Disco Elysium:
Time to Beat: 25 Hours
It's rare that that
the first game by a developer receives the recognition that ZA/UM
earned with Disco Elysium.
Their 2019 game won multiple honors from The Game Awards, and the
third best critical score on Metacritic (It's rarer still that I play
a game which released only six months ago).
This strange and
enthralling game is built around a unique role playing system.
Before beginning Disco Elysium
the player allocates twelve points into the four Attributes of
Intellect, Psyche, Physique, and Motorics. Each Attribute is divided
into six Skills, like Conceptualization, Authority, Pain Threshold,
and Savoir Faire. Each Skill starts with the value of its
Attribute. For example, if the protagonist has four Intellect, the
six Skills associated with Intellect also have a value of four. As
the character levels up the player add points to the Skills, but only
up to double their original value. Using the same example as before,
the player could improve their Visual Calculus (an Intelligence
Skill) from four to a maximum of eight.
Game play revolves
around skill checks. Everything requires a skill check: looking at
things, talking to peopling, and even fighting. Disco
Elysium
doesn't require any player skill, except to read dialogue and make
decisions. There are two types of skill checks. A few are red skill
checks, which can only be attempted once. Most are white skill
checks. The player can reattempt a failed white skill check. To
retry a failed check, the player must put a point into the relevant
skill. For this reason, one should only only improve a skill to
reattempt a skill check. The character levels up often, with an
abundance of points to allocate across the course of the game.
During an average playthrough one will earn thirty-five to forty
levels.
Disco
Elysium
isn't actually limited to two skill checks types. It includes
another type, buried into the dialogues, a core element. The player
controls as an amnesiac cop, and in his recovering state, his skills
speak to him. His best friends were Visual Calculus (which explained
crime scenes) and Encyclopedia (which made him the smartest person in
any situation). Disco
Elysium
constantly makes tons of secret, passive checks against the
twenty-four skills. It doesn't tell the player it is doing this. It
barely hints at it, but successful checks introduce voices into the
dialogue, as the skills speak to the protagonist. This may sound
insignificant, but the voices lead to additional dialogue choices.
For example, Drama tells the player if another person is lying, which
allows the player to proceed accordingly. These skill checks are
woven so seamlessly its possible players don't even realize why they
occur. It also means a player doesn't know what they are missing
until they improve a skill. For example, a protagonist with a
Perception skill of one is metaphorically blind to the world. With
just one additional point added, the player sees areas outlined in
yellow, and can click on them to inspect the scene. This adds a huge
amount of replayability to Disco
Elysium,
because it the number of Skill points, while large, limit the player,
making it impossible to complete every test in one playthrough.
An
additional facet to the Skill system is clothing. Disco
Elysium
includes over fifty articles of clothing (shoes, pants, gloves,
shirts, ties, jackets, glasses, and hats). Most articles of clothing
boost a Skill by one with a corresponding trade-off in a different
Skill. It's impossible to find every piece of clothing, but most
players will locate about 75% of the clothing in the game. While
these garments seems helpful at first, they eventually become a
burden. Every Skill check requires exiting a conversation, swapping
on the best items, and re-initiating the conversation. It isn't
difficult to switch clothes, but scrolling through the overwhelming
pile of sweaters, scarves, eyewear, and boots becomes exhausting.
Most players will wear a preferred outfit, but change to have the
best chance at succeeding at Skill checks. Since these clothing
items are scattered about the district of Martinaise, it's likely the
player will not always have something to wear for each Skill check.
Skill
checks function as follows. A dialogue option informs the player of
which skill is being tested, for example, Rhetoric. Disco
Elysium
adds the character's Rhetoric skill and the Attribute associated with
the Skill, Intellect. If the protagonist's Intellect is four, and
Rhetoric is five, the value is nine. The game rolls two six sided
dice (hereafter referred to as 2d6) and compares the numbers. To
succeed on the check, the player must roll equal to or less than the
value. So a three would be a success, and a ten a failure. One
quirk is that all rolls of two fail, and all rolls of twelve succeed,
regardless of the character's skill.
The difficulty of
these checks can't be underestimated, and Disco
Elysium
never pulls any punches. Failing specific skill checks deals
physical or mental damage to the protagonist. If the player built a
character with only one point in Endurance, or Violation, it is
possible to die early and often. My hero died in the first five
minutes, from a heart attack, as he tried to recover his Horrific
Necktie from the ceiling fan. And died two more times until I
finally succeeded in pulling it down! Be warned, Disco
Elysium
doesn't autosave often enough, so be sure to do it yourself.
The points earned by leveling up can also be spent
in one's Thought Cabinet. This collection of thoughts are the
ideological underpinnings of the protagonist. The character begins
with three open slots, and no available thoughts. But certain
situations and actions will lead to ideas. Unlocking an additional
spot in the Thought Cabinet costs one point, and removing an idea
also costs a point, but adding new ideas is free. The thought system
was underwhelming. It's possible to have up to twelve thoughts, but
most players will install six or seven, The fifty thoughts have
obscure names (Apricot Chewing Gum Scented One, Guillaume le Million,
and Wompty-Dompty Dom Centre), and even more obtuse descriptions.
It's difficult to know what the Thoughts refer to, and impossible to
know what bonuses or detrimental effects will follow. Maybe the
opacity of the effects is the point, but the obscurity of the belief
is frustrating. Even their effects were negligible, and it wasn't
possible to notice if they impacted dialogue like the passive Skill
checks.
These skill checks
don't take place in a vacuum. Both active and passive skill checks
take place in conversation, whether internally or with other people,
and it isn't wrong to say that the dialogue is like phenomenal
literature, drawing forth the inner souls of the characters for the
player to explore. It expands the player's perception of the world,
and features excellent voice acting by the characters, the ancient
reptilian brain, the limbic system, mirrors, skills, and that
Horrific Necktie. But for all its strengths dialogue suffers from
two flaws. First, the player is offered many dialogue options, and
each one delivers a sliver of Experience, in addition to information.
Ninety-five percent of dialogue options are safe, that is, they have
no ill effects. The player can be rude without suffering any
consequences: the result of being an amnesiac police officer in a
semi-police state. But five percent, or even less, of dialogue
options are landmines. The opposing speaker ends the conversation
and won't talk any more. Since nearly all of the dialogue options
are safe, and since they earn the player additional Skill points
there's a strong incentive to try every option. The incredibly rare
conversation enders are a dagger in the player and the system. The
dialogue in Disco
Elysium
also suffers from glitches. I frequently found myself stuck in a
conversation with either no dialogue options at all, or with no
choice which would end the discussion. Fortunately, it was possible
to save the game, and load the file to free the player from the
problem.
We've barely
discussed the plot, the world, the characters, or the themes of Disco
Elysium.
That's for next week.
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