Gonna shelve this for now because I encountered a weird bug that made me lose some progress in one of the later levels and frankly, this stressed me out too much.

But what a good concept! Scared the shit out of me in a way that I haven't felt in a while, and I think the unique gameplay really lends itself to some great horror. I do think certain elements of the golf itself were a little frustrating, but as a horror game it's really damn successful. I did think that it got a bit too hard towards the later part of the game and it deflated some of the tension, but my god was the first half effective as hell. Some truly chilling moments and some great atmosphere. Give it a shot if you are less of a scaredy-cat than me.

Amazing how much better the uncut ending mod makes this last section of the game. As much as I can acknowledge its flaws, I really enjoy Mirror's Edge's combat and think this final fight on the roof of the shard fits the game on both a gameplay and a thematic level. Does that really change how cheap the actual story of the game feels? Not even a little, but it does help the moment feel more climactic.

Anyways, this game is still a full guilty pleasure. Never going to not defend its clunky parkour or silly combat. This feels like my dream game come to life, even if its got a bunch of disclaimers on the box. Thankfully that box is full of really addicting, replayable levels and some of the best audio/visual design that the industry has seen to date. I'm still waiting for the day when Mirrors Edge DOESN'T look amazing, and thanks to an ultrawide monitor and a fan made patch for 1440p/144hz it still looks and feels fantastic.

Its hard to think of another game that gets my mind going as much as this one does. The world feels so big and the gameplay base is already so good that I can't help but imagine what a true sequel to this might've looked like. Instead we got Catalyst and we all know how that went. It's not even a bad game, but calling it Mirror's Edge feels wrong.

Still one of my favorite games with one of my favorite soundtracks. If you want to hate it, Mirror's Edge doesn't make that hard for you, but personally I will always defend it as an under appreciated banger.

This might be a little disjointed since I literally just watched the credits roll, but I don't think I'd ever have enough time to fully process how I felt about this.

Absolutely incredible. It took me a little bit until the story fully hooked me, but once it did I was all-in. I feel like I've been saying this a lot recently but honestly - truly - some of the best writing I've ever experienced in a game. Also helps that makes true use of it's medium. It not only knows that its a game but it uses that to its advantage consistently throughout the story to great effect. The commentary on politics, games, cops, and the world at large is genuinely some of the best I've experienced in any art.

That same level of effectiveness is translated over into the game mechanics here as well. The skill point system feels overwhelming initially but quickly made sense once you spent a few hours with it during your first day. Aside from the writing itself, Disco Elysium manages to make dialogue engaging through its expertly crafted skill checks and dialogue options which made the story feel as interactive and dynamic as one could hope for from a game like this. Carefully choosing how to allocate my points was difficult not just from a gameplay perspective, but also from a roleplaying perspective. What kind of Cop was I going to be? Is it worth the gamble of taking on a mew thought which could have negative impact on my version of Harry? Every click through the menus felt like it had meaning in a way that I've rarely felt while playing a game.

Disco does stumble in some small areas, but none enough to ruin my experience. I do think that, despite that really being the main way of interacting with the game, the length and wordiness of certain character interactions can become very tiresome. I basically didn't interact with Joyce because I didn't want to waste 5 hours of my day talking to her, and thats a shame because it feels as though I missed out on some important story bits by doing that. I also think the very ending of the game does fall into the trap of trying to generalize my character, which felt awkward when Kim said I was a raving communist despite my version of Harry being pretty evenly split between a few different political ideologies. It's not awful, but for a game that maintained such a high bar of quality throughout it was weird to see a minor dip right before the finish line.

Disco Elysium fucking rules. It absolutely is a game worth exploring and obsessing over and all the ravings about its writing are so well deserved. It's a really unique type of game that had me thinking "I can't wait to see how that might go differently during a second play through" and that's a magical feeling that you just can't put a price on. I generally don't enjoy RPGs but this one quickly became one of my favorite games of all time once I fully bought into its story. Disco is a game that everyone should try, even if it doesn't seem like it'd be your thing. Games this special don't come along very often.