Disco Elysium

Some people are slow readers, that is not a charge that could be laid at my doorstep. Admittedly, I am slow when it comes to many things (such as updating this blog, to name one example),  but reading is not one of them. 

I am, however, a slow gamer. It can take me weeks, even months to finish a game that take other people mere days, if that. Part of that is due to the fact that I'm not a terribly good at videogames, the other reason is because of laziness and procrastination. I have several games on GOG and Steam that I installed, played for a bit and then uninstalled thinking: Eh, I'll finish it some other time. It was not that I thought the games in questions were bad, I just wasn't in the mood, at the time. 

However, I recently finished a game and it wasn't one I had played before and that game was Disco Elysium and so, here are my thoughts about this game.

Now, you might be wondering what kind of game Disco Elysium is? Disco Elysium is a RPG created by the Estonian developer ZA/UM. It was originally released in 2019, followed by an updated version called The Final Cut in 2021. It's this version that I played.

Art, featuring the game's main characters: Kim Kitsuragi and Harry Dubois. The Woman in the background is Dolores Dei, one of the world of Elysium's most influential historical figures.

Disco Elysium takes place in the city of Revachol. Once the capital of Elysium, the world of the game, Revachol is now under the control of the Coalition of Nations. You play a man who has just woken up in a hotel room, with a massive hangover and no recollection of who he is. You soon learn that you're Harry Dubois and that you're a member of the Revachol Citizens Militia (that is, you're a cop). A man has been found hanged in a tree and it is up to you to find out whether or not it was suicide or murder. You are not really feeling up to the task, but fortunately you've been assigned a partner from another department: Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi. Will you pull yourself together, solve the case and maybe redeem yourself in the eyes of the world? Or will you continue on the downwards spiral you're currently on? Or will you do something else entirely? Its all up to you, what kind of cop you're going to be. 

Disco Elysium is unique among the RPG that I've played in that it dispenses with traditional combat. I'm sure that this reveal just caused some of the more conservative-minded RPG fans among you to run for the hills (or to the nearest forum/social media platform), but personally I'm all for it. Don't get me wrong; I have nothing against combat in an RPG. I expect (and accept) it, just as I expect inventory-based puzzles in a point & click adventure game. However, I see no reason why something should be mandatory, simply because its ubiquitous. 

However, if you assume that the absence of combat mean that you can not die in this game, you'd be mistaken. There are plenty of ways to get a 'game over'  in Disco Elysium, including dying of a heart-attack or 

As is common for the genre, Disco Elysium, gives the player a set of skills, which they can then level up by talking to people and solving quests.This is, of course nothing new; what makes Disco Elysium stand out is that each skill also make up different aspects of Harry's character and is, therefore, equipped with a personality of its own. As such, your skills will frequently interject to comment on something, bicker with each other and so on. 

Throughout the game, the player will come across skill-checks, the outcome of which depends on the points assigned to the skill necessary. Most of these are white skill-checks and can be retried once you've leveled up sufficiently. Red skill-checks, however, does not offer that opinion, so you may want to be absolutely certain before you try to tackle one. 

Disco Elysium does not provide the player with a huge, sprawling world to play around in. This does not mean that the game is small, however. My first play-through took me a total of 40 hours and afterwards I felt as if I hadn't uncovered half of the game's secrets. 

If there's one area where Disco Elysium truly shines, its in the player's interaction with the people of Revachol. Some of the people like aging cryptozoologists Lena and Morell are friendly and open, others, like Klaasje are secretive or downright hostile. Regardless, Disco Elysium presents the player with some of the most fully-realized, well-written characters in all of gaming. 

If there's one character that deserves to be singled out its your partner, Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi. A strong contender for best sidekick in a game, Kim serves as the straight-man your often weird or eccentric behavior. During my play-through, earning the trust and respect of this fictional character became one of my top priorities.

I came into Disco Elysium with high expectations and those expectations were more than met. This is a game that has earned its place among my personal favorites. Revachol is a place I will definitely revisit and I'm interested to see what else ZA/UM has in store for the gaming world. 

Thimbleweed Park

If you, like me, love adventure games, than Ron Gilbert is a name that you no doubt recognize and hold in high esteem and for those of you who have never heard of this Ron Gilbert fellow before, well, pull up a chair, its time for a brief history lesson: 

Ron Gilbert was instrumental in the development of the point & click adventure game genre. Not only did he create SCUMM, the engine used in pretty much every LucasArts adventure game during the company's golden age, but he also created such classics as Maniac Mansion and The Secret of Monkey Island. 

Gilbert's (and by extension, LucasArts') design-philosophy stood in sharp contrast to that of Sierra Entertainment, who up until then, had dominated the genre: Gilbert felt that the many deaths presents in games such as the King's Quest series, as well as not allowing players to go back and pick up items that they had no way of knowing would become important later on, thus rendering the player irrevocably stuck, to be deeply unfair and this is reflected in the games he made. Admittedly, the player could die in the early LucasArts adventure games, but nowhere near as much or as often as in those made by Sierra (there's a reason why its called Sierra Sudden Death Syndrome after all).

In 1992, Ron Gilbert left LucasArts to focus on other ventures. He co-founded Humongous Entertainment, which specialized in edutainment titles such as the Putt Putt and Freddy Fish series. He was also the producer of the real-time strategy game Total Annihilation. Now, I should point out that I have not played any of Gilbert's post-LucasArts games and at any rate, they are not what this post is all about. No, this is about Thimbleweed Park, Ron Gilbert's grand return to making a bona fide point & click adventure game of the old-school. In many ways, Thimbleweed Park feels like the closing of a circle, as Gilbert returns to the genre that he helped perfect.

Co-created with Gary Winnick, another old LucasArts employee and close collaborator of Gilbert's, Thimbleweed Park was funded via Kickstarter and was released last year. 

The game takes place in the eponymous town in the year 1987 and features five different protagonists. They are as follows:

Angela Ray and Antonio Reyes - Two FBI agents who have arrived in town to investigate a murder. Or at least, that's the official reason why they are here. Unofficially, they also have more personal motives for being in Thimblweed Park.

Delores Edmund -Niece of Chuck Edmund, owner of the local Pillow Factory and the man who put Thimbleweed Park on the map. Delores was once Chuck's presumed heir, but fell out of favor after pursuing a career as a game designer. With her uncle's recent demise, she has returned to town to hear the reading of his will.

Franklin Edmund - Delores' father and Chuck's put-upon brother. Early on, Franklin is murdered and spends the rest of the game as a ghost. His goal is to escape the confines of the hotel in which he was killed and take farewell of his daughter, before passing on to the afterlife.

Ransome the Insult Clown - Once a popular comedian and the star-act of the local circus. During one of his performances, Ransome insulted the wrong person and was cursed with never being able to remove his make-up. As a result of this, Ransome's career tanked and he is now a bitter has-been, despised by the townspeople.

During the course of the game, the player has to switch between these five characters in order to solve puzzles and come closer to solve the mystery that haunts Thimbleweed Park, a mystery whose solution might lie inside the abandoned Pillow Factory...

If you've played any of LucasArts adventure game, then you'll be right at home playing Thimbelweed Park. The game plays exactly the same as, say Day of the Tentacle or Monkey Island. Basically, you have a list of verbs, such as "use", that you click on and then click on whatever item you wish to interact with. Simple and efficient.

Visually, Thimbleweed Park looks great, with its 2-d graphics being very detailed and lovely to look at. The game also has a really nice atmosphere, mixing the lighthearted and quirky with something more menacing. In that regard, the game definitely reminded me of the first two Monkey Island games, which managed to evoke a similar mood.

The voice acting of the game is uniformly of good, though special mention must go to Nicole Oliver and Ian James Corlett, who do the voices of Agent Ray and Ransome respectively. Oliver is perfect as Ray, a cynical opportunist who usually does not even bother to hide her utter contempt for Thimbleweed Park and its quirky inhabitants, while Corlett makes Ransome in turns deliberately obnoxious, repugnant and, most importantly, funny. 

So, having lavished a lot of praise on Thimbleweed Park do I have everything negative to say about this game at all? Surely, there must be something, right? Well, there is one thing actually and that's the ending of the game. While the characters' individual stories are each wrapped up in a satisfying manner, the big plot-twist, regarding the truth of the town did not really do it for me. I get the feeling that Ron Gilbert wanted to pull another Monkey Island 2; a game whose ending is one of the most famous in adventure game history. However, it didn't work as well the second time around. Unfortunately, I can't go into further details regarding how I felt about the game's ending without giving away major spoilers and I do not wish to do that, since it would perhaps risk turning people off from trying the game at all.

And that would be a shame, because no matter how it ends, the rest of Thimbleweed Park is a terrific game, one that every fan of the genre should have in their collection. I hope its not the case, but if this turns out to be the last adventure game Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick ever make, its a high note to go out on.

Favorite Ace Attorney Villains

Although I haven't played every game in it, Capcom's Ace Attorney, is one of my favorite game-series and one of the best things about it is its rogues-gallery; I honestly can't think of any other series in the medium that features so many colorful and memorable villains. As such, I've picked out my 5 favorite (in no particular order) AA bad guys. Now, I should you warn that due to the nature of this series, spoilers are pretty much unavoidable. Granted, many of these spoilers are from games that are more than a decade old. Still, I thought I'd warn you, just as a courtesy. Anyway, these are my favorite evil-doers in the Ace Attorney universe:

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Dahlia Hawthorne

There are Ace Attorney villains who are more powerful. There are Ace Attorney villains who come up with better schemes, but I can't think of any Ace Attorney villain whose as personal in their evil as Dahlia Hawthorne. A lot of that has to do with what she lacks; Dahlia does not have the authority, or the resources that most of the villains have at their disposal. Instead, she relies solely on her wiles, putting her playing-field on the same level as that of her enemies, making her evil feel much more intimate in the process. Dahlia also deserves points for tenacity, she's the first recurring villain in the series, facing of against Phoenix and Mia in three different cases. Oh, and did I mention that by her third appearance, she's already dead and you have to go up against her spirit? Gotta give props to a villain who will haunt their enemies from beyond the grave.

Manfred von Karma

Intimidating. That's the word best used to describe Manfred von Karma, the final boss of the first Ace Attorney game. Everything about this guy screams intimidation; from his appearance, to his general attitude and his voice. From the moment he appears, Von Karma makes it clear that he will crush you like a bug for getting in his way. He lives up to the hype too, forcing the player to fight teeth and claw for every little advantage. As a character, outside of his role as a final boss, von Karma is pretty one-note, but it can't denied that he plays that note masterfully. 

Matt Engarde

In the role of defense attorney Phoenix Wright, its up to you, as the player, to keep your client out of prison (or death-row), while exposing the true culprit. So, what happens when you get a client who is, beyond any shadow of a doubt, guilty? Enter Matt Engarde, the villain of the second game's final (and by far best) case. When you first meet him, Engarde doesn't seem like such a bad guy. Sure, he's unlikable, but he comes across as more of a self-absorbed air-head than anything else. Annoying, yes, but nothing more than that, certainly not a man capable of murder. With that in mind, its tempting to give Engarde the benefit of the doubt. Sure, he may have had his rival actor killed, but maybe there were extenuating circumstances? Perhaps Juan had it coming? There has to be more to it than this, right?
Then comes the hair-flip.

Justice for All was my first Ace Attorney game and to this day, I consider Matt Engarde's villain reveal to be the best done by this series, as your client flips back his hair to reveal the scars on his face and with them, his true nature as a cunning and remorseless sociopath. Engarde then proceeds to rub your face in it, reminding you that your assistant Maya is his hostage and that if you don't get him a not-guilty verdict, she dies. Its a tough choice, but if I had to pick the most despicable villain on this list, The Nickel Samurai would be it.

Damon Gant

This list isn't in any order, but if it was, there's a high chance that chief Gant would be at the top (there's really only one other character who can compete with him for the position, but we'll get to him further down the list).
The culprit of the first game's bonus case, Gant is as menacing and tough as von Karma, but he has an important advantage over old Manny in that he's far more interesting as a character. A scene-stealer if ever there was one, Gant dominates Rise From The Ashes with his eccentric personality and immense personal charisma. In fact, one of the most interesting things about Gant for me is how genuine his "good" persona feels: With Dahlia and Engarde its clear that the innocent/hapless mask they put on for the World is just that, a mask and von Karma never bothered to appear nice to begin with. With Gant, however, I get the feeling that it is as much a part of who he is as anything else. The jovial fellow who suggests you go swimming together and calls everyone by affectionate nicknames is also the cold, calculating master-mind who framed a girl for murder and blackmailed her sister. I'm reminded of the Mayor from Buffy the Vampire-Slayer or Count Fosco from The Woman In White, both villains whose genuine affability only served to underscore their wickedness.

Oh, and of course, one can't talk about the Demon Gent without mentioning his greatest weapon:

God, that's creepy.


The Mastermind

Last but not least we have the only villain on this list not from the original trilogy: The big bad of Ace Attorney Investigations 2. Due to the fact that this is the only game that hasn't been officially localized (there is a fan-translation though, which is how I played it), I've opted not to reveal the mastermind's identity or post a picture of him. All I can say is that the mastermind is a great villain for a multitude of reasons. First of all; he's the only one among this bunch who's a tragic villain. His back-story is genuinely sad and is tied in very well with the overarching plot of the game. Like Edmond Dantes, the mastermind is out for revenge against some really terrible people and much like the Count of Monte Cristo, his callous manipulation of others, including innocent people who trusted him and the sadistic delight he takes in his schemes, makes it clear that the mastermind really isn't much different from his enemies. A great villain who rounds out this list perfectly.