I feel like my “all-time favorite” changes depending on my mood, but if I had to pick just one, I’d probably go with The Witcher 3. That game just hit all the right notes—amazing story, incredible world-building, and so much stuff to do without feeling like pointless filler. Plus, the expansions were just as good, if not better than the base game.
What about you? Are you more into RPGs, shooters, or something else entirely?
It’s a difficult question to answer. I personally barely consider Disco Elysium to be a game, more like an interactive story that uses certain game mechanics as grammar elements and punctuation in its storytelling. It’s a novel masquerading as a game. It’s three novels in a trenchcoat. But if we do count it then it is my pick, by a landslide.
Otherwise it’s probably Baldur’s Gate 2. It’s the story game I’ve replayed the most over the years and it was absolutely fundamental in my journey as a gamer, the definition of a formative experience. Even though parts of it are dated now (some clunk is to be expected from a 25-year-old game) I still prefer it to BG3. It’s got a great story, great companions and an all-time great villain. David Warner put in an incredible performance and even all these years later there aren’t many video game villains who have surpassed Irenicus in sheer aura.
I personally consider Disco Elysium very much a game (a way better role-playing gamer than most), because an “interactive story” is a game. Combat shouldn’t be a necessary condition. Planescape: Torment should have had the guts to scrap its lackluster combat and focus on its strengths.
Disco elysium is the best book I’ve ever played.
I played BG1 and 2 for the first time shortly before the release of BG3, and I just wanted to hear Irenicus talk more.
Disco Elysium, on the other hand, just did not hit for me. The only things I hear about it are praise, but my friends list is filled with people who played it for a few hours, like I did, and stopped, so maybe the dissenters just aren’t so vocal.
Like I said, the game itself on its store page claims to be a “detective game RPG” while in reality I would argue it’s barely any of those things. So a lot of people probably come into it with the wrong expectations. It’s more like a novel about love and loss, about addiction, depression and the past looming over the present like a grey ghost. It’s a story about finding hope in the midst of overwhelming nihilism. As someone who has struggled with all those things it hit incredibly close to home, and was the most meaningful experience I’ve ever had playing a video game.
I don’t think I came to it with many expectations other than that people praised it for the writing, but I found the characters to nearly universally be abrasive and the story delivered via info dumps.
That’s not an inaccurate description. Though context is important - most of the characters know yours through behavior and actions that neither you or the character remember. A lot of the game is playing with how you handle that.
True, but I hated the player character too, and I’d have appreciated a more elegant introduction to the world.
I think that’s another thing as well, a lot of people go in with the idea that you can to some extent “play as yourself” like you do in many RPGs. And they get frustrated when they’re only given stupid or horrible dialogue options like “why would I ever say any of these things?!”. Because the game is actually rather restrictive in terms of roleplay: yes you can choose your flavour and variety of crazy but at the end of the day you’re always Harry, you’re always insane and damaged and you can’t change that.
For me personally, I’m also an utter failure and I hate myself deeply, so maybe that’s why I easily resonated with the protagonist. And in the end, much of the actual story is about dealing with failure, about finding hope amidst despair and about overcoming and letting go of the past.
I can sympathize that. The whole game is intentionally bleak and rough, which can be pretty off putting (though it does make the few nice parts exceptionally nice). The devs made a pretty heavy handed choice to focus more on being confrontational art rather than being particularly accommodating to the player.