Support NeoGAF

[The Hamburglar]

Getting close to the end

This is one of the best written games I have played for a long time. So many ways to roleplay the character, a true rpg unlike many others which are called rpgs but are not - to this extent.

Other parts of the game are not so perfect. There should be more paths to achieve objectives by using different skills you have built your character on. One path for a physical character, one for clever and so on.

Passing time is awkward. I had to spam the same dialogue option with a board game to get to a certain time.

Red checks are pointless as there's save scumming.

Loading times are atrocious and frustrating. Going to Evhart and back requires six 30 sec - 1 min. loading screens. Also fast travel isn't working - worked once, then not. Like there's not other bugs in the game, gave up with the sand castle

But! The story is great, characters are really good and what you make of the protagonist. All that work really well. The game itself just isn't that user friendly.

Still liking it a lot.

I’m only nearly the start but I definitely should have role played as a certain type of cop.
So far I’m just doing what suits me for best results.

I think there’s an iron mode so you can’t save scum built in.

 

[Nico_D]

I’m only nearly the start but I definitely should have role played as a certain type of cop.
So far I’m just doing what suits me for best results.

I did too at the start. Have you noticed it shows your "alignment" in one of the menu pages? Maybe the thought page?

 

[struggler_guts]

Day 4 and even though

Spoiler

the hardie boys

admitted to the crime kitsuragi and I still actin like we dont know who did it.... Did I bug it by finding out while kim was asleep?

 

[ÆMNE22A!C]

I’m only nearly the start but I definitely should have role played as a certain type of cop.
So far I’m just doing what suits me for best results.

I think there’s an iron mode so you can’t save scum built in.

I'm mostly just role playing as myself. I'm also not save scumming. Just going with the motions see where it goes.

 

[Nico_D]

Have I been fast or what? I'm at day 4 and almost done. Could've ended it on the fourth but I wasted a day trying to find an alternative way do this one thing. I think the next day will be my last - unless the story takes q quick detour even though it warned me of point of no return already (I turned back to do something first).

 

[Con_Z_ǝdʇ]

For the most part i agree, but...

Red checks are pointless as there's save scumming.

You should not save scum! It is a possibility but an invalid way of playing thus rendering your argument pointless.

 

[TrebleShot]

I haven’t seen any bug/controller/FPS issues yet on PS5. Which makes me wonder why some people seem to be unable to play the thing at all. Yeah loading times are longer than they should be but not totally obnoxious.

But beyond that - yeah this is a difficult game to love. I mean there’re graphics but 90% of my time seems to be spent skim reading a boring black panel of text while spamming skip dialogue mid way through the voice over. I don’t want to waste my life listening to people talking slowly.

And then occasionally there are die rolls for .... something .... often coupled with some dialog annotated with ... something. There’re titles like Logic or Savoire Faire. Sadly so far the game hasn’t bothered to mention in the endless stream of internal dialogue text what any of these things are for or why I should care. They can be levelled up though! Yay?

And then you die due to talking - the snowiest of snowflakes, imagine how such a person would survive on GAF if they’re so thin skinned - and lose about 15 minutes of time restarting from your last save if you remembered to save. If you didn’t remember you probably lose an hour due to auto save.

All that to listen to a middle age man grumble about the world and have doubts about how he lived/lives his life.

You can get a similar experience in any bar mid afternoon, and have that discussion in real life without pressing X.

10/10 would skip midlife crisis dialogue again.

Have to say this sums up my experience so far. Not sure I’ll finish it think I’ve done about 4 or 5 hours and it’s a bit of a chore.

 

[Nico_D]

For the most part i agree, but...

You should not save scum! It is a possibility but an invalid way of playing thus rendering your argument pointless.

Yeah, shouldn't. And mostly I haven't, I think once at some point and it turned out to be not that relevant.

Just failed three highly likely rolls (70-90 %). No retries. Slightly annoying but I'll take them like a man.

 

[Nico_D]

Done. It was good, occasionally even great.

It could've - should've - ended 15 minutes earlier than it did, the last segment in the fishing village was pointless and could've been done - if must - at the other place.

Didn't care for the last huge bug and subsequent crash.

Can't claim the bugginess didn't ruin some of the game for me, to be honest. Not quite the masterpiece either I was expecting from reading it but it got pretty close - maybe without the bugs and some tweaks to the mechanics, mostly small, which would've made it less frustrating to play, like to load times. No regrets playing it though.

 

[Con_Z_ǝdʇ]

Yeah, shouldn't. And mostly I haven't, I think once at some point and it turned out to be not that relevant.

Just failed three highly likely rolls (70-90 %). No retries. Slightly annoying but I'll take them like a man.

Percentage shown is just an indication here. You can also pass checks with 5 or less percent.

It is tempting to reload but sucks out the tension of the game.

 

[Nico_D]

Thought about the game some more.

Spoiler

While the dialogue level roleplaying was very well done, I feel the use of skill wasn't quite there. There were a lot of times when it was and a lot of flavor text from abilities was well written and really put you into character.

Then again you couldn't know in advance what's needed where which forces people to save up skill points until they are needed which imo takes away from the roleplaying aspect. It could have been avoided by making more routes where different skills can be used so the player isn't forced to regret spent points but instead finds out they opened a new path.

Like Evrat. I didn't want to deal with him but I didn't have an option not to if I wanted the gun back. Or good cop wants to put things right but doesn't want to make deals with suspicious characters.

The gun could've been foundable in the bunker behind the very high interface requirement. Now if you put a lot of points into it and open the door, you still don't succeed in it. Instead you get an idea.

That said, the thought cabinet - while a great idea - didn't seem worth it. You got - if got - maybe +1 on some random skill which you could've put there straight away knowing what you are getting. The cabinet was just flavor with not much to do with the game.

There were few other moments like the bunker in the game where the reward for succeeding in some very high roll wasn't rewarded. Which stopped me from even trying, like with the mirror and expression.

 

[smart_brazileiro]

Great. Can't retrieve my gun because the pigs opening text is bugged. Can't pick an answer or action cuz it don't show nothing. Fucking great. This game....
Very rarely played a game this buggy.

 

[Con_Z_ǝdʇ]

Great. Can't retrieve my gun because the pigs opening text is bugged. Can't pick an answer or action cuz it don't show nothing. Fucking great. This game....
Very rarely played a game this buggy.

Don't just run up to her. Stay outside the fence and then select her. This will trigger the conversation but also let you walk closer to her which will then make progress possible.

 

[a multicultural team of v]

Thought about the game some more.

Spoiler

While the dialogue level roleplaying was very well done, I feel the use of skill wasn't quite there. There were a lot of times when it was and a lot of flavor text from abilities was well written and really put you into character.

Then again you couldn't know in advance what's needed where which forces people to save up skill points until they are needed which imo takes away from the roleplaying aspect. It could have been avoided by making more routes where different skills can be used so the player isn't forced to regret spent points but instead finds out they opened a new path.

Like Evrat. I didn't want to deal with him but I didn't have an option not to if I wanted the gun back. Or good cop wants to put things right but doesn't want to make deals with suspicious characters.

The gun could've been foundable in the bunker behind the very high interface requirement. Now if you put a lot of points into it and open the door, you still don't succeed in it. Instead you get an idea.

That said, the thought cabinet - while a great idea - didn't seem worth it. You got - if got - maybe +1 on some random skill which you could've put there straight away knowing what you are getting. The cabinet was just flavor with not much to do with the game.

There were few other moments like the bunker in the game where the reward for succeeding in some very high roll wasn't rewarded. Which stopped me from even trying, like with the mirror and expression.

I think the game encourages you to play "blind," i.e. don't save up skill points, but instead use them when you get them to develop your character how you want to play your character. I think this is reinforced by the fact that it never tells you what skills checks are being done behind the scenes - you simply get the additional flavor dialog if you pass, otherwise it goes on as normal. Playing with zero skills would be an interesting experience because basically the entire game would simply be characters talking with zero flavor anywhere.

I do sort of see what you mean in that you could be boosting a stat that might never have a significant check associated with it, but I dunno I think it adds to the mystery with this game. The game doesn't seem to be designed around the typical "immersive story" trinity game design where every objective has a stealth/action/dialog route to complete it, and instead some problems can only be handled in a small number of specific ways. Which honestly feels more realistic than every major task being able to solved in ways that are vastly different to each other, just for the video game sake of making sure any build can do it.

The cabinet was a bit weird though, yeah. It felt very random and many times I ended up saying to myself "well that was a waste" because it modified stats I wasn't interested in.

 

[smart_brazileiro]

Don't just run up to her. Stay outside the fence and then select her. This will trigger the conversation but also let you walk closer to her which will then make progress possible.

Thx a bunch, mate. Worked. I was ready to put the game on the shelf and wait for patch 2.0.

 

[Con_Z_ǝdʇ]

Thx a bunch, mate. Worked. I was ready to out the game on the shelf and wait for patch 2.0.

Had the same bug today. Glad i could help.

 

[Jaxcellent]

I just bought the game, 3 hours in taking my time. wow this is something really special.. the dialogue options are incredible!

 

[KyoZz]

Haven't made the jump yet (need to finish Wasteland 3 and my coop game of Galactic Civilization first) but this is probably my next game

 

[Tchu-Espresso]

Patch 1.003/1.03 is live.

 

[smart_brazileiro]

How does this hand holding stuff work? I equip something in my hand like a flashlight and then I click on the respective stick to unequip? Because that doesn't work for me.

 

[Con_Z_ǝdʇ]

How does this hand holding stuff work? I equip something in my hand like a flashlight and then I click on the respective stick to unequip? Because that doesn't work for me.

Equipping the item should be enough i think.

At least it works with the yellow bag for collecting bottles and the pry bar for opening containers.

Not so sure about the rest.

 

[nowhat]

So after a rough (to put it mildly) first impression, I've played this for a few days. Have had a single crash, one instance where I got stuck in the environment and had to reload, some minor bugs and glitches. But now in one quest I'm not able to interact with a thing - googling it up, it (and much else) will be fixed in 1.3 which the devs are working on right now, so I guess I'll wait again for a while.

Which is a shame, because when this game works, it can be fantastic. Some of the dialogue is just amazing, I completely lost it at Contact Mike.

 

[smart_brazileiro]

Now it's stuck on the Soona quest. I swear to God if I could get a refund I would right fucking now. Buggiest game ever. Fuck this fucking game.

Edit:
Switching to classic voiceover mode solved it for me.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Now it's stuck on the Soona quest. I swear to God if I could get a refund I would right fucking now. Buggiest game ever. Fuck this fucking game.

Edit:
Switching to classic voiceover mode solved it for me.

Please report the bug to the developers if you can, I know… not your job but it still helps.

 

[sloppyjoe_gamer]

Patch 1.003/1.03 is live.

Post patch impressions ASAP for PS5 please

 

[Tchu-Espresso]

Post patch impressions ASAP for PS5 please

I’m not best placed because other than some random instances of voice overs not playing, I’ve not experienced any issues with the game.

 

[Fuz]

Red checks are pointless as there's save scumming.

I'm a serial save scummer.

Not in Disco Elysium, though. There's really no reason to do it, and failig checks is often funnier than passing them.

 

[HotPocket69]

Another patch is out.

Finally got a chance to sink my teeth into this yesterday. The writing is a lot to take in but it’s pretty damn good and I found myself laughing out loud a bunch. My dude is basically Chip Chipperson The Cop with his awful bombs and one liners. Im a complete fool who can’t find his badge or gun and am already drinking on the job. Pretty sure Kim thinks I’m a complete retard

I was able to talk that rich lady on the boat into giving me $130 bucks which I used to pay off my debt at the hostel but now I need another $20 for rent and I have no idea how I’m gonna get it. I already found the plastic bag and cashed in some bottles I’ve found but I’m still 10 short.

It’s almost close to the end of the first day (got two hours left) and I haven’t even investigated the body yet. Is it possible to go through the whole week without ever really doing anything of note? Does time just keep moving forward? And if so, does that just give you a game over?

 

[nowhat]

Another patch is out.

...and the bug I mentioned a bit above has been fixed. Yay! Back to this then.

 

[Con_Z_ǝdʇ]

Another patch is out.

Finally got a chance to sink my teeth into this yesterday. The writing is a lot to take in but it’s pretty damn good and I found myself laughing out loud a bunch. My dude is basically Chip Chipperson The Cop with his awful bombs and one liners. Im a complete fool who can’t find his badge or gun and am already drinking on the job. Pretty sure Kim thinks I’m a complete retard

I was able to talk that rich lady on the boat into giving me $130 bucks which I used to pay off my debt at the hostel but now I need another $20 for rent and I have no idea how I’m gonna get it. I already found the plastic bag and cashed in some bottles I’ve found but I’m still 10 short.

It’s almost close to the end of the first day (got two hours left) and I haven’t even investigated the body yet. Is it possible to go through the whole week without ever really doing anything of note? Does time just keep moving forward? And if so, does that just give you a game over?

You get endless options to make a real fool out of your self.

You can sell postcards which give you more money than the bottles. I have not found another use for them. The most money i got from being a corrupt cop. And a lot of coins lie around randomly.

Time just passes in conversations or when reading a book. While reading it is also accelerated.

I'm not sure what happens when you do nothing.

 

[HotPocket69]

You get endless options to make a real fool out of your self.

You can sell postcards which give you more money than the bottles. I have not found another use for them. The most money i got from being a corrupt cop. And a lot of coins lie around randomly.

Time just passes in conversations or when reading a book. While reading it is also accelerated.

I'm not sure what happens when you do nothing.

I mean, I’ve pretty much done everything I can (side quests, talking to people, visiting shops etc) in day 1 without investigating the body yet. But.....I have no place to sleep so I’ll be curious to see how that works.

I have been save scumming some checks though I must’ve re rolled that 3%er for the mirror in your bathroom like 20 times lol

Where can I find postcards? I need cash money. I’m such a fuckin slop piece of shit. Everyone I talk to I’m just like “Hey can you give me some money?”

 

[Con_Z_ǝdʇ]

I mean, I’ve pretty much done everything I can (side quests, talking to people, visiting shops etc) in day 1 without investigating the body yet. But.....I have no place to sleep so I’ll be curious to see how that works.

I have been save scumming some checks though I must’ve re rolled that 3%er for the mirror in your bathroom like 20 times lol

Where can I find postcards? I need cash money. I’m such a fuckin slop piece of shit. Everyone I talk to I’m just like “Hey can you give me some money?”

I'm curious too.

Does it change your picture in the lower left?

The postcards lie around just like the money. Press L1 and you can see everything you can interact with.
I think you can also sell your clothes or any other item. I have not tried since i'm not sure what i should keep or if something is needed later in the story.

Someone needs to ask Joyce for 10000. Wasn't that the highest amount?

 

[HotPocket69]

I'm curious too.

Does it change your picture in the lower left?

The postcards lie around just like the money. Press L1 and you can see everything you can interact with.
I think you can also sell your clothes or any other item. I have not tried since i'm not sure what i should keep or if something is needed later in the story.

Someone needs to ask Joyce for 10000. Wasn't that the highest amount?

Lol I considered it and was like “Nah, don’t wanna seem like TOO much of a leech.”

 

[Con_Z_ǝdʇ]

Lol I considered it and was like “Nah, don’t wanna seem like TOO much of a leech.”

Me too.

 

[Derktron]

I played the game and it’s one of the most confusing games I’ve played in a while.

 

[Con_Z_ǝdʇ]

Post patch impressions ASAP for PS5 please

Loading times are improved. I have not measured but it is obvious.

Frame rate is much better. Feels more like constant 60fps now.

The game is way more responsive now while browsing through the menu.

I have a lot of saves and checked some bugged places. Nothing so far.

There are some changes in the main menu.

As of now i have not heard that voice over is missing but i just played some minutes today.

Edit:

Everything works now on you first interaction. No need to select things twice. FINALLY!

 

[Derktron]

Loading times are improved. I have not measured but it is obvious.

Frame rate is much better. Feels more like constant 60fps now.

The game is way more responsive now while browsing through the menu.

I have a lot of saves and checked some bugged places. Nothing so far.

There are some changes in the main menu.

As of now i have not heard that voice over is missing but i just played some minutes today.

Edit:

Everything works now on you first interaction. No need to select things twice. FINALLY!

Do you know when Stadia gets that update?

 

[Con_Z_ǝdʇ]

Do you know when Stadia gets that update?

No. Maybe look or ask on twitter.

Edit:

I looked on Twitter and a lot of people asked for it but there is no answer to it yet.

 

[Derktron]

No. Maybe look or ask on twitter.

Edit:

I looked on Twitter and a lot of people asked for it but there is no answer to it yet.

Figures not surprising at all.

 

[The Hamburglar]

Where’s this thing that tells you your role?

 

[HotPocket69]

Took an hour of save scumming the rolls but I made the jump and got that sweet fucking coat.

Met that Jabba/Bricktop motherfucker who knows about my missing gun, collected some postcards and debriefed with Kim. It’s past bedtime and I’m just roaming around looking for shit to complete or find.

This game is something else. Playing on hardcore and flying blind is indeed the way to go. And this newest patch has made an incredible difference.

 

[HotPocket69]

Also if anyone knows the track that plays whenever you talk to Joyce Messier it’d be appreciated

 

[nowhat]

Last night I finally got to sing karaoke. There was a skill check with fairly good odds, yet I failed it.

Didn't think of save scumming for one bit, the end result was glorious. I was howling with laughter all the way.

 

[Imotekh]

Last night I finally got to sing karaoke. There was a skill check with fairly good odds, yet I failed it.

Didn't think of save scumming for one bit, the end result was glorious. I was howling with laughter all the way.

This also happened to me. I was seriously impressed with the quality of the recording they did of someone singing so passionately, yet terribly.

Because I learned towards traditionalism I keep getting dialogue options with ö's in there. Oh no, not a woman, a wöman! Its actually a really funny game.

 

[HotPocket69]

Another patch is out!

 

[sloppyjoe_gamer]

I grabbed this last night for PS5 after the 1.3
patch hit. Only got to try it for around 45 min or so but wow, it made a great early impression!! Cant wait to dig in some more

 

[Futurematic]

Took an hour of save scumming the rolls but I made the jump and got that sweet fucking coat.

Did you take off your shoes and pants? That drastically improved the odds for me

 

[HotPocket69]

Did you take off your shoes and pants? That drastically improved the odds for me

Lol nope. Didn’t even think that would heighten the odds

 

[Rikku-X]

Lol nope. Didn’t even think that would heighten the odds

There is a much easier way, to get it as as well.

 

[HotPocket69]

There is a much easier way, to get it as as well.

Tell me

I’m def going to be replaying