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This review contains spoilers
In each of my subsequent playthroughs of disco elysium, I learn so many new things about this game that I feel like I'm playing it again for the first time. As I've become more and more familiar with the game, the parallels between my home state of West Virginia, and the slums of Martinaise have become clear as day. I realize that the developers were writing this story with the perspective of being born in the pre/post-soviet Baltic states, but both West Virginia and Martinaise are nowhere-ville places that once had a labor history, scarred by a failed uprising (The Battle of Blair Mountain) that was lost long ago, and has since succumbed to the cheap, short term pleasures of capital, and the fervent mental safety that fascism provides. Its these parallels that I think makes this game so important to me. It tears me up that things have come to this, but I also believe that the fight for equality will never stop.
When going into disco elysium, I really didn't have much to expect. for me, an ADD addled brain who generally dislikes primarily story focused games, it didn't sound very appealing. but the concept of an rpg with no combat sounded worth a try, and boy did it deliver. In short, disco elysium is a beautiful, human story that captures the best, and worst parts of humanity, being both sickly sweet and heart wrenchingly bitter. Its a game that gives me the same sort of joy I get from exploring real life abandoned buildings, having deep conversations with complete strangers, pondering the history of something completely insignificant, or even just contemplating on what's the fucking point of it all. Hats off to ZA/UM for this being their first game, what a fucking way to get your game career started.