David Cage: “Game overs are a failure of the game designer.” Disco Elysium: “You fail to grab your necktie from the ceiling fan and die of a heart attack within minutes of waking up.”
In Heavy Rain, no one has personality. In Disco Elysium, EVERYONE has personality. Even your personality has personality. Electrochemistry is so fun to listen to.
yes agree,the only drawback I felt from disco=timed dialog Whenever u talk with someone,the time moving on And there's some npcs that u cant talk after a specific time/date I know this's for a realistic reason +so people can do multiple playthroughs But its kinda annoying for me to not be able to talk with everyone in details freely because I worried about time moving on
@@alexponco4753 Fair but I do feel like it helps to keep playthroughs fresh. You can't talk or interact with everyone in a single playthrough. I know you just said this but I think it's legitimately important. Not to mention, if you're a min-maxer, you can generally get the most out of DE in a few playthroughs.
@@AmericanBrit9834 Maybe u misunderstand my comment Im not talking about some npc that we cant reach without specific skills/builds Im talking about npc/dialog that available in all builds/playrhough Like the bookstore owner,u can meet her in any playthrough using any builds/skills But if u talk with here about her life+history+etc,it will take so much time(dozen of hours) for basically a non-essensial dialog But for people like me=I want to know all the these useless dialogs,but the time make it impossible unless i make another playthrough just for these useless dialogs
Worst moment in my Disco Elysium playthrough was trying to get Kim to dance and failing and instead calling him a slur and he leaves. I was devastated.
holy shit i didnt know this would happen if you failed that check. I was having the best time when i convinced kim to dance but failing it would break my heart
Yeah that's the one spoiler I'm so grateful to have because now I know to save the game. I am not ashamed to reload if it means getting Kitsuragi to dance with me, I want him to have fun... He deserves it.
One thing I find so interesting about Disco Elysium is that... it's not a game about creating a God among men, it's a game about _barely being in control of yourself_
It's a game about being human...a sad, sad, lonely human. If you ever feel the social anxiety of interacting with others, this game perfectly captures that feeling.
Man the grind of picking up tare just to try and get enough money to stay at the hostel was both soul crushing and the most engaging game experience ive had in a while
The point you mention I think has also a massive, interesting side effect. And that is that, with enough luck and investment into specific skills (and maybe drugs), you can manage to be actually good, at like 1 thing or 2. And it feels so good when the wreck of a man you're trying to pilot manages to actually surprise Kim by doing it, that I have not felt any bigger rush having any other character compliment me, maybe ever. Which in turn makes disappointing Kim feel so much worse too. And my god did they write him perfectly for such a task. I am a straight man, and I was still crushing on Kim like a rabbid fangirl by the time Harrier was. I mean, just to use an example, the first day on my first attempt playing the game. I built Harrier with Intellect and Motorics in mind, specially Intellect, and left Psyche and Physique as dump stats. I wanted to get as much info as possible so it felt natural to get info from int and open things or crawl around with moto, I guessed I'd just try and avoid confrontations as much as possible. And in dialogue this generally followed through, if I thought I could get info, that choice got priority, otherwise I'd prioritize any dialogue I thought would be funny while trying to exhaust everything. Halfway through the first day, poor dubois had died to more things than I could count, including but not limited to: a chair, a ceiling fan, a mirror, his own thoughts (in multiple ways), being insulted by a kid, beat by a security guard, etc... On top of that, his personal life wasn't faring much better. I mean at least I didn't make him racist, and I kinda fought his alcoholism (except for licking the table, of course) but that's about as good as it got. If he was a broken shell of a man to begin with, I'm pretty sure I managed to convince everyone whatever was left of him was mangled beyond repair. He confessed everything to the woman on the boat, didn't try to hide anything to anyone else for that matter, tried to get the boots but ultimately relented because I was being professional when it came to work, fled from the whirling in rags debt only to come back with the tail between his legs, hit on pretty much anyone I could make him, including mangling that one really funny meme, and due to a surprising crit, managed to convince himself he should draw grafitti with gasoline and set it on fire... He was a MESS. That said. I did the autopsy damned perfectly. The police work was flawless, including discovering the [CENSORED FOR SPOILERS], shooting down the corpse, finding everything and managing to predict about as much as possible, etc. And at the end of the day, after the immense pile of humiliations that was that day, when the night came and we went to the balcony to smoke with Kim... He congratulated du Bois. Said he had done a good job. He was happy. And I swear turning into a literal god wouldn't have made me feel even half as powerful as I did that moment. I've been congratulated for saving the world so, so many times. All gamers have, it's all but expected. But being told Harrier had managed to rise to the heights of being above average on even one single aspect of his mess of a life... It made me feel the same way I do when I finally beat a boss on a fromsoft game which I am woefully underleveled from but kept trying to beat out of a mix of pride and stupidity. Generally speaking, turning into a god is expected. Being told you saved the world and managed to destroy the literal embodiment of all evil is practically a formality. But managing to have Kim tell you that you did better than he expected? I didn't expect that one. The game taught me to expect being a disappointment to everyone. I was practically a wreck for a whole god damned day. So yeah, in a way, being barely in control of yourself proved to be one of if not the most empowering experiences. And Kim being as good of a good boy as he is was a large part of that. What a game!
I felt so bad as the protagonist when I first played disco elysium I might have had the world record for the fastest person to get the achievement "the sorry cop" lol
I did that too and it felt like the game taught me to stand up for myself lol, once I started giving Harry some authority during questioning I got rewarded and it made me reconsider that aspect of myself
SAME I appreciate that the game both rewards and criticizes any way you choose to act, up to and including being repentant for your actions... It taught me it's important to apologize, yes, but apologies only get you so far. Especially when you're working with a lot of tough people who have better things to do than watch you lick your wounds in an odd display of forgiveness-fishing. There came a point where I started to actively avoid being sorry cop, after a day or two, because it wasn't serving anyone much anymore, least of all Harry at that point.
my first point was in drama. when i made Kim irritated with me a few times i chose empathy and told my friend (who i was streaming the game for) that I'm choosing this to see when Kim's angry with me. and then I was confused why I got sorry cop
The thing that Disco Elysium taught me is that failing is rewarding in its own way. It is rare that a game have you miss a skill check and then go "Alright that went tits up. Here are other options you can try. Get back there tiger!"
My favorite case of this is getting the game board and asking Kim to play, failing the check just means you ask him again, and falling a third time has you making puppy eyes until he relents. Same with Cindy’s check, you need to fail it to get what you want because succeeding makes her mad.
I failed the Savoir Faire check at the beginning of the game to try and run away from the Whirling In Rags, and it ended up cutting the debt from 130 real to 100 real. It was awesome to realize that happened.
i will never forget the moment in disco elysium when, while trying to convince to punks to give my character their cool jackets i failed a check, and instead of saying anything convincing the character began to have a tantrum worthy of a seven-year-old, foot stomping and whining included. the punks felt so awkward one gave my character his jacket out of pity! that whole exchange started one hell of a laugh out of me! god i love that game
I failed an authority check to tell a girl she should be wearing a hat, so the character had a full-blown mental breakdown and it was the funniest shit I've ever seen
The juxtaposition of ‘I wish games would do this, games don’t do this and now I’m making games do this’ and ‘I have never played a lot of games, I’m doing my own thing with not many influences’ is insane to me. Games have portrayed politics, homosexuality, death, grief- all those things for years. He doesn’t know it because he hasn’t bothered to play them.
What do you mean? Detroit: Become Human is the only reason any of us know about segregation, MLK, Detroit and humans. Before, people were like, "isn't it strange that we're here? If only we were something, like some kind of species...who's that guy yelling on TV? It sure is odd that everyone decided to board the bus like that...and hey, what about that place in Michigan that isn't any of those other places in Michigan? It should have, like, a name or something..." I believe the words you're looking for are, "Thank you, David Cage. I am now enlightened, a better person and have basic knowledge." Also, that thing he came up with that involves folding paper is pretty neat, people should do that with napkins, that'd be cute.
I feel like that quote feels like any quote by many game journalists who like to make sensationalistic and utterly lying video game articles and expected us to believe that said article at face value
@@KhezuOnYourScreen imagine Ohio but instead of manmade horrors beyond your imagination, it's every warzone in history all at once. Ohio is still better.
David Cage seeing himself as the first ever person to make a compelling narrative in a video game really just goes to show how far up his ass his head is. The video game medium has been around for ages, much longer than he has been in it. He doesn't see how the medium can elevate his stories, only how his stories can elevate the medium itself, which is just incredibly pretentious and kinda just disrespectful.
Phenomenally well put. He seems like he's under the impression that the medium only existed once he entered it. Like somebody with crippling main character syndrome who thinks political issues only started happening once they themselves realized they exist.
All I have to add: Cannon Foter. One of the oldest game which despite being" Hehe, soldiers go to war" when You are playing have really heavy and anti-war meaning.
He refuses to actually engage with what makes games special in his own games. He keeps trying to make his game as far way from "gamey" as possible, which is a damn shame.
playing metal gear, while you cant make choices the game makes you fell, they actually put you in a situation in which you have to make the choice and then live with that
Gods, I've never gotten that one in game, but I've seen videos. I love that even tho you can turn it around, he still needs time away from you. An apology doesn't instantly make everything better, but it does mean that things can get better.
When I first played Disco Elysium I thought that the title was just a joke about a Latin phrase beloved by law and med students - Disco Inferno, which means "I learn through suffering". But in one interview Kurvitz actually explained that Elysium is the name of the world that he and his friends created in the process of playing homebrew RPGs. And so the title means "I learn Elysium" and it was always meant to be an introduction followed by more works in that setting(although, the actual first published work in it is Sacred and Terrible Air, which was being translated, but now is in legal Limbo). Also, Clancy Brown's cold evisceration of David Cage is something I really needed to hear.
@@anyoneatall3488 Even if we do, they may not compare. The world of the game is only a small part of what makes it so singularly fantastic. Would another character in that world suffering from amnesia just feel like a rip-off? Would another character's Skills all have the same personalities as Harry's (which would be weird), or would they be different (which would be weird)? I think for all the game's suggestion that it has a much larger world to explore, any attempts to do so would be diminishing returns.
What happened to the creators is a tragedy, yet that is the most Disco Elysium thing that could have happened. Still, that wasn't very Disco of their studio to remove them.
@@kylevernon I wouldn't say they inherently fall apart but I would say that they have no strong drive to stay together while corporations have a big extrinsic motivation to stay together (money, as you so astutely pointed out). sorry, academia does things to you...
@@ihaveaplan.ijustneedmoney.9777 This may be wrong, but I read somewhere that earlier in development; it was actually the father's body weight crushing his head against the concrete that killed Jason, not the car. Might have just been a rumor though.
@@justryland AFAIK it was supossed to be more gruesome (Most likely the car going at 100 mph or something) but Sony forced them to tone it down and instead it looks like Jason died because his father crushed him or something
I like to headcanon that Ethan tackled Jason at such a bad angle he snapped his neck or smashed him so hard into the pavement it caused critical brain trauma.
I'm glad I'm not the only person who played Disco-man as a repentant recovering alcoholic just trying his best to make Kim proud. The optimal way to play honestly, no one makes Kim sad, not even me.
I took Wasteland of Reality thought after I told Kim about wanting to take on Le Responsiblity, and he was disappointed that I wasn't talking about becoming sober.
Heavy Rain feels like goofing around in a serious newbie DM's campaign and he just ignores your antics to railroad you Disco Elysium feels like goofing around in a serious, experienced DM"s campaign and he lets you have your antics and goofs and gaffs, just to sucker punch you in the mouth later with genuinely heartbreaking writing built off what you did as a joke/gag.
"I wish to run away from the Barkeep demanding money, I roll" DM Checks roll "You sprint off as fast as you can, while making your escape you think it'd be a good idea to turn around flipping double birds as the barkeep as you fly out the door. Instead you fly into an old lady in a wheelchair and a pinball machine and are knocked out."
Yes exactly. The parts when Harry saw his ex-lover (in his dreams) broke my heart. When you begin to understand his situation it becomes clear how depressing his life is, and has been, but in a serious manner (instead of the running gag).
Seriously... There's been so much that I've brushed off or thought "ah cool classic video game loose thread to get you thinking" only for it to have a VERY direct and obvious reason for it elsewhere on the map. They didn't add ANYTHING in as filler, there's always a reason and you can always tie it all back to the main investigation, even if it's just getting something to use to smooth the path over later unexpectedly. It's interesting learning this lesson about this game in a blind playthrough because there are so many pleasant surprises all the time. I'm trying to do as much as possible all at once and so, so many things I thought were just goofy or silly really effect everything. It makes the NPCs feel like real people, who really take your actions into account in their lives, even if that just means they'll try harder to avoid you or they'll go out of their way to make your struggle easier. Either way.
One of the parts that stayed with me the most from my first (and so far, only) Disco playthrough was when I found a phone in a corner of the map and started calling random people. I just got a few funny responses, pretty much just prank-calling strangers. It seemed an entirely pointless waste of money, but I kept going. Then completely out of nowhere the gag turned into the most depressing scene in the entire game. Masterpiece.
COMPOSURE [Legendary: Success] - Despite taking *much* longer than you anticipated, you've retained enough sanity to pull through and publish the video. Countless of hours spent on researching, drawing, and editing have finally paid off. LOGIC - Sleep. URICKSALADBAR - "YES, FINALLY!!" Urick crashes into his bed and is knocked out instantly. It was a good night's rest. --- EDIT 02/07/23 ENCYLOPEDIA [Trivial: Failure] - You got the Estonian flag wrong in the intro, it's upside down. But at least you got it right in the conclusion. URICKSALADBAR - "Oh." -1 MORALE DAMAGE
After watching this, I later found out that Quantic Dreams will be releasing another game possibly this year called "Under the Waves". Here's hoping that it'll be a better, more grounded game, than a flashy movie esque game.
One thing I was to say about Disco Elysium is that thank god they invested in the update with the voice acting. I played like a quarter way through before it had it and I couldn't really be drawn in from the intense amount of text. While the text was usually really good, the personality with the voice acting really makes me want to give it another go.
the first achievement i unlocked in disco elysium was "world's most sorry cop" and my second thought was "rigorous self-critique". i wonder what this says about me.
David Cage is the equivalent of a guy who during the earlier years of television, tries to make television programmes that are more like radio shows, so as to capture the "mature" radio audience rather than just bothering to make good tv shows.
@greatrug427 I mean that he has chosen a particular medium to tell stories, but he is obsessed with trying to emulate an entirely different more widely accepted medium, in order to validate his art. I love radio too, but it is an entirely different experience to television, and I wouldnt try to make a television show that was like a radio drama, because that would be a waste of all the unique tools the medium has to offer.
@@owenlealThis feels weirdly dismissive. Like, why are you dismissing an entire genre of games? What video games have as a strength that no other medium has is their interactivity, which could be great for a more cinematic experience
@@garnetame as I understand that it was that the financial investors were using ZA/UM as a tool for financial and legal fuckery, so they get more of the money, while the creatives get fucked
@@garnetame Nobody will be able to explain. Almost everybody crying about it doesn't actually know what happened. But the short version is: They fucked around during the making of the game (in their toxic treatment of their employees and in letting some shadybois run the business) and that bit them on the ass. They tried to steal the game's source code, and the shadybois fired them. Disco Elysium 2 won't happen because all of these parties share the IP (from a royalties perspective) and won't work together. Even that is a horribly reductive summary though. Watch the People Make Games documentary for more info, that still doesn't tell the whole story but it's the best explanation so far.
@@alternatealt5900 it's unfortunately become politicized due to the hyper fixation around it. The more it's thought of and talked about as opposed to just existing, the more likely that it gets attached to a political movement.
I think Cage's biggest problem (as if with a lot of people, unfortunately), is that he doesn't realize that games is a different form of media. Like a book is to film, they're completely different kinds of media that delivers their stories in a very different way. It seems that he wants to makes games into movies, instead of movies into games. That probably really sounds super weird, but what I'm trying to say is that it feels inappropriate to try to make a medium behave like another and remove aspects of what makes that medium it's own thing. We can have a game with aspects that we enjoy about film and books and such but you have to work with it's strengths instead of just trying to make film 2.0.
Yeah, but he's a failed movie director who couldn't hash it in the big boy pool and saw vidya as a shallower pool where he's got a bigger chance of standing out, just ignore the fact that there's thousands of ancient FMV games out there that have done what he's done.
Basically David Cage fails to work the uniquiness of games into his work because he simply doesn't understand why they work well when they do, so the thing he DOES understand, movies, he forces into this medium and ultimately fails at that, because he's too rigid in his understanding of movies aswell Yoko Taro for example had long segments in NieR and NieR Automata where you just look at text on a screen for a while, yet somehow it works perfectly well even though we're not in a Visual Novel or book at all
Yea I feel like the issue is that it neglects the weight that choice can actually have. Disco works because it thrives on how we interact and make decisions with its world and character, the narrative is something we have to actively seek out.
That car wreck was so stupid, I find it hard to believe Jason would've died from that. An easy fix would be just Jason getting hit, with Ethan not being able to reach him fast enough. That whole dive fucks with the themes too, Ethan not getting to him would only hammer home his later motivation to save Shaun.
@@Gannoh The fact that he dived is the entire motivation for the Origami Killer to start doing what he did, though, so if you remove that the narrative falls apart
As someone from Eastern Europe, you got one thing wrong. Te devs of Disco Elysium being from a post soviet country isn't the reason they portray communism favourably. In fact it's the exact opposite. Them being from Estonia is the reason they are CRITICAL of communism in their game, despite being leftists themselves. If Disco Elysium was made by American leftists, there would 100% be at least one communist character who actually embodies the communist ideals. The game is overall very leftist, it doesn't pretend to be apolitical, it has opinions on racism, sexism, homophobia, capitalism, centrism, communism, all those things. But it's also very cynical about leftist idealism and doesn't pull its punches when satirising the sad reality of communism in the world.
Huge endgame spoilers but I feel like the Deserter is very much the devs showing their ideal communist. Sure, the dude had a lapse of ideological faith, but he’s spent every day reflecting on it and is so committed to not living in a capitalist society that he’d rather die alone on an island. I feel like the critique in this game is moreso of communists for letting a revolution pass them by and allowing Capital to consolidate to the point that another is nearly impossible rather than of communism as a practice.
Weirdly I got to the end and saw the deserter as someone who was outdated and trying to hold on to something that would never work. I saw him more as a criticism of blindly holding onto your ideals too long, ideals that already killed everyone else the first failed time.
I’d say it’s definitely sympathetic to communism, heavily critical of Stalinism/the Soviets, the authoritarians who try to coat over their atrocities in a coat of red paint. And probably cynical that attempts to get to the former will crash into becoming the latter.
I really don't think that he is meant to be someone inspiring or the ideal. He is a bitter old man who failed utterly to do anything in support of his chosen ideology. He failed to stand and fight, he failed to take any meaningful action, he only managed to die miserable and alone. The biggest contribution the leftist ideal was when he helped the Everarts but even that was more trickery then anything else, and the shot that set off the entire game was just a bitter old man being jealous someone else was screwing the girl he was lusting after.
I recall Woolie and Pat commenting that what happened to the devs of Disco Elysium feels like a plot point out of their own game, and boy is that both accurate and very sad. I hope they can come together to make another game some day, because Disco Elysium is such a wonder, unique game and I can just feel in my bones the company that gave them the boot will not understand it as they milk the name
I hope they can get the rights back. It's going to be butchered otherwise. But on the other hand, it's now morally correct to pirate DE. There is literally no reason people shouldn't go and experience Disco Elysium now.
A lesson to be learned, you either stop cosplaying as a full blown communist, or the liberals will stop indulging in your fanaticism. Another lesson, communism doesn’t work…
The company made the game. Disco Elysium wasn't some tiny game made by three people then taken by an unrelated company. Elements of the world and setting existed before the company, but the entire game - its systems, its characters, its plot, its atmosphere - was made at that studio. But yeah, sure, the company "will not understand" lolol.
One of my faverite failures in DE, is when you to break the news to the lady that her husband is dead. When you failed, you emotions just say "I can not it" and so does your character. It bring so much humanity to already sad scene.
It's such an extreme moment of overwhelming emotion for Harry that even at 97% success rate you still always fail the check. You need to have empathy at the absolute highest levels to go through with it.
@@yoursonisold8743 wait you seriously fail at 97% chance? Is that true? Because if that’s the case, why on earth would a developer find that profound to take away control from the player? You might as well not make any option and just sit back and watch the main character make the decisions for you…I understand that emotions are high, and your character is his own character, but an rpg is still an rpg, and the character you make should be what you as individual want him to be as. I think its unorthodox for developer to just force you to fail because this is essentially what the developer feels, and no you as the individual.
@@malbasedvalentine3210 You can pass the check if your Empathy is really high. But even at lower Empathy the percenatage can reach 97% because your character thinks he can do it, but turns out none of the mind parts want to do it. It's narratively sound. These checks are not reliable either way, you can always succeed or fail at any percentage, after all it's random chance. This is one of the only scripted ones, but to a player they wouldnt see the difference unless they keep reloading to see that it was not just a freak fluke.
@@yoursonisold8743 my empathy was at level 7 and I passed the check Which, I don't consider it very high taking into account that my conceptualization and Drama were at 11
disco elysium is probably my favourite game of all time. there's just such an immense passion flowing from every corner of it; the art, the characters, the dialogue, the humour, and i would argue one of the most engaging stories in all of media. the first playthrough of DE is such an indescribable experience. one of few games i think truly deserves a 10/10.
Now we sit back and wait for a "Kim Kitsuragi: The Best Best Friend" Seriously though, Urick, this was a great video as always! I knew from the good cop bad cop title card that this was gonna be a step up in quality, and I was not disappointed. Well done!
Oh my god please i need it. I need a video on "How to write a perfect sidekick/bestfriend/straightman (or not quite) in all of media" because lets be honest, Kim is the best
On my first disco play through, I beat addiction, solved the case, saved Kim and adopted Cuno as my apprentice/son and kept my job. I was very proud of myself
DE also had the best romance in a game I've seen with Lilienne. You go on a walk with her. Clears both of your heads. She makes it clear that will be it. She also goes along with your crazy ramblings about the sun. Love how grounded it was. Her accent also rules haha
I do love talking to her after the big event towards the end, and how worried she is for you if you went on that little date with her. It shows that while nothing more may happen at the moment, you did make a good impression on her, and she does care about you.
@@faffywhosmilesatdeath5953 It is also nice that your Skills (Empathy, I think) hint that things could work out with Lilienne if Harry properly sobers up, gets his shit together and gives her time (since her husband died in a drunk accident) which lets the relationship cook slowly (a slow burn). I like to think that if Harry sobers up and gives her about a year, he'll get that next proper date with Lilienne.
I feel like a film nerd saying this, but Disco Elysium has some of the most fascinating Mise En Scène I've ever seen in a game. It feels like every object on screen was planned to the last detail
well, I learned a new term today. Thanks for that, and I agree. The game bends over backwards to make every single piece of junk you interact meaningful to the story - and that's great. But it's also fine if you miss it. That requires real mastery over the story, writing and real organizational skills.
@@CDexie It's crazy how true that is. Like from the word go, unless you make certain skill checks you owe a big chunk of money. And kinda need money in general. How do you get it though? Various ways, one of which is turning in Tarė to the convenience store in town. How do you get it? Find a bag. And then find garbage cans and various bottles left around. So you're incentivized to interact with literal trash lying about. And you're also free to not bother.
A moment in Disco Elysium that will always be ingrained in my mind is the following, I was doing a high empathy run for my first run, I was talking to the bookkeeper’s daughter and I had gotten the super detective cop from her and she gave me dick Mullens hat, the scene for me was very wholesome and it did fill me with joy, but then I head for 20 capeside apartments… and I had to break the news that her husband was dead, it was terrible, i literally broke down. The the narrative and world is so strong that I unintentionally made myself go on an emotional roller coaster. I love DE.
One of the things that blew me away with Disco Elysium was the idea that they cannot be trusted and the contradictions they present each other. It genuinely felt real in a way that I don't think any other game has done before. When interrogating [Redacted] and Logic told you Empathy and Drama could not be trusted as they have already been fooled which blew me away as I had played a more empathetic Raph, but I had moments of reason where things didn't call for empathy but needed to put those feelings away to progress the case at the cost of being "human" It's so interesting have these emotions and thoughts as party members
You know what the funniest part is? Even Logic is compromised. And he abuses his role as Logic to trick you into believing him. ONLY Volition is not compromised. If you have high Volition then it will tell you that you can literally trust nobody in the entire group and is the only facette that will always call out everyone's BS. When you snap Drama out of it, Drama, as usual, overcompensates and calls her a witch and becomes super hostile towards her, making it compromised in the opposite direction and Volition still calls it out for that too. Volition is the greatest ally in this game to me lol
What's even better is that Volition (the one that gets angry and calls out the other skills, not Logic) itself in that moment is compromised. It's upset it got tricked, and it's main thing is try and Protect "Ralphie". But in that situation it's answer is to basically do a system shutdown and to try and get rid of a serious threat to you. When it tries to show how dangerous they are to you by point out how it's compromised everyone, it singles out Drama and Electrochem. Neither of which are skills that are good at decision making. It also tries to throw shade on Logic which responds along the lines of "The hell I do?". It will get Drama to agree to arrest [redacted] as they were able to beat Drama in lying. Actually most damning that Volition is Compromised, is it will say Kim is Compromised as well.
@@NEEDbacon Volition actually calls out everyone though, especially Suggestion, because Suggestion is basically always compromised anyway (I love that there is a moment in the game where Suggestion literally gaslights you by saying that he is always wrong and you are at fault for following his advice lol). Volition knows the entire mind is compromised and stays cautious. Out of all the options you have, you can only trust Volition to give it to you straight. As for Kim, I guess you are refereing to the fact that he SPOILER is homosexual? SPOILER I dont think that being compromised is JUST about attraction in this scenario. You can TELL that Kim is actually fooled by her act and that she did garner sympathy in him. He is definitely compromised too. She is just that good.
@@yoursonisold8743 Yeah, actually should have pointed out it will banter with your more higher stats, though Electrochem always gets picked on. They won't say anything if they're too low (like Drama). Funny enough is the VERY LAST thing Suggestion says after insulting Volition is "This is human nature" which to a degree is what's going on with you. You find her pretty, so you're acting like an idiot. It's not wrong it saying "Your stats are not working rn". But rather then stay cautious, it wants you to arrest her, effectively getting rid of her. And positions itself as the only correct one, as opposed to also being under the influence of her. It kinda swings too far on the other side of the pendulum. The "If she breaths, she's a Thot" to everyone else going "All Women are Queens" Kim, while he might believe her story, he's not on the fritz like you are. He'll arrest her if you tell him to. And you can talk to him about how she has influence over you. It's more he's focused on the murder case, less she's a corporate spy.
@@yoursonisold8743 Volition is one of the most reliable skills, but as with the other skills he gets compromised by Klaasje, just in the opposite direction. While he is the first to realize Klaasje isn't being entirely honest, he does the same thing as Drama (overcorrect into thinking Klaasje is the true culprit of the murder) before Drama. Really the only skill that chimes in to not be compromised is Inland, because it's too concerned with the Miracle and the greater scope of things than Klaasje, which Volition gets confused by.
Joyce is my favorite character by far. Talking with her is a genuine joy, and I can't help but like her. And I hate that I like her. Because she DOES represent the worst of the worst, and she actively helps them get away with it all, yet... I can't truly blame her. She's just one person, and when faced with a massive conglomerate like Wild Pines, the urge to just nod and smile and keep your head down is very rational. I don't hate Joyce - hell, I don't even hate her choices, per se. I hate the world for being the way it is. And not in a nihilistic way, it's just... a damn shame. Disco is such an incredible work of art.
First time leaving a video after a spoiler warning because I want to experience the game first. Thanks for making me care so much, DE has been sitting on my library for 2 months, and this video is the one that will push me to play it. Can't wait to have some free time and play it
Same, I got convinced to play the game from this video, paused it at the bit where there was a spoiler flag, and then took 19 days of on and off playing out of a somewhat busy schedule to play this game. Just finished tonight, and went back to watch this video.
My theory is most people only played the very first diner section of that game and formed their opinion on the game from that. The first part is kind of good where its this interesting choose your own adventure mystery where you play as the suspect and the police solving the crime you committed. These people didn't play long enough for the game to get really fucking stupid. Like the part where you're stupid matrix powers activate, or when the black cop goes to play basketball (because black guy) and plays in an outside court in the middle of a sub zero, fuck-off blizzard, or the end where you dragon ball z fight an AI internet man for the fate of the world. God I think no other David Cage game gets as stupid as Indigo. Beyond and Heavy Rain come close but at least you don't get any love interests in those games that insist on making sweet love to your protagonist's zombie body.
@@habadasheryjones it absolutely blew my mind that the quick time events were fuccin Simon color repeating. I couldn’t believe no one was talking about that
Oh, then I strongly recommend to learn about his first game - "Omikron: The Nomad Soul". That one is a real testament to his hack-fraud ways of game development and incompetence at storytelling. He even convinced David fucking Bowie to star in it. It's truly bizarre
One aspect of Disco Elysium that took awhile to click with me was how many, if not most, of the dialogue options (particularly the political ones) veered off into the deep end of extremes. There's usually a 'middle ground' option as well, but they're worded to make you seem milquetoast at best and cowardly or avoidant at worst; and the game will even actively mock you for picking them. Literal quote from Rhetoric: "Say one of these Fascist or Communist things or fuck off." It took some time and learning about the character for me to finally understand that that's the point. Ha- er, RAPH isn't a blank-slate character for the player to project themselves or their ideals onto. He existed before the events of the game, and is a fleshed-out person with a history, personality, and decades of life experience that all inform who he is and how he acts. Sure, you can make choices of what to say, but your options are only going to be things it would occur to Raph to say in the first place. It's role-playing in it's purest sense. You're not making your role, you're GIVEN one and told to play it. An actor can make decisions in a performance, but they can't rewrite the script or their character. And you, the player, have been dropped into the head of this neurotic, shambling disaster of a human being and told to make the best of it.
That's the diegetic explanation of the crazy ass political things you can say. The meta reason, of course, is that it's goddamn hilarious having you fumble on your political opinions and either forcing you to be a spineless coward ingame, that reinforces the mindset that eats away the city in the first place - or be a brutal, bloodthirsty idiot. It's such a raw experience, seeing the blatant, BLATANT fascist, communist and capitalist options and cringing, then seeing a way out with the most pathetic of a whimper response in that "D" option. I've seen friends go through that and it's hilarious, I've seen let's players having to play it off because they don't want to approach the icky politics with a ten foot stick, but the game simply won't let them. The politics are *integral* to the story.
But I do have to point out that the complete "reset" of Harry's memory and mind does allow you to reshape him. In fact a lot of the game revolves around you reconstructing Harry in a way that changes him. Whether it be positively, negatively or something inbetween. You can pick the boring options and Harry will become a boring no-nonsense cop. It's not like he will veer into extremes regardless of what you pick. You really do have the choice to "rewrite" him. Another example would be that there is a factual record of how many kills Harry has in his carreer: 3 to be exact. And this is among over 300 cases. So it logically follows that Harry is not a violent man and tends to use his gun as an absolute last resort. Yet you can play him as an apocalyptic maniac who threatens everyone and has zero gun safety awareness whatsoever. I don't disagree with your point that the game gives you a pre-existing character and the vestiges of the old Harry do try to steer you towards his old traits in some regards, but it is still a game that allows you to play with your own voice and preferences completely straight. The only times this is not the case is with things related to the past. Harry will always be sad and depressed when confronting his failed relationship, the only thing you can affect is how he copes with it (if at all). In the very end the game (through the colleagues at the police department) will judge you on how much of the original Harry you really represent. But due to the fact that Harry was a complex person who had good and bad traits, the end result always feels like it still fits within his boundaries. Just veered to a much stronger extreme perhaps. The incident is what broke and changed him, so you are allowed to become a new Harry.
And it starts to make sense when you interact with others in the world and see how deep their opinions can get too. Everyone is like this and har-err.. Raph is the human can opener so he's better than most at getting it out of people
The "miracle" you mention in Disco Elysium is one of my favourite sidequests in any game. I managed to get it in the context of a high Shivers & Inland Empire communist sorry cop run and after a particularly despairing conversation with the Deserter the payoff of THAT was honestly beautiful. I teared up. For the record the other best scenes in the game are passing the Shivers check in the nightclub and FAILING the roll for karaoke but that's just me
Passing the checks at the church/nightclub is honestly essential to the game in my opinion. It really lays bare the core of the entire thing and makes the case you deal with feel so insignificant. It gives you an entirely different perspective and that's why it actually leads to a path where you can abandon the case and get a completely different ending.
@@yoursonisold8743 [Spoilers for anyone who hasn't played obviously] I disagree that it makes it insignificant, at least for my experience it didn't! The spot in the church, yes it's a sign of the Pale encroaching and within the next few decades all of Martinaise will be gone. But the case, the phasmid, the Deserter and his plight- even knowing the world will end, it didn't make that any less important and meaningful. Idk if anything it made me think about how I wanted to get better. I wanted my sad sorry cop to make the most of the time he has left. But I guess that's what's so fascinating about this game!!!!!! It gets you to think and discuss how you deal with really heavy concepts like this and it doesn't necessarily penalize you for thinking about it differently- for example I had no idea there was an alternate ending!!!!
@@bean3550 [Spoiler] Oh yes, you can choose to follow the path of the moderate, the MoralIntern route. If you say enough moralist things then eventually you can internalize thoughts and get a questline where you try to contact MoralInterns airship above Martinaise. The original intention is to contact them so they will support you stop the encroaching war between the workers and Pines/the mercenaries. For that you need the help of the scientist lady and her computer which she only provides after you find "the hole" in reality or otherwise convince her that her work is done. So once you actually make contact with MoralIntern (in a very complicated and slightly absurd way) you can ask them a limited amount of questions and appeal to them to send help. Unfortunately they consider themselves above meddling with internal politics and even the threat of a civil war in the district wont be enough and they will wish you best of luck. But! If you tell them that you discovered a phenomenon in the church that created a tear in the Pale, then they will be _extremely_ serious and alarmed and they will offer you to take you on their ship. If you agree they will swoop down right in the middle of Martinaise and take you with them, abandoning the investigation and leaving it to Kim. In this ending you stop being a cop and instead join MoralIntern's phenomena investigation unit, because this is so much more important than some murder case. The quest and trophy is called something along the lines of "Greater responsibility". Very neat. It was actually the first ending I got haha
I heard that during early development, Ethan had a psychic connection to the Origami killer. But that part was later dropped from the story. However, there were other bits and pieces that were connected to that removed plot point that still remain in the game. Hence, why some of Ethan's actions were not explained.
I really loved Disco and my own "Raphie". At first he had trouble thinking clearly in emotions and logic, but was Strong as a bull and his reactions faster. At first I was unsure of the depth he would find, what could a man so dominated by his body reveal about the world? I was very wrong. His emotions he expressed with his body, with confident familliarity of a gun, the interlocking of engine mechanics, the satisfaction of jumping from roof-top to roof-top, with kinetic memory of phone number often dialed. He struggled a lot with dark though of the world ending, of anger with separation, He tried to let go and the echo followed him. I guess he saw the ugliness and injustice in his the world and tried to change it, was frustrated by his lacking, self-destructed, and then finally found in the little corners honesty, empathy and meaning. His journey was long, but I felt hopeful for him.
It made me smile when I realize how different your Harry was from mine but how we both were able to explore Rivachol and get similar love for it. My Harry was more of words than fists, I failed miserably trying to punch my way out of trouble, or running away from a debt and miraculously jumped from roof-to-roof to get my jacket back; but Harry was beginning to accept his flaws and try to move on from his past, he had deep convos with Kim about how he felt and how hard it was to get over Her, doing his best of batting his Addictions and Self Hatred away. My Harry revealed to the world that he could come out of the emotional hole that he was in and that things would get better than yesterday; when Kim bid farewell to me and stood by my side at the end I knew that Harry would have the road to redemption he was searching for at the start on the end of a booze bottle
Ah, the pure joy that everyone gets their different "Ralphie". One on my second playthrough where I was using a guide to help do stuff I missed out on in my first run I had gotten Everart to give my gun back. I had gotten to the peir a bit early to meet The Pigs (Cop obsessed lady). But since time only moves when you're interacting with stuff and there's not much out on the pier if you've been there before, I found the payphone there. For nothing better to do I decided I'd do some prank calls. Hit Random numbers after random number. And then I randomly punched in the number of someone I knew. Even trying to do my best to assure her I wasn't drunk and didn't mean to call I was told to stop trying to contact her. Which fair enough. Something I was doing to literally waste time and I got a minor plot dump into what Ralphie use to do. Thankfully it moved timed forward enough to where I laughed my ass off at the sheer absurdity of The Pigs. Then felt sorry as I figured out my gun was unloaded and she had a breakdown about failing to shoot us. And gave the Hardies a chance to do some good for the community.
The deserter really is one of the most sympathic villains of all time. He's not even really a villain, he's just a sad, broken person. He saw the revolution lose and his enemies win and destroy the world and what little humanity was left. And worse, society has become complacent.
Well, he's also a mysogonist and stuff, and he killed a person cuz he could not own that person. Like, he definitely got sympathetic elements but that's still some really rough stuff...
@@michimatsch5862 he was a human. There were FAR worse people in this game in comparison. Everhart and his Champagne socialists, Measurehead, the Mercenaries, Wild Pines, and the ignorant Coalition who all remain blind to the suffering of others.
You give him far too much credit. He's a sad pathetic wreck so lost in a mix of brain damage, delusion and ideology that he has lost all humanity. A failure desperately trying to cling to a oast that's gone and never really existed and who does nothing more than inflict random cruelty to placate his whims. The deserter deserves very little sympathy.
Hes a mirror of the terrible abyss Harry himself could fall into if he loses his way, clinging bitterly to past mistakes and running away to the simpler world inside his head
@@notarealperson8956 exactly, i hated him, because he gave up, because he is bitter roting carcass of a person. He let his mistakes destroy him, its even mirrored in main menu. Main menu made from his perspective, its a beautiful painting yet from his words he can only see filth. He wont see his revolution cause he doesn't have guts to do it, his last thing, last wish, is born from lust and desperation. He is comie incel boomer bug shit eater because that how he see himself
I want to do what Renegade Cut did and first play the way I would interact with the characters, then I'll play it like how a cop would interact with everybody.
For me it's the opposite, it's a really really good story that I need to really invest time and mood to explore, and I can't being myself to explore more than the 'good route' (Kim is a really supportive friend that I don't want to meet often because how bad I feel when he's dissapointed). And the new political routes do make it clear that only one route is good. Although to it's credit, I heard the Fascist route is an underrated route because it really explores the desperation of the people who cling to them, instead of them just being bad guy haha.
@@imageez Yeah that was the biggest pitfall when it comes to Disco Elysium. It seems like the writing team really just wanted to make "their" politics out to be the de facto good choice instead of making the endings varying shades of grey with no definitive "good" outcome for the most part.
@@imageez All of the vision quests are good, I'm not sure which one you're describing as "the good one". The ultraliberal one probably is the least engaging one, but it still manages to be such a scathing critique of that mindset, it's so, *so* funny. I have engaged with the fascist one the least, more by chance than choice, but it looks like it's deeply fascinating, the moralist one is the best one and the Communist quest is just hilarious and heartfelt at the same time.
i usually dont care about spoilers, when im watching a video essay and they say "if you havent played it this is your chance to do so and come back later" i usually don't but for some reason this time I downloaded the game, played it to the end and i couldn't be happier that i made that choice. this was one of the best interactive experiences ive had, this game made me laugh like a maniac, cry and everything in between. So thank you
From what I've seen, the general consensus online and in steam reviews is that pirating disco Elysium is the best option right now, because of the drama with the devs.
Sucks so badly that the creators were pushed out of their own story though, I also still really want more stories but it’ll be coming from the company and not from the creators :’(
@@MsZsc yeah if i was David cage I would just do something creativity while make video games instead making video games to be like movies because btw they're not movies video games are supposed to make us feel experience and entertained not because you can make a movie of it it's about Art it's about narrative and creativity not making it a realistic game based on other movies David cage should have been a movie director instead of being a game developer it would have make sense instead of him thinking that video games be cinematic guess what the last of us,Grand theft auto,Red dead redemption,God of war,Halo, uncharted,Lara croft are supposed to be look like it was a movie but using Computer 3d animation not to mention yes movies like superheroes can have tie in games that are sometimes nostalgia and popular like Spider man 2 it was the most remember and a Masterpiece in the ps2 what I am trying to say other gaming industries and indie developers are using narrative and storytelling, message, creativity you can't make it look like a movie I wouldn't because it's rather pointless to make video game as a movie I wouldn't just make a video game that I would took inspiration from other games & movies, shows that I like personally.
Complaining that videogames aren't more like movies is like complaining movies aren't more like books. They're all separate mediums that tell stories in different and unique ways. One isn't inherently "superior" to another, they're just different
AND YET, Quantic Dreams gets a big budget Star Wars game, while the group formally known as ZAUM gets their game taken away from them by greedy assholes. We truly live in a society!
In a weird way I'm looking forward to the QDSW games. Cause there's not a hope in hell it's not the most Dayvid Chhaagee game to Dayvid Chhaagee all over the place, pure trainwreck. Disney's handlers will be on overtime to keep him in check. "NO DAVID, YOU CAN'T HAVE A KUNG FU WIRE FIGHT IN A TWILEK BATHOUSE, especially with them all crying". But I also do hope ZA/UM gets the rights to their baby back. Both just because they deserve it, and whatever they try will make an even bigger trainwreck then QDSW. Hell, they might even bring on Dayvid Chhaagee to lead the DE sequel, just complete the cycle.
@@NEEDbacon Not sure what you mean with the last part, tbh. Based on the end product state of DE, I'd say if ZAUM ever attempted to do another game, they won everyone's vote of confidence, for sure, based on the quality of DE. I do look forward for the QDSW cringe and hours of content it will spawn.
@@Andiatus Ah, well sorry to be the one to break the news, but two of the head devs (the one's that came up with the world) got pushed out of ZA/UM by an investor. So as is, chances are whatever might be pushed out WON'T be the same ZA/UM that made DE.
@@NEEDbacon Ah, no no, I knew about that, actually. I meant more like, if the original founders of ZAUM do end up taking their studio and rights to their game back, due to all the shady things happening, and make a possible sequel, not current management of ZAUM. Having them under the same rn is rather confusing, but I got what you meant now! Thanks for clarifying!
I accidentally wore Renees facist uniform in front of the Deserter cos I thought it was 'drippy' and the guy cussed me out so bad I almost save scummed
The "I can't see doors" one is amazing. I played this game only a few times and I love to discover shit like that. My personal best success was a 8% on the torture chair. And my personal most INFURIATING failure was a 97% red check on the phasmid cryptid at the end of the game.
There's something that you need to have done something, or have a specific item or skil... it's something... i cant remember specifically. But i seem to instictually remember that if you haven't done so, you'll always fail the check crytpid check at the end. I haven't played DE in a while but that's what my memory is telling me...
Disco Elysium is definitely a game I wish I could play again for the first time because, even if I really want to replay it, it feels like I'm betraying my own choices that I did in the first playthrough. I love this game and I wish I could experience more of what it has to offer but I can't do that without feeling like I make my choices, basically unimportant. And they are unimportant, but they are important to me
If you can find a good GM and tabletop role playing game to join, do so. You probably won’t get quite the same depth of forethought that a written piece with limited options has. But cumulative persistent consequences driving a unique story? Doable. Plus you get to share that with friends.
This feels like what a good narrative should do. Either inspire curiosity to find out what could have happened, or inspire such strong feelings to never start again to solidify what you did forever. You don't need to be told to only play the game once, you choose to do that to keep the choices you chose and to not go back. Even if the characters don't know, you do.
Dancing in the church with Kim and the boys, hearing the voice of Dolores Dei, unlocking the finger guns, singing for Kim and finding the Insulindian Phasmid at the end of the game after never losing hope, talking to it and finding out it's one of the biggest plot points in the game are some of my favorite gaming moments in the last couple of years period.
I think comparative reviews are a good way to show the flaws of one project and the pros of another the accomplished the goals of the other in a more effective manner. It’s more constructive than just saying something is bad like a lot of reviews tend to do so well done!
Urick's ability to show people what did something better and worse is what makes him a real authority when it comes to these analysis. And to think he's also the lad that animated the iconic argument of OneyNG trying to gaslight people into thinking it's okay to kill innocent clones.
Remembering in Disco Elysium me and my sisters were playing it and there was the scene where Garte asks you for money My oldest sister ran away from Garte successfully My 2nd oldest sister decided to be responsible and pay up I did what my oldest sister (the tie made me do it I swear) did but failed the check, causing me to run into the old lady in the wheelchair And the best part is that mine was prolly the best outcome since he gave me a discount after that
One thing that bothers me about Heavy Rain (and a lot of other things, frankly) is that it has the main character divorced for the sake of itself. It does say anything of how Ethan handled his son's death or even what his wife is like. It's just there because divorce is tragic, and Ethan needs to be tragic. Meanwhile in Disco Elysium, the detective's relationship says quite a lot about him. If anything, it says too much about him, to the point it's hard to uncover the truth under his personal feelings about its failure, kind of like what it's like speaking to a real divorcee.
2:30 My god, even Cage's goals are patronizing. Silent Hill and even kids games like Majora's Mask have been exploring mature themes years before he stepped onto the scene. He feels like big movie fan who knows nothing about videogames that said "I'm going to make games more like movies because they're better"(and taken more seriously by main stream audiences).
I've seen a comment on one of your videos a while back saying that David Cage knows he's not competent enough as a writer or a director to make an actual movie, so he compensates by turning it into a game since it's cheaper and easier. Honestly, I can't think of a better way to explain his mindset.
Disco Elysium almost needs an intro telling you that failure is okay. I tried getting into it once, but it wasn't until I played a ttrpg that I realized failure is okay, and often hilarious. I'm glad I came back to finish the game, it was truly wonderful
I cannot stress how excited I was for this video, as someone who is passionate about both Heavy Rain and Disco Elysium for wildly different reasons. You always manage to encapsulate all my feelings about David Cage/Quantic Dream games in a way that I previously couldn't word. Love your stuff, man.
Disco elysium is a game with a character that tells you you’re like a cockatoo, giving you a quest to go buy a book and read up about cockatoos, to then decide whether you are like a cockatoo or not, which will allow you to go back to said person and either agree or disagree with them depending on what you decided. 11/10 genuinely never played something as good
I enjoyed Disco Elysium so much, I made a character based around charisma and intellect by far one of the greatest games I've ever played. It's so complex in so many ways and I loved every second of it
I know everyone has their own playstyle but this 31:34 really hits home. That's why leveling up in Fallout 4 was progressively more and more boring when I realized that my character can get every single perk in the game if I level up enough times. In comparison to New Vegas and Deus Ex where even if two people go for the same build, their endgame perks and augmentations can be completely different.
Some of the most cringeworthy, hilarious events and dialogues in the entire game only happen when you FAIL a skill check in Disco Elysium, its amazing how well written this game is. Even when you fail you can have some options opened to you specifically because of it. The things you do in the game impact whether or not you get certain pieces of information in the game, and can either lock or open side quests, the game is great. The true beauty of the writing in Disco Elysium is how HUMAN it makes you and the characters around you feel - you become attached to your hot mess of a detective and admire your lieutenant for his ability to tolerate your insanity, you feel the whole range of human emotions throughout the game which most games do not really accomplish. The writing is so good it can have you cringing with discomfort, pausing in profound, solemn melancholic reflection and crying with laughter in a single encounter. Incredible.
The visuals, the editing, the pacing, the crispness and delivery of your voice are all so top-notch. Particularly the infographics and animations present are beyond any video game essay channel I've seen, and the only comparisons I can make are with non video game essay channels like Kurzgesagt, but I think they are collaborated by teams of people rather than individuals. This is truly impressive, and as an aspiring video essayist myself, the comparison anxiety is creeping in, but for now, I'll push it back down as I aspire to be like you. It makes me happy that content as high quality as this is being served, and it's my pleasure to eat. Weird metaphor, I know, but I hope it's received in as flattering a tone as I'm trying to deliver it. Thanks for putting this together for us; I really appreciate it.
I won't lie, I was really looking forward to this video even with a subscription, I periodically went to the channel to check if it was released and FINALLY this wonderful moment has come
@@misterkefir Yeah, the one time a masterpiece crpg gets the attention it deserves on release...and a corporation rips them apart. Artists with a vision can't really win it seems.
"The game doesn't need state-of-the-art visual capture to sell you its emotion, it just has to suggest enough detail through its prose and environments" rings so true. I think it's really telling that the scene involving the insulindian phasmid had me sobbing by the end, purely because of the dialogue, ambiance and the implications in the storytelling. That shit managed to be deeply emotionally engaging in a way David Cage could never even hope to achieve.
Implying that being from a post-soviet country makes you more sympathetic to communism and not less is a really bad assumption that's so incredibly wrong you have no idea.
Every video urick does seems like a separate but connected pieces of art with images and scripts to convey their messages. He also makes me interested in most of the games he talks about whether I play them or not my interest is peaked. Thank you urick one of my favorite creators!
I think my favorite part of disco Elysium was near the pawn shop there's a guy eating salami you can ask for a piece he'll give you one and then he'll give Kim one too
Disco was made by a man who wanted to communicate feelings. Quantum games are made by someone who thinks himself a genius and wanted everyone to notice him.
Many people think Disco Elysium is a simulation of a world on the brink of collapse while in the shoes of a character with very little control of himself, but it's actually just an Estonia simulator
One game is a immensely personal narrative about choice, depression, grief, mental illness, redemption, nihilism, addiction, the dark underbelly of society, and becoming a better person in spite of the trauma you've gone through with Lynch as a major influence Starring a spacey artistic detective who uses an illicit material to escape the pain of reality and solve the impossible investigation at the heart of the narrative This is both a curse and a boon as it deteriorates the detective's sense of reality further but the cost of failure is too great for him to give it up right away Water is a prominent motif as a symbol of chaos, time, regret and death The other is heavy rain
Ah yes, Disco Elysium. I tried the game after beating Fallout 2 and immidiately maxed up Hand-Eye Coordination and Perception expecting a lot of combat. Ended up being so dumb and uncharismatic, I couldn't even look at the mirror without having a mental breakdown. 10/10 made me miserable.😅😅
I played Disco Elysium as a communist, as I am a communist in real life. It's depiction of the ideology has been unmatched, it doesn't fall into the same pitfalls that American games usually dive into. It's an honest critique of communism both in game and in real life by communists. The in-jokes of despising social democrats, the obvious dig at the ineffectual nerdy Marxists Leninists and the complete loss of hope that a revolution would ever come again cements it as the greatest narrative experience I've ever had.
I played ultra liberal as I am liberal in real life and I have to agree. The game picks up on your world view and makes fun of it without being obnoxious. It makes you think about yourself in a way that not many other games can do.
Adding to that, the final encounter you have (well, technically the second to last) is an extra treat for communists. SPOILERS FOR DISCO ELYSIUM (srsly go play that game if you haven't). . . . . . . . . . After spending the whole game with accurate enough but still slightly distorted/satirical portraits of ideologies, having an actual hardcore communist talking about the failure of the revolution and the brutality of the Capital was a jaw-dropping moment for me. No punches pulled, just raw critique of capitalism in its purest form. It almost feels like the writers talking through the Deserter at some points, with things like the mask of the Capital. After that moment, I was (even more) sure that the writers knew their shit really well.
Y'know, it's funny because. To actually 'Fail' Disco Elysium (Manage to not solve ANYTHING, among other choices), you literally need to go out of your way to get the 'Worst' possible ending, and even then - it's not failure. It's your GOAL. Whereas, even if you're actually 'Failing' things, and not intentionally messing up the investigation, you still get a solid ending. The detective isn't a bad detective. He's actually a REALLY good detective, even when he's absolutely destroyed by drugs and mania.
I know all the art assets ballooned the project's time investment, but i think it really added a lot to the visual aspects the portraits especially, even David Cage's. What an delightfully little potato he is~
Disco Elysium achieved the most important thing - pulling out our empathy. The side case where you have to inform a middle-aged woman that her husband died - drunk, alone, on the cold planks of a boardwalk - is maybe the worst I have ever felt in a game. And it'll probably stay with me forever.
In my first conversation with the woman, I kept insisting to her that I had to go look for her husband as he may be in danger. It was like I was doing it to be obnoxious, or to look like a good cop. It was clearly antagonising her. Then when I found the body, I was horrified.
My first run I just found the corpse and never properly did the sidequest with the woman. My second run, my character keeps rambling about finding her husband, and eventually she does concede she hasn't seen him in a while, and it was like, "oh, fuck, I know what's coming"
I didn't expect it at all. I had the whole conversation where I exasperated her by babbling at her about her husband and daughters until she got me to go away by convincing me to find a book about cockatoos, which made my Raph, upon reading, immediately conclude that the cockatoo was his spirit animal. I play it in VC, typically with my boyfriend and my friends, so we tend to be cackling at whatever wacky thing we're doing or guiding it in wacky directions that make Kim shake his head in exasperation himself (fondly, because Kim is *our guy*). And then I walked into #20, realized who the wife of the body I'd found was, and very weakly whispered "oh no". We were all dead silent for that scene.
I'm not surprised that Cage would say something as dense as "who cares how fast players move their thumbs"...heavy rain was the first game I saw criticised for having 'no gameplay'.
This video has inspired me to finish Disco Elysium. The line about not being meant to do everything actually hit me, because usually I'm a min-max goblin. Thank you, Mr. Saladbar.
Heavy rain gives me a laugh or two when I fail qte's, but it's NOTHING in comparison of how much I giggled like a school girl in Disco Elysium after dedicating a song to Kim and the narrator telling me he "almost" blushed
I remember when I payed disco at first I was following every goofy choice making that made my character be the worst and silliest out there, until I met Kim, after I met Kim I couldn't stomach the fact that all those choices would make Kim feel like a disappointed dad
one of the best parts about disco elysium was when i saw a dialogue option which was so absolutely stupid i HAD to press it, just to see how the game would react. When you're talking to Joyce, there's that moment where you can just keep repeating the same thing over and over again as she asks if you're okay and begs you to stop. there were times when just seeing a choice i COULD make made me audibly laugh
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btw, since you liked disco elysium, i have another recomendation for ya: torment tydes of numenera, both games are crpgs inspired by planetscape torment, a game that is a cult classic because it has a really good story from what i've heard
@@overlordtealover1128 Nah. It's different. It's really good in it's own way but also has it's own 90s junk, combat part is mid (compared to the story) and the final parts feel rushed even with restoration mods (that restore some scrapped content due to time constraints). It's great, and the closest thing to DE in terms of overall "feel", but I wouldn't say it's "way better". You might like it more if you like it's setting more or have nostalgia for old tbrpgs, but that's about it. Torment: Tides of Numenera is an ok attempt to make an indirect sequel to the planescape that just not lives up to the great name.
I started playing Disco Elysium mid-way through your analysis of it. It's become my favorite game and a cherished bond between my friend and I. The way you write your videos and analyze these themes are ASTONISHING and I want to thank you for the great content and an introduction to a game that stuck with me, I've watched all your videos since and am a fan of your work! :)
David Cage: “Game overs are a failure of the game designer.”
Disco Elysium: “You fail to grab your necktie from the ceiling fan and die of a heart attack within minutes of waking up.”
This chair is so uncomfortable that you die.
A child called you a slur which made you give up on life.
You fly into an old lady’s wheelchair and die soon after impact
You give up being a cop because you stared too much at a car.
You give up on being a cop, because communism is too hard to build.
In Heavy Rain, no one has personality. In Disco Elysium, EVERYONE has personality. Even your personality has personality. Electrochemistry is so fun to listen to.
yes agree,the only drawback I felt from disco=timed dialog
Whenever u talk with someone,the time moving on
And there's some npcs that u cant talk after a specific time/date
I know this's for a realistic reason +so people can do multiple playthroughs
But its kinda annoying for me to not be able to talk with everyone in details freely because I worried about time moving on
@@alexponco4753 Fair but I do feel like it helps to keep playthroughs fresh. You can't talk or interact with everyone in a single playthrough. I know you just said this but I think it's legitimately important. Not to mention, if you're a min-maxer, you can generally get the most out of DE in a few playthroughs.
@@AmericanBrit9834
Maybe u misunderstand my comment
Im not talking about some npc that we cant reach without specific skills/builds
Im talking about npc/dialog that available in all builds/playrhough
Like the bookstore owner,u can meet her in any playthrough using any builds/skills
But if u talk with here about her life+history+etc,it will take so much time(dozen of hours) for basically a non-essensial dialog
But for people like me=I want to know all the these useless dialogs,but the time make it impossible unless i make another playthrough just for these useless dialogs
I like volition alot
I got a little emotional at the story arc of a talking necktie. A necktie.
Worst moment in my Disco Elysium playthrough was trying to get Kim to dance and failing and instead calling him a slur and he leaves. I was devastated.
Oh, that’s terrible! I’m glad I succeeded that check.
holy shit i didnt know this would happen if you failed that check. I was having the best time when i convinced kim to dance but failing it would break my heart
I reloaded a quick save for that reason
Yeah that's the one spoiler I'm so grateful to have because now I know to save the game. I am not ashamed to reload if it means getting Kitsuragi to dance with me, I want him to have fun... He deserves it.
Actually, failing to be "cool" and then racially abusing the person next to them is very cop-like. Bravo, you are the ameri-cop.
I will always remember Disco as the game containing a chair so uncomfortable, it might actually kill you
One of the best parts of a first playtrough are the surprise "boss" encounters.
You can die when Kim says "fuck"
You can die in the first minute of the game by failing to pick up your tie
I choked laughing when my health bleed out. Poor harry.
Wait you can actually die from it?
playing disco with a cheat character who has a 6-6-6-6 build is pretty hillarious
just having a whole mental breakdown over every single question
Is there some way of doing this in console?
@@JorjIto12872 i don.t think so
Im definitely doing that next playthrough
You have to edit the savefile in notepad
cheat engine also works @@Dabednego
One thing I find so interesting about Disco Elysium is that... it's not a game about creating a God among men, it's a game about _barely being in control of yourself_
It's a game about being human...a sad, sad, lonely human. If you ever feel the social anxiety of interacting with others, this game perfectly captures that feeling.
Man the grind of picking up tare just to try and get enough money to stay at the hostel was both soul crushing and the most engaging game experience ive had in a while
The point you mention I think has also a massive, interesting side effect. And that is that, with enough luck and investment into specific skills (and maybe drugs), you can manage to be actually good, at like 1 thing or 2. And it feels so good when the wreck of a man you're trying to pilot manages to actually surprise Kim by doing it, that I have not felt any bigger rush having any other character compliment me, maybe ever. Which in turn makes disappointing Kim feel so much worse too. And my god did they write him perfectly for such a task. I am a straight man, and I was still crushing on Kim like a rabbid fangirl by the time Harrier was.
I mean, just to use an example, the first day on my first attempt playing the game. I built Harrier with Intellect and Motorics in mind, specially Intellect, and left Psyche and Physique as dump stats. I wanted to get as much info as possible so it felt natural to get info from int and open things or crawl around with moto, I guessed I'd just try and avoid confrontations as much as possible.
And in dialogue this generally followed through, if I thought I could get info, that choice got priority, otherwise I'd prioritize any dialogue I thought would be funny while trying to exhaust everything.
Halfway through the first day, poor dubois had died to more things than I could count, including but not limited to: a chair, a ceiling fan, a mirror, his own thoughts (in multiple ways), being insulted by a kid, beat by a security guard, etc... On top of that, his personal life wasn't faring much better. I mean at least I didn't make him racist, and I kinda fought his alcoholism (except for licking the table, of course) but that's about as good as it got. If he was a broken shell of a man to begin with, I'm pretty sure I managed to convince everyone whatever was left of him was mangled beyond repair. He confessed everything to the woman on the boat, didn't try to hide anything to anyone else for that matter, tried to get the boots but ultimately relented because I was being professional when it came to work, fled from the whirling in rags debt only to come back with the tail between his legs, hit on pretty much anyone I could make him, including mangling that one really funny meme, and due to a surprising crit, managed to convince himself he should draw grafitti with gasoline and set it on fire... He was a MESS.
That said. I did the autopsy damned perfectly. The police work was flawless, including discovering the [CENSORED FOR SPOILERS], shooting down the corpse, finding everything and managing to predict about as much as possible, etc. And at the end of the day, after the immense pile of humiliations that was that day, when the night came and we went to the balcony to smoke with Kim... He congratulated du Bois. Said he had done a good job. He was happy. And I swear turning into a literal god wouldn't have made me feel even half as powerful as I did that moment. I've been congratulated for saving the world so, so many times. All gamers have, it's all but expected. But being told Harrier had managed to rise to the heights of being above average on even one single aspect of his mess of a life... It made me feel the same way I do when I finally beat a boss on a fromsoft game which I am woefully underleveled from but kept trying to beat out of a mix of pride and stupidity. Generally speaking, turning into a god is expected. Being told you saved the world and managed to destroy the literal embodiment of all evil is practically a formality. But managing to have Kim tell you that you did better than he expected? I didn't expect that one. The game taught me to expect being a disappointment to everyone. I was practically a wreck for a whole god damned day.
So yeah, in a way, being barely in control of yourself proved to be one of if not the most empowering experiences. And Kim being as good of a good boy as he is was a large part of that. What a game!
A game about the experience of being a human.
@@meredithmclaughin9911 so was begging everyone for money and fining someone just to find someone to sleep.
I felt so bad as the protagonist when I first played disco elysium I might have had the world record for the fastest person to get the achievement "the sorry cop" lol
Sorriest cop on earth speedrun. I love how literally everyone in the game is appalled by you being sorry too lol
I did that too and it felt like the game taught me to stand up for myself lol, once I started giving Harry some authority during questioning I got rewarded and it made me reconsider that aspect of myself
SAME I appreciate that the game both rewards and criticizes any way you choose to act, up to and including being repentant for your actions... It taught me it's important to apologize, yes, but apologies only get you so far. Especially when you're working with a lot of tough people who have better things to do than watch you lick your wounds in an odd display of forgiveness-fishing. There came a point where I started to actively avoid being sorry cop, after a day or two, because it wasn't serving anyone much anymore, least of all Harry at that point.
my first point was in drama. when i made Kim irritated with me a few times i chose empathy and told my friend (who i was streaming the game for) that I'm choosing this to see when Kim's angry with me.
and then I was confused why I got sorry cop
I got superstar cop first and I am pretty proud of that.
comparing disco elysium to heavy rain feels like comparing the iliad to 4chan greentext stories
4chan greentext stories are like Cormac McCarthy novels compared to Heavy Rain
At least 4chan greentext stories have more entertainment value than David Cage's awful games.
That's unfair to green text stories man
There are some incredible gems to be found there
@@m.f.3347 idk, greentexts have always reminded me of old pulp fiction comics
@@buldermatts2968 That's part of their charm though. Similar to reddit's r/hfy stories having the same feel as old-school sci-fi short stories.
The thing that Disco Elysium taught me is that failing is rewarding in its own way.
It is rare that a game have you miss a skill check and then go "Alright that went tits up. Here are other options you can try. Get back there tiger!"
My favorite case of this is getting the game board and asking Kim to play, failing the check just means you ask him again, and falling a third time has you making puppy eyes until he relents. Same with Cindy’s check, you need to fail it to get what you want because succeeding makes her mad.
ironically a game with genuine fail states is much better at empowering the player and player decision than any of david cage's games
I failed the Savoir Faire check at the beginning of the game to try and run away from the Whirling In Rags, and it ended up cutting the debt from 130 real to 100 real. It was awesome to realize that happened.
i will never forget the moment in disco elysium when, while trying to convince to punks to give my character their cool jackets i failed a check, and instead of saying anything convincing the character began to have a tantrum worthy of a seven-year-old, foot stomping and whining included. the punks felt so awkward one gave my character his jacket out of pity! that whole exchange started one hell of a laugh out of me! god i love that game
omg Did you get the “piss f****t” or “Fuck the World” jacket?
@@ramonaof12thdimension13i THINK it was fuck the world jacket but its been a hot minute so i might be misremembering
I failed an authority check to tell a girl she should be wearing a hat, so the character had a full-blown mental breakdown and it was the funniest shit I've ever seen
If you can get both jackets, you can convince Kim to wear one of them.
The juxtaposition of ‘I wish games would do this, games don’t do this and now I’m making games do this’ and ‘I have never played a lot of games, I’m doing my own thing with not many influences’ is insane to me.
Games have portrayed politics, homosexuality, death, grief- all those things for years. He doesn’t know it because he hasn’t bothered to play them.
it also makes me sad that the layman quantic dream fan will have not played any other narratively driven game it seems or even probably refuse to
What do you mean? Detroit: Become Human is the only reason any of us know about segregation, MLK, Detroit and humans.
Before, people were like, "isn't it strange that we're here? If only we were something, like some kind of species...who's that guy yelling on TV? It sure is odd that everyone decided to board the bus like that...and hey, what about that place in Michigan that isn't any of those other places in Michigan? It should have, like, a name or something..."
I believe the words you're looking for are, "Thank you, David Cage. I am now enlightened, a better person and have basic knowledge."
Also, that thing he came up with that involves folding paper is pretty neat, people should do that with napkins, that'd be cute.
I feel like that quote feels like any quote by many game journalists who like to make sensationalistic and utterly lying video game articles and expected us to believe that said article at face value
@@cranberryrosebud not to be political, but what the fuck is Detroit.
@@KhezuOnYourScreen imagine Ohio but instead of manmade horrors beyond your imagination, it's every warzone in history all at once. Ohio is still better.
David Cage seeing himself as the first ever person to make a compelling narrative in a video game really just goes to show how far up his ass his head is. The video game medium has been around for ages, much longer than he has been in it. He doesn't see how the medium can elevate his stories, only how his stories can elevate the medium itself, which is just incredibly pretentious and kinda just disrespectful.
Phenomenally well put. He seems like he's under the impression that the medium only existed once he entered it. Like somebody with crippling main character syndrome who thinks political issues only started happening once they themselves realized they exist.
All I have to add: Cannon Foter. One of the oldest game which despite being" Hehe, soldiers go to war" when You are playing have really heavy and anti-war meaning.
You can just tell from how he says that he wants to make games more mature
He refuses to actually engage with what makes games special in his own games. He keeps trying to make his game as far way from "gamey" as possible, which is a damn shame.
playing metal gear, while you cant make choices the game makes you fell, they actually put you in a situation in which you have to make the choice and then live with that
I feel more pity for Kirby villains than for most Quantic Dream's characters.
People who don't know will laugh at your comment, but I thought of Queen Sectonia and Haltmann right away ...
That is such an unfair comparison though Kirby has some extremely tragic characters...
To be fair, Kirby villains can get absolutely wild and unhinged.
Also the pink fluff ball is God Emperor of Existence.
That's cause Kirby is a masterpiece of a franchise
me when im dark matter blade and i get jealous for being lonely to the point i commit literal massacre an entire planet (ripple star)
Calling Kim a slur says more about the effects of racism than the entirety of Detroit Become Human.
Gods, I've never gotten that one in game, but I've seen videos. I love that even tho you can turn it around, he still needs time away from you. An apology doesn't instantly make everything better, but it does mean that things can get better.
Honestly, I don’t think Detroit was meant to really say anything about racism. That’s what Cage himself says
@@simoneidson21 Then what was it even about
@@genericname2747 Not every story has to be some grand allegory
@@simoneidson21 I don't think you understand what game we're talking about
When I first played Disco Elysium I thought that the title was just a joke about a Latin phrase beloved by law and med students - Disco Inferno, which means "I learn through suffering". But in one interview Kurvitz actually explained that Elysium is the name of the world that he and his friends created in the process of playing homebrew RPGs. And so the title means "I learn Elysium" and it was always meant to be an introduction followed by more works in that setting(although, the actual first published work in it is Sacred and Terrible Air, which was being translated, but now is in legal Limbo).
Also, Clancy Brown's cold evisceration of David Cage is something I really needed to hear.
Will we have more games in the same universe?
@@anyoneatall3488 Depends on how the legal shit goes.
the boat song is called disco inferno, and features that lyric. fits well.
You can also say "Disco Inferno" after spin-kicking the shit out of a certain racist :V
@@anyoneatall3488 Even if we do, they may not compare. The world of the game is only a small part of what makes it so singularly fantastic. Would another character in that world suffering from amnesia just feel like a rip-off? Would another character's Skills all have the same personalities as Harry's (which would be weird), or would they be different (which would be weird)? I think for all the game's suggestion that it has a much larger world to explore, any attempts to do so would be diminishing returns.
Such a shame Quantic Dream is still around while the creators of disco elysium were all forced out of the studio. No justice in this world…
Yeah, it's especially sad in Robert's case. The dude created the world of Revachol when he was 15. Can't imagine parting with something like that.
What happened to the creators is a tragedy, yet that is the most Disco Elysium thing that could have happened.
Still, that wasn't very Disco of their studio to remove them.
@@redundantfridge9764 The masks have fallen off.
It was a collective vs a corporation. Collectives inherently fall apart while corporations have inherent sustainability models called profit.
@@kylevernon I wouldn't say they inherently fall apart but I would say that they have no strong drive to stay together while corporations have a big extrinsic motivation to stay together (money, as you so astutely pointed out).
sorry, academia does things to you...
6:50 i never got how he literally was able to body-shield his son and he still died. That always felt so badly executed.
Its weird how he grabs the kid and pulls him in further into danger instead of pushing him away. The kid wasn't THAT close to the middle of the car.
prolly smacked his head into the ground
@@ihaveaplan.ijustneedmoney.9777 This may be wrong, but I read somewhere that earlier in development; it was actually the father's body weight crushing his head against the concrete that killed Jason, not the car. Might have just been a rumor though.
@@justryland AFAIK it was supossed to be more gruesome (Most likely the car going at 100 mph or something) but Sony forced them to tone it down and instead it looks like Jason died because his father crushed him or something
I like to headcanon that Ethan tackled Jason at such a bad angle he snapped his neck or smashed him so hard into the pavement it caused critical brain trauma.
I'm glad I'm not the only person who played Disco-man as a repentant recovering alcoholic just trying his best to make Kim proud.
The optimal way to play honestly, no one makes Kim sad, not even me.
Honestly same. I even avoided save scumming unless it was because “I don’t wanna make Kim disappointed in me :(“
idk, I played him as a crazy lunatic addict and we still were best buds. he kinda likes the unpredictability of “ralph” in his own way :)
Kim is too precious.
The optimal way is to try to recover. The funniest way is to say "fuck it" and drink every hour
I took Wasteland of Reality thought after I told Kim about wanting to take on Le Responsiblity, and he was disappointed that I wasn't talking about becoming sober.
disco elysium ruined my life im now desperately in love with kim kitsuragi
this is the most relatable comment I've seen in my life
Now I have my own Kim who lives in my head and wants me to be the best version of myself
@@crizmeow8394 harrier duboismaxxing by applying a stencil of 'what would kim do' to every single situation (except when it comes to politics)
average disco elysium experience
Heavy Rain feels like goofing around in a serious newbie DM's campaign and he just ignores your antics to railroad you
Disco Elysium feels like goofing around in a serious, experienced DM"s campaign and he lets you have your antics and goofs and gaffs, just to sucker punch you in the mouth later with genuinely heartbreaking writing built off what you did as a joke/gag.
"I wish to run away from the Barkeep demanding money, I roll"
DM Checks roll
"You sprint off as fast as you can, while making your escape you think it'd be a good idea to turn around flipping double birds as the barkeep as you fly out the door. Instead you fly into an old lady in a wheelchair and a pinball machine and are knocked out."
Yes exactly. The parts when Harry saw his ex-lover (in his dreams) broke my heart. When you begin to understand his situation it becomes clear how depressing his life is, and has been, but in a serious manner (instead of the running gag).
Seriously... There's been so much that I've brushed off or thought "ah cool classic video game loose thread to get you thinking" only for it to have a VERY direct and obvious reason for it elsewhere on the map. They didn't add ANYTHING in as filler, there's always a reason and you can always tie it all back to the main investigation, even if it's just getting something to use to smooth the path over later unexpectedly. It's interesting learning this lesson about this game in a blind playthrough because there are so many pleasant surprises all the time. I'm trying to do as much as possible all at once and so, so many things I thought were just goofy or silly really effect everything. It makes the NPCs feel like real people, who really take your actions into account in their lives, even if that just means they'll try harder to avoid you or they'll go out of their way to make your struggle easier. Either way.
@@pequenoperezoso3743 absolutely I will NEVER recover from "Hello?"
One of the parts that stayed with me the most from my first (and so far, only) Disco playthrough was when I found a phone in a corner of the map and started calling random people. I just got a few funny responses, pretty much just prank-calling strangers. It seemed an entirely pointless waste of money, but I kept going.
Then completely out of nowhere the gag turned into the most depressing scene in the entire game. Masterpiece.
COMPOSURE [Legendary: Success] - Despite taking *much* longer than you anticipated, you've retained enough sanity to pull through and publish the video. Countless of hours spent on researching, drawing, and editing have finally paid off.
LOGIC - Sleep.
URICKSALADBAR - "YES, FINALLY!!" Urick crashes into his bed and is knocked out instantly. It was a good night's rest.
---
EDIT 02/07/23
ENCYLOPEDIA [Trivial: Failure] - You got the Estonian flag wrong in the intro, it's upside down. But at least you got it right in the conclusion.
URICKSALADBAR - "Oh."
-1 MORALE DAMAGE
I love you
Rest well
Missed you
After watching this, I later found out that Quantic Dreams will be releasing another game possibly this year called "Under the Waves". Here's hoping that it'll be a better, more grounded game, than a flashy movie esque game.
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN - There is nothing, only sweet primordial blackness.
One thing I was to say about Disco Elysium is that thank god they invested in the update with the voice acting. I played like a quarter way through before it had it and I couldn't really be drawn in from the intense amount of text. While the text was usually really good, the personality with the voice acting really makes me want to give it another go.
The line from Kim's
God, please
Hits so much deeper with the voice acting
the game always had voice acting
@@Graknorkelike the vast majority of the dialogues didn't though. On the contrary, in the Final Cut, almost everything is voiced
the first achievement i unlocked in disco elysium was "world's most sorry cop" and my second thought was "rigorous self-critique". i wonder what this says about me.
It sounds like you enjoy pondering on your mistakes past. . . and self flagellation.
It says that you’re most likely either a feminist or someone who likes to get his sh!t together as rapidly as possible.
David Cage is the equivalent of a guy who during the earlier years of television, tries to make television programmes that are more like radio shows, so as to capture the "mature" radio audience rather than just bothering to make good tv shows.
@greatrug427 I mean that he has chosen a particular medium to tell stories, but he is obsessed with trying to emulate an entirely different more widely accepted medium, in order to validate his art. I love radio too, but it is an entirely different experience to television, and I wouldnt try to make a television show that was like a radio drama, because that would be a waste of all the unique tools the medium has to offer.
@@owenlealThis feels weirdly dismissive. Like, why are you dismissing an entire genre of games? What video games have as a strength that no other medium has is their interactivity, which could be great for a more cinematic experience
I hope that the dev team behind Disco Elysium gets their due justice. This game is one of the most beautiful stories I've ever played through.
I've heard snippets of information, but could you explain exactly whats happened to them?
@@garnetame
They basically lost rights thanks to some stupid reason.
@@garnetame People Make Games have a 2 hours of interviews and investigations on the topic.
@@garnetame as I understand that it was that the financial investors were using ZA/UM as a tool for financial and legal fuckery, so they get more of the money, while the creatives get fucked
@@garnetame Nobody will be able to explain. Almost everybody crying about it doesn't actually know what happened. But the short version is: They fucked around during the making of the game (in their toxic treatment of their employees and in letting some shadybois run the business) and that bit them on the ass. They tried to steal the game's source code, and the shadybois fired them. Disco Elysium 2 won't happen because all of these parties share the IP (from a royalties perspective) and won't work together. Even that is a horribly reductive summary though. Watch the People Make Games documentary for more info, that still doesn't tell the whole story but it's the best explanation so far.
i dont know why but david cage mentioning "homosexuality" next to "politics" when referring to "real world themes" is weirdly amusing to me
and he doesnt know shit about either and has nothing to say
It's because he thinks being gay is a political statement
@@glumbortango7182 Oftentimes it can be lol
@@LordVader1094 No it can't, it's literally a person's sexuality.
Only people who doesn't touch enough grass think it's a political statement.
@@alternatealt5900 it's unfortunately become politicized due to the hyper fixation around it. The more it's thought of and talked about as opposed to just existing, the more likely that it gets attached to a political movement.
I think Cage's biggest problem (as if with a lot of people, unfortunately), is that he doesn't realize that games is a different form of media. Like a book is to film, they're completely different kinds of media that delivers their stories in a very different way. It seems that he wants to makes games into movies, instead of movies into games. That probably really sounds super weird, but what I'm trying to say is that it feels inappropriate to try to make a medium behave like another and remove aspects of what makes that medium it's own thing. We can have a game with aspects that we enjoy about film and books and such but you have to work with it's strengths instead of just trying to make film 2.0.
Yeah, but he's a failed movie director who couldn't hash it in the big boy pool and saw vidya as a shallower pool where he's got a bigger chance of standing out, just ignore the fact that there's thousands of ancient FMV games out there that have done what he's done.
Makes sense. Cage isn’t working with the media, but in spite of it
Basically David Cage fails to work the uniquiness of games into his work because he simply doesn't understand why they work well when they do, so the thing he DOES understand, movies, he forces into this medium and ultimately fails at that, because he's too rigid in his understanding of movies aswell
Yoko Taro for example had long segments in NieR and NieR Automata where you just look at text on a screen for a while, yet somehow it works perfectly well even though we're not in a Visual Novel or book at all
if you think about it, he just made dragon's lair, with worse graphics
Yea I feel like the issue is that it neglects the weight that choice can actually have. Disco works because it thrives on how we interact and make decisions with its world and character, the narrative is something we have to actively seek out.
9:20 I find it hilarious that the car that both killed Jason and put Ethan into a coma only lightly tapped them.
That car wreck was so stupid, I find it hard to believe Jason would've died from that. An easy fix would be just Jason getting hit, with Ethan not being able to reach him fast enough. That whole dive fucks with the themes too, Ethan not getting to him would only hammer home his later motivation to save Shaun.
@@Gannoh The fact that he dived is the entire motivation for the Origami Killer to start doing what he did, though, so if you remove that the narrative falls apart
@@TheGeladoo I think it's safe to say that with a David Cage game, no matter what you do, the narrative falls apart.
@@Gannoh Very good point
@@TheGeladoo Pretty easy for it to fall apart when its so poorly stitched together.
As someone from Eastern Europe, you got one thing wrong. Te devs of Disco Elysium being from a post soviet country isn't the reason they portray communism favourably. In fact it's the exact opposite. Them being from Estonia is the reason they are CRITICAL of communism in their game, despite being leftists themselves. If Disco Elysium was made by American leftists, there would 100% be at least one communist character who actually embodies the communist ideals. The game is overall very leftist, it doesn't pretend to be apolitical, it has opinions on racism, sexism, homophobia, capitalism, centrism, communism, all those things. But it's also very cynical about leftist idealism and doesn't pull its punches when satirising the sad reality of communism in the world.
The original writers critique communism but they still support it
Huge endgame spoilers but I feel like the Deserter is very much the devs showing their ideal communist. Sure, the dude had a lapse of ideological faith, but he’s spent every day reflecting on it and is so committed to not living in a capitalist society that he’d rather die alone on an island. I feel like the critique in this game is moreso of communists for letting a revolution pass them by and allowing Capital to consolidate to the point that another is nearly impossible rather than of communism as a practice.
Weirdly I got to the end and saw the deserter as someone who was outdated and trying to hold on to something that would never work. I saw him more as a criticism of blindly holding onto your ideals too long, ideals that already killed everyone else the first failed time.
I’d say it’s definitely sympathetic to communism, heavily critical of Stalinism/the Soviets, the authoritarians who try to coat over their atrocities in a coat of red paint. And probably cynical that attempts to get to the former will crash into becoming the latter.
I really don't think that he is meant to be someone inspiring or the ideal. He is a bitter old man who failed utterly to do anything in support of his chosen ideology. He failed to stand and fight, he failed to take any meaningful action, he only managed to die miserable and alone. The biggest contribution the leftist ideal was when he helped the Everarts but even that was more trickery then anything else, and the shot that set off the entire game was just a bitter old man being jealous someone else was screwing the girl he was lusting after.
I recall Woolie and Pat commenting that what happened to the devs of Disco Elysium feels like a plot point out of their own game, and boy is that both accurate and very sad. I hope they can come together to make another game some day, because Disco Elysium is such a wonder, unique game and I can just feel in my bones the company that gave them the boot will not understand it as they milk the name
I hope they can get the rights back. It's going to be butchered otherwise. But on the other hand, it's now morally correct to pirate DE. There is literally no reason people shouldn't go and experience Disco Elysium now.
Capitalism subsumes all critiques into itself.
A lesson to be learned, you either stop cosplaying as a full blown communist, or the liberals will stop indulging in your fanaticism.
Another lesson, communism doesn’t work…
@@TehCakeIzALie1 lmao owned
The company made the game. Disco Elysium wasn't some tiny game made by three people then taken by an unrelated company. Elements of the world and setting existed before the company, but the entire game - its systems, its characters, its plot, its atmosphere - was made at that studio. But yeah, sure, the company "will not understand" lolol.
One of my faverite failures in DE, is when you to break the news to the lady that her husband is dead. When you failed, you emotions just say "I can not it" and so does your character. It bring so much humanity to already sad scene.
"I don't want to."
"There's already been enough pain."
"I don't want to do this."
It's such an extreme moment of overwhelming emotion for Harry that even at 97% success rate you still always fail the check. You need to have empathy at the absolute highest levels to go through with it.
@@yoursonisold8743 wait you seriously fail at 97% chance? Is that true? Because if that’s the case, why on earth would a developer find that profound to take away control from the player? You might as well not make any option and just sit back and watch the main character make the decisions for you…I understand that emotions are high, and your character is his own character, but an rpg is still an rpg, and the character you make should be what you as individual want him to be as. I think its unorthodox for developer to just force you to fail because this is essentially what the developer feels, and no you as the individual.
@@malbasedvalentine3210 You can pass the check if your Empathy is really high. But even at lower Empathy the percenatage can reach 97% because your character thinks he can do it, but turns out none of the mind parts want to do it. It's narratively sound. These checks are not reliable either way, you can always succeed or fail at any percentage, after all it's random chance. This is one of the only scripted ones, but to a player they wouldnt see the difference unless they keep reloading to see that it was not just a freak fluke.
@@yoursonisold8743 my empathy was at level 7 and I passed the check
Which, I don't consider it very high taking into account that my conceptualization and Drama were at 11
disco elysium is probably my favourite game of all time. there's just such an immense passion flowing from every corner of it; the art, the characters, the dialogue, the humour, and i would argue one of the most engaging stories in all of media. the first playthrough of DE is such an indescribable experience. one of few games i think truly deserves a 10/10.
If I didn't like Disco Elysium, I would disappoint Kim; a fate worse than failing THAT roll in the church.
I cried several times with Disco Elysium. A very beautiful game.
@@redundantfridge9764 I am Revachol
@@redundantfridge9764 the first roll is important, but getting kim to join in is a must.
If you liked it, I recommend Planescape Torment
Now we sit back and wait for a "Kim Kitsuragi: The Best Best Friend"
Seriously though, Urick, this was a great video as always! I knew from the good cop bad cop title card that this was gonna be a step up in quality, and I was not disappointed. Well done!
Best bestfriend Kim deserves his own video!
i need a kim video right now i fucking love him...
Oh my god please i need it. I need a video on "How to write a perfect sidekick/bestfriend/straightman (or not quite) in all of media" because lets be honest, Kim is the best
We still don't have Terry Hintz best best friend video, so I have zero hope for that kind of video idea...
Hell yeah that would be amazing
On my first disco play through, I beat addiction, solved the case, saved Kim and adopted Cuno as my apprentice/son and kept my job. I was very proud of myself
How do you save Kim and still take in Cuno?
@@codysnecktattoo3340 Kim got shot but didn’t die, they said he was at a hospital but fine
@@williamsyd613then you didn't save him, lol. If you do, you'll spend the rest of the game with him still being your partner
@@williamsyd613I don't believe Kim can die either way, but now I'm slightly scared he will if I play again
Save Kim in the game context means that you were able to yell a warning at Kim. Unable to save him means that Kim is out for the rest of the game.
DE also had the best romance in a game I've seen with Lilienne. You go on a walk with her. Clears both of your heads. She makes it clear that will be it. She also goes along with your crazy ramblings about the sun.
Love how grounded it was. Her accent also rules haha
it was fastest I fallen in love with a character tbh
The best romance is with Kim and I won't hear otherwise
I do love talking to her after the big event towards the end, and how worried she is for you if you went on that little date with her. It shows that while nothing more may happen at the moment, you did make a good impression on her, and she does care about you.
and it also shows that Harry can definitely move on after falling out with his ex and being alcoholic for several years
@@faffywhosmilesatdeath5953 It is also nice that your Skills (Empathy, I think) hint that things could work out with Lilienne if Harry properly sobers up, gets his shit together and gives her time (since her husband died in a drunk accident) which lets the relationship cook slowly (a slow burn).
I like to think that if Harry sobers up and gives her about a year, he'll get that next proper date with Lilienne.
I feel like a film nerd saying this, but Disco Elysium has some of the most fascinating Mise En Scène I've ever seen in a game. It feels like every object on screen was planned to the last detail
well, I learned a new term today. Thanks for that, and I agree. The game bends over backwards to make every single piece of junk you interact meaningful to the story - and that's great. But it's also fine if you miss it. That requires real mastery over the story, writing and real organizational skills.
@@CDexie It's crazy how true that is. Like from the word go, unless you make certain skill checks you owe a big chunk of money. And kinda need money in general. How do you get it though? Various ways, one of which is turning in Tarė to the convenience store in town. How do you get it? Find a bag. And then find garbage cans and various bottles left around. So you're incentivized to interact with literal trash lying about. And you're also free to not bother.
this competition is like the hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby
A moment in Disco Elysium that will always be ingrained in my mind is the following,
I was doing a high empathy run for my first run, I was talking to the bookkeeper’s daughter and I had gotten the super detective cop from her and she gave me dick Mullens hat, the scene for me was very wholesome and it did fill me with joy, but then I head for 20 capeside apartments… and I had to break the news that her husband was dead, it was terrible, i literally broke down. The the narrative and world is so strong that I unintentionally made myself go on an emotional roller coaster.
I love DE.
One of the things that blew me away with Disco Elysium was the idea that they cannot be trusted and the contradictions they present each other. It genuinely felt real in a way that I don't think any other game has done before. When interrogating [Redacted] and Logic told you Empathy and Drama could not be trusted as they have already been fooled which blew me away as I had played a more empathetic Raph, but I had moments of reason where things didn't call for empathy but needed to put those feelings away to progress the case at the cost of being "human"
It's so interesting have these emotions and thoughts as party members
You know what the funniest part is? Even Logic is compromised. And he abuses his role as Logic to trick you into believing him. ONLY Volition is not compromised. If you have high Volition then it will tell you that you can literally trust nobody in the entire group and is the only facette that will always call out everyone's BS. When you snap Drama out of it, Drama, as usual, overcompensates and calls her a witch and becomes super hostile towards her, making it compromised in the opposite direction and Volition still calls it out for that too.
Volition is the greatest ally in this game to me lol
What's even better is that Volition (the one that gets angry and calls out the other skills, not Logic) itself in that moment is compromised. It's upset it got tricked, and it's main thing is try and Protect "Ralphie". But in that situation it's answer is to basically do a system shutdown and to try and get rid of a serious threat to you.
When it tries to show how dangerous they are to you by point out how it's compromised everyone, it singles out Drama and Electrochem. Neither of which are skills that are good at decision making. It also tries to throw shade on Logic which responds along the lines of "The hell I do?". It will get Drama to agree to arrest [redacted] as they were able to beat Drama in lying.
Actually most damning that Volition is Compromised, is it will say Kim is Compromised as well.
@@NEEDbacon Volition actually calls out everyone though, especially Suggestion, because Suggestion is basically always compromised anyway (I love that there is a moment in the game where Suggestion literally gaslights you by saying that he is always wrong and you are at fault for following his advice lol).
Volition knows the entire mind is compromised and stays cautious. Out of all the options you have, you can only trust Volition to give it to you straight.
As for Kim, I guess you are refereing to the fact that he SPOILER is homosexual? SPOILER
I dont think that being compromised is JUST about attraction in this scenario. You can TELL that Kim is actually fooled by her act and that she did garner sympathy in him. He is definitely compromised too. She is just that good.
@@yoursonisold8743 Yeah, actually should have pointed out it will banter with your more higher stats, though Electrochem always gets picked on. They won't say anything if they're too low (like Drama). Funny enough is the VERY LAST thing Suggestion says after insulting Volition is "This is human nature" which to a degree is what's going on with you. You find her pretty, so you're acting like an idiot.
It's not wrong it saying "Your stats are not working rn". But rather then stay cautious, it wants you to arrest her, effectively getting rid of her. And positions itself as the only correct one, as opposed to also being under the influence of her. It kinda swings too far on the other side of the pendulum. The "If she breaths, she's a Thot" to everyone else going "All Women are Queens"
Kim, while he might believe her story, he's not on the fritz like you are. He'll arrest her if you tell him to. And you can talk to him about how she has influence over you. It's more he's focused on the murder case, less she's a corporate spy.
@@yoursonisold8743 Volition is one of the most reliable skills, but as with the other skills he gets compromised by Klaasje, just in the opposite direction. While he is the first to realize Klaasje isn't being entirely honest, he does the same thing as Drama (overcorrect into thinking Klaasje is the true culprit of the murder) before Drama. Really the only skill that chimes in to not be compromised is Inland, because it's too concerned with the Miracle and the greater scope of things than Klaasje, which Volition gets confused by.
Joyce is my favorite character by far. Talking with her is a genuine joy, and I can't help but like her.
And I hate that I like her.
Because she DOES represent the worst of the worst, and she actively helps them get away with it all, yet... I can't truly blame her. She's just one person, and when faced with a massive conglomerate like Wild Pines, the urge to just nod and smile and keep your head down is very rational. I don't hate Joyce - hell, I don't even hate her choices, per se. I hate the world for being the way it is. And not in a nihilistic way, it's just... a damn shame.
Disco is such an incredible work of art.
First time leaving a video after a spoiler warning because I want to experience the game first. Thanks for making me care so much, DE has been sitting on my library for 2 months, and this video is the one that will push me to play it. Can't wait to have some free time and play it
You're making the right choice! I always wish I could experience Disco Elysium for the first time again.
I'm goddamn excited for you to experience it for the first time.
disco elysium is geniunely incredible i wish i didnt spoil it for myself lmao
Yooo! Same! It was such a fucking gem!
Same, I got convinced to play the game from this video, paused it at the bit where there was a spoiler flag, and then took 19 days of on and off playing out of a somewhat busy schedule to play this game.
Just finished tonight, and went back to watch this video.
It really surprises me that David Cage was allowed to make a game after Indigo Prophecy
My theory is most people only played the very first diner section of that game and formed their opinion on the game from that. The first part is kind of good where its this interesting choose your own adventure mystery where you play as the suspect and the police solving the crime you committed. These people didn't play long enough for the game to get really fucking stupid.
Like the part where you're stupid matrix powers activate, or when the black cop goes to play basketball (because black guy) and plays in an outside court in the middle of a sub zero, fuck-off blizzard, or the end where you dragon ball z fight an AI internet man for the fate of the world.
God I think no other David Cage game gets as stupid as Indigo. Beyond and Heavy Rain come close but at least you don't get any love interests in those games that insist on making sweet love to your protagonist's zombie body.
@@habadasheryjones it absolutely blew my mind that the quick time events were fuccin Simon color repeating. I couldn’t believe no one was talking about that
@@habadasheryjones
So because a cop character likes sports that means it’s racist? All races can play basketball.
I mean the game looks good for a ps2 game.... that's only positive feedback I can give it
Oh, then I strongly recommend to learn about his first game - "Omikron: The Nomad Soul". That one is a real testament to his hack-fraud ways of game development and incompetence at storytelling. He even convinced David fucking Bowie to star in it. It's truly bizarre
One aspect of Disco Elysium that took awhile to click with me was how many, if not most, of the dialogue options (particularly the political ones) veered off into the deep end of extremes. There's usually a 'middle ground' option as well, but they're worded to make you seem milquetoast at best and cowardly or avoidant at worst; and the game will even actively mock you for picking them. Literal quote from Rhetoric: "Say one of these Fascist or Communist things or fuck off."
It took some time and learning about the character for me to finally understand that that's the point. Ha- er, RAPH isn't a blank-slate character for the player to project themselves or their ideals onto. He existed before the events of the game, and is a fleshed-out person with a history, personality, and decades of life experience that all inform who he is and how he acts. Sure, you can make choices of what to say, but your options are only going to be things it would occur to Raph to say in the first place.
It's role-playing in it's purest sense. You're not making your role, you're GIVEN one and told to play it. An actor can make decisions in a performance, but they can't rewrite the script or their character. And you, the player, have been dropped into the head of this neurotic, shambling disaster of a human being and told to make the best of it.
That's the diegetic explanation of the crazy ass political things you can say.
The meta reason, of course, is that it's goddamn hilarious having you fumble on your political opinions and either forcing you to be a spineless coward ingame, that reinforces the mindset that eats away the city in the first place - or be a brutal, bloodthirsty idiot. It's such a raw experience, seeing the blatant, BLATANT fascist, communist and capitalist options and cringing, then seeing a way out with the most pathetic of a whimper response in that "D" option. I've seen friends go through that and it's hilarious, I've seen let's players having to play it off because they don't want to approach the icky politics with a ten foot stick, but the game simply won't let them. The politics are *integral* to the story.
But I do have to point out that the complete "reset" of Harry's memory and mind does allow you to reshape him. In fact a lot of the game revolves around you reconstructing Harry in a way that changes him. Whether it be positively, negatively or something inbetween. You can pick the boring options and Harry will become a boring no-nonsense cop. It's not like he will veer into extremes regardless of what you pick. You really do have the choice to "rewrite" him. Another example would be that there is a factual record of how many kills Harry has in his carreer: 3 to be exact. And this is among over 300 cases. So it logically follows that Harry is not a violent man and tends to use his gun as an absolute last resort. Yet you can play him as an apocalyptic maniac who threatens everyone and has zero gun safety awareness whatsoever.
I don't disagree with your point that the game gives you a pre-existing character and the vestiges of the old Harry do try to steer you towards his old traits in some regards, but it is still a game that allows you to play with your own voice and preferences completely straight. The only times this is not the case is with things related to the past. Harry will always be sad and depressed when confronting his failed relationship, the only thing you can affect is how he copes with it (if at all).
In the very end the game (through the colleagues at the police department) will judge you on how much of the original Harry you really represent. But due to the fact that Harry was a complex person who had good and bad traits, the end result always feels like it still fits within his boundaries. Just veered to a much stronger extreme perhaps. The incident is what broke and changed him, so you are allowed to become a new Harry.
And it starts to make sense when you interact with others in the world and see how deep their opinions can get too. Everyone is like this and har-err.. Raph is the human can opener so he's better than most at getting it out of people
But how can this be when Har-err... Raphëel Ambrosius Costeau is literally me?
The "miracle" you mention in Disco Elysium is one of my favourite sidequests in any game. I managed to get it in the context of a high Shivers & Inland Empire communist sorry cop run and after a particularly despairing conversation with the Deserter the payoff of THAT was honestly beautiful. I teared up. For the record the other best scenes in the game are passing the Shivers check in the nightclub and FAILING the roll for karaoke but that's just me
Passing the checks at the church/nightclub is honestly essential to the game in my opinion. It really lays bare the core of the entire thing and makes the case you deal with feel so insignificant. It gives you an entirely different perspective and that's why it actually leads to a path where you can abandon the case and get a completely different ending.
@@yoursonisold8743 [Spoilers for anyone who hasn't played obviously]
I disagree that it makes it insignificant, at least for my experience it didn't! The spot in the church, yes it's a sign of the Pale encroaching and within the next few decades all of Martinaise will be gone. But the case, the phasmid, the Deserter and his plight- even knowing the world will end, it didn't make that any less important and meaningful. Idk if anything it made me think about how I wanted to get better. I wanted my sad sorry cop to make the most of the time he has left. But I guess that's what's so fascinating about this game!!!!!! It gets you to think and discuss how you deal with really heavy concepts like this and it doesn't necessarily penalize you for thinking about it differently- for example I had no idea there was an alternate ending!!!!
@@bean3550 [Spoiler] Oh yes, you can choose to follow the path of the moderate, the MoralIntern route. If you say enough moralist things then eventually you can internalize thoughts and get a questline where you try to contact MoralInterns airship above Martinaise. The original intention is to contact them so they will support you stop the encroaching war between the workers and Pines/the mercenaries.
For that you need the help of the scientist lady and her computer which she only provides after you find "the hole" in reality or otherwise convince her that her work is done.
So once you actually make contact with MoralIntern (in a very complicated and slightly absurd way) you can ask them a limited amount of questions and appeal to them to send help. Unfortunately they consider themselves above meddling with internal politics and even the threat of a civil war in the district wont be enough and they will wish you best of luck.
But! If you tell them that you discovered a phenomenon in the church that created a tear in the Pale, then they will be _extremely_ serious and alarmed and they will offer you to take you on their ship. If you agree they will swoop down right in the middle of Martinaise and take you with them, abandoning the investigation and leaving it to Kim. In this ending you stop being a cop and instead join MoralIntern's phenomena investigation unit, because this is so much more important than some murder case.
The quest and trophy is called something along the lines of "Greater responsibility". Very neat. It was actually the first ending I got haha
I heard that during early development, Ethan had a psychic connection to the Origami killer. But that part was later dropped from the story. However, there were other bits and pieces that were connected to that removed plot point that still remain in the game. Hence, why some of Ethan's actions were not explained.
That actually makes a lot of since
@@star22sally67 Not really
I really loved Disco and my own "Raphie".
At first he had trouble thinking clearly in emotions and logic, but was Strong as a bull and his reactions faster. At first I was unsure of the depth he would find, what could a man so dominated by his body reveal about the world? I was very wrong. His emotions he expressed with his body, with confident familliarity of a gun, the interlocking of engine mechanics, the satisfaction of jumping from roof-top to roof-top, with kinetic memory of phone number often dialed. He struggled a lot with dark though of the world ending, of anger with separation, He tried to let go and the echo followed him. I guess he saw the ugliness and injustice in his the world and tried to change it, was frustrated by his lacking, self-destructed, and then finally found in the little corners honesty, empathy and meaning. His journey was long, but I felt hopeful for him.
It made me smile when I realize how different your Harry was from mine but how we both were able to explore Rivachol and get similar love for it.
My Harry was more of words than fists, I failed miserably trying to punch my way out of trouble, or running away from a debt and miraculously jumped from roof-to-roof to get my jacket back; but Harry was beginning to accept his flaws and try to move on from his past, he had deep convos with Kim about how he felt and how hard it was to get over Her, doing his best of batting his Addictions and Self Hatred away. My Harry revealed to the world that he could come out of the emotional hole that he was in and that things would get better than yesterday; when Kim bid farewell to me and stood by my side at the end I knew that Harry would have the road to redemption he was searching for at the start on the end of a booze bottle
Ah, the pure joy that everyone gets their different "Ralphie".
One on my second playthrough where I was using a guide to help do stuff I missed out on in my first run I had gotten Everart to give my gun back.
I had gotten to the peir a bit early to meet The Pigs (Cop obsessed lady). But since time only moves when you're interacting with stuff and there's not much out on the pier if you've been there before, I found the payphone there. For nothing better to do I decided I'd do some prank calls. Hit Random numbers after random number. And then I randomly punched in the number of someone I knew. Even trying to do my best to assure her I wasn't drunk and didn't mean to call I was told to stop trying to contact her. Which fair enough. Something I was doing to literally waste time and I got a minor plot dump into what Ralphie use to do.
Thankfully it moved timed forward enough to where I laughed my ass off at the sheer absurdity of The Pigs. Then felt sorry as I figured out my gun was unloaded and she had a breakdown about failing to shoot us. And gave the Hardies a chance to do some good for the community.
This was written with such raw familiarity for a man that never existed that I KNOW this game is good if it effected you that much. Damn 👏
hope!! thats one of the game's central message. reading this comment and replies is nice
The deserter really is one of the most sympathic villains of all time. He's not even really a villain, he's just a sad, broken person. He saw the revolution lose and his enemies win and destroy the world and what little humanity was left. And worse, society has become complacent.
Well, he's also a mysogonist and stuff, and he killed a person cuz he could not own that person.
Like, he definitely got sympathetic elements but that's still some really rough stuff...
@@michimatsch5862 he was a human. There were FAR worse people in this game in comparison. Everhart and his Champagne socialists, Measurehead, the Mercenaries, Wild Pines, and the ignorant Coalition who all remain blind to the suffering of others.
You give him far too much credit. He's a sad pathetic wreck so lost in a mix of brain damage, delusion and ideology that he has lost all humanity. A failure desperately trying to cling to a oast that's gone and never really existed and who does nothing more than inflict random cruelty to placate his whims.
The deserter deserves very little sympathy.
Hes a mirror of the terrible abyss Harry himself could fall into if he loses his way, clinging bitterly to past mistakes and running away to the simpler world inside his head
@@notarealperson8956 exactly, i hated him, because he gave up, because he is bitter roting carcass of a person. He let his mistakes destroy him, its even mirrored in main menu. Main menu made from his perspective, its a beautiful painting yet from his words he can only see filth. He wont see his revolution cause he doesn't have guts to do it, his last thing, last wish, is born from lust and desperation. He is comie incel boomer bug shit eater because that how he see himself
I think Disco Elysium is one of the few games that managed to hook me into replaying it, see a different perspective on the same people and mystery
I want to do what Renegade Cut did and first play the way I would interact with the characters, then I'll play it like how a cop would interact with everybody.
For me it's the opposite, it's a really really good story that I need to really invest time and mood to explore, and I can't being myself to explore more than the 'good route' (Kim is a really supportive friend that I don't want to meet often because how bad I feel when he's dissapointed). And the new political routes do make it clear that only one route is good. Although to it's credit, I heard the Fascist route is an underrated route because it really explores the desperation of the people who cling to them, instead of them just being bad guy haha.
@@imageez Yeah that was the biggest pitfall when it comes to Disco Elysium. It seems like the writing team really just wanted to make "their" politics out to be the de facto good choice instead of making the endings varying shades of grey with no definitive "good" outcome for the most part.
@@imageez All of the vision quests are good, I'm not sure which one you're describing as "the good one". The ultraliberal one probably is the least engaging one, but it still manages to be such a scathing critique of that mindset, it's so, *so* funny. I have engaged with the fascist one the least, more by chance than choice, but it looks like it's deeply fascinating, the moralist one is the best one and the Communist quest is just hilarious and heartfelt at the same time.
@@KopitioBozynski terrible fence sitting take
i usually dont care about spoilers, when im watching a video essay and they say "if you havent played it this is your chance to do so and come back later" i usually don't but for some reason this time I downloaded the game, played it to the end and i couldn't be happier that i made that choice. this was one of the best interactive experiences ive had, this game made me laugh like a maniac, cry and everything in between. So thank you
From what I've seen, the general consensus online and in steam reviews is that pirating disco Elysium is the best option right now, because of the drama with the devs.
The Devs would heartily support your endeavors in pirating the game, so by all means.
This game has changed the chemicals of my brain forever... I NEED a new story set in this world!
Someday we’ll get that translation of the Sacred and Terrible Air!
@@PineappleLiar Yeah, it's been a few years since I almost once a month search for some news of that darned translation...
Sucks so badly that the creators were pushed out of their own story though, I also still really want more stories but it’ll be coming from the company and not from the creators :’(
@@marcocameriere1728 If you're still looking, there's a fan translation you can find on the subreddit!
To be honest video games is not about making them as a movies its about using narrative and creativity, reliability.
cage barely even knows what video games nor movies even are
@@MsZsc yeah if i was David cage I would just do something creativity while make video games instead making video games to be like movies because btw they're not movies video games are supposed to make us feel experience and entertained not because you can make a movie of it it's about Art it's about narrative and creativity not making it a realistic game based on other movies David cage should have been a movie director instead of being a game developer it would have make sense instead of him thinking that video games be cinematic guess what the last of us,Grand theft auto,Red dead redemption,God of war,Halo, uncharted,Lara croft are supposed to be look like it was a movie but using Computer 3d animation not to mention yes movies like superheroes can have tie in games that are sometimes nostalgia and popular like Spider man 2 it was the most remember and a Masterpiece in the ps2 what I am trying to say other gaming industries and indie developers are using narrative and storytelling, message, creativity you can't make it look like a movie I wouldn't because it's rather pointless to make video game as a movie I wouldn't just make a video game that I would took inspiration from other games & movies, shows that I like personally.
Complaining that videogames aren't more like movies is like complaining movies aren't more like books.
They're all separate mediums that tell stories in different and unique ways.
One isn't inherently "superior" to another, they're just different
AND YET, Quantic Dreams gets a big budget Star Wars game, while the group formally known as ZAUM gets their game taken away from them by greedy assholes.
We truly live in a society!
In a weird way I'm looking forward to the QDSW games. Cause there's not a hope in hell it's not the most Dayvid Chhaagee game to Dayvid Chhaagee all over the place, pure trainwreck. Disney's handlers will be on overtime to keep him in check. "NO DAVID, YOU CAN'T HAVE A KUNG FU WIRE FIGHT IN A TWILEK BATHOUSE, especially with them all crying".
But I also do hope ZA/UM gets the rights to their baby back. Both just because they deserve it, and whatever they try will make an even bigger trainwreck then QDSW. Hell, they might even bring on Dayvid Chhaagee to lead the DE sequel, just complete the cycle.
@@NEEDbacon Not sure what you mean with the last part, tbh. Based on the end product state of DE, I'd say if ZAUM ever attempted to do another game, they won everyone's vote of confidence, for sure, based on the quality of DE.
I do look forward for the QDSW cringe and hours of content it will spawn.
@@Andiatus Ah, well sorry to be the one to break the news, but two of the head devs (the one's that came up with the world) got pushed out of ZA/UM by an investor. So as is, chances are whatever might be pushed out WON'T be the same ZA/UM that made DE.
@@NEEDbacon Ah, no no, I knew about that, actually. I meant more like, if the original founders of ZAUM do end up taking their studio and rights to their game back, due to all the shady things happening, and make a possible sequel, not current management of ZAUM.
Having them under the same rn is rather confusing, but I got what you meant now! Thanks for clarifying!
It goes to show you that the politics of DE are correct :)
I accidentally wore Renees facist uniform in front of the Deserter cos I thought it was 'drippy' and the guy cussed me out so bad I almost save scummed
The "I can't see doors" one is amazing. I played this game only a few times and I love to discover shit like that.
My personal best success was a 8% on the torture chair.
And my personal most INFURIATING failure was a 97% red check on the phasmid cryptid at the end of the game.
What happens if you fail that check?
@@codysnecktattoo3340It runs axay. No cpnversation, no photo. The feeling that a living miracle was there, but not for you. It's frustrating.
There's something that you need to have done something, or have a specific item or skil... it's something... i cant remember specifically. But i seem to instictually remember that if you haven't done so, you'll always fail the check crytpid check at the end. I haven't played DE in a while but that's what my memory is telling me...
@@uniquechannelnames isn't it the pheromone spray the cryptozoologist wants to lather you in
Disco Elysium is definitely a game I wish I could play again for the first time because, even if I really want to replay it, it feels like I'm betraying my own choices that I did in the first playthrough.
I love this game and I wish I could experience more of what it has to offer but I can't do that without feeling like I make my choices, basically unimportant. And they are unimportant, but they are important to me
If you can find a good GM and tabletop role playing game to join, do so. You probably won’t get quite the same depth of forethought that a written piece with limited options has. But cumulative persistent consequences driving a unique story? Doable. Plus you get to share that with friends.
This feels like what a good narrative should do. Either inspire curiosity to find out what could have happened, or inspire such strong feelings to never start again to solidify what you did forever.
You don't need to be told to only play the game once, you choose to do that to keep the choices you chose and to not go back. Even if the characters don't know, you do.
Exactly my thought, but I love playing it again to get new choices and to get reactions out of Kim, lol.
Dancing in the church with Kim and the boys, hearing the voice of Dolores Dei, unlocking the finger guns, singing for Kim and finding the Insulindian Phasmid at the end of the game after never losing hope, talking to it and finding out it's one of the biggest plot points in the game are some of my favorite gaming moments in the last couple of years period.
I think comparative reviews are a good way to show the flaws of one project and the pros of another the accomplished the goals of the other in a more effective manner. It’s more constructive than just saying something is bad like a lot of reviews tend to do so well done!
Urick's ability to show people what did something better and worse is what makes him a real authority when it comes to these analysis.
And to think he's also the lad that animated the iconic argument of OneyNG trying to gaslight people into thinking it's okay to kill innocent clones.
@@crazyinsane500 lol you summed up why I like this channel perfectly lmao
Remembering in Disco Elysium me and my sisters were playing it and there was the scene where Garte asks you for money
My oldest sister ran away from Garte successfully
My 2nd oldest sister decided to be responsible and pay up
I did what my oldest sister (the tie made me do it I swear) did but failed the check, causing me to run into the old lady in the wheelchair
And the best part is that mine was prolly the best outcome since he gave me a discount after that
One thing that bothers me about Heavy Rain (and a lot of other things, frankly) is that it has the main character divorced for the sake of itself. It does say anything of how Ethan handled his son's death or even what his wife is like. It's just there because divorce is tragic, and Ethan needs to be tragic.
Meanwhile in Disco Elysium, the detective's relationship says quite a lot about him. If anything, it says too much about him, to the point it's hard to uncover the truth under his personal feelings about its failure, kind of like what it's like speaking to a real divorcee.
2:30 My god, even Cage's goals are patronizing. Silent Hill and even kids games like Majora's Mask have been exploring mature themes years before he stepped onto the scene. He feels like big movie fan who knows nothing about videogames that said "I'm going to make games more like movies because they're better"(and taken more seriously by main stream audiences).
I've seen a comment on one of your videos a while back saying that David Cage knows he's not competent enough as a writer or a director to make an actual movie, so he compensates by turning it into a game since it's cheaper and easier. Honestly, I can't think of a better way to explain his mindset.
Disco Elysium appears to be a game where you go from a dysfunctional mess to a slightly less dysfunctional mess.
Disco Elysium almost needs an intro telling you that failure is okay. I tried getting into it once, but it wasn't until I played a ttrpg that I realized failure is okay, and often hilarious. I'm glad I came back to finish the game, it was truly wonderful
this game lets you have a mental breakdown over hats if you fail. 10/10
I usually get tired of long dialogues, but Disco Elysium was so well written, so genuinly deep that I never skipped one.
I cannot stress how excited I was for this video, as someone who is passionate about both Heavy Rain and Disco Elysium for wildly different reasons. You always manage to encapsulate all my feelings about David Cage/Quantic Dream games in a way that I previously couldn't word. Love your stuff, man.
Disco elysium is a game with a character that tells you you’re like a cockatoo, giving you a quest to go buy a book and read up about cockatoos, to then decide whether you are like a cockatoo or not, which will allow you to go back to said person and either agree or disagree with them depending on what you decided. 11/10 genuinely never played something as good
I enjoyed Disco Elysium so much, I made a character based around charisma and intellect by far one of the greatest games I've ever played. It's so complex in so many ways and I loved every second of it
I know everyone has their own playstyle but this 31:34 really hits home. That's why leveling up in Fallout 4 was progressively more and more boring when I realized that my character can get every single perk in the game if I level up enough times. In comparison to New Vegas and Deus Ex where even if two people go for the same build, their endgame perks and augmentations can be completely different.
Some of the most cringeworthy, hilarious events and dialogues in the entire game only happen when you FAIL a skill check in Disco Elysium, its amazing how well written this game is. Even when you fail you can have some options opened to you specifically because of it. The things you do in the game impact whether or not you get certain pieces of information in the game, and can either lock or open side quests, the game is great. The true beauty of the writing in Disco Elysium is how HUMAN it makes you and the characters around you feel - you become attached to your hot mess of a detective and admire your lieutenant for his ability to tolerate your insanity, you feel the whole range of human emotions throughout the game which most games do not really accomplish. The writing is so good it can have you cringing with discomfort, pausing in profound, solemn melancholic reflection and crying with laughter in a single encounter. Incredible.
The visuals, the editing, the pacing, the crispness and delivery of your voice are all so top-notch. Particularly the infographics and animations present are beyond any video game essay channel I've seen, and the only comparisons I can make are with non video game essay channels like Kurzgesagt, but I think they are collaborated by teams of people rather than individuals. This is truly impressive, and as an aspiring video essayist myself, the comparison anxiety is creeping in, but for now, I'll push it back down as I aspire to be like you. It makes me happy that content as high quality as this is being served, and it's my pleasure to eat. Weird metaphor, I know, but I hope it's received in as flattering a tone as I'm trying to deliver it. Thanks for putting this together for us; I really appreciate it.
I won't lie, I was really looking forward to this video
even with a subscription, I periodically went to the channel to check if it was released
and FINALLY this wonderful moment has come
Truly a shame what’s happening at ZA/UM cuz Disco Elysium sounds so good.
a one-hit wonder i'm afraid.. such a damn shame, indeed..
@@misterkefir Yeah, the one time a masterpiece crpg gets the attention it deserves on release...and a corporation rips them apart.
Artists with a vision can't really win it seems.
@@michimatsch5862 These days? Yeah.. almost anything successful that was not made by AAA gets strip mined or bought out it seems.. It's a travesty.
@@misterkefir The lawsuit isn't over yet. Who knows what may happen yet - that's literally the moral of Disco Elysium
@@CDexie A man can have his dreams, for sure.
"The game doesn't need state-of-the-art visual capture to sell you its emotion, it just has to suggest enough detail through its prose and environments" rings so true. I think it's really telling that the scene involving the insulindian phasmid had me sobbing by the end, purely because of the dialogue, ambiance and the implications in the storytelling. That shit managed to be deeply emotionally engaging in a way David Cage could never even hope to achieve.
Implying that being from a post-soviet country makes you more sympathetic to communism and not less is a really bad assumption that's so incredibly wrong you have no idea.
-person not from a post soviet country
@@anielabogusz2719 as somebody who is from a post soviet country I agree with the original commenter
@@anielabogusz2719 lmao guess again
Every video urick does seems like a separate but connected pieces of art with images and scripts to convey their messages. He also makes me interested in most of the games he talks about whether I play them or not my interest is peaked. Thank you urick one of my favorite creators!
I think my favorite part of disco Elysium was near the pawn shop there's a guy eating salami you can ask for a piece he'll give you one and then he'll give Kim one too
Disco was made by a man who wanted to communicate feelings.
Quantum games are made by someone who thinks himself a genius and wanted everyone to notice him.
Many people think Disco Elysium is a simulation of a world on the brink of collapse while in the shoes of a character with very little control of himself, but it's actually just an Estonia simulator
One game is a immensely personal narrative about choice, depression, grief, mental illness, redemption, nihilism, addiction, the dark underbelly of society, and becoming a better person in spite of the trauma you've gone through with Lynch as a major influence Starring a spacey artistic detective who uses an illicit material to escape the pain of reality and solve the impossible investigation at the heart of the narrative This is both a curse and a boon as it deteriorates the detective's sense of reality further but the cost of failure is too great for him to give it up right away Water is a prominent motif as a symbol of chaos, time, regret and death
The other is heavy rain
Ah yes, Disco Elysium. I tried the game after beating Fallout 2 and immidiately maxed up Hand-Eye Coordination and Perception expecting a lot of combat. Ended up being so dumb and uncharismatic, I couldn't even look at the mirror without having a mental breakdown. 10/10 made me miserable.😅😅
Well, Hand-Eye Coordination has one of the most important, if not the most important, check in the game.
At least you're likely to do that.
I played Disco Elysium as a communist, as I am a communist in real life.
It's depiction of the ideology has been unmatched, it doesn't fall into the same pitfalls that American games usually dive into. It's an honest critique of communism both in game and in real life by communists.
The in-jokes of despising social democrats, the obvious dig at the ineffectual nerdy Marxists Leninists and the complete loss of hope that a revolution would ever come again cements it as the greatest narrative experience I've ever had.
Finally some who understands me
I'm still laughing at Dros calling you a shitlib if you tell him that you're a communist, fucking hilarious.
I played ultra liberal as I am liberal in real life and I have to agree. The game picks up on your world view and makes fun of it without being obnoxious. It makes you think about yourself in a way that not many other games can do.
Adding to that, the final encounter you have (well, technically the second to last) is an extra treat for communists.
SPOILERS FOR DISCO ELYSIUM (srsly go play that game if you haven't).
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After spending the whole game with accurate enough but still slightly distorted/satirical portraits of ideologies, having an actual hardcore communist talking about the failure of the revolution and the brutality of the Capital was a jaw-dropping moment for me. No punches pulled, just raw critique of capitalism in its purest form. It almost feels like the writers talking through the Deserter at some points, with things like the mask of the Capital. After that moment, I was (even more) sure that the writers knew their shit really well.
Aren’t social democrats different from the centralist moralists?
Y'know, it's funny because.
To actually 'Fail' Disco Elysium (Manage to not solve ANYTHING, among other choices), you literally need to go out of your way to get the 'Worst' possible ending, and even then - it's not failure. It's your GOAL.
Whereas, even if you're actually 'Failing' things, and not intentionally messing up the investigation, you still get a solid ending. The detective isn't a bad detective. He's actually a REALLY good detective, even when he's absolutely destroyed by drugs and mania.
I wish I could equip up to 12 thoughts in real life
I know all the art assets ballooned the project's time investment, but i think it really added a lot to the visual aspects
the portraits especially, even David Cage's. What an delightfully little potato he is~
Urick boutta lay some lovely commentary down
More like he’s gonna lay his big stomach down
@@LampAttackify tummy schlappin action
Disco Elysium achieved the most important thing - pulling out our empathy.
The side case where you have to inform a middle-aged woman that her husband died - drunk, alone, on the cold planks of a boardwalk - is maybe the worst I have ever felt in a game.
And it'll probably stay with me forever.
That hit me hard, but some parts of the game hit way harder.
In my first conversation with the woman, I kept insisting to her that I had to go look for her husband as he may be in danger. It was like I was doing it to be obnoxious, or to look like a good cop. It was clearly antagonising her. Then when I found the body, I was horrified.
My first run I just found the corpse and never properly did the sidequest with the woman. My second run, my character keeps rambling about finding her husband, and eventually she does concede she hasn't seen him in a while, and it was like, "oh, fuck, I know what's coming"
I didn't expect it at all. I had the whole conversation where I exasperated her by babbling at her about her husband and daughters until she got me to go away by convincing me to find a book about cockatoos, which made my Raph, upon reading, immediately conclude that the cockatoo was his spirit animal. I play it in VC, typically with my boyfriend and my friends, so we tend to be cackling at whatever wacky thing we're doing or guiding it in wacky directions that make Kim shake his head in exasperation himself (fondly, because Kim is *our guy*).
And then I walked into #20, realized who the wife of the body I'd found was, and very weakly whispered "oh no". We were all dead silent for that scene.
I'm not surprised that Cage would say something as dense as "who cares how fast players move their thumbs"...heavy rain was the first game I saw criticised for having 'no gameplay'.
This video has inspired me to finish Disco Elysium. The line about not being meant to do everything actually hit me, because usually I'm a min-max goblin. Thank you, Mr. Saladbar.
Fallout new vegas is also a good example of choices mattering in a game, but there you are a god, in disco elysium you die because of an heart attack
Heavy rain gives me a laugh or two when I fail qte's, but it's NOTHING in comparison of how much I giggled like a school girl in Disco Elysium after dedicating a song to Kim and the narrator telling me he "almost" blushed
I remember when I payed disco at first I was following every goofy choice making that made my character be the worst and silliest out there, until I met Kim, after I met Kim I couldn't stomach the fact that all those choices would make Kim feel like a disappointed dad
You meet Kim at the start of the game when you go downstairs, you didn’t make many silly choices did you?
@@yazidefirenze not too many I stopped once Kim gave me his rims
Hot Take: People like Davide Cage can't write hardship, as they have never really experienced it.
Very immersive and well-put-together video. Editing was so smooth and polished. It's nice to see RUclipsrs create high-quality content like this.
one of the best parts about disco elysium was when i saw a dialogue option which was so absolutely stupid i HAD to press it, just to see how the game would react. When you're talking to Joyce, there's that moment where you can just keep repeating the same thing over and over again as she asks if you're okay and begs you to stop. there were times when just seeing a choice i COULD make made me audibly laugh
Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun.
Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun.
Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun.
Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun.
Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun.
Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun.
Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun.
Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun.
Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun.
Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun.
Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun.
Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun.
Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun.
Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun.
Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun.
Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun.
Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun.
Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun.
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btw, since you liked disco elysium, i have another recomendation for ya: torment tydes of numenera, both games are crpgs inspired by planetscape torment, a game that is a cult classic because it has a really good story from what i've heard
Planes cape torment is way better than disco elysium
@@overlordtealover1128 Nah. It's different. It's really good in it's own way but also has it's own 90s junk, combat part is mid (compared to the story) and the final parts feel rushed even with restoration mods (that restore some scrapped content due to time constraints). It's great, and the closest thing to DE in terms of overall "feel", but I wouldn't say it's "way better". You might like it more if you like it's setting more or have nostalgia for old tbrpgs, but that's about it.
Torment: Tides of Numenera is an ok attempt to make an indirect sequel to the planescape that just not lives up to the great name.
Numenera? Like, Monte Cook Numenera? I had no idea they made a video game adaptation.
@@chastermief839 no, not that, completely unique setting
@@heartofdoves sorry, i'm aromantic lmao
I started playing Disco Elysium mid-way through your analysis of it. It's become my favorite game and a cherished bond between my friend and I. The way you write your videos and analyze these themes are ASTONISHING and I want to thank you for the great content and an introduction to a game that stuck with me, I've watched all your videos since and am a fan of your work! :)
Love how the real world topics Cage mentions as examples are politics and homosexuality. Those happen to be my two favourite hobbies.
The art portaits painted for this video when trying to recreate Diso's art style are really gorgeous. Kudos to the artist.
Disco elysium in one mean "Life is haaard but we go oooon"
"No. This is somewhere to be. It's all you have, but it's something. Streets and sodium lights. You're still alive."