This review contains spoilers
really solid for the most part, though i do have some quibbles.
i think the way dialogue checks are handled in this game is very cool – the first time that the game has you attempting to persuade someone and it takes into account your prior interactions (in a rather strict way) it was an awesome moment that reminded me of how disco elysium impressed me on first playthrough, and i think in some ways this game is even more successful in getting you to be cognizant of what you’re saying and who you’re saying it to. that said, i really think that the “THIS WILL BE REMEMBERED” pop-ups are wrongheaded and go directly against how this mechanic otherwise fosters immersion. in real life, you don’t get non-diegetic alerts about how your interactions are being perceived by other people – neither should you here.
it's always easy with a narrative game like this that focuses on branching paths and player decision to complain that the range of choices is too narrow. i guess where the line falls for me on whether it is or isn't a fair criticism to levy is when it takes me out of the story and alerts me to the artificiality of the game. to be more specific, by the end of act 1 i had investigated most of the leads and was pretty confident in who the culprit was. however, i had also discovered that there was more to the case and that the culprit, along with several other suspects, was being manipulated by an unknown actor (sidenote, i really like how limited the time for your investigation is, feels like another case where the devs were honing in on some untapped potential from disco elysium). moreover, i sympathized with the culprit’s motives and wasn’t comfortable with condemning him to death (in part because he had a family while the other suspects didn’t). needless to say this is an extremely cool situation to throw at the player, but where the game falters for me is in how it allows you to resolve it. andreas, the protagonist, is playing detective to clear his friend piero's name, but what i decided was the best course of action in this situation was actually to withhold the evidence that i'd gathered to the archdeacon who was conducting the inquiry, even if it came at the cost of piero's death. my reasoning was that piero was very old (indeed, it turns out that he passes away in the next few years) and it seemed an action that he might've been able to appreciate given his harmonious, go-with-the-flow worldview, as long as it meant preventing the unjust death of someone else. in any case it's an imperfect solution to an extremely tough situation and i was impressed that the game had gotten me to reach such a morally complex conclusion. however, when it actually came time to have an audience with the archdeacon, i was not allowed to (entirely) withhold information. it turns out that there is, in fact, no situation in which brother piero is executed (probably because his death is the impetus for andreas' return in act 2), even though the archdeacon considers him the strongest suspect before you get involved. the game wants to force you into a tough position of having to essentially choose who gets to die for the crime, but prevents you from choosing brother piero, in spite of that being imo the juciest choice from a narrative standpoint - to choose the outcome that you embarked on this entire quest to prevent is deliciously ironic, and it's also the most congruous with the feeling of guilt that the game tries to foster in act 2 given that players have probably grown more attached to piero than any of the other suspects (you also know for a certainty that he's innocent). instead, i chose to implicate someone who i didn't really think did it but liked the least, which would've been an interesting choice if i had arrived at it organically, but it just doesn't hit when i feel artificially backed into it by the game itself. the game’s attempts to hold it over me just falls flat when i’m thinking “well, i didn’t want to do that, you made me”
it doesn't help that act 1 is easily the best one and that the game slowly loses steam over time. not to any debilitating degree - act 2 and 3 are still quite good - but they just aren't able to match the freshness and cohesiveness of the first one. there are some other issues - i felt that the prose was often too expository, especially at the beginning (it’s hard to be charitable to stuff like this when disco elysium has so concretely exposed the literary possibilities within this medium) – however, these are relatively minor. what remains, overall, is a work that, in spite of some shortcomings, i feel comfortable placing in the upper echelons of video game narratives.
i think the way dialogue checks are handled in this game is very cool – the first time that the game has you attempting to persuade someone and it takes into account your prior interactions (in a rather strict way) it was an awesome moment that reminded me of how disco elysium impressed me on first playthrough, and i think in some ways this game is even more successful in getting you to be cognizant of what you’re saying and who you’re saying it to. that said, i really think that the “THIS WILL BE REMEMBERED” pop-ups are wrongheaded and go directly against how this mechanic otherwise fosters immersion. in real life, you don’t get non-diegetic alerts about how your interactions are being perceived by other people – neither should you here.
it's always easy with a narrative game like this that focuses on branching paths and player decision to complain that the range of choices is too narrow. i guess where the line falls for me on whether it is or isn't a fair criticism to levy is when it takes me out of the story and alerts me to the artificiality of the game. to be more specific, by the end of act 1 i had investigated most of the leads and was pretty confident in who the culprit was. however, i had also discovered that there was more to the case and that the culprit, along with several other suspects, was being manipulated by an unknown actor (sidenote, i really like how limited the time for your investigation is, feels like another case where the devs were honing in on some untapped potential from disco elysium). moreover, i sympathized with the culprit’s motives and wasn’t comfortable with condemning him to death (in part because he had a family while the other suspects didn’t). needless to say this is an extremely cool situation to throw at the player, but where the game falters for me is in how it allows you to resolve it. andreas, the protagonist, is playing detective to clear his friend piero's name, but what i decided was the best course of action in this situation was actually to withhold the evidence that i'd gathered to the archdeacon who was conducting the inquiry, even if it came at the cost of piero's death. my reasoning was that piero was very old (indeed, it turns out that he passes away in the next few years) and it seemed an action that he might've been able to appreciate given his harmonious, go-with-the-flow worldview, as long as it meant preventing the unjust death of someone else. in any case it's an imperfect solution to an extremely tough situation and i was impressed that the game had gotten me to reach such a morally complex conclusion. however, when it actually came time to have an audience with the archdeacon, i was not allowed to (entirely) withhold information. it turns out that there is, in fact, no situation in which brother piero is executed (probably because his death is the impetus for andreas' return in act 2), even though the archdeacon considers him the strongest suspect before you get involved. the game wants to force you into a tough position of having to essentially choose who gets to die for the crime, but prevents you from choosing brother piero, in spite of that being imo the juciest choice from a narrative standpoint - to choose the outcome that you embarked on this entire quest to prevent is deliciously ironic, and it's also the most congruous with the feeling of guilt that the game tries to foster in act 2 given that players have probably grown more attached to piero than any of the other suspects (you also know for a certainty that he's innocent). instead, i chose to implicate someone who i didn't really think did it but liked the least, which would've been an interesting choice if i had arrived at it organically, but it just doesn't hit when i feel artificially backed into it by the game itself. the game’s attempts to hold it over me just falls flat when i’m thinking “well, i didn’t want to do that, you made me”
it doesn't help that act 1 is easily the best one and that the game slowly loses steam over time. not to any debilitating degree - act 2 and 3 are still quite good - but they just aren't able to match the freshness and cohesiveness of the first one. there are some other issues - i felt that the prose was often too expository, especially at the beginning (it’s hard to be charitable to stuff like this when disco elysium has so concretely exposed the literary possibilities within this medium) – however, these are relatively minor. what remains, overall, is a work that, in spite of some shortcomings, i feel comfortable placing in the upper echelons of video game narratives.