The prevailing mood of Disco Elysium is so melancholy it is easy to forget how funny it can be. I was taken aback in my second playthrough by how often I found myself laughing because I didn't remember it being a particularly funny game—until I realized I was playing a goofier and less self-flagellating character the second time around. Not many games are so responsive to how you play that you can shape the tone of the story.

I don't really have any criticisms of DE in the usual sense, but I was sometimes put off by its cruelty. I mean that most games—even, or dare I say especially, the "edgy" ones—filter out certain parts of being human we would rather not contemplate. DE feels more realistic than other games not just because of its incredible worldbuilding but because it leaves all that stuff in. It is basically a stream-of-consciousness simulator in which you are forced to grapple with every nasty thought that flits through an unpleasant man's neurochemistry. On one hand, this allows you to build a level of empathy for the protagonist that is on par with great works of literature; on the other, it can lead to some ugly places. Pretty much any awful thought you have you are free to indulge—I mean this game lets you be a neoliberal for christ's sake. Bleak af.

For me, personally, the fatphobia that rears its head every so often (I think a character is described as "gelatinous ooze") crosses a line—I believe that this is a thing the protagonist would think, but am I convinced this is a thought the writers of the game needed to share? No, but then again, equally if not more terrible things are voiced in the game all the time, so I guess how that line is drawn is up to each player. Just be warned that, while I do think the game is designed with love for its characters and encourages empathy, it also requires you to confront an unusual amount of hatred and cruelty of a far more realistic kind than you typically see in games, and at times almost seems to take pleasure in rubbing your face in it. If only for the sake of accessibility, I do wonder now and then how much the impact of DE would be diminished if its world were just a tiny bit kinder.

I am kind of a hater. My bitter soul shivers with icy excitement at the opportunity to nitpick that which is well-loved. BG3 offers a lot of nits to pick, especially if you are a story-motivated player. The overall story is, imo, surprisingly not good for a game that has received so much praise in that department. The strain of trying to weave together so many plot threads really shows. There are a lot of names thrown around that are probably supposed to be important, and goofy fantasy words that are probably supposed to mean something, and like twelve magical MacGuffins, and it all feels a bit like an AI was fed a long list of D&D tropes and tasked with fitting them in the same game. Also, whenever the story flirts with horror, it feels a bit like a bad FromSoft pastiche?

That said, there are quite a few scenes and character bits that work well in isolation. What probably happened is the developers were afraid of the game feeling too meandering and directionless, so they tried to superimpose a structure onto all these scattered backstory and sidequest ideas they had. Although I understand the impulse, the main plot is easily the dumbest and most boring part of the game, unfortunately. I think I would have preferred if the party was only traveling together because they all wanted to go to Baldur’s Gate for personal reasons–no big looming threat necessary.

Nevertheless, even my miserable shriveled little heart was warmed one or two paltry degrees by my time (roughly ten bazillion hours) with Baldur’s Gate 3. At the end of the day, it’s D&D in video game form with lots of fun and hot party members who want to bone you. It’s kind of a hard formula to mess up? Which is silly to say considering it’s also a very hard formula to, like, do, at all, given the bonkers amount of content, so I applaud them for trying. But what I mean is that the game is solid enough that bad writing is not a deal-breaker, and the moments when the writing does work are kind of nice little treats–a bit like eating Lucky Charms with not enough marshmallow pieces in it. Yes, of course, it would be nice if there were more marshmallows, but you’re still going to eat too many bowls like a big dork because hell yes the vampire twink is dtfff

not morally egregious per se but rather a depressing culmination of a decade's worth of design trickery and (d)evolving cultural/social tastes and otherwise exists as insipid twitchcore autoplaying bullshit that should come with a contractual agreement binding its devotees to never speak prejudicially about mobile games or musou ever again lest they face legally enforced financial restitution. just play nex machina man. or watch NFL. been a fun season for that. fuck the review man let's talk sports in the comments

A person's tolerance for Harold Halibut is going to depend on how much mileage they get out of slower games where inhabiting the space and conversations are the key focus, rather than anything resembling moment to moment gameplay.

I don't blame anyone who doesn't get on with that or think that any single approach is objectively better or worse, but I was drawn in by the game's beautiful handcrafted aesthetic and its hold on me never really faltered throughout the runtime. The ship you live on is full of memorable characters with their own unique idiosyncrasies, all helped along by a strong voice work - for Harold specifically there's a great balance between goofy ignorance and sentimentality, and that personality is probably one of the major factors that kept me going.

But I must emphasise again that this is a very slow game and there are quirks that come with that - sometimes your movement speed is slowed to a crawl as you'e made to follow another character, sometimes the dialogue goes on a little longer than expected, and this will put some people off. Thankfully for me, I used that time to take in the absolutely gorgeous world, animation and the small details dotted around all the locations you visit.

weird ass ugly ass console exclusive mid 00s immersive sim-lite fps lol what. maybe one of the ugliest games ive ever seen?? like graphically so flat and textureless, a lot of the plot elements and character designs just rlly seem like the creative team behind this were on some nu metal type shit and I don’t rlly vibe w that era of design lol. however beyond the very cookie cutter story ripping on fuckboy movies and corporate grunge mid 00s angst designs there is some amount of palpable emotion and feeling in regards to jackie and his relationships w others and that’s kind of v surprising. v fun how many ways there are to go about fairly simplistic and rote missions and objectives,, gives u lots of powers and freedom and very well designed maps to allow u to have fun in. ultimately I think there’s too many options and abilities for how like short the game is like it introduces so many interesting things but it ends as soon as it starts. I rlly like short games but like this prob could be longer lmao. teeming w a real sense of life in it though,, like rlly fun and highly stylized posters and graffiti everywhere in this game, lots of ppl to interact w and call and obv the movies u can watch in game. makes it grounded in a sort of reality that it needs to be grounded in so u can buy into some of the bigger emotions this game is trying to get at. remedy ahhh game mechanics w rockstar ahh game writing. horribly cruel game at points and basically uses nyc as a microcosm of everything that’s wrong w america which sure?? but also I just think satires and critiques of america and it’s failings are way more interesting and true when coming from americans not to sound like uhh a patriot or whatever. also I didn’t finish this bc it’s ridiculously hard and commanding of ur attention and I don’t have either time or attention idk I got other shit to do lol so imagine this is rated four stars lol. anyhow check out this short little doc that’s available as extra content even if you don’t gaf about the game itself,, it’s nice to see ppl so passionate and creative :3
https://youtu.be/pMyEgsv-N3g?si=OLKnWMCtHjLgwZtI

Like the swiss army knife of videogames. Pack it all in, excellently balanced survival gameplay, never forgetting to pepper it with sufficient action adventure shooting fun.
Ressource and inventory management, cheesy 80s one-liners, cool puzzles and a batsht crazy story, honoring all that Resident Evil stands for.
I was a bit unsure why people love this game so much but the last "water sports" moments hit it home for me.

Liked Village a tiny bit more tho, and now I gotta watch videos to explain all the twisted narrative connections to my dumb ass.