Internally Coherent!
Alright, everybody has talked this game to death, and I don't have anything of any real value or analysis to add to this game, so I'll try and keep this all relatively brief. First of all, do not play this fucking game on switch because it crashes fucking *constantly*. The crashing was so bad that I ended up just quicksaving every time I entered a new area, which really breaks the fuck out of your immersion in the story, of which this game has been rightfully lauded for. I intended to play the game all the through with no save scumming or re-rolls but when reloading a save doesn't actually lose very much progress, it is hard to fight off that temptation. This ended up making me feel like my actions had no weight or consequences because the undo button was right there the entire time. This is admittedly a bit of a leap from "the game crashes all the fucking time" to "failed rolls feel like they don't matter as much" but I guess that's just kind of inherent in the crpg systems. I'm really not a fan of rpg's in general, although I don't mind it too much in shit like dark souls where there's still a level of skill execution that needs to be done regardless of level. That's why sekiro is my favorite soulsbourne game because it doesn't really have any of the rpg systems and it instead just demands mechanical perfection, but i digress. I dislike rpg's and the false progress from number go up-ism but I found the bizzare attributes and skills system, along with the thought cabinet interesting enough concepts to override my dislike of rpgs and the FUCKING NUMBERS MASON WHAT DO THEY MEAN.
mfw the fucking numbers
The strange art style piqued my curiosity but the writing and the vibe is what made me stay. The story and world are wildly over-engineered which i think for some people is part of the appeal and i cannot argue that it makes disco actually feel like it's own separate world and universe, but I can't stop to think that soooo much of that effort just didn't need to be made on the first game, and i hate to see so many potential stories that could've been set in elysium that now will never happen due to za/um imploding. The meta-narrative shit with the radio-wave rpg makers gestured at enough self awareness about this problem that clearly these people knew what they were doing. Perhaps these motherfuckers were built so different to be immune to Scope Creep, but i have seen it kill so many projects that I have a pavolvian fear response at it's possible presence.
There is also the whole debacle that you should play this game while avoiding paying for it as the developer studio turned into some souless husk, kicking out the majority of the original creators of this game, which is ironically the most disco elysium shit that could have happened. There's a lot more people smarter than me saying very well researched things about that particular situation, so I won't belabor the point on my piddly little blog more, but I will say that I love when life imitates art. The wasted potential stories in universe is a crime against art, but this happening has elevated the game to legend status in my eyes.
Disco is incredible, but the crashing is fucking miserable. The Pale is one of the coolest fictional concepts, that i didn't even actually run into on my first play through, which is fucking INSANE that a major part of the world building is completely missable if you're a sad sack like me. Truly one of the games of all time, and absolutely worth a spin.
Also the stick bug made me cry.