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Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 55.3 hrs on record (51.5 hrs at review time)
Posted: 19 Jul, 2021 @ 9:08am

This is the first time I've ever posted a review for a game (at least, in a long time) but Disco Elysium is an experience I cannot recommend enough. I would also probably recommend this game to people who prefer a good book to a video game. Playing this feels more like engaging with a interactive novel, than it does a traditional game.

Disco Elysium is set in the fictional world of Elysium, more specifically in Martinaise, a poverty-stricken district of the city of Revachol. While the game is limited to this one location, there is such a deluge of world-building and careful plotting in this game, that a lot of information about the world outside of this district is readily available to keen explorers.
The game incorporates elements of magical realism and absurdism, as well a dark sense of humor akin to the writing of Joseph Heller and John Kennedy Toole, in order to tell a story about addiction, poverty, ideology, economic decline, aging, identity and Jungian psychology, as well as touching on countless other themes.

You play as an alcoholic detective, who's lifestyle has caught up with him and is now suffering with total retrograde amnesia. Amnesia so severe, that to even say the character's name technically counts as a spoiler.There has been a murder in the district of Martinaise, and you are the man they sent to find out who did it.
Over the course of this game you can engage with a colorful cast of characters, each with unique perspectives and values. The depth of writing that has gone into crafting this incredibly complex world in insane, but more insane is how well fleshed=out the various and conflicting individual perspectives of the world can be. So much so that real lines of political thought and philosophy are explored and interrogated throughout the game - Your character can even engage directly with these lines of thought, choosing his own ideological direction and modelling himself on certain schools of thought.

The narrative concept of a fractured psyche, allows one of the most interesting aspects of this game to be utilized. The skills system is unique, in that a high skill level in a certain area may not necessarily be a good thing. Your character can engage in direct dialogue with different aspects of his brain, all of which offer unique solutions and options to overcoming problems. The problem is, is that sometimes these voices are wrong, and can actively mislead you. Your character is constantly forced to make decisions based on whether or not he feels he can trust himself, and in turn, asking you if you can trust yourself, and your own judgement.

This review barely scratches the surface of what makes this game so great and such an exciting new release. I would seriously say that this worth your time, even if you are not someone who would typically go for any kind of game!
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