means to be alive, to be human, but to me it's mostly a story about broken people living in a broken world doing the best with what they've got. With a DE shaped hole in my heart, I come to the bittersweet conclusion that I'll never get to experience this for the first time again. But maybe someday soon I'll do another playthrough with a different build because I still feel like Elysium has so much more to give me.

Un jour je serai de retour près de toi <3

Disco Elysium è uno degli RPG più belli che abbia mai giocato. Un titolo la cui forza sta tutta nella stupenda narrazione ed ambientazione originale. Una trama avvincente, una detective story profonda, matura, inserita in un universo narrativo molto originale e che sfrutta proprio il suo contesto per parlare e discutere dei più disparati temi, politica, economia, temi sociali, esperienze di vita e anche un pizzico di paranormale che non guasta mai. Il gioco è un classico RPG vecchio stile con chiare influenze dei giochi di ruolo cartacei, carta, penna e dadi. Il gioco consente di scegliere un archetipo di ciò che saranno le abilità principali del personaggio che controllerai ma poi tali abilità potranno essere potenziate o espanse attraverso una complessa matrice di skill che rappresentano le qualità e abilità psico-fisiche del nostro personaggio. Il 95% del gioco è basato su dialoghi e pensieri del protagonista che costantemente nel gioco osserva ciò che lo circonda e utilizza i suoi sensi e suoi pensieri per analizzare il monto attorno a sé. In Disco Elysium vestiamo i panni di un poliziotto completamente privo di memoria dopo una chiara sbornia colossale ma che probabilmente nasconde eventi oscuri nel suo passato, insieme al tuo collega Kim avete il compito di risolvere un misterioso e violento caso in uno dei distretti della città di Revachol. I pensieri del protagonista giocano una parte importante nel gioco consentendoti di carpire o dedurre aspetti sviscerabili solo se si potenzia alcune determinate abilità, con un lancio di dadi automatico il gioco decreta il successo o il fallimento di una determinata azione nel gioco, il tutto orchestrato in maniera veramente originale e geniale. Molto bello anche artisticamente, bellissimi il design dei personaggi e delle mappe di gioco ma anche dei disegni che abbelliscono le abilità o determinati momenti salienti del gioco. Anche la colonna sonora è eccezionale, accattivante e perfettamente fusa con l’ambientazione di gioco, alcune musiche rimarranno sicuramente nel cuore e nell’esperienza indimenticabile che il gioco offre, felici e tristi allo stesso tempo con un piccolo tocco di malinconia. Molto longevo per le tantissime scelte e tipi di interazioni diverse che possono essere scelte durante la trama, con una presenza anche molto alta di possibili finali e conseguenze diverse, tutto ciò offre quindi una rigiocabilità molto elevata.

VOTO 9.5/10

I feel weird talking about and reviewing Disco Elysium when there's so much left of the game that I clearly haven't discovered. This is a game that warrants 3 or 4 playthroughs but mustering up the motivation to play it more than this one time will be difficult.

Every single interaction is perhaps the most well-written, most fleshed out character writing I've ever seen in not just a video game, but any medium. and 85% of it is completely frivolous to the actual plot of the game, but it was my favorite stuff. The church, cursed bookstore and cryptozoologist sidequests were my favorite. Having full voice acting for nearly every line in the game is a spectacular feat. I felt as if I could spend hours just talking to one person. Which I did.

The only downside I can really cite is that I felt compelled to actually listen to all the voice lines (since they were so good) which actively slowed down the pace of the game a lot. The game could have been as short as I wanted it to be, but I constantly wanted to see what people had to say about new items I picked up or other events happening in the world. It's a good flaw to have.

As a roleplaying game, I find it intensely fascinating that you're put into the body of this absolute piece of shit. You're always being asked to interact with others who are blatantly racist, nationalist or are just bad people, victims of circumstance. And as a player, you're asked to see things from their perspective. Not agree with them, but understand them enough to get the information out of them that you need to. The most emotionally effective but worst thing the game asks you to do is when you have three dialogue options and they're all just horrible. Things you would never say ever. But your character absolutely would. And you have to choose one. It makes you act and do things you would never otherwise do, even if it's just a game. And it's extremely effective at putting you into the shoes of the detective.

I can confidently say I understand why Disco Elysium has the high reputation it has. Even if it can be a bit unwieldy at times, I love it all the same. It's unlike any experience with a piece of art I've ever had.

I don't tend to revisit media. I realize that, implicitly, I'm searching for something better than I've found thus far. Some part of me believes that there is some experience, whether by way of video games, books, movies, conversation, or meditation, that will ultimately satisfy me. I know this is a trap -- and yet the search continues. I'm certain I'm not the only one that feels this way.

Disco Elysium, and things like it, compel us to suspend our search for awhile. When I finished this game I returned to the opening screen and stared at the coastline the characters traverse across. I looked into the same horizon the characters looked into while they smoked and talked and considered why I made the choices I did on their behalf.

Looking forward to playing this game again.

The quantity and quality of the writing in this game is insane. They wrote the shit out of this game.

If you were turned off by hearing that this game is only for hard-core leftists, I don't think you should be too concerned. There's a lot of really interesting nuance in the writing, and although the political perspective of the writers is very clear, and not my own, it's not overbearing either. It does require that you not be triggered by the game calling you a centrist or awarding you a couple fascism points here and there.

The concept of having your stats be represented as an different voices of your internal monologue is so brilliant. As you level up and put more points toward those stats, you are very directly changing the way that you interface with the world in such a cool way.

My biggest criticism is that the game is a bit janky with how you move around. The art style is cool, but sometimes you can't really tell where you can and can't walk.

Fast travel would have been nice, though the meta commentary on how much video game characters run around was very funny. (Oh yeah! This game is also hilarious!)