Appendix N(ext): Disco Elysium

 Disco Elysium

ZA/UM 2019

Lt. Kitsuragi's daily cigarette glows crimson, and smoke intertwines between your tired bodies on the Whirling-in-Rags' exposed balcony.  The conversations from the day echo in your mind, interspersed with the mad voices in your head.  "We're getting close," you mutter.  The lieutenant smiles slightly.  "Surprisingly, I agree.  Get some sleep.  More questions tomorrow."

What it is

Disco Elysium is both a modern CRPG and an interactive detective novel.  It succeeds wildly at both, and conjures the best moments of games like Planescape: Torment and the gritty pulp and twists and turns of the old Raymond Chandler novels.  This game features brilliant micro-reactivity to your thousands of choices, a genre-standout companion, a ridiculous wardrobe itemization mechanic, and a robust 24 skill system with accompanying 'perks' to spend your experience points on.  In this game, you simply run around and ask people questions; the remarkable quality of the writing makes that seemingly pedantic description fly off the screen.

Why it works

I bounced off the game in 2019, bemoaning a lack of a combat system.  Now, recently sober myself, I gave it another crack and finally understood what all the commotion was about.  This game is a simulation of a man at his absolute bottom, and you get the keys to the car to determine what happens next.  My Harry was like me, and every day was a struggle to keep away from the bottle or whatever else he could find.  The game rewards you for the same principles I’m trying to espouse every day; honesty and kindness.  Things come to a very moving and beautiful conclusion, and the whole experience left me with a resonant catharsis that I haven’t felt (in gaming) in years.  I chose logic and empathy as my compasses for this playthrough, which fit my concept perfectly.  The skill system is so robust, players could have so many different lenses to view each conversation and scene depending on their builds. 

Why have a vast cast of different non-player characters when you could just have the best one?  Disco offers us that conundrum with Kim Kitsuragi, perhaps the best written CRPG companion of all time.  He is patient with us, calm, gently corrective, and eventually absolutely supportive of us in our times of need.  We walk away from the game with a brother, and I will miss my regular conversations with Kim.

The Caveat

What bounced me off the game years ago, and what was the stick in my craw, is the lack of a contrasting system of play to the branching dialog system.  People trash Planescape’s combat system, but at least it exists to give players a break from massive paragraph fatigue.  Combat systems in CRPGs give purpose to itemization, which gives meaning to the game economy, which does suffer from a lack of purpose in Disco Elysium.  However, the writing is so transcendent that this didn’t bother me at all on my recent playthrough.  It would have been silly to have Kim and Harry dueling rats and seagulls in between conversations every fifteen minutes. 

I am in the minority here, but I think having every line voice acted was a bit overkill.  I’m from the Baldur’s Gate school where once I get a line from a character to establish their vibe, I’m quite happy just reading the rest.  Having a slow (well-acted) recitation of each line as I quickly read through became a bit grating by the end.  I probably missed an option to turn those off or down.

Who is it for

Did you enjoy Planescape:Torment or Numenera?  Do you think back fondly to the exploration and dialog from Fallout 1 & 2?  Is Arcanum on your Mt. Rushmore of CRPG design?  Is The Big Sleep on your shelf, or a DVD collection with Lethal Weapon and The French Connection?  You simply have to push through your reservations on this game and play.  It truly is the modern king of writing and minimal, effective art design.  

Closing

Disco Elysium has soul, and challenges us to articulate the nature of ours as we play through.  If Planescape asked us, “What Can Change the Nature of a Man?”, then Disco asks us, “Can you build a meaningful future, despite your past?”  With friends like Kim, I think we can.