this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
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I couldn't get in to this game, myself. Granted, due to that, I've only played about an hour of it but this game felt much more like a Visual Novel than an RPG, to me. Stats seemed to have no bearing on anything other than what the narrative decided they have a bearing on. It was therefore, very difficult to figure out who my character was. Otherwise, you're just clicking on things and reading reams of text.
I get that they were trying to go for a more tabletop version of an RPG but without a DM, I find that near impossible to translate 1:1. I would have preferred a more Baldur's Gate approach to the game.
Stats are very important and can cause a playthrough to be very different. I can say more about it if you're interested.
It’s more akin to Planescape: Torment than something like Baldur’s Gate. The game is dense with writing and dialogue, and the majority of it is derived from your stats. Granted, there are a couple of skill checks that you can’t fail due to being story important, but it’s only those two specific instances - everything else is heavily stat-based. There’s also ideologies that the game tracks, so you can be an egotistic superstar cop, a doomsaying apocalypse cop, a normal cop, or even a super-political cop that becomes more drilled down if you want to engage in the fascist, communist, moderate, and/or liberal aspects of the game - and the game does respond to that, including noting how you can be both a communist and a fascist, or some other combination of ideologies.
To help put it in perspective, your stats are, quite literally, your character’s brain. Having low stats doesn’t really impact the game, but you also can become sort of neurotic with high stats - which does have its upsides and downsides (except Encyclopedia, it will drown you in world-building exposition that doesn’t really help and drags out conversations at the higher levels). It’s much more “role-playing” and less “game”.
Really sounds like it's not the game for you. You want combat and big numbers, which isn't what Disco Elysium is about.
I'm still halfway through a playthrough, but it really is a great RPG, with an interesting narrative.