Disco Elysium: The Final Cut - Review
Disco Elysium: The Final Cut is unlike any other game I've ever played, role-playing or not.
The PlayStation 5 version is particularly fitting of Disco Elysium's dilapidated setting; slow, somewhat tedious, and a little bit broken, which is just like the fictional war torn location of Revachol. It feels like a game better played on PC with a keyboard and mouse, such was the early state of the PlayStation port.
During my playthrough, I frequently had to select objects twice or more before the game would recognise my input. Other times, quest-related inputs wouldn't register, gating progress for some optional but experience-enriching content. Another bugbear was trying to navigate menus using the horizontal D-pad buttons, only to inadvertently consume limited supply consumables mapped to the same input. Each
However, Disco Elysium is absolutely worth experiencing, irrespective of which platform you own — clunkiness be damned.
Many of Disco Elysium's most glaring console bugs have since been addressed in timely post-release patches, but in a bizarre way, they almost added to the game's worldbuilding. Revachol is a melting pot of people from many different backgrounds, predominantly a hybridisation of European-like cultures, all barely getting by. Political unrest is rife, with various factions united by common ideologies ready to fight at a moment's notice. Everything about Revachol, especially its infrastructure, barely works, and the clunkiness from a player perspective actually makes contextual sense. It's frustrating, for sure, but much of it is easily excused when viewed as a feature, not a bug. Which, of course, depends on your willingness to engage with Disco Elysium's role-playing aspects at a meta level.
Fully enacting the storytelling advice "start late, finish early", Disco Elysium places you in the alcohol-drenched shoes of a police officer whose recent bender rendered him amnesiac. Having no memories of your character's identity, job, or what he was doing blacked out in a run-down motel makes for a compelling opener. Best of all, it only gets messier from there.
Disco Elysium's role-playing elements come into play at every step, beginning with the choice of what personality your character inhabits. Unlike most conventional RPGs, the attributes you put points towards aren't your typical strength, dexterity and constitution categories. While some skill categories are vague translations of what you might see elsewhere, most share more in common with high concept personality traits than RPG attributes.
It's an intimidating beginning, faced with choices of "Rhetoric", "Esprit de Corps" and "Electro-Chemistry", but it all begins to make sense once Disco Elysium begins good and proper. My cop ended up being a highly empathetic character who was dumb as a bag or rocks — a himbo, if you will.
This is where the traditional pen-and-paper RPG concepts kick in. While traversing Revachol, unravelling a litany of mysteries, you encounter countless skill checks where the success probability aligns with your point distribution. Some checks are for relatively minor things such as being able to detect another character's sarcasm, while others are for more crucial circumstances like safely landing a precarious jump across rooftops. Many of the important skill checks can be retried, but some — labelled "red checks" — are a one-and-done-affair. You gain skill points at a rapid clip, so I found it helpful to stockpile a bunch and cash them in when I had to retry story-related actions.
One of the main drawcards for The Final Cut is full voice acting, which is spectacularly performed. While I never played the original Disco Elysium version, I can't imagine going back and playing without hearing every line voiced. Your loyal companion during Disco Elysium's misadventures is Kim Kitsuragi, an unflappable bomber jacket-wearing lieutenant spectacularly voiced by Julian Champenois. Kitsuragi is a wonderfully written character whose near unwavering patience for your predicament and diligence to the job comes through in Champenois' impeccable voice work.
Another actor who deserves special mention is first-timer(!) Lenval Brown's work in doing the narration and personifying your character's inner monologue. Aside from adding another layer of emotion to the events unfolding around you, Brown's versatility lends itself to many terrific moments of gallows humour. Which is also a reflection of Disco Elysium's extravagant writing. There's a lot of sparkling prose about often the simplest of interactions, making it worth exploring all of Revachol's diamonds hidden in the rough.
I would love to dive more into why Disco Elysium's story and exploration of political ideals is so deeply fascinating, but I want you to experience it all first-hand even more. There are many layers to unfurl in the game's seemingly unending mysteries, and so many ways to approach them. I recall reading developer Studio ZA/UM describing Disco Elysium as a large personality test, where the game is playing you as much as you are playing it. This is absolutely true. I implore you to try Disco Elysium to find out what it reveals about you.
So while Disco Elysium commenced on PS5 as a rough, clunky mess, it is getting better with each patch. Even with Australian availability limited to PC (unless you get creative), it's worth finding a way to play one of the most unique and compelling role-playing experiences to ever get the digital treatment.
The Score
8.5
Review code provided by ZA/UM
The Pros
+A gripping concept superbly realised through stellar writing.
+Consistently brilliant voice acting.
+A near-unrivalled capacity for role-playing.
+Kim Kitsuragi is one of the best sidekicks of all time.
The Cons
-Lots of little bugs hamper the experience.
-Feels more suited to a mouse and keyboard than a controller.
