Disco Elysium is the best western RPG ever made. I can say that without hesitation - for a genre which mostly consists of absolute trash, and of which the good games always have some drastic issues you have to look past, Disco Elysium either sidesteps them or - more often - runs circles around the big devs with consistently exceptional character writing, absolutely gorgeous art, an intriguing key conflict and good pacing.

The middle of Disco Elysium in particular, just before the map opens up, I find absolutely exceptional. Having come to terms with the basics and met most of the main players, going around and untangling the lies and motivations of the characters, as well as just exploring more of martinase and it's wonderful cast of characters, and their quests that give context to the core story.

And it's probably because of such sustained periods of being so damn exceptional that I kind of feel a bit dissapointed in disco elysium, especially in it's final act. The second district of martinase that opens on wednesday is such a dissapointment, being huge for no really good reason and consisting of way less compelling scenarios and characters. It's also in the second area where a bit of the facade of choice and consequence also fades away, with some severe railroading in terms of what the player can effect and do in a game that ostensibly provides such freedom. Whilst these events are mostly still written quite well on the character side, i do feel some of it is a bit contrived in an attempt to give the game a bit of a bombastic moment it never really needed.

Also, I do get that Disco Elysium is kinda deep into the subversion shit and it's kind of the point, but man is the actually solution to the crime extremely lame. I find it deflates the game quite a bit, especially when the game basiclaly already has the framework, characters and motivations in place to have the crime occur in cooler ways.

Outside of that, the only really overarching problem i maybe have with Disco is the skill system. Whilst the skills themselves are incredibly cool and I wouldn't change their writing or how they effect thoughts etc, their use in skill checks is often aggravating and i dont think helps the game's progression, where you can find yourself gated out by some check that you should either by breezing through or one you're encouraged to keep nibbling at every time you get at 5% bonus on it even though it's still a low chance because of how the white checks are redoable. I really think these checks should have just been full on requisites, which would encourage more clue searching rather than putting on a cool hat and trying to dom titus hardie by rolling high.

Oh, and the PS5 version crashes. A lot. And the game only autosaves very sporadically. It's not that big of a deal but it does take me out of an engrossing experience way more than it should. I guess it's so you know it really is a western RPG.

I don't want to take too much from Disco. Even if it ends on a bit of a deflating note for me, it's general quality of writing and some of the best artwork i've seen in a game vastly overpower it. It's just that when you slip from just below the tip of the mountain, it hurts a lot more.