I’ve just uninstalled and removed Balatro after yet a near, very close 8/8 ante finish. I have been failing and failing, I’ve only ever seen and gotten to 8/8 ante twice, this being the second time. Every other run has been just insulting me to where no strategy has ever worked, I feel like a lot of it is RNG and pre-determined outcomes based on seeded runs.
And I hate that way of playing. It always feels like I’m getting smacked down by a troll bully who I can never overcome. They’d kick me down every failed run I’d have, then they give me a false sense of security the further I get. “Awwww, getting tired of being owned? Here, let me help you by giving you a few seemingly lucky breaks. SMACK Oh! OWNED YOU AGAIN! FUCK YOU! LOLLOLOL! I BANGED YOUR MOTHER, GIT GUD, NOOB!1”
I just don’t understand why these kinds of games are around, even when I have a good idea who it is for.
I found nearly all of Disco Elysium’s characters so unlikable, (especially?) including the player character, that I could not enjoy it at all. I think I like the systems in it, and I’m happy when an RPG exposes its dice rolls; the voice performances were all very good; I just couldn’t stand it after 5 hours of trying.
I finished it recently and I also didn’t get what all the hype was about, but for me it was more the fact that none of the quests, main or side, were satisfying in the least.
I am a socialist and dont get offended at all if called a communist and finally I get why people may hate us, after playing this game.
Also, having to change clothes every 3 minutes brings me out of immersion.
It is very “snobbish” in its design despite beautiful art département stuff and voice acting.
The main theme of the game basically centers around failure. How it manifests, how people react to it, how it affects them in the long run. Bitterness, apathy, delusion. Most of the characters are some kind of fuckup (except Kim, my beloved). Some of them are failures because they’re fucked up, some of them are fucked up because they failed again and again, but either way it’s an exploration of what that does to a person, what that does to a people, what that does to a town.
Some people just disassociate, some people give up and abandon their values to go with the flow, some people fight back impotently against forces they’ll never overcome. Above all, I think it’s basically about perseverance, one way or another, in the face of failure.
It’s very raw, very bleak, very human. It’s easy to feel vindicated when you strive and succeed, when you’re a virtuous hero, but who among us is just a virtuous hero? It’s much more complex and real to fail over and over and still get back on that horse, because what else can you do? The characters are supposed to be flawed, they’re supposed to be unlikeable. The game is about exploring what it is that made them unlikeable: how much of it is forces beyond their control, how much of it is their own stubbornness and maladaptive reactions, how much of it is just trauma.
If you don’t like exploring those ideas, you probably won’t like the game.
I would like exploring those ideas, but it doesn’t change what I said above.
It’s kind of a necessary aspect. You can’t really effectively explore what persistent failure does to a town without feeling like you’re trudging through a story full of assholes. If the characters weren’t so abrasive and broken, it wouldn’t really be the same kind of thing.
But I wasn’t exploring failure. I was just annoyed every time I had to talk to Kuno or anyone else.
And if you keep playing you learn the tragic reasons why Cuno is such a little shit and, I won’t post spoilers, but depending on your choices you can help him become way less of a little shit. It’s roughly the same for most of the asshole characters: they’re assholes at first, you find out why they’re assholes and develop a lot of sympathy for them, and sometimes you facilitate their redemption.
Could be, but I didn’t have the patience to see it. If that’s what they wanted me to see, I certainly felt it could have been paced better. You mostly only hear good things about this game, but my friends list on Steam has about a dozen people who stopped playing it around the same time I did. I can’t say why they put it down, as I didn’t poll them, but someone I follow on Giant Bomb had a pretty similar reaction to the front-loaded negativity of this game very recently, so I know it’s not just me.
Sure, but again that’s the point. I can get why someone might not have the patience for it, but you can’t really change the front-loaded negativity or pacing without sacrificing the whole message. It’s a crucial aspect of the storytelling.
Honestly, people who give up on it kinda validate the themes. You and your dozen friends didn’t persevere, like many of the characters. Giving up is one response to bleakness. That’s not a value judgement, like I said it isn’t for everyone, but it is kinda poignant that by checking-out you demonstrate exactly what it’s saying, to some degree.
It’s good because other people thought it was bad is certainly one way to frame it, lol.
You’re definitely not supposed to like Harry as a person. He is at best insane and at worst a racist, mysognistic, alcohic drug abusing piece of human garbage. It is also very easy to be put off by even the good people because Harry has already wronged most of them and they have already had enough of his shit by the time you take control.
I don’t know, maybe it’s just because I relate to him but I do kind of like Harry. Yes, he’s not a regular “good person”, but he’s also much more complex than just a “bad guy”. He’s flawed, tragic and ultimately incredibly human. I think he’s a fantastic character, just like most characters in Disco Elysium.
My heart welped for Harry in the dreaming sequence. Despite his best effort, Dolores wouldn’t stay. Nothing he could do or say. The powerlessness made him incredibly vulnerable and human. Very realistic depiction of a broken love.
The final dream is my favourite moment in all of gaming. Complete heart wrenching and beautifully written, and really kind of pulling the whole game into focus and making all the pieces click into place at once. I still can’t believe they made it so easily missable too, as it’s kind of the fulcrum the whole game is balanced on.
It also never ceases to amaze me how Robert Kurvitz managed to distill the entire pathos of the whole game into three words to close it out, too.
spoiler
See you tomorrow.
I don’t think I necessarily like Harry, but I sure as fuck empathize with him. Playing him as someone seeking redemption or trying to put his life back together (and SO OFTEN failing) was incredibly meaningful. You put it very well.
I get that. But I consume a lot of crime fiction. The Wire, Guy Ritchie movies, etc. These stories are full of terrible people, but they don’t make me feel like I’m trudging through a story with a bunch of assholes.