uralap
1 review liked by uralap
Disco Elysium is the best interpretation of a tabletop game into a video game that I've ever played.
"Chaos is my method. I am it's scion." is a quote that I think best sums up our protagonist, Harry Du Bois. His fractured mind is a perfect vessel for the player. His multiple personalities act as stat attributes similar to DnD, curved into the lens of a video game. His responses are insane, his reactions are overly dramatic and pathetic, he is the perfect embodiment of a DnD player pushing against his Dungeon Master. He is literally me. Not in the realest sense of the phrase — I don't even drink alcohol — but instead, in my approach for characters. When I play a character in a tabletop setting, I play Harry Du Bois. I am the active character that is utterly insane. The sheer force of stupidity that drives the plot forward. The gung-ho moron that doesn't know what he's doing and stumbles forward and falls flat on his face as he attempts to trick the world that he is about to pull off the dumbest thing on the planet, only to fail or succeed spectacularly. Kim Kitsuragi, in turn, represents the type of player who knows what he's doing. The type of player that would go along with my incredibly inane antics in a more constructive, logical way. He plays along with Harry and has a deep respect and care for him, but he's here to do his job and do it right. He's an anchor for your insanity, a safety mechanism in your Coupris 40 preventing you from drunkenly steering off the road to prove to the voice in your head that you're the real Tequila Sunset. I would classify these characters as pitch perfect characters, a perfect dynamic duo for a detective story.
Plop these characters into the culturally rich and politically charged world of Elysium, and their stories take shape for the player to explore. Whether you're a good cop, a bad cop, a sorry cop, a boring cop, a commie scumbag or a fascist pig, a capitalist bourgeoisie or fence sitting moralist, it's merely up to you. You're here to solve a murder, and however you bumble your way through is up to you. Dice rolls and stat checks are the law, determining just what actions you can and can't perform. Accompanied with this are dialogue trees that give the player enough room to roleplay. My version of Harry had a Psych-Physique build and was a Sorry Cop/Moralist. He thought most of the political conflict was rubbish. He was highly irritable, irrational, sad, pathetic, and petty. He attempted to shoot a child out of anger. He told a child that he thought kids were dumb, and at the slight graze to his ego when the kid responded to him with "you're dumb", he replied with "I'm leaving. I'm leaving and I'm never talking to you again". He was always sorry for his past mistakes. He attempted to make up for them constantly. He didn't drink a drop for the 6-7 days he was on the assignment. He worked his ass off and showed kindness to those who needed it most. He had 7 people killed. He lost his gun and never found it. He found his badge in his wrecked Courpris 40 Police Wagon that was taken in by the water. He pet the hair of the murder victim. He kissed a figment of his ex of 7 years and stopped when he realized she didn't want to kiss back immediately. Kim grew to befriend and appreciate him, even in his moments of stupidity.
This is a game that will require multiple playthroughs. It's impossible not to feel like this. The game almost demands it. The amount of choices the player can make within the game, the amount of stories and characters I never even experienced or uncovered are still left unturned. I feel as though I've only scratched the surface with the world of Disco Elysium. Disco Elysium is a Dungeon Master where you can think "oh, can I do that?" and he let's you do that. It's not true enough to be the endlessly imaginative and creative feeling of a real tabletop game, but instead an emulated feeling that still rings true to it's tabletop roots in just the right ways. And for that, I love this game to pieces.
I can't wait to re-enter this world through the drunken lens of Harry Du Bois yet again. Chaos is my method, and Harry is my scion.
"Chaos is my method. I am it's scion." is a quote that I think best sums up our protagonist, Harry Du Bois. His fractured mind is a perfect vessel for the player. His multiple personalities act as stat attributes similar to DnD, curved into the lens of a video game. His responses are insane, his reactions are overly dramatic and pathetic, he is the perfect embodiment of a DnD player pushing against his Dungeon Master. He is literally me. Not in the realest sense of the phrase — I don't even drink alcohol — but instead, in my approach for characters. When I play a character in a tabletop setting, I play Harry Du Bois. I am the active character that is utterly insane. The sheer force of stupidity that drives the plot forward. The gung-ho moron that doesn't know what he's doing and stumbles forward and falls flat on his face as he attempts to trick the world that he is about to pull off the dumbest thing on the planet, only to fail or succeed spectacularly. Kim Kitsuragi, in turn, represents the type of player who knows what he's doing. The type of player that would go along with my incredibly inane antics in a more constructive, logical way. He plays along with Harry and has a deep respect and care for him, but he's here to do his job and do it right. He's an anchor for your insanity, a safety mechanism in your Coupris 40 preventing you from drunkenly steering off the road to prove to the voice in your head that you're the real Tequila Sunset. I would classify these characters as pitch perfect characters, a perfect dynamic duo for a detective story.
Plop these characters into the culturally rich and politically charged world of Elysium, and their stories take shape for the player to explore. Whether you're a good cop, a bad cop, a sorry cop, a boring cop, a commie scumbag or a fascist pig, a capitalist bourgeoisie or fence sitting moralist, it's merely up to you. You're here to solve a murder, and however you bumble your way through is up to you. Dice rolls and stat checks are the law, determining just what actions you can and can't perform. Accompanied with this are dialogue trees that give the player enough room to roleplay. My version of Harry had a Psych-Physique build and was a Sorry Cop/Moralist. He thought most of the political conflict was rubbish. He was highly irritable, irrational, sad, pathetic, and petty. He attempted to shoot a child out of anger. He told a child that he thought kids were dumb, and at the slight graze to his ego when the kid responded to him with "you're dumb", he replied with "I'm leaving. I'm leaving and I'm never talking to you again". He was always sorry for his past mistakes. He attempted to make up for them constantly. He didn't drink a drop for the 6-7 days he was on the assignment. He worked his ass off and showed kindness to those who needed it most. He had 7 people killed. He lost his gun and never found it. He found his badge in his wrecked Courpris 40 Police Wagon that was taken in by the water. He pet the hair of the murder victim. He kissed a figment of his ex of 7 years and stopped when he realized she didn't want to kiss back immediately. Kim grew to befriend and appreciate him, even in his moments of stupidity.
This is a game that will require multiple playthroughs. It's impossible not to feel like this. The game almost demands it. The amount of choices the player can make within the game, the amount of stories and characters I never even experienced or uncovered are still left unturned. I feel as though I've only scratched the surface with the world of Disco Elysium. Disco Elysium is a Dungeon Master where you can think "oh, can I do that?" and he let's you do that. It's not true enough to be the endlessly imaginative and creative feeling of a real tabletop game, but instead an emulated feeling that still rings true to it's tabletop roots in just the right ways. And for that, I love this game to pieces.
I can't wait to re-enter this world through the drunken lens of Harry Du Bois yet again. Chaos is my method, and Harry is my scion.