We are a weekly podcast, soul of a gamer. Hey,
I'm smart this time. I did this time. Let's not
go that far. I will fuck it up again. I love
pressing that button. That was my favorite part.
This game gets really fucking weird. Yeah, so
you do acid and then you go into the hamster
suit. And this week is Night Trap. Night Trap.
They're right behind you, Night Trap. Ten -year
-old birthday party. Next scene, kill the kid.
You got to kill the kid. Sha -la -la -la -la
-la, car is coming. Throw your body into the
car and die. All I could do every time I was
playing Ethan was just start walking around and
go, Jason! Oh, God. I mean, yaller. Yaller? Yaller.
Have you ever seen South Park? I mean, I've seen
South Park. I don't know if I've seen that South
Park. It's an episode with Tyler Perry. Oh, I
don't know if I've seen that one. It's like the
only people who bothered to show up to the comedy
awards were Tyler Perry and me, a fourth grader.
Okay. They were shitting on Tyler Perry and they
put him in like a steel box at the end of the
episode. They saved the world from him. fair
i mean it's so funny tyler perry's just done
a lot of shit like some of it's okay some of
it's meh some of it's really bad i think he's
done so much that there's probably five percent
that works really well and then the rest of it's
complete garbage and i feel like somewhere in
the middle he started off really strong and then
it just went whoa medea went to prison came out
you're just like okay come on come on guy I just
couldn't believe how far he went with Madea and
how many Madea movies and TV shows and stuff
he made. I was like, what in the world? I like
to call it the Adam Sandler effect. It's just
that they take their comedy to such a point where
you know it's not going to be funny, but they
still try. I mean, it's somehow still successful
in a lot of those times, though, too. Well, remember
Jack and Jill? Yeah. Yeah. See, that wasn't successful.
That's around the time that Medea was huge when
like everyone was doing that. Like, well, you
know, Eddie Murphy kind of started this whole
thing with the Nutty Professor, I feel like,
where he played every role in the family. Yeah.
Yeah. Everyone's like, well, we can do that,
too. And then it does not work out well. No,
it doesn't really. I don't. Also, it just doesn't
bring a lot of variety to it. Even if you're
acting a bunch of different ways, it's still
you every time. It's still aesthetically you.
You have to be a fucking phenomenal actor to
really bring that out. And Adam Sandler is not
a phenomenal actor. He has phenomenal roles,
but he's not a phenomenal actor. I guess I agree
with that. He's definitely shown up. at times
to be really great. Yeah. Like there's select
movies where you're like, Holy shit. Is he, how
is he not a fucking professional actor? Yeah.
Like you watch him in uncut gyms and you're like,
um, wait, you couldn't do serious shit. Like,
but I think that's a lot of direction. I think
it's like the director really matters for those.
Cause he's not an actor who can take it. It's
like, uh, you know, you cast Emily Blunt in a
movie and you know, you're going to get this
like really strong woman who is also like very
powerful. And she doesn't like, deviate from
that role too often unless she does a comedy.
True. And when she does that, you could tell,
oh, you're not a good actress. You don't change
the type of roles you do at all. Yeah, I mean,
besides I think Devil Wears Prada, she's a little
bitchy in that, and she does that pretty well.
But even like if you watch all the cuts and like
takes of that, like all the behind the scenes,
she's laughing throughout every take. She's like,
I can't actually like say this. I feel so bad
being so mean. Like it feels so disingenuine.
It's not like and he gets a lot of flack, but
I will throw fucking. Oh, what's his name from?
Ah, shit. Well, what's the. Yes, the person.
God damn it. He's an actor. He's a musician.
Jared Leto. Yeah, Jared Leto. Wow, okay. Yeah,
well, he's the only one who's really famous for
both, you know? Yeah. He's an incredible actor.
He gets really into his fucking roles, but often
he goes, like, a step too far, and that's why
they're bad. Yes, yes, yeah, I can agree with
that, definitely. But he, like, if you ever read
the Suicide Squad story, guys, sorry, I know
I don't know a lot about the game yet, but the
Suicide Squad story where he's, like, he's coming
out, no matter what time of day it is, dressed
in the full Joker apparel and then putting his
balls in people's cereal while they're eating.
I heard he delivered a dead rat to somebody outside
of someone's trailer. Because he was selling
the roll he doesn't want to get out of it. And
I'm just like, that's fucking sweet. That's cool.
But you take it a step too far. I mean, I'm all
for staying in character to a certain degree,
but also you need to have separation. You're
right. That's that step too far. He's very serious,
but it doesn't translate well on screen, I think,
is the problem. Yeah, that's fair. All right.
Well, that was our little ditty about Tyler Perry
and Jared Leto and Adam Sandler. So here we are,
our source soul of a gamer. Where we talk about
games, not movies. And sometimes movies. And
sometimes. And they don't even have to be game
related. Yeah. I'm Scott. And I'm Steven. And
every week we play a game, we tell you about
it. So this week we're going to be playing what,
Steven? This week we were playing Disco Elysium.
Yes. And we do hope you enjoyed our last week's
episode, which I believe was another Hot Takes.
Yes, it was. And our previous episode before
that was the Space Marine. Yes. Space Marine
2. Space Marine 2. We hope you enjoyed that one.
We're coming at you with Disco Elysium, an RPG
adventure game. We'll talk about that right in
a second after we talk about what we've been
playing this month. Essentially, it's a month
thing now. Pretty much, yeah. Last time I told
you guys, I was playing South of Midnight, and
I beat that. It was really, really fantastically
good. And I've actually been playing two games.
I just actually even started playing Smite 2
with my wife recently. I played a little bit
of that and it was a lot of fun. It's just I
don't understand the difference between that
and Smite. So it looks exactly the same. It feels
exactly the same. The characters essentially
do the same thing outside of several select characters
that do a little bit different abilities. Yeah,
it's a lot more. You can play anything in any
role. Without it being magic and physical, being
strength and intelligence this time. I think
that was a good move by them. Yeah, it really
was. And then them also making different aspects.
So you can actually change the character's abilities
in the game, which is interesting. Like one of
the characters that's a ranged character, you
can actually, if you want to play him in the
jungle, it's actually better to have a cleaves
attacks. So you can change his basics to cleaves.
That's cool. But then it takes away its range.
I mean, that's kind of like Uler back in the
day, right? Yeah, but this isn't like a switch
stance that you do throughout the game. This
is a one -time decision at the start of the game,
and that's how you play the rest of the game.
Interesting. Yeah, so it's very different, very
unique. The only problem I'm having right now
is just the caliber of players in the game right
now. Yeah. I played... Six games today, and of
those six games, someone on my team, every one
of the six games, went out, died a bunch of times,
complained about it, and then left. Yeah. yeah
and it was always on only my team every time
and i'm like why is this happening like why is
it always on my team like this is so stupid like
it's so ridiculous i can't believe how bad these
guys my teammates are bad that's why i've died
25 oh my god like this this one guy uh kept on
getting ganked by the jungler which just happened
to be a poseidon yeah but he the solo laner kept
on saying the middle laner was missing because
he thinks poseidon can only be played in the
mid lane So he's yelling at me the entire time,
like, your middle laner's missing. I'm like,
no, I'm fighting mine. He's right here. Never
left the lane. He's in front of me. He loves
me, actually. You're getting that at the jungler,
not me. But, yeah, he, like, just did a bunch
of shit, said a bunch of shit, and then just
left the game. And I was like, oh, okay, cool.
Just because there was a Poseidon that was attacking
you. Yeah, that's stupid. Well, I've been playing.
I'm back on Dragon Age Origins. So I tried, I
tried, and I tried the rogue build that everyone
told me to try, and it's just complete garbage.
I cannot believe that. I don't know. I think
it's just the way I build my companion characters.
I don't think I built them well enough to be
able to deal with the... Oh, okay, because you
have to make them more frontliners or healing
or something. Yeah, so the rogue... the point
in the rogue that I wanted to build was just
like a constant hit rogue. So you sacrifice like
damage for just constantly hitting. So your DPS
is really high. Okay. But there's no stun blocks.
There's no resistance. There's no good armors.
Like dragon age really does not sell a good DPS.
And the two best characters that I've ever played
in dragon age were a mage, which was really fucking
hard. Cause then you have to like surround yourself
with tanks and a, uh, a warrior which is like
easy mode it's basically fucking easy mode because
okay whenever i play a warrior i do fantastic
okay because they really built the game to be
more warrior friendly so i'm back at i'm i wanted
to play the because i played on xbox and i played
a warrior and it was fun but i never finished
because they didn't have the dlca open to use
okay um and instead now i'm gonna play a warrior
on the computer where i have all my dlc that
i need Nice. And that includes DLC for that and
every single Dragon Age game. Oh, nice. Okay.
Yeah. Cool. So yeah, that's what I'm playing.
Nice. Cool, cool, cool. You want to jump into
the game? Yeah, tell us about the game. Okay,
so the story of Elysium, you play as Detective
Harrier. Sorry, I didn't write down the story
this time because I forgot. Harrier something
something. Dubois or whatever Dubois yeah Harry
or Dubois Harry or something Dubois and you are
a detective in an action RPG where you are trying
to solve a murder case with the help of your
partner Kim as well as a slew of other characters
who are there to support that's basically it
that's all I want to give away because holy shit
that game is fucking This game is fucking awesome,
and we'll get more into that in the review, but
holy, I love this game. This was so much fun
to play. The story of Disco Elysium begins in
2005 in Tallinn, Estonia. If you don't know where
that is, I had to look it up. It is in Russia.
Oh, okay. That year, Robert Kervitz and a group
of his friends spent much of their time drinking
together and discussing art, culture, and creative
work they wanted to pursue. Out of these conversations,
they formed a collective known as Zaum. Now,
this was not the official company. This is just
a collective. They've just known as Zalm. Over
the next decade, the group collaborated on a
wide range of artistic projects, including writing,
music, and exhibitions. But despite their ambitions,
they did not create a video game during this
period. one of their major early efforts was
the creation of original tabletop role -playing
game heavily inspired by the systems like dungeons
and dragons they designed their own expansive
fictional setting laying the foundation for what
would later become the world of disco elysium
so and when they explain this like it's crazy
they start in like before middle ages time and
then they like kind of soon realize well it'd
be more fun in the middle ages and they tried
that and they're like uh let's go with 1970s
cop drama you know yeah they wanted to do a more
modern age rpg so they had a lot of fun with
that and guys i say it's like dnd because that's
like what they gave but honestly it sounds more
like uh uh what's the one in the future i always
forget this for some reason cyberpunk or yeah
well no it's not cyberpunk it's called um Whatever
it is, they use two D6s for all of their rolls
or D6s for every single roll, and this game is
similar. They only use D6s. They do not use anything
else. There is a D100 you can get in the game,
but other than that, it's all D6 rolls. During
this time, Robert Kervitz wrote a novel set in
the same universe. The novel, however, was not
a commercial success. Its failure had a major
impact on Kervitz, leading him into a period
of heavy alcoholism. It was around this time
that Cowerkender's children suggested a new direction.
They encouraged Kervitz to stop writing books
and make a video game instead. Initially, Kervitz
resisted the idea. He believed the game project
would fail just as the novel had, and he was
reluctant to begin again. Nonetheless, by 2014,
the team committed to making a video game based
on their shared creative world. There was a great
quote in there where they talk about... There's
a guy on the team called Coward. I mentioned
that there. And Coward is the creative director.
And Coward's kids, they're trying to write books
and stories based on the tabletop game they wrote.
And Coward's kids are like, why are you writing
books? Books are stupid. You should do video
games instead. It's just like the funniest quote
you've ever heard. Books are stupid. Books are
stupid. From the start, the development process
faced major financial challenges. Estonia had
a small gaming industry at the time with only
one other notable game studio in the country,
making experienced developers hard to find. Funding
was scarce to help finance the project. And I
don't understand this part at all. They didn't
go into why this happened or how he got this.
He's a poor dude who can't pay his rent. That's
what the story is. Everything I found about him
was he's poor. He can't pay his rent. He's barely
living, scraping by, getting donations from friends.
To help finance the project, Kervitz sold his
Ferrari. I'm like, how did you have a Ferrari?
Some people keep that one possession. But where
did he get it in the first place? Maybe it was
the heirloom. It had to be. Based on everything,
he was homeless, essentially. I don't know where
the fuck he got this from. I've seen people who
were kind of successful or their parents were
successful and they had a car and they kept that
car even when they went to shit afterwards. yeah
it's just it's it's so interesting i just can't
it's very interesting uh but i mean oh go ahead
i was gonna say i mean that's cool of him though
like i guess i'll just sell my ferrari to pay
for this right he probably bought a shit ton
more after the game exploded uh his personal
investment signaled the seriousness of the project
and soon after investors began to show interest
to minimize costs zelm based their operations
in an abandoned art gallery in talon where they
did not have to pay rent It's rare. I don't know,
and it didn't explain where they got the electricity
or anything from, but I'm very curious where
they got it from. Maybe just generators. Maybe,
like just oil. Because again, it's Russia, and
it's a very poor area in Russia. Estonia is not
a rich area at all. Kervitz and his lead artist
shared a workspace, allowing them to collaborate
closely. All the game's art was hand -painted,
a decision driven by Kervitz's admiration for
the artist's style. So you'll see while playing
the game, the overlay art it's all hand painted
art none of it's computer generated none of it's
like used from I believe is it is it Unity the
Unity engine that has all those like presets
for set I think so I think so so none of that
shit it's all hand painted art scenes which I
mean you can kind of definitely tell especially
in a lot of the different like artworks and stuff
that you see it looks painted Very much so. Kervitz's
vision for the game was heavily influenced by
his love of investigative role -playing missions
and titles like The Witcher series and Baldur's
Gate 2. He also drew from literary realism, especially
with the works of Emil Zola, which emphasize
human suffering and the struggles of everyday
life. Additionally, the political spirit of the
1990s Estonian punk bands helped shape the game's
tone and themes, which I thought was really funny.
All the punk bands were political. I'm like,
aren't all punk bands political? Like, isn't
that just punk? That's just kind of what punk
is a lot of times. So one of the most ambitious
features the team created was the thought cabinet,
which allowed players to collect and internalize
philosophical ideas rather than looting items
from defeated enemies. Developing this system
almost exhausted the project's finances. Literally,
they said this was the one thing they wanted
to keep. If it took all of the money, they would
do this one thing. And it was really cool. And
I am 100 % on board because I thought this was
so much cooler than looting enemies. Yeah, for
sure. Reading and dialogue were central to the
experience they wanted to deliver. The team designed
the game's text boxes to resemble Twitter's format,
believing this would make reading large amounts
of text feel more natural to modern audiences.
It's fair. It's fair. Literally, they said they
spent like 50 or 60 hours researching how to
present text to players because they were so
worried that the game would... feel so overburdened
that they're like, okay, how can we get people
with no extension... What am I... Attention span.
To read what we want them to read. True. That
and just the amount that you're reading not having
it affect your eyes or be painful in the eyes.
You need to have differences. Twitter's one of
those things that people would just scroll through
for fucking hours reading. True. essentially
horse shit so yeah at least sometimes you're
going through the list of 80 000 comments reading
all 80 000 i'm like oh my god these people are
awful They worked carefully to strike a balance
between providing deep information and avoiding
player overload. The game was built using the
Unity engine and incorporated motion capture
for its character animations, allowing for more
realistic movement without excessive cost. So
they didn't do motion capture for like the faces
or anything. They just did it for the tiny movements
that you'll do. So there was a part in the game
where you can dance in the church. The dancing's
really funny. And all of that is like based on
what they danced in real life. Nice. It's pretty
fucking funny. Yeah. In 2016, Zalm officially
incorporated as a company and secured its first
round of venture capital funding. With this funding,
they hired the British band British Sea Power
to compose the game's soundtrack. After meeting
the band in Birmingham, England, the Zalm team
found the environment welcoming and they decided
to relocate their headquarters there. So if they
never hired this team, they would have never
moved to England and this game probably never
would have been successful, by the way. That's
crazy. Yeah. It is fucking crazy. In 2017, they
announced their game under the working title
No Truce with the Furies. And so this one video
I listened to on it. Yeah. He does not say Furies,
right? He says Furries. Nice. So luckily I double
checked the smelling because I'm like, why the
fuck would they name it No Truce for the Furries?
Because. I did not get that at all playing the
game. Right. The Furries come to play. You know.
It was good. It was funny. I thought it was a
pretty good little thing. He had a very, I'm
guessing he was Russian. He had a very deep accent.
Yeah, that's fair. Initially, the project had
a smaller scope, but with additional investment,
they expanded the world, writing and technical
ambitions. As a result, the release date was
pushed back. To manage the complexity of the
game's branching dialogue system, the team used,
and I didn't know this was a thing, by the way,
because when we talked about the Gods game, they
wrote out all of their dialogue shit. They didn't
use a system for it. Yeah. So they're branching
dialogue, whatever, where they said they had
like a million choices. It took them hours on
end. This team used a specialized tool called
Articy, which essentially helps you keep track
of branching dialogue. Oh, well, that's cool.
And I was like, why didn't the god people use
this? I don't quite understand. Maybe they didn't
know about it, or maybe they didn't have, I don't
know. As soon as I heard that, I was like, that's
weird that other people don't use this if they
have a shit ton of branching dialogue. Maybe
some people think they can keep track of it all
on their own. Maybe. You probably can. It's just
fucking harder. And this way, all the branching
dialogue is written in a single piece of programming
that anyone can access. So they can be like,
okay, so this branch is here. But what if we
add this now, too? And you can put notes in there.
It just seems like a much better idea. Oh, yeah,
for sure. That's why it works so well. Despite
feedback from others suggesting that the game's
darker themes, such as addiction, existential
despair, and mental illness, might limit its
audience, Kervitz refused to remove or censor
these elements. He remained committed to portraying
the world in full without compromise. Which I
appreciate a lot. Yes, I do too. Because honestly,
that added a whole layer of like, oh my god,
this is so real into the game. Yeah, it really
did. In 2018, the project was renamed Disco Elysium.
The game was in, I didn't put this in here, but
they, so Disco means, God, it's Latin. Is it
new? I can't remember. I can't remember if Disco
means new, but essentially Elysium is like the,
you know what Elysium is, right? I know the term,
but I don't honestly know the exact. It's the
ideal world. okay so it's like that is perfection
beyond perfection everyone is happy there's no
unhappiness at all elysium is the perfect world
it's paradise essentially okay um and then i
think disco means new so it's new paradise or
something like that uh someone says disco elysium
means disco world yeah so elysium is again paradise
world but disco and disco to them both meant
the fact that they were very inspired by the
disco of the 70s, but they also stated that disco
in Latin means either new or something. I can't
remember exactly. I learn. I learn. Oh, learn?
Was that it? I don't remember. I don't know.
I just saw something that said disco in Latin.
I learn. Yeah. they, they definitely really liked
it. Like the idea of the Latin influence from
it. And also the fact that disco is like 70.
So they really love wordplay in the game. Clearly.
Yeah. And I mean, I learned the world makes sense
for this game though, too. Yeah, true. The game
was released on October 15, 2019. It received
immediate critical acclaim with praise for its
innovative narrative design, detailed world building,
and unique approach to role -playing mechanics.
At the Game Awards 2019, Disco Elysium won four
major awards, Best Narrative, Best Independent
Game, Best Role -Playing Game, and I don't understand
how this is an award, but Fresh Indie Game Award.
It's just... It's for the studio, less for the
game. Because it's like a brand new, it's not
like an already there IP. It's a full, fresh
idea, like, I guess. I think you're probably
right. It's just a weird fucking name for a word.
Yeah, it just sounds weird, yeah. Yeah. The game
became a top seller on Steam and surpassed one
million copies within its first year. The original
version of the game did not feature full voice
acting, which I did not know. Yeah, I know. I
thought I heard that, too. And I was like, what
the hell? No. Yeah. However, in Disco Elysium,
the final cut voice acting was added for every
line of dialogue. Steven, take a guess how many
words are in the game. It's ridiculous. It's
got to be like. Five million. It's probably way
low, actually. OK, so recording the game's over
1 .2 million words that. that uh of text took
approximately 14 months to complete fair that's
crazy though still isn't that a crazy amount
of fucking words in a game yes i mean i don't
know the average amount of words in a game but
not be 1 million there's so many branching dialogues
though i think that that's what it had to be
oh definitely The game faced some controversy
internationally. In Australia, it was initially
refused a classification rating due to its depiction
of sex, drug use, and alcohol abuse, effectively
banning it from sale. However, after an appeal,
the game was granted an 18 -plus rating and became
legally available. Good. And on the appeal, they
talk all about that in this cool video I watched
where they're like, yeah, you know, what we told
them is, yes, you can do drugs. Yes, you can
drink, just like in real life. You have to make
the choice to do these things. You have to actively
look for these things. It doesn't just stumble
upon in your lap and you do it. There's nothing
forcing you. At any point, you can say no. We're
not saying be addicted to shit. We're saying
this is what the world looks like at any given
moment in time. And you will have a guy following
you the entire time judging every decision you
ever make. Today, Disco Elysium is regarded as
one of the most important narrative RPGs of its
generation. Its development story reflects years
of persistence, risk -taking, and strong commitment
to creative vision, transforming a small group's
idea into a globally celebrated work. Boom. Mic
drop. Yeah, it was a cool story. They did a lot
of cool things with this. Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely.
I guess let's go ahead and get into the best
and the worst, and let's talk about the good
things and the bad things they did. Well, let's
hear it. What's your good things on this? um
obviously for me um dialogue is incredible uh
there's a lot of times where it's just like there's
times where the dialogue goes right over my head
like i'm like what the fuck is being said there's
other times the dialogue is like really cool
quick witty There's other times the dialogue
is downright hilarious. There's other times that
I'm like, oh, my God, is this referencing Fast
and the Furious right now? Yeah. There's other
times where I'm like, yeah, I would. I would
ride till I die, bitch. Like, there's just some
lines in this game that you're just like, what
the fuck? Like, yeah, I just laugh reading them.
And I like I have to say I'm to Jen. I'm like.
Look what I can say in this game. The dialogue
in this game kills it. Also the voice acting
on fucking point. I didn't have a problem with
a single person's voice acting performance in
this game. I didn't bother writing them down
because I'm kind of tired of writing down all
the names and giving you guys all the names.
I think from now on I'm probably not going to
do that because it's just a lot of work to push
them all. We'll probably just point out the ones
that stand out the most if there is a standout
performer. Even if that, who knows? You never
know. But they did a really good job. Everyone
who is in the voice acting cast did a fucking
phenomenal job doing it. Honestly, this was a
lot of fun just listening to all the different
voices. Yeah, I definitely would prefer to have
the voices in it. So I definitely say Definitive
Cut's the best way to play this. I agree 100%.
And it really did show, although the themes are
very Eastern European in like... I guess in practice,
it's easier to see that with the voice acting
because a lot of people have very select accents.
True. true and it was really cool to see that
um one of the bad things about this game that
i will say the movement is kind of shitty oh
it's so slow and it's very it's slow and it's
blocky and yes i know they put in a little shortcut
here to kind of make it easier where you can
interact with items if you didn't know how to
get to those items it would essentially take
you to those items extremely slowly but it would
so then you'd know how to get to them but a lot
of the things it's like What do you mean I can't
go through? How can I climb this box, but I can't
walk on this fucking part of the sidewalk? What
are you talking about? Yeah, no, there's like
weird things with the map where I was like, why
can't I go there? Going around the map is confusing
and you'll go to so many doors. You're like,
yeah, a door. You can't go this way. fuck every
time a lot of dialogue options to get past a
lot of doors and yes another thing is they do
have a fast travel system but it's kind of fucking
dumb like yeah well you can only fast travel
to three areas which is fine because they're
kind of all like centralized anyway it's not
a very big map yeah but then you can only fast
travel if you're standing in front of one of
those areas yep which i was like why would they
do that why not just have it so you could fast
travel from anywhere like why do i have to walk
back to the front of this fucking building and
i mean it might be so you could appreciate the
art it might be so you like if you go back, maybe
you missed to talk to someone and you're like,
oh, did I talk to that person? And then you decide
no and you talk to them, I guess. But either
way, I think it would have been more beneficial
to have a little bit more fast travel. Yeah,
no, that's fair. I agree with that. Like for
me, because this game essentially boils down
to a point and click adventure mixed with an
RPG, like the RPG elements are great. For me,
it's the point and click adventure that I still
fall victim to. It still has the same kind of
weird puzzles. really slow traveling, lots of
retracing your steps over and over again. Lots
of re -dialogue with people you've already talked
to. It is a lot, and it's called an isometric,
I believe, RPG. Okay. So it's a lot. There's
no combat in here, which I think was actually
a plus. You can have some combat. Some, but there's
no real combat. There's no, like, you have to
kill this guard in order to... No, but you can
like grab a key. All combat is done through dialogue,
essentially. You'd have to take the combat option
in dialogue in order to fulfill it. There's a
bunch of checks in this game. There are so many
fucking different checks. It's crazy. It's actually
really cool how many checks there really are.
I was going to say, that's another best for me,
is that the dialogue and how it threads, and
sometimes you'll be in the middle of a conversation,
But then all of a sudden you'll start arguing
with a certain personality trait of yours. Yeah.
And you're like, wait, what the fuck? Is it 15
or 20 personality traits? Yeah. Something like
that. Yeah. Something like that. And it's just,
it's ridiculous because you'll start arguing
with like the logic part of your brain. Or you'll
start like, or like even talking to inanimate
objects, you can argue with a tie or you can
like. like yell at a chair or you can well even
further on that like this is like the coolest
thing so they have these checks right and not
only do you have to pass a dice roll you also
get bonuses from what you have but also you get
bonuses based on world events that you've done
yes so there's gear that you're wearing too yeah
and gear that you're wearing like it's actually
really fucking cool how like intricate the rpg
system in this game is for a completely text
-based rpg yes For sure. It's crazy for a text
-based RPG, I would go as far to say. Yeah. A
lot of times, Scott is always talking about in
a lot of these story -based games or these dating
simulators or point -and -click adventures that
there's not enough involved in this, but this
has so much. It does. Almost too much sometimes.
It's a lot. Almost too much, but I appreciated
every second of this. And I think this is just
my RPG bias coming out because I really do like
RPGs a lot. But this one was just fucking incredible
in the way it did its shit. Its RPG system was
actually a lot of fun and it made sense. It does
take a while to get used to it, I will say. Yes.
It was very confusing for the first 30 minutes
of playing and then after that it got a lot easier.
Yeah. But it is very... blunt with what it's
asking you to do right away. It's making you
experience failure right away. It's actually
really funny. I was even kind of saying more
along the lines of what you were saying, how
it just kind of vibes with you. This game is
really great for the natural explorer types.
People who just go into a game and just want
to read every dialogue, see every option, click
every button, turn every stone. And not just
that. So they made this game purposely so every
replay is a different play. I know. it's crazy
it's insane because you don't you can make communist
ideas you can make democratic ideas you can make
liberal ideas you can make conservative ideas
and they all affect what kind of like bonuses
you get and what kind of dialogues you get from
people it's actually really fucking interesting
Yeah, it's a one -of -a -kind, very unique game.
You're not going to get a game like this. A lot
of people are saying, I want something fresh,
I want something new. Scott was joking about
it getting a fresh award, but it really is a
fresh breath of air in a video game. It's something
we've never seen before. And honestly, they did
it perfectly. This game studio, Realm, they're
fucking amazing. When they release their next
game, holy shit, I've been in training 20 times
together. All right, you want to jump into the
first few hours? Yeah, let's do it. Oh, go ahead.
I'm going to give it a pass. The first 30 minutes
is hard. But as soon as you get out of that hotel
room and you start talking to people, it starts
becoming obvious what you need to do. Yeah. I
mean, that's fair. I'll give it a pass. For me,
I think it's a little boring and it's hard to
know where to go or how much you should talk.
I'm a really big overthinker. And for me, this
game is not for overthinkers. I am like, how
much should I talk to these people? How much
should I not talk to people? Am I talking too
much? Should I be clicking every single item
in here? The answer is yes. So like there's but
I do say like once you start to find your way
and you do find that interesting story point
that starts pulling you in, like those are the
times where I'm like, I'll start going on a line
of dialogue. And I'm like, wait, now we're talking
about ghosts at the bookstore. What the fuck?
And I'm like, I want to go behind this curtain.
Don't go behind the curtain. I want to go behind
the fucking curtain. You can't go, but I'm a
fucking cop. Let me go behind the fucking curtain.
No, there's a ghost. Well, I have to see the
ghost. And it's funny. It's even funnier because
your partner's with you at all times. I mean,
are you fucking kidding me right now? You want
to see the fucking ghost? Are you out of your
fucking mind? It's just like, are you still hung
over? Like, why are you? Yeah, you are an alcoholic
cop, by the way. Yes, you wake up hungover in
your tighty -whities and shoes out the window.
And you've completely forgotten your entire life,
and everyone who knows you is just like, are
you fucking serious? And you owe people money,
and everyone's pissed at you, and no one cares.
You destroyed a hotel room, and then you can
sing karaoke, and that was really fun. Did you
sing the karaoke? uh i didn't get that far now
oh my god it's so you so if you fail and i failed
he sings a song and it's a beautiful song mind
you and he just sings it so bad nice people are
just like i don't they're like clapping very
like uh good job buddy you did it you did a thing
you did it it is so funny nice all right so i
guess let's get into uh steve achieves next let's
hear it There's a bunch of cool ones in here
I saw that I got. If you're a main story kind
of player, you can expect this game to take about
20 to 25 hours. But Disco Elysium isn't about
speed. It's about soaking in the weird. That's
not true. There's speed in the game. What? There's
speed in the game. If you are taking your time,
you're looking at 40 to 50 hours easily in this
game. And that's not even counting a second playthrough
with a completely different build, which trust
us, it is worth it. So some of the achievements
in the game, the weird, the hard and the hilarious.
The Disco Elysium has achievements, but they're
not your typical kill 100 rats kind of deal achievements.
These are clear, clever, often bizarre, and sometimes
wildly funny. It just goes over. I'll just go
over a few select ones. So first one I'm going
to go over is the world's most laughable centrist.
You have to become a centrist, a true one. You'll
need to constantly avoid taking a stand on anything.
Not left, not right, just beige. It's like playing
the whole game as the shrug emoji. It's surprisingly
hard to do, but everyone around you just has
an opinion and a Molotov cocktail. Recruit Kim
Kisaragi. I think that's how you say his name.
Sounds easy. Technically, you get him as a companion
early on in the game, but unless you completely
botched the intro and managed to alienate the
most patient man in the game, it's like failing
the tutorial, but funnier. You can actually just
not recruit him if you don't get him on your
side. Well, you can be racist in the game and
he's of Asian descent of some kind. They make
up their whole area. You're not really sure.
It sounds huge. Everything sounds huge in the
game, how big everywhere is. True. But he's from
a different country, essentially. Yeah. There's
Baddest of the Bad Cops. You have to max out
your... capo type as an absolute bastard okay
this involves being rude reckless and generally
terrible but that's what's um that's in a way
almost endearing like a raccoon in a leather
jacket who yells in an inanimate objects yep
yep i believe it uh dance you fool this is a
secret nightclub uh there's an opportunity to
dance and if you truly commit it'll let the rhythm
take you. You can earn this achievement for doing
that. It's one of the most joyful moments in
the game and balances tragedy with the absurdity
better than it has any right to do. At the end
of dancing, you pass out because you dance so
hard. Oh, really? Yeah. It's nice. It's funny.
Palebringer. This one is for the deep lore nerds.
You'll have to dive into some of the game's most
metaphysical and abstract. abstract content think
eldrick cosmic horror wrapped in political satire
it's not easy but it is incredible incredibly
rewarding sorry i cannot speak today nobody can
no one can speak but yeah that's what i got for
the achievements um trying a different kind of
style of reading the achievements and talking
about them so i will go with the hunt for the
eggs next let's hear it all right easter eggs
in this game um they are weird secrets and glorious
nonsense hidden stuff all over the game i am
not going to even come close to saying them all
because there is so much and i read a ton that
a lot of people were saying and i don't know
how much of all of them are true but there's
a lot that are pretty crazy uh first one i'm
going to bring up is the carl jung connection
your inner thoughts and skills um like inland
empire and authority often reference psychology
and physiology. Philosophical. Wow. Philosophy,
I cannot. Yeah. If you dive into the names and
behaviors of these voices, they closely align
with Carl Jung's archetypes and concept of the
collective unconscious. Inland Empire especially
acts like Jung's idea for the shadow or intuition.
It might be Carl Jung, actually. Or Jung. Yeah,
I think you're right. I think it is. I think
it's Jung. Yeah, so sorry I mispronounced that.
Another Easter egg, the Kim Kasaragi dance -off.
If you manage to pass a high enough electrochemistry...
I got him to dance. Nice. Yeah. I heard about
this and was like, oh, that sounds like cool.
But yeah, if you manage to pass a high enough
electrochemistry or reaction speed check during
the party near the church, you can get Kim to
dance. It's one of the most beloved... hidden
moments in the game and add some rare levity
to this unusually composed character. So is this
dancing better than your dancing? No, actually,
it was not very good, but it was fair. Fair.
All right. Next one, I will talk about Planescape
Torment Tribute. This game's design is heavily
influenced by Planescape Torment. And there's
a direct nods to it. And one of the examples
is when the thought cabinet gives you the option
to ponder what can change the nature of a man.
This is an iconic line from that tabletop RPG.
Nice. Disco Elysium's answer, by the way, probably
doing drugs and communism. The hidden fourth
music track in the church. Once you've repaired
the church's audio setup and set up Suna speakers,
or Sonas? I don't remember how to say it. Suna,
I think. Yeah. Waiting around in the silence
triggers a secret fourth track from the British
sea power that only plays once. It's ethereal
and rarely heard unless players are patient.
So you just have to sit there and wait for all
the tracks to play, and then there's a pause,
and then there's another track. Oh, cool. Yeah.
The next one I'll talk about is the pale's philosophical
depth. The pale is talked about as a physical
and metaphysical phenomenon, but if you read
between the lines, it is also a commentary on
entropy, existential nihilism, and information
decay. One Easter egg asks Joy Messer every possible
question about the pale, and she'll eventually
mention how it might be eating reality itself.
I thought that was very interesting. It brings
a really dark undertone to everything. That's
very, very interesting. That's what I got for
the Easter eggs so far. Like I said, there's
a ton. I didn't want to do too much, but those
are the ones I saw a lot of people pointing out.
The ones people were talking about, ones that
I found particularly interesting. All right.
Sounds good. Let's jump into our final, what
our rating is. Yes. You want to go first? Yeah,
I'm going to give this a top five. Honestly,
this game fucking killed it. They did such a
cool job. It's so unlike any other RPG you've
ever played. It's interesting. The lore of the
world is vast and cool, and you don't really
have to get into it if you don't want to. You
could be a streamlined player and just get through
it fine, but if you wanted to hear the lore,
it's there for you to hear, which that's something
I complain about all the time. Like, put it as
a side thing. You don't have to shove it in people's
faces, but have it available so you know what
you're getting yourself into. True. And they
did exactly that. Like, these are guys after
my own heart. It sounds like they made a game
just for me. Yep. It really did sound like that.
I was like, that's one of it. It's it's such
a cool concept and the themes are really interesting.
It does get really dark and foreboding, but can
be really lighthearted, too. And like the weirdness
of disco being such a big deal in here where
like music does actually play a giant role. And
it's just such an interesting world to build
and to live in because the level of an like the
level of detail in this world is fucking incredible.
There is so much of it. Like, I don't think I
could play this game once and get even 10 % of
it. Dang. Yeah, I mean, that's pretty crazy.
It's got a lot of shit. It's a lot of shit, but
it's like cool shit. You can do this as a tabletop
game and have a lot of fun with it, you know?
Yeah, that would be crazy as a tabletop game.
Honestly, you'd have to. Yeah, it's very heady.
I'm glad it's in a video game format because
I think it would. sometimes be a little hard
to follow, depending on how it was done on a
tabletop game. Yeah. It's even hard to follow
in the video game for me sometimes. I'm like,
oh, it's just a lot of lore. You'd have to learn
all the lore. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. For me,
I think I I'm a little bit lower. I'm probably
out of four. I do think this is very unique.
It's a very fresh game. It's very inventive and
something we've never seen before. And I do think
the dialogue and the things that you can do in
this game are incredible. I do personally hate
a lot of the point and click adventure kind of
style things it has. And that does pull me down.
This is a. I mean, it's a glorious, chaotic descent
into the mind of the world's most broken, yet
somehow charming detective. But if you've ever
wondered what it's like to interrogate your own
limbic system while debating communism with your
necktie, well, welcome home. OK, OK. I mean,
yeah, I mean, this is just very it's just so
unique that I have to give it a high rating because
I think most people will vibe with it for some
reason. I think I do need a little bit more guidance
in the game. But besides that, yeah, I think
for non RPG players, this game can be a little
bit harder. Like if you're more game style is
like. You enjoy playing. more straightforward
games or games that have a lot of guidance with
their rpg then this is not going to be the game
for you but again you just have to spend hours
playing it and you'd probably get it down eventually
I think that's the other thing, too, is I just
need more time and I haven't had enough time
to like fully grasp everything that's going on.
And once I get more into it, like this is the
thing with this game. I think the more you dive
into it, it's kind of like Dungeons and Dragons.
The better it gets. Yeah. Yeah. The more you
dive in, the more you are like experience the
world and absorb everything, the better everything
gets. And this is one of those games that just
fully encapsulates how much love you put into
it. Yeah, I think that's fair. Yeah. So that
was it. That was Disco Elysium. Yes. Our next
game is going to be... It Takes Two. It Takes
Two, cooperative play game, good for couples.
Yes. Yes, we've talked about it on our old version
of our podcast. We're bringing it back. And I
know Split Fiction's out, but we haven't... We'll
do that one eventually. We'll do that one eventually.
We wanted to go back to It Takes Two, though,
because that's the one that really made them
popular. Yeah, I mean, they did have the prison
game before that, right? A Way Out, yeah. Yeah.
That might be a fun one to do at some point,
too. Oh, I'm down for it. Yeah. Yeah. All right.
All right, guys. Well, thanks for listening.
Remember, contact us, Toll of the Gamer podcast
at gmail .com. Shoot us any questions you have,
any concerns, anything you want to say. Yes.
And we love you. Bye. Bye.