Disco Elysium The Final Cut

Even though I wish there were more games like "Disco Elysium", I thought that its execution failed to live up to the compelling premise. Like "Kentucky Route Zero", it's one of those overrated indie games people praise to feel more intelligent than the average videogame nerd.

There's a misconception that fine writing has to be lengthy and convoluted at all costs, while it's quite the opposite. The best storytellers are the ones who can paint vivid sceneries and portray complex characters just with a few carefully chosen words. Instead, the writers behind "Disco Elysium" preferred to distract their readers with endless digressions, shoving an overwhelming amount of information down their throat and flirting with pompous and obsolete vocabulary. The overlong dialogues are not even functional to the plot, as the murder mystery requires no investigation or guessing on the player's end. You just walk along the only path available and talk to people till you bump into the random guy that did it. Your actions hardly have consequences, and your character build can only influence minor dialogue choices.

One might argue that it's not about the case; that's all about the journey and the characters. To me, it just felt like shallow philosophy and old-fashioned political commentary. I'm all in for depressive and self-destructive protagonists, but it hardly felt like the inner monologues were actual streams of consciousness, or the stats I assigned at the beginning actually helped shape his character. You can always be both the smartest and the dumbest guy person around, and even when you mess up, there's hardly any real consequence.

The Dungeons and Dragons-style skill checks are a fascinating addition to the gameplay, even though you can easily get around most of them by using drugs or wearing the outfit that buffs the correct stats. You are also allowed to save at any time and retry skill checks if you fail.

The presentation also needs improvement: even though I liked the oil painting graphics, there are no animations during most dialogues, with most actions only described with text. It's really like going through an interactive book with sound effects and music. The voice acting is also atrocious and way too slow, to the point that it made the dialogues feel even more overwhelming than they originally were.

Despite all the flaws, I still think it was worth the experience. The concept and main dynamics are definitely interesting, and hopefully the developers will work on improving the formula with their next projects.