Disco Elysium: The Final Cut

[oggyraiding]

Got this ages ago but never got far because I didn't like the voice acting. In text/dialogue heavy games I read much faster than I interpret speech so full voice overs can be distracting. But I found out there's a mode that reduces the amount of voice acting which is nice.

Still in the starting building, but did very much enjoy

Spoiler alert

telling the cafeteria manager I'm a hardcore feminist, then flipping him off and smashing into an old lady in a wheelchair.

[close]

If it keeps up at this level of fun I should be in for a good time.

[Memorex MP3]

The bulk of the game wasn't voiced on initial release; was added to the Final Cut I think

[Utter Shit]

Safe to say this is the first game I've ever played where my character has been accused of being a paedophile.

[Vodkafone]

Got this ages ago but never got far because I didn't like the voice acting. In text/dialogue heavy games I read much faster than I interpret speech so full voice overs can be distracting. But I found out there's a mode that reduces the amount of voice acting which is nice.

Still in the starting building, but did very much enjoy

Spoiler alert

telling the cafeteria manager I'm a hardcore feminist, then flipping him off and smashing into an old lady in a wheelchair.

[close]

If it keeps up at this level of fun I should be in for a good time.

I feel kinda sorry for Garte, he has enough to contend with on top of which he has to deal with me. Trying to get him to serve you a drink is fun.

[Incy Wincy Mincey]

Finished this yesterday and now have a genuine sense of sadness and loss.

Feels like the first 2/3 of the main quest took forever (probably cause I had no idea what I was doing at first) but the final third rattled by in no time. Can only echo the advice given earlier in the thread - make sure you get everything done (side quests etc) before finishing the main quest, as the game finishes fairly abruptly when you do.

What did you fellow players do after finishing the first playthrough? I think my options are:

1. Start a new playthrough with very different character stats.

2. Reload from an earlier save and explore some more.

3. Find another game with a similar depth/format/setting.

Number 3 seems a bit unrealistic, but maybe I need a bit more distance befire attempting 1 or 2, I dunno. Might revisit This War of Mine for a bit.

[H-O-W-L]

Beat this the other day and have been thinking about it constantly since.

[Schlippy]

Not played it myself, but Citizen Sleeper has apparantly drawn inspiration from Disco Elysium and gets a lot of comparisons, as well as very favourable reviews. Available in this months Humble Choice, along with Nioh 2 (a banging souls-like) and the godawful / great Saints Row reboot.

[Poobum]

Am currently playing Citizen Sleeper and really enjoying it. Much more serious but interesting. You have a maximum of five dice that you can use to complete tasks that have positive/neutral/negative consequences. Lot's of different story threads that build up the world but no wacky or Disco Elysium level memorable moments.

[lazyhour]

What did you fellow players do after finishing the first playthrough? I think my options are:

1. Start a new playthrough with very different character stats.

2. Reload from an earlier save and explore some more.

3. Find another game with a similar depth/format/setting.

Number 3 seems a bit unrealistic, but maybe I need a bit more distance befire attempting 1 or 2, I dunno. Might revisit This War of Mine for a bit.

I did 1. One reason I did it was that I saw people mention whole subplots in passing that I'd never experienced (the main things that stuck in my head were that I didn't even manage to get the poor sod down from the tree, I didn't uncover the mystery of the shipping container and I never went on a date).

I did my second playthrough a bit more slowly and carefully than the first, and focused on different strengths and responses. Absolutely loved the second go around, almost as much as the first.

I'm still gutted that the same team will never make a followup.

[Incy Wincy Mincey]

I did 1. One reason I did it was that I saw people mention whole subplots in passing that I'd never experienced (the main things that stuck in my head were that I didn't even manage to get the poor sod down from the tree, I didn't uncover the mystery of the shipping container and I never went on a date).

Wow, I'd never even considered you could complete the game without getting the body down, though looking back now I can see how it could be possible.

Never did the other two either. I fact I was planning on asking Lynette out

Spoiler alert

as soon as we got back from the island with a confession

[close]

so obviously missed my chance. Live every fucking day, people!

[Poobum]

The crate was one of my favourite things. The explanation for why what's in there looks so strange is brilliant.

Did anyone else choose

Spoiler alert

the amnesia being made up?

[close]

I had to as it made everything so retrospectively more hilarious.

[lazyhour]

Wow, I'd never even considered you could complete the game without getting the body down, though looking back now I can see how it could be possible.

I think it shows how amazing this game is that you can complete it without doing that. Pretty much any 'point and click' style game (which this definitely is) is really a basic flow-chart of things you *have* to do in order to finish it, even when this is masked by a seemingly complex world.

This game genuinely does give you a lot of choice. There's sooo much stuff you don't have to do, which almost unheard of in a game like this.

[Zetetic]

Although...

Spoiler alert

that's also very much dependent on the specifics plot, and the decision to disconnect the resolution/solving of the supposed core conceit from the player's and main character's agency.

[close]

That's not intended at all as a criticism. I guess I think it's interesting that a lot of what is so impressive about Disco Elysium isn't reproducible in terms of mechanics that you could pick-up and drop into something else.

[falafel]

Picked this back up and it's clicked, finally playing it truly carelessly and it's much more fun. At the same time,the Switch version keeps crashing out on me and rolling me back to the most recent save, which I am trying to treat as a kind of sliding doors moment.

[Memorex MP3]

Picked this back up and it's clicked, finally playing it truly carelessly and it's much more fun. At the same time,the Switch version keeps crashing out on me and rolling me back to the most recent save, which I am trying to treat as a kind of sliding doors moment.

Have you updated it? Iirc the initial Switch release was a shitshow. I had very few issues on my playthrough, maybe a soft lock or two.

[falafel]

Yes, it's fully updated. Crashes every couple of hours. I am just quick saving a lot now. Carrying on because it's very, very good and worth the bother.

[Memorex MP3]

Interesting, are you playing it docked? I think all my issues were when docked, think there was a lot more slowdown docked too.

[falafel]

No, handheld only. Performance itself is generally not an issue except when the discoball kicks in at the Whirling, at which point I must be down to 15 FPS which is a bit juddery. It's more generally an error popping up at random intervals saying the app has to close. Occasionally a weird thing with the camera panning up and to the right so I can't see anything I'm doing. Could be worse.

[Pink Gregory]

I had a few problems on Switch but I think they were mainly story bugs, think I had one crash in the whole playthrough?

[Ignatius_S]

The main bugs on the Switch were cross-platform issues (i.e. they were on all versions) but the performance was good and well-received by reviewers. There was a lot of thought put into the port - e.g. the interface was retooled to be played on a portable device

The biggest issue was arguably load times, but these were reduced -
https://gamerant.com/disco-elysium-load-times-update-switch/

Personally, I had zero issues playing it and thought it ran really well.

[falafel]

I probably can't rule out my SD card being on its last legs or something of that order. I'm used to the crashes now and they are getting less frequent, it's not wrecking my experience, so I'm just going to play it this way till I'm done. I won't look a gift horse in the mouth. In every other respect it's a perfect Switch game, barring some awkward navigation in the more cluttered bits of the map.

[falafel]

I usually think of writers spinning out fictional worlds or "universes" as a bit of a tiresome indulgence, but this one is so satisfyingly weird that as I get closer to the end it seems more and more of a shame that it is so embroiled in legal nonsense. Is there anything similar in fiction? Excepting maybe China Mieville.

[Gusty OWindflap]

That's an interesting question because I don't think there are any authors I know of like Miéville. The entire time I was playing Disco Elysium it reminded me of the Bas Lag books or Embassytown, or The City and the City. I googled to see if he was involved! And then I looked for some other work by the game's author but no joy.

In short, I also wish someone would point me to books like Disco Elysium or that of China Miéville :)

I was lucky enough to hit a success on karaoke on my only playthrough and the voice acting for the song was one of the best experiences I've had with a game in ages. I only realised recently it's an actual song.

[Better Midlands]

dededdddee#dee3eeeddddeeedddddddedddddd3eee seed eeeddddeeddddddd#ddddedeeddddddddddddddeeddddddedd#edeedddddddddedddddddddddddddddddeded#deeeeddddede s dddddedddddddddddddddeedddddde#dddddeede#dddee deddd3edddd

[Mister Six]

The world of Disco Elysium first appeared in Robert Kurtvitz's book Sacred and Terrible Air, which is available on Libgen in fan-translated form. It's set some years after Disco Elysium. Haven't read it myself, but I've heard it doesn't have the humour of the games and isn't that great.

[AliasTheCat]

That's an interesting question because I don't think there are any authors I know of like Miéville. The entire time I was playing Disco Elysium it reminded me of the Bas Lag books or Embassytown, or The City and the City. I googled to see if he was involved! And then I looked for some other work by the game's author but no joy.

In short, I also wish someone would point me to books like Disco Elysium or that of China Miéville :)

I was lucky enough to hit a success on karaoke on my only playthrough and the voice acting for the song was one of the best experiences I've had with a game in ages. I only realised recently it's an actual song.

Not entirely the same, but you might like Victor Pelevin. There's patchy availability of translations of his novels from Faber so I've only read a few, but he's very popular in a lot of the post-Soviet world, so I would be very surprised if the authors of Disco Elysium weren't well aware of him.

[Ferris]

I found this a bit tedious and I ditched it.

Should I pick it back up and power through? It sounded right up my street but the world was too bleak for me to want to spend time with it. Does it cheer the fuck up later on?

[H-O-W-L]

bwa-bwa-bwaaaa
bwa-bwaaa-bwa-bwaaaaa
bwa-bwa-bwaaaa-bwaaaaaaaa......
duuu doodoooo
duuu dooo doooo

[H-O-W-L]

I found this a bit tedious and I ditched it.

Should I pick it back up and power through? It sounded right up my street but the world was too bleak for me to want to spend time with it. Does it cheer the fuck up later on?

It's as cheerful as you want to play it. If you play it with relentless optimism you will find a heart of absolute bloody-toothed humanism and survival-strive beneath the grim overlayer. One of the most uplifting and heartwarming games (in a bittersweet but relieving way, like the bizarre euphoria after-- etc etc morris quote) I've ever played.

[Vodkafone]

I found this a bit tedious and I ditched it.

Should I pick it back up and power through? It sounded right up my street but the world was too bleak for me to want to spend time with it. Does it cheer the fuck up later on?

I found it the most Morris-esque game I've ever played (not much competition, obviously). Throw yourself into it and it's hilarious. I loved it at the end when I got to proclaim to my police colleagues that I was a GIANT COMMUNIST.