cephaphysic wrote: 406m6w
pata can you wall-text about disco elysium i really want to see what you have to say about it
disco elysium is my favourite game of all time, however, it's not an easy game to talk about, like, at all, look at the average length of your typical disco elysium analysis, if I truly were to go in depth I would need to write something that's as long as those videos
disco elysium isn't just a videogame for you to play and have fun with it. Disco elysium is art in it's purest form. It doesn't feel like it's trying to be fun, if you play disco you know what you've signed up for, and the game will remind you of it
The game in essence is a cRPG developped in estonia by a bunch of depressed communists. The premise of the game is simple, you're an insomniac detective who just woke up from a night of pure drinking in your hotel room, you learn that there is a corpse hanged up to a tree in a back-yard. Another detective by the name of kim kitsuragi also just arrived to the scene, and it's your duty to try solving the case
the actual gameplay is just pure dialogue, you read text, and then you click on the thing you want your character to say or do, there is no combat or anything here, this game is an interactive book. There are also permanent choices, that have a % chance of succcess depending on the stats of your character, that chance however can never be 100% or 0% success, and in fact, there are some checks that is better to actually fail than to succeed at.
However, the game is much more than a murder mistery, that murder mistery is just a medium for the game to disscuss politics and philosophy, nothing about "games must be apolitical", this game is hardcore, applicable to the real world, politics. And that is, because everyone in reality does have some sort of politial ideology, and when you try interviewing people for you to solve the crime, you can see that political ideology leaking in, and you can either answer to what the person is saying, or to not, in fact, some side quests require to certain political characters or groups. The main ideology this game represents are Fascism, Communism, Capitalism, and being a centrist. If you think some of the choices are a bit too extreme, dont worry, it's this way by design
There was a meme a while back saying "every copy of mario 64 is personalized!", however, every copy of disco elysium is actually personalized. There are hundreds of dialogue choices, and all of them matter, only a few hours in your playthrough is already going to be very different to the playthrough of any other person, there are also multiple endings to the game depending on the choices you make, and also luck
In this way, the RNG also works to differentiate your playthrough even further, not only that, but the RNG works as a way for you to avoid min-maxing the game and playing it following your true feelings. If you cant guarantee anything, why bother grinding it really
These dialogue choices at the start may seem kinda normal, however, the game is actually gauging your personality in the background, every choice has an impact on something, so just after a while of playing, the game will know perfectly how you are as a person, and will change some of the dialogue for other dialogue to say stuff that is relevant to you, to challenge YOUR political ideologies, to challenge YOUR philosophy. That combined with the beautifully written dialogue will give for moments that will truly impact you as a person, and it even doesn't really matter if you didn't have too many clears ideas on those more complex issues from before you played disco elysium, after you finish it, you will probably know more about yourself as a person from before you started the game.
This game is a cRPG, a computer roleplaying game, and while in many RPG you can just not roleplay and just troll or min-max or whatever, you cant do that for disco, as the only to not really RP while playing disco would be lying to yourself, and the game WILL call you out on it.
That's the core of the game, however, every fucking design choice in this game goes contrary to the industry standard. Most of the ways a story is told, you know a lot of the world, if you're reading a book it may even include a map of the world like with something with lord of the rings. You may be reading in a third person perspective with a narrator that will give you more information than the protagonist have, or you maybe can understand the design principles going into a certain piece of media to be able to successfully predict future twists or ideas, disco isn't this way. The world is bigger than you, there will be doors that you will never be able to open and explore, you will never see what the world was really before or after you left it, you don't know the backstories of any of the characters beforehand, you cant predict the game, you dont deserve to know about the actual game as you're just one of the many characters. You as a player dont have more worth than a npc
The actual philosophy of disco is... weird, and i'm not qualified enough to talk about it, but it does seem every person has a different interpretation of disco. I've seen debate over what the actual name of the game means, and if we haven't even reached a conclusion on what the words disco elysium actually means, you know you're going to be fucked trying to piece a full proof argument on the game.
Art exists for a reason, there is a reason why someone would draw a book depicting an idea instead of just writting a little summary on why they think x is bad, and that is, because art conveys feelings. A lot of feelings. With disco elysium those feelings are extremely complex, and it's actually nearly impossible to describe what disco elysium actually feels like to me, I don't have the vocabulary. Even by writting this is in a way prioritizing some feelings over others, because many of the ideas feel like they contradict, however you dont feel like there is anything wrong with it, however, when you write about it, you cant really contradict yourself in the same way and keep the same emotions.
A lot of the game feels like it's impossible, like the ending. By any metrics and following the bases of any review or literally analysis i've seen in my life, the finale is just bad. However, when you reach the ending, even if it feels like it's objectevely unfair, frustrating, unsatisfactory, underwhelming, an insult to you as a person, and a contradiction to everything you've been led to believe while playing disco, the finale is good, really good.
It's this reason why every disco elysium video is at least one hour long, and that none of the video actually share any ideas with the other videos, disco is such a fucking wild experience that it's nearly impossible to correctly portray. You can't have a matpat video here explaining a theory that supposedly resolves the game, such explanation does not seem to exist.
This games goes DEEP too, it doesn't just try to argue for certain philosophical ideas, it shows how those ideas can change a person, how that person change can change other person. This game tries to describe how you would a political extreme, why would you want to believe that, why sometimes being radical is needed, why sometimes being racial is a bad idea, what does it mean to believe in a political ideology, it shows that not having a political ideology on itself is a political ideology. It talks about love, about breakup, about depression, about addiction, about racism, about police, about the paranormal, about disco music, about death, about mental disorders, about deligion. Disco elysium can mean whatever you want it to mean, as what disco elysium teachs you is a way of thinking, not just an idea.
If you internalize what disco elysium tells you, you will learn many things. If you decide to put on the same lenses that disco elysium instructs you to use while playing the game for another videogame, you will understand shit, and probably be more depressed on the end, but that's just a side effect. In many ways, it does really make you think different about the fnaf movie and this is actually not a joke, disco elysium changed the way I see art in the first place, in many ways it's unfair to compair disco to most videogames, since disco tries to be much, much more
The game currently is on a weird legal ground, basically the developpers dont get any money, so it's morably justifiable to it over the seven seas, so feel free to do so if you want to give this masterpiece a try, there is a 2 hour video by people make games where they try breaking it down, nothing about disco elysium can be simple it seems
I haven't really touched much on the actual message of disco elysium, honesly I feel all of this falls short. but I think it's just clear why, you could try watching one of those video analysis but I dont promise you will understand much after you watch two different ones
honestly my favorite cartoon