Started playing Disco Elysium or, as it was previously known, No Truce with the Furies. Which is a much better name, but I imagined they changed it as it's easily misread as a game about going to war with people in fur-suits.
Screenies
It's...fascinating. Ostensibly it's one of those new isometric RPGs in the vein of the Planescapes and Fallouts of old. But it's also an unwieldly beast that's hard to categorise, mainly due to the way it deals with skills and leveling.
On paper you're playing an established character, a detective who drank so hard he obliterated his memory. In practice, you're actually playing as various elements of this man's psyche as they battle over control of the meat sack they vaguely command.
There are 24 differing elements, from Logic and Reaction Speed to batshit presenses like Inland Empire and Conceptualisation. Each serves as part of the upgrade tree, but each also interjects in the moment to moment playing of the game. So, for example, say you're strong in Encyclopedia and weak in Electro-Chemistry. You find a stash of drugs. The former will pass a passive skill check and tell you the type of drugs these are and exactly how terrible they are for you, and Electro-Chemistry, having failed its roll, will barge in and demand you get high immediately. You as the player then get to choose what to do.
It's a completely unique take on the system and it's absolutely mind boggling. For one it means every playthrough will be completely different as you cycle through which elements to improve. In my playthrough I'm playing an intelligent, charming guy who's incredibly weak and clumsy. This means I'm constantly passing passive Encyclopedia checks, so I know a lot about the world, but also failing a lot of physical ones, meaning my way is often barred as I search through ruins and derelict apartment buildings.
All this surrounds the game itself which is apparently a detective story. There's a corpse in a tree, you have to figure out who killed it. Of course it's not as simple as that, and the world is fascinating and, bucking the trend somewhat, incredibly political. One of the key ways your character is defined is by accumulating traits that can then be internalised. Gameplay wise these provide passive bonuses but narratively and, in terms of the dialogue choices you get, they define your character's beliefs and personality. These are
so strawberry floating good I had to take some screenies with my phone:
These appeared unprompted, taken from a giant pool and activated according to my dialogue choices. So my dude is a communist radical feminist, and became one organically through dialogue rather than the choosing of an archetype (you can actually choose to activate and deactivate each of these perks as you wish, but still).
Needless to say I'm strawberry floating loving it. It's brilliantly written, uproariously funny and artistically distinct from just about any other game I've ever seen.
