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Inside Out walked so that Disco Elysium could run.
The game tells the story of a drunk, amnesiac police lieutenant DuBois with his partner, the stoic no-nonsense Kim Kitsuragi having to solve the case of a reported lynching near a hostel, only falling down a deep rabbit hole once they investigate further. The writing in Disco Elysium is outstanding, not just in RPG, but in all of games;
the story of the game is quite thrilling and does use plot twists accordingly to advance the story and reach it to its conclusion, while also subverting some of the tropes of police procedural series, it is pretty original for an RPG to play detective. The themes of starting over, working hard to see the end, not giving in to despair, reconciliation and above all, dealing with failure wind throughout the game which gives it a genuinely mature feel.
Disco Elysium is a very, very political game, several times pointing to how the gears of politics not many are interested in shape the world and each nation and group's place within it. Instead of a good/bad moral stance, it is instead a political stance that are decided through conversations and although all worldviews are treated with intense scrutiny and criticism, are given nuance, so keep that in mind when you talk to someone.
The characters in this game are some of the best and most developed I've seen, with the two main characters, Mr. DuBois and Kim might as well being as iconic (and kind of reminiscent of) Holmes and Watson;
and the game doesn't stop there, every character, major or minor, has something distinct, each having their own complexities and struggles, having to deal with their views on you and the world, and ways you can get them to open up about the case and reveal the depths they're hiding, in that you feel very immersed in the game's setting. The characters don't feel like props put to a game for the story to progress, they feel like actual people with their own things happening in their lives. The voice-acting as well is done with great effort and since The Final Cut makes the game fully-voiced, it prospers.
The worldbuilding is one of the best, hands down. Taking place in a large but rundown city of Revachol put under a strict international military occupation following an attempt at a revolution, giving a rather powerful backdrop to the happenings you encounter along the way, the lynching becoming a small piece of puzzle in a much wider set, the world being reminiscent of ZA/UM's Estonian origins and its post-Soviet socioeconomic landscape. The developers spared no effort at creating a colossally-detailed world, with its own vocabulary, history and progression, yet very similar to our own, giving it an alien but familiar look that creates a wonderful mix of feeling like you're there.
It helps with the very good handling of the exposition, DuBois suffering from amnesia serves himself as a surrogate for the audience introducing the concepts slowly through the dialogue or the thoughts in his head, one is quite motivated latching for more information about Elysium by searching every room or investing in Encyclopedia skill to hear what a "radiocomputer" is. At the least showing the potential in setting in an different world that doesn't need to be Sci-Fi or Fantasy.
The visuals here do show the priorities set, the in-game 3D models are pretty flat with primitive movements, but is more than made up with the beyond moving artwork by lead artist Alexander Rostov.
The game's art style is incredibly distinct in that it doesn't look like a painting done on a frame or tablet, but a mural on the walls of rusted buildings, the game's landscape has a very painted-on look to it like you're walking on an interactive panoramic masterpiece, meanwhile the portrait of characters feels like commissioned portraits worthy of ending up on the museum, each one having different motives to it and what they feel.
I told a lot about the design in the story, but what about the actual gameplay...
The gameplay of Disco Elysium is... not that good. While staying true to the pen-and-paper RPGs and to me, it doesn't really translate well into a computer game partly due to lack of real action on screen. I will say it is very unique, rather than levelling up your weapons and armour to attack more enemies, you level up your inner thoughts that serve as your party members that guide you to a satisfactory outcome when talking to people, with a sufficient level passing a check where you can hear its thoughts.
For example, Rhetoric helping you see what are they trying to say and helping you better convince them, or Inland Empire making you have conversations with things that can't talk; crafting an extensive and thrilling game of shoulder angels. The skill levels are also capped to encourage replay value.
The issue comes from how it's not really balanced, most of actions occur in INT field so focusing on other fields can lock you out of many quests.
Then there are the checks, roll a dice and see if it advances the plot. While care is given to cases where the check is failed since the game is about accepting it,, you'd rather want the best outcome like in any other game and one could be pushed into save-and-loading over and over to get it, which kind of pushes down the enjoyability.
The good thing is that the checks can be curved by completing side-quests but not all; will say, even the side-quests are very engaging and can have twists of their own, even a minor one like finding and recovering a corpse on a boardwalk has its own share of gravitas. Problem came when it piled quests on me at the beginning and gave nothing to do with them until later, a thing that made me feel under pressure and got me to put the game off for a few months.
Either way, it is a game without much action with combat mechanics not existing, making it more like an interactive Poirot novel than what you expect for a game. If you're familiar with pen-and-paper, you'll probably enjoy this game a lot more, most of my issues with the gameplay come more from my particular distaste in RPG anyway.
The music, well, just by exiting the first building you're in, you start to get greeted by the game's distinguishable score. It goes in several places, whether the gloomy "Instrument of Surrender" or the Pop-y "Whirling-In-Rags" or the gratifying "La Revacholiere", it stays in your head. Just the soundtrack alone has its place in games history. Honestly, with a name like "Disco Elysium", I was expecting Disco music.
Conclusion:
+:Deep and complex characters, amazing and emotional artwork, otherworldly worldbuilding, engaging story, great voice-acting, distinct and beautiful music.
-: Gameplay is barren at best, frustrating at worst, slow and badly-paced beginning.
Disco Elysium has its flaws, but they can be forgiven easily by the marvelous might of its storytelling and the art direction. The game may not be great to play, but it is extraordinary to look and hear, and with that ends up as the one game I can hold to prove computer games are an art form. While it had its humble beginnings, it truly ends up as one of the greatest indie games ever made, standing on the shoulders with Cave Story, Papers Please, Undertale, Cuphead and such.