ZA/UM's attempt at a classic pen and paper RPG is done right with Disco Elysium. The story arcs, characters, setting and plot is fantastic and I cannot wait to see what their next title has to offer, as Disco Elysium will go down in the books as one of the best RPG games I have played in recent years.

The game sets you up in your hotel room suffering from a bad hangover, you as the protagonist has no idea who you are, where you are and what your back-round is. As the story continues, without ruining too much, you're set up as a schizophrenic, alcoholic, amnesiac detective, investigating a murder in the late 50's, whilst also trying to piece together the puzzle in terms of your life story set in a socialistic union run city.

The world feels alive, as there are many secrets to be uncovered and stories to listen to as you and your detective partner Kim Kitsuragi travel around and start to slowly paint a picture about the world that the developers have beautifully made. Nothing is given straight up to you and there are no guidelines on how to play or what to look for, as its the players option on how deep they would like to look into the lore or story about the games city setting and characters. I constantly found myself asking for more when it came to painting this picture in my head of the characters and relations, the city and its backstory as well as motives behind peoples actions.

The characters that you meet throughout the game are all interesting in their own ways, no two characters are the same and each are easily distinguishable and remembered throughout the story. Almost all characters you meet play a huge role in terms of the story and none of them feel shallow as all of them have huge, unique personalities.

The game uses skills in a different way, by making you level up the different 'voices' or 'personalities' that exist within the main protagonist. These skills, or personalities such as shivers: which allows you to interact with anomalies in the world, or visual calculus: which allows you to accurately determine scenarios or peoples body languages which you may interact with. There are a host of these skills in the game and the way you build your character will play a part in your interactions with other characters or even the environment. These skills are also used as a progression system in certain situations during dialogue called 'checks' which is based on a dice roll and a percentage chance as well as the given skill involved. Example to intimidate someone into giving more information, you'd need your authority skill to be a certain level, and the higher your authority, the higher the percentage would be for you to actually intimidate the character into talking.

When it comes to character interaction, your choices matter, and there are a lot of choices. Whether you want to carry out your detective work as a wannabe disco dancer, singing karaoke on the down low or as a serious, straight forward, no pushover cop, ready to beat answers out of someone, is completely up to you, and you will get different reactions from different characters depending on their personalities. As you click to choose how you'd like to ask a question, respond or react, it will be influenced by the skills or 'personalities' I mentioned earlier, as they will essentially talk to you and maybe alter your decision and depending on the level of the skill itself, may even give you completely different responses, often leading you in the right or wrong direction as the personalities and the character may argue amongst themselves in consciousness.

Toward the end of the game, I had so many questions, theories and scenarios playing out in my head with regards to the story. However the murder result fell flat as when the murderer was finally discovered made it feel as though I spent most of my 20 hour play-through chasing my own tail in terms of who the murderer was. Saying that however makes me think of how attached I got to certain characters and the main protagonist himself throughout my play-through and the actual ending of the game was heart warming and displayed depth in terms of underlying allegories and messages meant to be delivered to the player upon completion. The ending will keep you thinking and even looking further into characters and plots as a 'supernatural' element exists in the game.

Disco Elysium kept me guessing throughout my entire play-through and although the result of the murder didn't turn out as I expected and fell a little flat in terms of the story, the character development kept me wanting to know more about the history of the city and all the personalities that exist within it. Disco Elysium deals with real world ideas and even some that cannot be explained immediately but upon investigation will eventually become clear as you play.

I cannot wait to get back into the shoes of the drug addicted, alcoholic protagonist of Disco Elysium in my hardcore play-through as I know my decisions will be completely different knowing the outcome of the story and characters behind it all and decision making is where Disco Elysium shines brightest!

9/10