“The greatest RPG ever made?” Not even close. Why do titles need to be this hyperbolic?
Because it’s an opinion article and maybe it’s OK for the author to make an subjective statement of the quality of a thing they love? Like, if they really believe it, is it wrong to state that? Do they need to qualify everything in their article with “this is just my opinion, sorry if you don’t agree.”
I get being annoyed by hyperbole in articles, but I don’t really think that this warrants this kind of response. Sometimes it’s OK to make strong statements. You can make statements like that without implying that people who think differently are bad/wrong.
Sometimes it’s OK to make strong statements.
How fucking dare you
If it was an RPG that was even close to contending for that title, I would acquiesce to it. As it stands, I think the burden of proof is on the person making the claim. Personal taste is personal taste, and that’s fine, but if you’re going to make bold claims like this, you should have to be burdened with the duty of backing it up. I don’t accept that this reporter’s personal opinion matters more than the RPG fans’ opinions as a whole. For them to make such a bold claim on such a public forum means they need to provide substantial evidence for it.
Let’s get back to basics though: this was a bold statement done in an article title to get clicks. You can tell talk till sunrise about a person’s right to have their own opinion, but this isn’t really what’s going on. This is a journalist making a hyperbolic statement to get clicks. Fuck them. Fuck them and their marketing strategy. Tell me it’s not exactly that: a marketing strategy. Tell me it’s not a ploy to bolster the author’s career. Tell me there’s something substantial underneath this that warrants serious attention, rather than a click-bait article that’s meant to incite anger and garner clicks that way. How much does your contention that this reflects a genuine opinion stand up to the idea that it’s just a cheap attention grab?
Why did this incite anger in you?
I suppose because it’s insulting to the fact that there are good games out there that actually deserve attention.
Is that your opinion, in the same way that it might be the author’s opinion that Disco Elysium is the greatest RPG ever?
No, that’s a fact.
Haha, awesome. Have a good day ✌️
If it was an RPG that was even close to contending for that title, I would acquiesce to it.
Except it is. And I don’t think the burden of proof is on the article writer, when culturally, it’s just accepted that it is either the greatest RPG, or one of the greatest RPGs. Maybe you didn’t like it, but that doesn’t invalidate the facts of how high people regard this game.
It’s not some damned marketing strategy. It’s sitting at 91 on MetaCritic (even after all of the backlash about ZA/UM), won Game of the Year for many many outlets, and any individual who has played it all the way through will either call it the greatest RPG they ever played, or one of the greatest RPGs.
No no, you don’t get it. Every single person in the world must love it for it to be the greatest game. Until that day, they’re just pretenders.
/s
I think your “not even close” statement is hyperbolic. Disco Elysium has very positive reviews in most if not all review outlets and won Game of The Year award in 2019. You can personally think its not a good RPG but saying its nowhere close is very hyperbolic.
But “best RPG” though? There are tons of RPGs that won “Game of the Year”, and when people talk about iconic RPGs, Disco Elysium is rarely the one mentioned. Most people will claim Chrono Trigger, Morrowind (or Skyrim I guess), or one of the Final Fantasies (usually 6, 7, or 8). Look up any list of top RPGs and it probably won’t crack the top 10.
That doesn’t mean it’s a bad game, but “best RPG” is a pretty crowded field that rarely includes Disco Elysium.
Disco Elysium is not a fantasy themed monster slaying adventure game. It’s a detective game of narrative psychological exploration that uses RPG mechanics.
Sure, but being different doesn’t automatically win you “best RPG.”
Because it riles up the nerds.
The article author has never played a good RPG before, clearly.
Out of curiosity, what are some games that you consider contenders for greatest RPG?
Xenogears. Just off the top of my head.
That was made 25 years ago. And just off the top of my head, Xenosaga surpassed it.
Just because an RPG was made 25 years ago that does not automatically make it bad lol
well to say Xenosaga surpassed it…I mean that’s not hard to do.
Xenogears is great but keep in mind it’s not finished. the entire second disc is proof of this. It’s an unfinished game that is regarded as one of the greatest RPG’s of all time. Same with Xenosaga. that’s an unfinished series. so to say Xenosaga surprassed it…well yeah it got further along than Xenogears did.
Get in the fucking robot,
ShinjiFeiHalf-finished, at best.
Western - Ultima IV
Eastern - Phantasy Star IIDamn, RPGs peaked in the 80s for you. What did these games do right that nothing has done better since?
Exist when they cared more and had less things to compare it to so that nothing can ever surpass the nostalgia of the game, regardless of quality.
The story and engagement. Ultima IV let you talk to literally every NPC in the game, everyone had a name and a job and something to say.
Phantasy Star II was essentially ripped off for Final Fantasy VII to the point where from the minute they introduced Aerith I was like “Well, shit, better not give HER anything I want to keep, she’s dead 1/2 way through the game.” (That was Nei in PSII).
To be clear, those are just the first two off the top of my head, there were other excellent, excellent RPGs.
I really liked the gold box D&D games from SSI - Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades. They don’t hold up well now due to all being turn based RPGs. There is a Steam Collection of ALL of that.
Speaking of, before Fallout, there was Wasteland which has had a modern reboot and sequel. Also a great game that had copy protection built into a story book full of backstory paragraphs.
For JRPGs, it’s hard to go wrong with Suikoden 1 and 2, recently re-released on PS5, drop dead gorgeous RPGs. The Golden Sun games were great too.
I’ve played probably hundreds of RPGs since the start. Disco Elysium isn’t even top 10. It LOOKS great, the writing is dogshit.
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Games are entertainment. When you’re playing a game and you are presented with:
Terrible choice #1
Terrible choice #2
Terrible choice #3
Just godawful choice #1
What the fuck is even this choice? #1That’s not entertaining. I can get where some people might derive some kind of enjoyment from that, I don’t.
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Not OP, but:
- Chrono Trigger
- Morrowind (or maybe Skyrim)
- Final Fantasy (esp. 6 and 7)
- Baldur’s Gate (esp. 3)
- Pillars of Eternity
- Fallout (esp. New Vegas)
- The Witcher (esp. 3)
- World of Warcraft (not my jam, but it’s insanely popular)
There are a ton more, especially if you broaden the definition to sub-genres to include Diablo 2, TLoZ games (esp. Ocarina of Time and Breath of the Wild), and Dark Souls.
There are just so many bangers.
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Yeah, I intentionally picked a diverse set of examples. My point here is that “best RPG” doesn’t make much sense without qualifiers, like a year or sub-genre.
I don’t get the love for this game. I’ve been playing CRPGs since Temple of Apshai and I’ve never seen a game where the story and dialog choices appear to have been written by or for people with traumatic brain injury.
So bad that I had to hop on a forum and go “Hey, so, there aren’t any good choices in the dialog tree, did I fuck up my character generation? Should I start over?”
And got “You just don’t get it, man!”
Yeah, I don’t get games where “You want some fuck?” is a valid dialog choice.
The main character starts the game literally giving himself a traumatic brain injury by drowning himself in alcohol. It’s not really the kind of RPG where you can play a self-insert, the player character is an actual character with his own backstory. Not being able to make good choices because of the player character’s personal trauma and limitations is part of the story that the game is telling.
This is the clearest explanation for Disco Elysium I’ve ever read, thank you.
This says it well. I also like how the character’s fucked up backstory is inescapably linked to the fucked up backstory of the world he lives in. It it were just that he was a fuck-up, then it wouldn’t be as compelling. What I really love is that whilst he certainly is the victim of his own choices, it’s much more the case that he’s a victim of his material circumstances (rather like how I am currently still in bed due to a combination of poor choices, and material circumstances making consistent good choices very hard)
So bad that I had to hop on a forum and go “Hey, so, there aren’t any good choices in the dialog tree, did I fuck up my character generation? Should I start over?”
Your first mistake was thinking it was like any of those other CRPGS with dialog trees. No, you didn’t fuck up your character generation. Your character IS a fuck up. That’s part of the story it’s trying to tell. You don’t get to Mary Sue this shit.
How you engage with the game is figuring out how to un-fuck-up the character in a matter that is realistic. Or just ignoring whatever lessons the game gives you and continue down the same self-destructive path. Or somewhere in-between. All paths are have their creative stories to tell, and even being strange and weird with it can still lead to solving pieces of the crime you’re trying to piece together.
Yeah, I don’t get games where “You want some fuck?” is a valid dialog choice.
Because it’s fucking funny when you didn’t know what the actual dialogue entry was going to be, you took a gamble, and the “pay off” (well, it was a failed check) is that your character says the cringest fucking line to some woman he’s immediately attracted to. So cringe that even your own Volition (best fucking mental power, btw) is like “the words already left your mouth” as if he was already smacking his goddamn forehead right through to the other side. (EDIT: Actually, it was Suggestion, but whatever.) If anything, it should teach you not to make red check gambles unless you’re prepared for the mental damage a failure might come with. Or maybe you just want to laugh at the upcoming misfortune.
Your. Character. Is. A. Fuck up.
If that bothers you, and you want to play something that involves some extreme power fantasy, where you can pick a class and play a completely silent blank slate, then this game is not for you.
And I’m not interested in playing as a fuck up… it’s not interesting to me.
Thank god Steam let me return it.
Seconded. Also the neckbeards downvoting you for having a civil conversation about a game but not enjoying it are a joke.
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Hey, if you don’t have traumatic brain injury, what are you doing on Lemmy?
I mean, it’s ok to not get it? It really does sound like you just don’t get it. If your example of why it’s bad is a genuinely funny, absurd result of a failed check, it might just not be for you.
I enjoyed it because many RPGs are a power fantasy, where you’re an epic hero who saves the world. Some of them present you with a blank slate character you can shape however you wish, and whilst that can be fun, I find I have more fun when I’m playing a character with some history.
In Disco Elysium, you’re playing as someone whose history is fucked up, so good choices often aren’t an option. He’s not a typical hero, and he’ll be lucky if he can save himself, let alone the world — the world is even more fucked up than he is, riddled with scars from a long dead, hopeful era. Even though at the start of the game, both the player and your character have no knowledge of history, you can’t escape it.
A huge part of why I like it is because I can see what it’s going for, and I’m here for that. Even if I didn’t personally click with it, I think I would respect it for having things to say and committing to it. What’s an RPG that you have clicked with or loved what it was going for? If you’re not into Disco Elysium, then I suspect that your answer might be a game that would pull me out of my comfort zone in interesting ways.
“dialog choices appear to have been written by or for people with traumatic brain injury.”
I think this is a pretty harsh statement, but it did make me laugh, because part of why I vibed with Disco Elysium so much is because a couple years before, I actually bumped my head that I lost my memory and couldn’t even remember who I was.
Being insulted by Cuno and that other little rat faced fuck was a highlight for me
The fuck you’re saying about Cunoesse? The Cuno will fuck your face up! With his maximum velocity fists!
I’m so disappointed we came so close to having a Cuno RPG, only to have that ripped away.
A lot of power fantasy RPG players would have really benefitted from this, they’ll have to stick with postal instead.
Fuck Cuno. I stole that kid’s dad’s speed.
I mostly just hated that the story was largely delivered via info dump and nearly every character was a terrible person to the point of being grating. I don’t have to enjoy every video game, but I wish I at least understood why this one got this much acclaim.
That’s a really bizarre read, how do you come to the conclusion that every character was a terrible person? Even amongst the first 6 or so people you talk to, most of them are decent people living in a very poor area. I usually hate media where everyone is an asshole but DI is so NOT that that I’m just… Confused.
Because they were. Maybe not the first 6 people verbatim, but of the characters you have a significant amount of dialogue with, the only one who didn’t give me this impression was your partner. You run into the asshole kid, the other cops over the radio are assholes, the guy on the wall to the docks is an asshole, and beyond that, I didn’t take notes, but it annoyed the hell out of me.
To be fair, many people KNEW your character pre-amnesia. There are very valid reasons for many of them to treat your character like an asshole, because to be frank, he kinda was. This is a very big and very intentional part of the game. You’re also a cop coming to police an area that hasn’t seen a cop come around in literal decades.
Garte, the hotel manager, doesn’t like that you’re being incredibly loud and trashing your room. He’s a bit of an asshole, but honestly with good reason, and he comes around if you make an effort to apologize.
Lena, the Cryptozoologist, is really friendly and very charming.
Cuno is a drugged out kid, he’s supposed to be absurd.
If anything, Kim is impossibly accomodating and patient with you. Even if you’re an asshole to him. There’s a reason people love him and call him “best boy” because he’s got these little windows into his personality even through his stiff police exterior.
There are some actual racist assholes in the game, but I feel very confident in stating that the vast majority of the characters are not assholes.
Oh, my player character was definitely on the list of asshole characters that made the game grating. And even if his actions before the story began precipitated everyone else being an asshole, it didn’t make the game less annoying to experience it fresh as the player.
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There are a lot of characters who are good people. A lot of bad ones too . A lot of the good ones you’ve previously pissed off so they start out barely putting up with you talking to them (and you deserve that treatment frankly).
I think the problem is that it kind of isn’t an RPG.
It’s an adventure game with heavy RPG elements. Like the core gameplay clearly resembles old point and click adventure games. It’s just the experience and leveling system are also so central to the gameplay that it wouldn’t work without also being an RPG.
I think trying to fit games into genres and people disagreeing with your reasoning is incredibly bad around RPGs.
I’d argue disco elysium is a stellar example of an RPG especialls since I enjoyed role playing as someone who is incredibly far from my own mental state. A game with somehow gets me to roleplay someone so different is a prime example of a good RPG for me.
But I get how messy the term has gotten. People argue about whether Dark souls or Witcher are RPGs, where both games have arguments for it beeing an RPG. Personality I think an RPG has an adaptility in the character AND the world in response to my choices. But I can totally see how others see it differently.
For me personally I’ve set up that there are the traditional RPGs like Fallout, Baldurs gate and Pathfinder WoR. But there are also a lot of games which use a lot of similar parts of the RPG gene that I consider them RPGs aswell.
That’s fair. I guess what I’m saying is that describing it as “an RPG” doesn’t do nearly enough to convey what the game actually is. Like I can see the argument to say Elden Ring is an RPG, because it definitely has RPG elements, but you’d never describe it as an RPG without also mentioning that it’s an action game. You also wouldn’t describe Expedition 33 without mentioning that it’s a turn-based RPG.
In the same way, I find it misleading to label Disco Elysium as an RPG without mentioning that it’s an adventure game. It’s at least as much of an adventure game as it is an RPG, and most importantly: it lacks combat. Combat isn’t necessarily a requirement of the genre, but if you asked a random gamer to name 10 RPGs, he’d either name 10 games with combat systems, or he’d name 9 games with combat and Disco Elysium.
That’s not what the detective said. He SAID “I want to have fuck with you”
That correction makes you sound like a pedomorphic binoclard. 😅
You’ve confused basic with good, common mistake
I could see what it was going for but it felt like a chore to play so I stopped.
The term “over-embroidered” springs to mind.
By chance did you pick a character with a low intelligence or charisma? Because ability scores matter a lot.
I sadly didn’t get to play much of it. I only had access to it for a limited time, and I did not get far at all.
See, that’s what I was thinking. The reaction in the forums was it was supposed to be that way.
To me Disco Elysium was the next example of the “Art Game”.
The game people bring up when discussing Game as Art, without actually explaining what makes it art.
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I found it…daunting. I couldn’t stick with it. maybe it’s because I like my RPGs to have a bit of action or random encounters I don’t know but I just couldn’t get into it. once I found myself skipping text and stuff I figured “welp, there’s no point in playing this now”.
So yeah I guess I just found it daunting and boring. Just not my cup of tea. If you’re someone that enjoyed it, kudos. but personally I don’t think it’s the greatest RPG ever made.
Yeah, it wasn’t for me either. I really tried to give it a shot, gone back to it a couple times but I really just don’t get it.
Great art/style? Definitely. But the gameplay itself is SO boring.
I’m trying to play a game here, and the game part is lacking. RNG+ text? No thanks, not much to keep me.
It’s about the exploring the story, the mind of your character, and lots of political and philosophical themes. The deep psychological exploration of the human condition is absolutely unique and fascinating.
Maybe you’re too young or otherwise not ready to engage with these themes.
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Definitely neither.
I put down choose your own adventure stories a long time ago, and a digital one doesn’t hold me no matter how well it’s put together.
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Everyone is in here talking about reading… The Director’s Cut or whatever its called, has full voice narration of everything. And it’s really good.
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Yeah, I read a couple books a month. Not interested in playing one disguised as a video game. They serve different purposes.
Reading goes at my pace which is way, way faster than a game. Story-based games are way too slow and not nearly rich enough to replace a book.
Cool if people like it, obviously there’s something there that clicks with people. But I think it’s boring AF.
I’m not entirely confident in my answer but I think my initial issue with Disco Elysium when I first tried to play it was because I expected the typical high action and quick cause-and-effect outcomes I’m used to in most RPGs. At least IMO, most RPG choices in games usually end up with a relatively clear outcome, whereas DE felt more gradual. Similarly, DE is more detective than action, which might sometimes benefit from gradual clues all coming together.
Not to say anyone is wrong for not liking this approach, it does take a bit of commitment to engage with it. But I think being willing to engage with it on its level might make the initial hump more bearable. I’ve honestly come to enjoy the slower approach of DE, but refreshing compared to everything else.
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Why don’t you read a PDF transcript of it then? I mean, all the visuals just mean you don’t have a brain adapted to creating worlds from text… Why need a game if you can a) go to page 713 b) go to page 23 c) go to page 412
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All you describe could just play all out in my head. You haven’t read a lot of good novels if you need all this audiovisual support to paint a world with such depth in your head.
You really need a brain adapted to creating novel universes from text. If you don’t like reading novels I get why you need all the help such games offer to handwalk your imagination along the script. If that’s the case, reading novels is just not your cup of tea. That’s fine, I get it. But I don’t get why you wouldn’t just read an PDF choose-your-own adventure.
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OK, now you’ve come to this conclusion reread your original comment. The only one petty and obtuse are you.
Also, I dropped the /s for my previous comments. Glad you get my point now, though.
There are some of us with no inner vision who do enjoy reading too though, you know?
Not all of us have the ability to see what we read, i.e., aphantasia.
I love to read though. All day long if I can. Also in the top 0.1% when it comes to reading speed. Guess why? Nothing wrong with my comprehension either.
I was being cynical, to make the point that looking down on mainstream gamers for not liking visual novels could be doubled down by taking the same stance comparing visual novels vs reading plain text.
I play visual novels all the time, and the point you make is very valid.
Same - Planescape Torment is my personal greatest RPG ever made
A true fellow of culture. Just don’t trust the skull.
eekum bokum
this game was so fucking depressing and bleak and full of downer characters and sub stories i stopped playing after 4 hours.
drama can be good. hardships make adventures exciting. but when the entire world is a hardship, I’d rather play something with more realistic variety.
Maybe you should have kept on playing and you’d have noticed that the game is also funny as fuck…
i have 4 hours on my steam account. not a single chuckle. that’s enough time for a laugh. you may jokes about bleak existences and situations but dark humor isn’t exactly mainstream and imo is pretty hard to pull off without feeling gross, which Disco Elysium did to me.
also, i have seen more of the game via youtube than i have played. the game is not a comedy, just stop it.
Hey, it’s cool if you didn’t like it. I just think there’s tons of hilarious things going on. The whole setting appears very bleak and surreal, but there’s some really funny things in the game. I think it’s a good balance to be honest.
4 hours really doesn’t get you far. You don’t even get a feeling for the world in that little time. But you’ve watched YouTube videos on the game, so I guess it’s just not for you.
I grew up with British humor, so it’s kind of weird to hear that dark humor isn’t mainstream, lol.
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dude. i am 36 years old. i have experienced and enjoyed tons of dark humo. johnny the homicidal maniac was my bread and butter when i was 16. please don’t assume just because a stranger doesn’t like something you do it’s because they are uncultured or have narrow horizons. it comes across incredibly pretentiously
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If they didn’t notice for 4 whole hours the game is funny as fuck I don’t think it’s for them anyway. Kinda weird they picked up only the nostalgic and sad tones, but nothing else, in a game that basically allows you to react to its world in a myriad different ways.
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Yeah I felt the same way. I kept playing because of the hype around it, but quit after 8 hours or so.
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“Disco Elysium is perfect but also a complete shit show” is becoming its own genre of journalism.
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