Recent reviews by Manolus Rex

To begin this review I want to say that Disco elysium is a game that is not for everyone, I know that this statement has been so overused that it is next to meaningless now, but this time I mean it, mainly due to two reasons.
The game is VERY dense, it has so much dialogue that if put together it would be longer than the entire Harry Potter series (It's true, look it up!), most of it is optional and only serves to give information about the world the story takes place in, but as I said, to truly enjoy DE this aspect of the experience has to appeal to the player.
Disco Elysium is also unapologetically political. While some other games shy away from the topic with the goal to appeal to the broadest possible public or to avoid backlash from a certain sector of the industry, this game not only incorporates political themes and questions into itself, but turns them into an intrical part of both gameplay, and especially story.

Still here? Great! Now that we have that out of the way let's get disco.


I honestly don't know how to start talking about this game since it is so different to everything I have ever played before, but I guess that a good starting point would be the story.
In Disco Elysium you play as an officer of the RCM (The police force of Revachol, the fictional city where the story takes place), who after a night of extreme use of drugs of alcohol has forgotten everything, and I mean EVERYTHING (you literally have to go to a mirror and take a look at your face to remember how it looks). After putting some clothes on and finding the key to get out of the hotel room you are staying in, you slowly learn that the main character was sent there to investigate the murder of a man in the small district of Martinnaise alongside Detective Kim Kitsuragi (best boy™), another officer from the RCM. I'm going to stop here to avoid spoilers, but you get the gist of it.

Making the protagonist not remember anything is a really smart move by ZA/UM, since it more or less fuses the player and the detective into one single entity, who has to learn (or relearn, rather) everything around them through exploration and conversations. And that's the thing, through this amnesia the game not only allows, but encourages the player to talk to people and walk the streets of Martinnaise to learn about the world without it feeling like an info dump, a problem that many other Role-playing games suffer from.

Here is where the main game mechanic comes into play: "skills" and dice rolls. While in other role-playing games the character's skills consist mainly of strength, dexterity, speed and such; Disco Elysium puts a twist to it to adapt the system to its' lack of combat. At the start of the game you get to divide 12 point into 4 categories: intelligence, psyche, physique, and motorics; each of wich has 6 skills with levels according to your point distribution. Instead of the previously mentioned strength, dexterity and speed, since you are a cop solving a case your habilities are more along the lines of visual calculus, conceptualization, suggestion, composure; things that would help get information out of people and scenes. The more points the player has invested into a skill, the easier it will be to pass the dice roll.
Nothing too crazy right? Wrong. The truly genius twist is that Every. Single. Skill. is a voice inside your head with its' own personality that gives more or less information AND dialogue options depending on wether you put enough points into it. So for example if you create a character with high INT and PSY but low PHY and MOT, analysing crime scenes and interrogating suspects will be much easier, but you will have a very hard time with anything that requires strength or agility; while if you do the oppsite and create a PHY and MOT focused character, cracking doors open and punching the occasional ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ will be a piece of cake, but you won't be able to count to five, much less interpret evidence and formulate arguments.

This skill system makes it so that playthroughs will be entirely diferent depending on what you choose to focus on. And this brings me to the next biggest strength Disco Elysium has: its' reactivity. Here in DE pretty much everything you do has an effect, and will shape the way people around you perceive our detective. This not only gives the game (which itself is already pretty long) replayability, but it also allows the player to truly create the character they want to be in this world. Do you want to be a raging communist who likes to rant about how the world is about to end? Go ahead! How about some sort of racist super-star cop? Why of course! Maybe a normal, apolitical and professional police officer is what you are looking for? I mean, you sure must be fun at parties but fine, go ahead. The range of possibilities is huge, and ZA/UM is not lying when they say that you can become a hero or an absolute disaster of a human being.

Though every playthrough will be different, the one thing that will stay consistent is the writing. The writing in this game is nothing short of outstanding, and what I think is the game's strongest point. While the main plot about the murder is very interesting and a great way to keep the story going, where DE truly shines is in its' worldbuilding, the exploration of this world, and the depth of most if not all of the characters that inhabit it. Very few games have managed to write characters that feel so intriguing, relatable and most of all: human. Even the voices in your head have more personality and charisma than most NPCs in other RPGs, and all of this is thanks to how well written the conversations in DIsco Elysium are.

Now we get to everyone's favourite part: politics, YAY.
Everyone in Revachol is suffering the consequences of a failed revolution some 40 years ago, and each of them deal with it in different ways: some try to reignite the spark, others reminiscence about the monarchy that preceded the commune, most just try to get by, and then some just use drugs. Just like I mentioned some paragraphs above, the game is intrinsically political. Since the revolution still has an effect on everyone in Martinnaise, it is only natural that it becomes a vital part of its' world and therefore of the plot of DE.
The writers, though self-described marxists, do not pull any punches when criticising and mocking the four factions represented in the game: fascists, communists, ultraliberals, and moralists). I would like to write more but I'm running out of space :)


So to sum up:
If you like RPGs, buy Disco Elysium
If you want to experience a hilarious and thought-provoking critique of modern politics, buy Disco Elysium.
If you want to explore a fascinating world full of interesting characters and masterfully written dialogue, buy Disco Elysium.
And especially, if you want to support truly passionate developers who push the limits of what a RPG is, buy Disco Elysium.


If you've gotten this far I want to thank you for taking the time to read all this. Sorry if I've rambled a bit or if there are any mistakes in the text, English is not my first language after all, but I wanted to write this as a way to show my love and appreciation for this game. Disco Elysium has made me feel something that no other game has been capable of. Very few games are capable of making me laugh out loud at one moment, and then bring me to tears in the next one, and none to the extent that DE has. As I said in the review, the writing in this game is exceptional, and I hope that it will set a precedent for future games because you can feel the heart and passion that the developers have put into every single line of dialogue.

So to cap this off, thank you ZA/UM for making Disco Elysium, you have created something beautiful that will stay with me for a long while, and that I will certainly come back to from time to time to enjoy again.

Detective Costeau out.

Paradox please stop releasing new DLC I have a wife and kids I need to feed please

Played it a bit.


Not that good really.

Me caí de unas escaleras y me partí las dos piernas; pude vivir mi fantasía de ser un gusanito hasta que se reinició el servidor cinco minutos después.

8/10 recomendaría la experiencia.

12/10 ign would crash again