Disco Elysium
Dec. 18th, 2023 09:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingDisco Elysium is one of the most interesting, stylish, and well-written video games of all time. Everyone who’s talked about the game gushes about how amazing it is, and this is fair. I don’t have anything to add to that, so I’d like to fill in the gaps by writing about the ways that Disco Elysium is kind of shit actually.
First, the game likes to crash. Kind of a lot. At least twice an hour. Even if you’re not save scumming, you still have to save before and after every conversation. To add insult to injury, the game takes a long time to load from the title screen.
Second, the game will only let you maintain twenty save states. If you fill up these save states, you have to go through the list and manually delete all the files. Since you have to save the game once every five minutes or so, deleting the files is necessary and hideously annoying.
Third, the game puts a not-insignificant amount of its content behind racist dialogue. If you want to engage with certain characters, you have to tolerate their lectures on “race science.” I don’t think I missed anything by skipping these characters and their storylines, but it’s weird that this is a thing.
Fourth, the game lets you align yourself politically, but each alignment is ballshit insane. For example, if you want to identify as “Communist,” what this means is stating - in no uncertain terms - that it’s not only necessary but also objectively good for millions of people to die in a glorious revolution. If you continually choose the nonpolitical dialogue option in conversations that aren’t about politics, the game starts bullying you for being a “moderate.” I’ve read several reasonable explanations about what the game is trying to do with the rhetorical extremism of this system, but it really didn’t click for me. Personally, I think the political alignments could have been much more interesting if they were more about nuance and less about choosing your favorite flavor of racist grandpa.
Fifth, the game drops the ball during an almost-endgame shootout scene that relies on you having developed stats that aren’t otherwise useful. I understand that your character isn’t supposed to be a Hollywood superstar cop, but it still felt bad to see so many characters die at the end because stats that were unimportant for the past thirty hours of gameplay suddenly became crucial to passing skill checks.
Sixth, the game really drops the ball during the true endgame, in which a series of climactic conversations is interrupted by an unnaturally long sequence of adventure game fetch quest bullshit. In order to open a door, you have to use the generator; and in order to use the generator, you have to bring some gas; and in order to get the gas, you have to find a canister; and in order to find a canister, you have to open another door, etc. This is the only time you have to do something like this in the game, and it couldn’t come at a more jarring point in the story. I was deeply invested in the game’s conclusion, but I almost didn’t finish it because of this.
All that being said, Disco Elysium is on par with Kentucky Route Zero in terms of the brilliance of its writing, which is perfectly integrated into its gameplay. It’s a game that elevates the entire medium, so much so that I’m afraid it’s going to be difficult to play other games now.
First, the game likes to crash. Kind of a lot. At least twice an hour. Even if you’re not save scumming, you still have to save before and after every conversation. To add insult to injury, the game takes a long time to load from the title screen.
Second, the game will only let you maintain twenty save states. If you fill up these save states, you have to go through the list and manually delete all the files. Since you have to save the game once every five minutes or so, deleting the files is necessary and hideously annoying.
Third, the game puts a not-insignificant amount of its content behind racist dialogue. If you want to engage with certain characters, you have to tolerate their lectures on “race science.” I don’t think I missed anything by skipping these characters and their storylines, but it’s weird that this is a thing.
Fourth, the game lets you align yourself politically, but each alignment is ballshit insane. For example, if you want to identify as “Communist,” what this means is stating - in no uncertain terms - that it’s not only necessary but also objectively good for millions of people to die in a glorious revolution. If you continually choose the nonpolitical dialogue option in conversations that aren’t about politics, the game starts bullying you for being a “moderate.” I’ve read several reasonable explanations about what the game is trying to do with the rhetorical extremism of this system, but it really didn’t click for me. Personally, I think the political alignments could have been much more interesting if they were more about nuance and less about choosing your favorite flavor of racist grandpa.
Fifth, the game drops the ball during an almost-endgame shootout scene that relies on you having developed stats that aren’t otherwise useful. I understand that your character isn’t supposed to be a Hollywood superstar cop, but it still felt bad to see so many characters die at the end because stats that were unimportant for the past thirty hours of gameplay suddenly became crucial to passing skill checks.
Sixth, the game really drops the ball during the true endgame, in which a series of climactic conversations is interrupted by an unnaturally long sequence of adventure game fetch quest bullshit. In order to open a door, you have to use the generator; and in order to use the generator, you have to bring some gas; and in order to get the gas, you have to find a canister; and in order to find a canister, you have to open another door, etc. This is the only time you have to do something like this in the game, and it couldn’t come at a more jarring point in the story. I was deeply invested in the game’s conclusion, but I almost didn’t finish it because of this.
All that being said, Disco Elysium is on par with Kentucky Route Zero in terms of the brilliance of its writing, which is perfectly integrated into its gameplay. It’s a game that elevates the entire medium, so much so that I’m afraid it’s going to be difficult to play other games now.
