Disco Elysium
Mar. 1st, 2022 09:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingDisco Elysium is unplayable on Nintendo Switch.
Every time you enter or exit an area, there’s a loading time of at least thirty seconds. At the beginning of the game, you need to leave your room, go into the hallway, go out onto the balcony, pick up an item, and then return to the hallway. Because of the loading times, this simple sequence takes longer than five minutes.
It’s also extremely difficult to interact with the environment. Instead of approaching a highlighted object and pressing “A” to interact with it, you have to:
(1) Press the left and right joysticks into the controller to indicate that you’re using your hands,
(2) press the right shoulder button to highlight everything that can be interacted with,
(3) use the direction buttons to cycle through the highlighted objects, and
(4) press “A” when the right object is highlighted,
(5) all while still pressing all the aforementioned buttons.
(6) This may take several tries, but if you get it right,
(7) your character will walk around the object in one or more circles,
(8) until he positions himself where the game needs him to be in order to interact with the object,
(9) and then you’ll be allowed to interact with the object by going through the same button sequence,
(10) maybe?
If you’re unlucky, your character will enter a conversation with a person next to the object instead of interacting with the object. This is unfortunate because a conversation can take between fifteen to twenty minutes, and there’s no way to quicksave during a conversation. This would almost be okay, except that your character can randomly die by choosing the wrong response, or by ending the conversation too quickly. Like, he literally gets so upset that he has a heart attack and dies, and then you need to restart from your last save.
After several hours of this, the writing style gets annoying, like China Miéville at his most insufferable and self-indulgent, maybe with some Chuck Palahniuk thrown in for extra edgelord flavor. Perhaps I wouldn’t be so annoyed if the game weren’t unplayable. Maybe I’m just bad at video games. Whatever.
I did some research, and I found that I’m not the only person having problems with the Switch version. I suspect this is a matter of a game that was designed to be played on PC being given a substandard port. Regardless, the Switch version is a waste of money, not to mention a waste of what could have been an interesting game. That’s too bad.
Every time you enter or exit an area, there’s a loading time of at least thirty seconds. At the beginning of the game, you need to leave your room, go into the hallway, go out onto the balcony, pick up an item, and then return to the hallway. Because of the loading times, this simple sequence takes longer than five minutes.
It’s also extremely difficult to interact with the environment. Instead of approaching a highlighted object and pressing “A” to interact with it, you have to:
(1) Press the left and right joysticks into the controller to indicate that you’re using your hands,
(2) press the right shoulder button to highlight everything that can be interacted with,
(3) use the direction buttons to cycle through the highlighted objects, and
(4) press “A” when the right object is highlighted,
(5) all while still pressing all the aforementioned buttons.
(6) This may take several tries, but if you get it right,
(7) your character will walk around the object in one or more circles,
(8) until he positions himself where the game needs him to be in order to interact with the object,
(9) and then you’ll be allowed to interact with the object by going through the same button sequence,
(10) maybe?
If you’re unlucky, your character will enter a conversation with a person next to the object instead of interacting with the object. This is unfortunate because a conversation can take between fifteen to twenty minutes, and there’s no way to quicksave during a conversation. This would almost be okay, except that your character can randomly die by choosing the wrong response, or by ending the conversation too quickly. Like, he literally gets so upset that he has a heart attack and dies, and then you need to restart from your last save.
After several hours of this, the writing style gets annoying, like China Miéville at his most insufferable and self-indulgent, maybe with some Chuck Palahniuk thrown in for extra edgelord flavor. Perhaps I wouldn’t be so annoyed if the game weren’t unplayable. Maybe I’m just bad at video games. Whatever.
I did some research, and I found that I’m not the only person having problems with the Switch version. I suspect this is a matter of a game that was designed to be played on PC being given a substandard port. Regardless, the Switch version is a waste of money, not to mention a waste of what could have been an interesting game. That’s too bad.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-02 03:30 pm (UTC)I know ports from PC can work, but they're so freaking rare. So sorry this was not one of them 😰 ugh... really didn't want to play this at my computer, either >:/ I want to be a permanent blanket burrito for all my gaming experiences.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-04 07:13 pm (UTC)This is exactly it. They tried to map point-and-click gameplay onto a Nintendo controller, and they failed. It's a crying shame, because this game is fucking gorgeous. I mean, gorgeous in a horrible and blithely antisocial way, but gorgeous nonetheless. Sure would love to play it one day.