Oh Grey Warden, what have you done?

As I got into digital drawing, I knew I'd have to make a piece of art based on my OG lesbian crush, Tara from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Her once more with feeling outfit is so iconic, I hope I did it some justice here <3

My main critique is that this feels like the ending to an early-access game, like there is supposed to be more but there isn't. Let's start with the good, which is mostly the stuff that happens on the island:

the island

What happens on the island is fine. Finding out about Harry's ex-girlfriend is - admittedly - pretty cliche and didn't hit super hard for me as it was pretty much entirely expected. I wanted a bit more of a twist there (like Harry having made up the whole thing, the woman being someone we'd already met or more of a parallel between Harry and the Deserter romantic/sexual obsession etc.). That being said, the phasmid truly made me feel deep emotions, I actually cried a bit. It felt like the coming together of a bunch of stuff in the game. Earlier in the game I'd had Harry vandalise the side of the wall with 'Something Beautiful Is Going to Happen' and this felt like the moment where the game was saying 'yes. Yes it is. Despite everything. Despite the history. Despite the murders. Despite the fact you couldn't save them all. Despite the way power is being manipulated and abused over and over again; something beautiful will happen, is happening and its happening right now.' It's saying that its good to keep going, keep working on yourself, keep putting one step in front of the other and be curious, because otherwise this wouldn't be here'.

I go back and forth on the deserter. Part of me loves him. He's so emblematic of the whole game; none of the suspects we thought were the killer this guy was. And by implication; the killer was history. The deserter is stuck in this past he can't let go of, and this past has left its scars all over the city. Despite it being fifty years ago, the revolution and its violent suppression is still racking up a body count and making things worse for the population.

That being said, there's another part of me that can't help but be frustrated. There is one big rule in a mystery - any mystery - and that's that introducing a twist that is not only unpredictable but also involves a bunch of characters you didn't know is....kinda disappointing. I've seen some think pieces arguing that that is the point, that things in real life don't tie up neatly, that its not always the gang of suspects you meet on the first day but someone else you literally had no idea existed. That being said, I can't help but feel cheated. This is the big reveal of the game, what its all been waiting for...and its handed to you with a bow no matter how awful of a cop Harry has been or how much you've managed to solve. On day one, if available, Harry and Kim could have taken a boat to the island and found this guy who was just waiting there patiently to confess. I was really curious about Alice, about the Church, about the Pale and what this could all mean for the murder, but in the end it kinda...doesn't?

I think i could forgive the deserter stuff however if not for

The Last Five Minutes

So here is the thing. The last five minutes of Disco Elysium suck ass.

You come back on the boat and immediately are met by the spooky guys who were tailing you in the whirling rags. They're your partners! Oh!

And then we get five minutes of exposition to round the game up. Here you go; here's what happened, here's everything you didn't manage to work out, we'll even spell the thing with your girlfriend out in case you didn't understand the dream sequence well enough.

Let's evaluate you! you can say all the things you found, if you did or didn't drink/do drugs. Kim will pretty much walk out of this convo like 'oh this isn't for me to help' (although he will help) which feels it undermines the whole thing about Kim being the one to always have your back even when he doesn't agree with you/if he doesn't agree with you

It's....boring? Its lazy? I especially hate the fact that Harry isn't actually a dirty cop - I figured that a point of the game might be that Harry was a dirty cop (as all cops are, and as Harry has most likely proved himself to be at this point - asking for money, threatening, going across boundaries and jurisdictions, taking bribes from the union etc.) but instead its waved off - oh no, Harry, you're not a dirty cop you're too much of a lose cannon for that haha. And its like. Okay. But...what are we trying to say then, about Harry about his past, about whether this week matters or has changed anything, about whether or not cops can be good or not (you did solve the murder...?)

It just...feels so rushed (the story of act 3 in most games, but goddamn it I'm going to keep complaining). I understand that there was supposed to be a sequel we will never get due to studio fuckery - and I'm not against games that leave things open ended (does the union take over? does the strike work?) But...literally barely anything is wrapped up and we don't get to know even a little bit! You don't even get to speak to Evertt again post the tribunal. It all feels its leading up to this huge anti-climax. Harry goes home.

And this is extra annoying because I feel if they'd left it on the phasmid, I wouldn't have cared as much about these unanswered questions because the phasmid both is and isn't the answer to the personal and the wider; as is the deserter. But its the need to come back, and randomly lore dump, assure you Harry isn't a dirty cop and then just...get in the police van and go away?

I've had many, many people tell me Disco Elysium is great because its format allows it to be much more personalised than other RPGs, but this is just blatantly untrue. The game is actually shockingly linear and the bottlenecks are the first things that really peeved me about a game I was otherwise enjoying. Harry's opinion on things can change, but what happens in the game and Harry's ability to solve the case is on a set path.

There are multiple moments you must succeed at dice roll to proceed either with the overall story or with that specific storyline. And how you redo white checks is to put points into skills. This quickly becomes one of the most annoying aspects of the game. What I imagine this is supposed to do is incentivise you to solve problems outside of the main storyline and explore the whole of the world, gaining more xp so you can come back and do the check, but if you're already a bit of a completist who is doing everything already, then you quickly run out of things to do to get xp and you have to try and grind out miniscule amounts of 5+ xp by reading books or - worse - sitting around and waiting for it to reach a certain time an event is happening (like 10PM for the communist bookclub) where you know you'll get more content and thus more xp that will let you go back and try things.

And that's a shame because....this format lends itself really well to there being more than one way to solve a problem? like. using an example from the game itself; there are multiple ways to get into the docks. You can either internalise racism, or you can make the jump from Cunnos shack. And I simply don't understand why having multiple ways around an issue isn't presented more often.

What this mostly serves to do, as well, unless you're very lucky, is mean you can't internalise any of the fun thoughts you are getting - something which is way more fun than just putting points arbitrarily into a skill tree because the game told you you must to pass a white check.

And then there's the fact that as the game gets towards its end...the dice rolls kinda stop mattering? there was a bunch I supposedly failed - like noticing if there was something weird on the island - but the game still let me notice it after a few more bits of dialogue. Because the game is linear and needs certain things to happen but doesn't - for whatever reason - want to appear that way.