Recent reviews by Jacket

Underrated indie RPG, the aesthetics are strong, and it's very much dark-fantasy.

Indie game that was on my radar and one that I finally got, I'm glad I played it. I don't think it's for everyone but if you like David Lynch, Russian sic-fi, Jung, or philosophy applied to plots you definitely could sink your teeth into this. Each "run" is relatively short and you figure out more of the story as you go; there are minor issues and I did click the "easy setting" so I can have more time to change his facial features since the dev expects people to speed run that for some reason. The visuals, music, and sound is awesome. It's obviously inspired but at least manages to be distinctly it's own thing.

This game is ridiculous and insane. I will say, if you enjoy all of the other David Cage games this is like the epitome of all of them. I don't want to go as far as to say they're all derivative, at least not negatively, but you will just notice a lot of games after this were very much inspired by this game. It's a toss up for me with the original direction they were going to take with heavy rain and beyond two souls if you're wondering thematically what this game is like.

Also, play this with a controller because I found the Simon Says QTE's to be near impossible otherwise. Don't expect super high quality but just a funny time with an entertaining story.

I played Amnesia: the Dark Descent and A Machine for Pigs way later than most people so I have a retrospective opinion of both. I also finished both Penumbra's before I tried these games. I think the hate for this game in specific is somewhat justified for those expecting the same kind of game, however I actually do enjoy this title for it's story and atmosphere. I don't think it's that bad of a game but it definitely just feels like an expansion to the dark descent or an official mod. I think if you like the aesthetics and story the most out of all of these games I'd say go give this one a try. I thought it was pretty jarring from Penumbra 1 to 2 with the combat changes but it didn't affect my enjoyment of either game to any severe degree. Although, I do understand perhaps the small niche of people who were upset at that too but all in all this still is like an Amnesia game just an unusual addition.

To preface this I do recommend this game but I'll point out more of what I thought about it going in and what I learned playing it.

I will say this game is actually not as bad as I thought it would be initially. In an international cultural sense, it's a good way for anyone to understand the sort of post-left framework it pushes on every ideology. If you're familiar with the beliefs of various political groups it's pretty obvious the bias lies in a combination of a liberal soc-dem world view, and a post-communist world view. The creators restrain themselves as much as they can, but for example you can be a fascist in this game that allegedly 'hates' women but be kind to every female npc, while also being a 'racist' that's kind to every single minority. I appreciate the freedom of choice in this point and click kind of game, but don't expect some kind of hyper-nuance like everyone overstates about this game. The developers do know their niche's though for example hammer-head is supposed to be a twitter personality Hakan Rotmwrt, however don't expect to see references to something like Italian futurism, Ezra Pound, Franco, Mussolini, or even the Fasces if you go that route politically. It's very shallow compared to even the centrist routes and the self hating communist route. Honestly to be fair though everything political about this game is very nihilistic and very cynical. I think it makes sense, since it reflects the character you're playing, but the world he perceives as well in this almost post-apocalypse setting.

Really the best part about Disco Elysium isn't the politics but the actual story, world building, and style of game play. The political messaging gets oversold in my opinion compared to the unique archipelago like world, without spoiling in great detail it's similar to Russian science fiction and many concepts within the "Noosphere". I would say it's general philosophy is far more compelling than it's political assertions and analyzing/deconstruction. If you enjoy the concepts of books like Road-side Picnic you'll enjoy this games world a lot. It's probably the best aspect of this game overall, and it's grossly overshadowed by the rambling platitudes of political discussion this game offers and shilled by it's English speaking fans. The art is also extremely well done, I'm enjoying the mini-renaissance we're having with isometric games and this is an amazing addition to that.

On the fact the original creators don't own this game anymore.... It shouldn't be surprising a bunch of leftists get kicked out when they don't understand how to run the company or the possible repercussions of selling out your IP the way they did. I don't really care about ZA/UM either way but it's a great funny irony that this would happen after all the political ramblings this game had to offer. I honestly view it as part of the game's art spectacle but an unintended contribution to the statements they've made so far. Hopefully the creators will just reform under a new studio and learn from their mistakes in management.

This game gives me a nostalgia for the sort of darkness and oppressiveness Dark Souls 1 gave me when I first played it years ago. From the music to the art there's so much about this game to even it's game design that just feels like a heavy darkness pressing against you as you play it. There's never a moment without some form of tension even when you learn its ins and outs you can only get so good. There's still chances for your entire party to miss their hits and still die. Encounters are fair in the sense there are ways to learn how to get around them and counter them, however this is trial and error, lots of restarting and learning on how to get further will most likely happen in your playthroughs.

The only negative I've experienced is game breaking bugs that will hopefully be fine tuned as the game gets updates over time.

Yeah I missed out on not being able to get past the ascii graphics fully. This is still minimalist but far easier to attempt to grasp. I personally just had a hard time orientating everything due to my own vision issues and the ascii becomes headache inducing. Now if you're like me you don't have to worry about that.

It's a game of systems built on top of systems, it makes sense why the motto is "losing is fun" because there is a giant learning curve. If you're familiar with rimworld this is it's inspiration, it's quite a bit more advanced in a few aspects especially since there are horizontal layers and not just purely generated random encounters. Everything in the world is constant and at least seems to play by the same rules as you do, and just about everything seems to have a cause and effect; which is what separates Dwarf Fortress from Rimworld.

The only problem I have with it is the UI issues I had to fix with mods which should be in the base game, for example it would make a lot of sense if the buttons for each keybind were on the symbol so you don't have to just click around and can get used to the game. It's already good progress towards accessibility of course. Another issue is when you start getting a bit further finally and have 100+ dwarves it'd be helpful if there was a search function when going around looking for them for various specific reasons. The sorter is fine but typing out like you can with the work orders menu would be amazing.

Since I have Prime I got the whole thing with the missing DLC for sort of free on there. I owned it on steam first though so my hours aren't reflective of my actual playtime.

Overall I love this game. The story is well thought out where it's not just cliche archetypes for Gods or characters. Every companion has it's own conflict and interest on why they'd want to travel with you. There's a lot thought out in this world and if you're a lore nerd like me you'd really appreciate the context this world offers to a lot. It also helps the game is very beautiful for the type it is. Everything has a painting like aesthetic.

The only slight negative and warning to this game is what I give for pretty much all CRPGs is that you should plan out a build before you play or at least do a partial play through or on an easier difficulty. For some reason it took me a while to grasp the system of how to play in this game and the companions aren't always going to be as powerful as you can make a custom companion for. It's very much in a tabletop RPG kind of game crunchy in its rules and number system. It's not too complex that you'll never grasp it of course just make sure to read through the explanation of all the statistics because builds work a little bit differently than they do in most other games.

This isn't a normal thumbs up and I could only really recommend this to someone who really likes the specific type of RPG like Fallout 1 & 2 in game style. I could imagine some Xenonaut or even X-Com players can enjoy it as well. A lot that isn't obvious to new players is really never explained like how important a shovel can be. Nobody new to this whole type of game would really know that unless being experienced with classic fallout games. That's just a simple example.

A semi-unique problem to this game specifically is if you want to carefully craft your parties skills and utility you'll have to plan out and consider who you're recruiting. Sometimes it is worthwhile to dip a little into skills your character wouldn't use much for a simple perk.

I really do like this game though and it is satisfying overcoming the difficulty jumps throughout and becoming more powerful than what you were fighting. Loot is about as important in this game as your skills so pay attention to what's going on and what you're picking up especially items you've never seen before. Without spoiling anything I really do enjoy this game though. I love how party synergy ends up working together and how your squad begins just as some recruits who will slowly be able to tactically wipe out the enemy at hand.

My main tip is prioritize combat capability as much as you can. I like to make a set up squad and one guy specifically meant for learning a variety of skills. While keeping my other Rangers mostly meant for combat and maybe one other thing while progressing. I give the skills ranger just specialization with energy weapons since it works aesthetically.

Addendum after beating it:

I wouldn't recommend this game now from a story and pacing perspective this part will be entirely spoilers so I'd recommend not read if you care about this. Half of this game was clearly rushed which is very obvious once you reach LA. This game just botched the ending essentially with three boss fights back to back where you are bound to lose people in an already sparsely populated world. There's too much in this game that's paced horribly where you have no ability to prevent tragedy over and over. You'll always come up as a clean up crew and there's never a normal person or any reasonable semblance of a society anywhere. I just decided to beat it to make it a point. I really wanted to get it over with finally and I can't say I regret finishing it but I do wish the ending overall was just a better quality. Fallout at least bothers to narrate their end credit slideshow of the decisions you made. Which in this game are almost entirely non-decisions that affect nothing but the slide.

I beat Frank Horrigan with an unarmed build.