Disco Elysium
Dialog-rich RPG with compelling inner-thought system
This review includes very light spoilers for the start of the game.
Genre: Detective role-playing video game (open world, isometric)
#games
In Disco Elysium, you spend just as much time talking to yourself as with other characters. That's because the skills you can level — such as Conceptualization, Volition, and Reaction Speed — are constantly pitching in with ideas about what you're seeing and what you should do.
For example, investing in Encyclopedia turns your character into a trivia machine, able to conjure up random knowledge about obscure subjects brought up in conversation. This typically starts as an inner thought, which you can then choose to share out loud — it might be helpful, but it's just as likely to come across as aggressive ADHD to other characters.
Most of the skills in Disco Elysium work this way. A wide cast of mental and physical impulses add unique flavor to everything you do — with both positive and negative consequences. Putting points in Drama can help you detect if somebody is lying, but investing a lot of points in Drama can turn you into a compulsive liar convinced that every word you hear is dripping with deceit.
Your inner thoughts also contradict each other. Logic may suggest an action that Empathy immediately shoots down. Physical Instrument, the skill concerned with musculature and organ health, isn't always pleased that Electro-Chemistry routinely urges you to take psychedelics.
There are countless ways for your skills to interact, which all depend on how you invest your skill points and the choices you make in the world. This makes the game deliciously replayable even if you've already absorbed the enormous quantity of narrative content it has to offer.
Wonderfully, the game doesn't punish you for taking the inner dialog system all the way to truly outlandish extremes. As a loading screen helpfully suggests, you shouldn't be afraid to make strange choices, because people are less likely to question authority figures such as yourself. You can get away with genuinely absurd shit.
This can seem at odds with the game's generally serious tone and excellent writing, but the latter is exactly why it works, and that juxtaposition — the insane detective taking on a serious murder mystery — makes for a very entertaining experience, including when it causes you to succeed, or fail, in spectacular fashion.
For example, at the start of the game, your low-level skills — combined with an apocalyptic hangover that has left you very vulnerable — can comically let you down. In the very first room where Disco Elysium begins, it's possible to toggle the light too many times and give yourself a heart attack, thus ending the game on the spot. Moments later, you can fall on your face and die while attempting to punch a kid.
Eventually, though your actions continue to have consequences, they're fortunately less likely to outright kill you. The game does a beautiful job of letting you be whoever you want — whether that's a snobby Art Cop, a proselytizing Communist Cop, a Disco Cop on the hunt for the sickest beat in town, or something more sinister.
In short: a masterpiece.