What in gods name..

Goddammit that's depressing

• Close to the Occident but isn't considered a part of it
• Warm Climate (In regions that border the sea, otherwise the climate is cold in winter; hot and dry in summer)
• Candidate for EPIS (an organization founded to support occidental nations) but is never going to become a part of it
• Next to mountain range and borders the sea (there is the taurus mountain range as well as a mountaing complex seperating it from Iran and the Caucasus, borders the Mediterranean and the Black sea)
• Known for its Mandarin trees (this one is a stretch, Turkey is a big producer of mandarin oranges and they are eaten very frequently but Turkey doesn't hold a candle to China in this regard. It's called Chinese Oranges sometimes for a reason)
• Turkey was considered an emerging market for most of its existence

Soooo... is Kedra basically Elysium's equivalent of Turkey?

The main thing that doesn't add up is the sandstorms. They happen a lot in the Middle East but they don't happen just anywhere there. Turkey isn't close enough to the desert for them to happen. Dust storms do happen sometimes, though Turkey isn't particularly known for them.

I wouldn't be surprised if Kedra was somewhat based on Turkey but it definitely isn't a one-to-one connection like Oranje-Netherlands is.

GET FUCKEDD

I'll be honest I thought Jean would have a more major role from what I had seen about DE before I played it. Idk he seems like the least interesting person in the 41th compared Judit especially. I had like 6+ Esprit de Corps from the start basically but I wasn't impressed with what I had learned.

We know Trant used to be an addict as well and that he is a civilian consultant.

Judit is the most interesting in my opinion because she only joined the precinct recently. Inland Empire mentions Harry's situation got especially bad in the last 4 months and Judit joined after that. Yet she considers him a friend and defends him at the precinct. She also mentiones raising 2 children and "half a husband" so we know she is in an unhappy marriage. She used to be partnered with the horrible Joseph Mills before. Idk I would love to learn how or why she decided to transfer to the 41th.

I think i'm gonna play de again. I missed basically all things INT and motorics and couldn't pass a lot of checks and forgot to do a lot of side tasks and didin't even do a vision quest. And I forgot to ask Lilienne on a date

I feel bad for comparing Ruby to him but she looks like Rorschach

In the crime scene straight up "solving it". and by "it", haha, well. Let's justr say. Yhe case

I know people don't like the Authority check at the church because the game constantly states it's not a bad thing to fail checks only to have you call Kim a slur. I don't think this check is badly done. Because DE's main thing is that failing checks doesn't make the story worse, sometimes it makes things even more interesting. It doesn't have to be all funny shit, the game doesn't promise you that.

The scene after failing that check tells you more things about him than most others. Him putting up with your bs, stupidity and indecency isn't for your sake, it's for the investigation. It seems obvious but a lot of people miss that. He has to stay professional because he doesn't have the luxuries you do, he doesn't get a chance to do mistakes like you because he is treated like he is subhuman in his own home.

Being used to racism doesn't make it hurt less. Despite this, in the best scenario, he tries to be emotionally open (which we know is difficult for him especially) AND forgives you. Which for the record, isn't something he owes you. He probably did it this way because people are a lot less willing to accept their fuck up if you are mad at them when you point it out. Even if your anger is obviously justified.

Things I mentiones above could be understood from other parts of the story but this bit is specific to this scene:

You only get this bit of info if you fail the check AND refuse to apologize. The narration and your skills refer to him as "Lieutenant" (with a few exceptions like the tribunal) but you yourself almost always refer to him as Kim. Maybe he puts up with it because of your brain damage? When you become racist he realizes it is because you don't respect him. Here is another mention of this from when the two of you are talking about pinball:

Unfortunately, Harry will refer to him as Kim no matter what. You'll have to go through the game ignoring this information basically.

I will say this, it is pretty weird that your first instinct is to call him a slur, right? This is your only option regardless of the opinions you chose in the game before. Maybe Harry used to be racist? This happens with a few check fails. Harry threatens to kill himself when he fails the hardie boys authority check because Harry used to be suicidal before he lost his memory. So this might be a similar situation. Much to think about.

Another thing is apologising to him doesn't feel that realistic to me. If Harry thought of Kim as Revacholian he wouldn't be saying racist stuff to begin with. People generally don't yell out slurs regardless of situation, unless they have been saying them already.

I can't speak on racism from personal experience but I know it's very rare for people to be genuinely sorry for this stuff. At most they'll stop saying it in front of you but continue it behind your back... That what I know from friends who do deal with racism and also my experience with xenophobia and such. But I get it. Forcing your character to be racist and not letting them genuinely apologize would be a pretty bad thing to do.

I knew failing this check would make you call the lieutenant a slur but not more than that. I had like 10+ authority so things went well. Funnily enough, this is one of the few scenes I experienced where Harry DID refer to Kim as "lieutenant". And Kim refered to you as Harry. A fun role switch...

So I watched a video of the scene on Youtube. I appreciate how people put clips of DE on there but the comments are annoying. Kim is not your "baby boy" he is 43. Put some respect in his name... like damn... I shouldn't get annoyed though, they are probably just kids.

What the fuck do I do? This was a mistake fuck fuck

∘₊ ✩ ─── ✩ ─── ✩₊∘

Critical failure?!? ARE YOU SHITTING ME

∘₊ ✩ ─── ✩ ─── ✩₊∘

I'm still mad about this. I won the other checks so I'm not gonna complain too much but man... a critical failure? Really? The odds were not that great, slightly better than a coin toss but still. Salt on the wound

Normally skills are really mean to you when you fail checks but logic stays, well, logical (as the game points out). Even asks the others to help too. About as wholesome as it gets in Harry's brain.

He's making fun of me >:'(

What the hell man... how do you even manage to beat up a man that bad with a ledger?

Now that i'm halfway thru day 2 I should start writing my thoughts, for fun. I wrote this as thoughts came to mind so it sucks but it's for me. I paused the game for a few days to write this so I just wanna get back to playing.

Okay before I mention anything else I just wanna thank the Disco Elysium team for allowing you to change languages while you are playing. I have a bad habit of wondering "Oh how did they translate this into Turkish?" "How did they localize this joke?" and such and I can see that in game! Did you guys know there isn't a word for scab in Turkish so they just made up one for the game? Grevbozan as in strike-disrupter.

It makes this a great game to recommend to B1+ or B2 level English speakers. Isn't that great? Okay, onto the game.

ART DIRECTION

Martinaise is beautiful. You really get the sense it is an old city with the elaborate but damaged commercial area or the capeside apartments. I especially love going through the industrial harbour, it singlehandedly makes the long ass walk from the gate to Evrart's Office worth it.

I think the limited color palette combined with the painterly style is enough to make DE stand out. Orange - Blue is just about the most basic color combo you can go with but there is a reason it's so popular. It's my favourite palette to work with as well, it's not enough on it's own though. So, DE adds olive greens and reds to it's enviorments pretty frequently. Red is specifically used for the union a lot for obvious reasons. Interiors are generally a lot more colorful, and quite detailed too.

Outside of the enviorments, the portraits are pretty great as well. I like how the abstractness of the portraits changes based on the character. As an example, for Measurehead what matters most is how intimiating he is suppose to be. So he is looking directly at you with his eyes in the shadow. What his face looks like doesn't actually matter so the brushwork in his portrait is abstract and bold, showing you no more than what you need. The square shape language makes him look even more like an impenetrable wall. Compare that to someone like Slyvie. Her portrait is a lot more realistic, but also very dull and depressing.

Special shout out to Volition and Authority as well. Volition looks like it's wearing a crown as if to say 'treat yourself like the king you are' but at the same time, it is the first to tell you when you get too confident. And authority is honestly scary looking.

STATS AND CHECKS

Onto the stats and checks. There are the active checks which are divided into red and white checks. The game goes out of its way to tell you failing these checks isn't a bad thing, I wouldn't say that's *entirely* true but failing a check is much more entertaining in a lot of cases. Sometimes winning a check causes you more trouble, even if you don't realize that at first. Just because red checks can't be retried doesn't mean they are more important than white checks, it's just that a lot more interesting moments will happen with them compared to the latter.

White checks mostly exist to put limits where you can go and when you can go. I don't like these aa much because there are checks you have to do on all playthroughs that might be troublesome for you if you get unlucky. The time it takes to retry checks is loooong if you don't use check modifiers properly. White checks do have their moments though, such as when I beat up Measurehead the first try.

Passive checks are not based on luck at all and ,outside of a few cases, don't get mentioned at all if you don't pass them. They are the reason you want to level up your stats and my favourite part of the game. Letting your stats talk to you is already fun and its made great with DE's amazing writing.

They let you read more fun writing first of all. Secondly, they can point you at the "best" option in dialogues. (Ex. Esprit de Corps interpreting Kim's body language for you or and interpreting "Copspeak", Suggestion telling you how low you can go when negotiating for prices in the pawn shop.) You could figure out these things on your own and act on it, but the hints make things a lot easier. Thirdly, they might hive you extra information you couldn't have figured out yourself. Perception is king when it comes to this, but most stats can do this. Empathy telling you a character has a glint of sadness in their eyes as they say something doesn't directly help you but it foes make you go "hmm.".

Last but not least, they can give you more dialogue options. Some of the game mechanics are locked behind dialogue like thoughts and check modifiers. You won't even realize what you missed since failed passive checks don't show up in any way. Some of the most interesting writing comes from these so I'd say passive checks are way more important than active checks overall.

In my experience, loading a few stats with points didn't help with passive checks. I have Inland empire at 9 and Authority at 10 for example, I saw a lot of easy, medium and challenging checks for them but higher than that has been very rare (so far). So to me it seems best to get as many stats to 6 points as possible (to see challenging checks). I might do another run after this one so I'm not too worried about missing content I could have gotten this run, but even then I don't wanna feel like I'm wasting my points you know?

"Min-max"ing like this will also get you more interactions between skills like this:

Skills arguing with eachother makes sense right? People have contradictory thoughts all the time I imagine it would be the case even moreso for an amneniac. This is not as uncommon as you think it is because skills of the same group can hold opposing opinions as well. One of my favourite things about the skills...

Skills in Disco Elysium don't have to express their trait the same way which adds a lot of variety. Some of my favourites are:

- Esprit de Corps is basically the "Meanwhile at the precinct..." skill and it's awesome. It's similar to Shivers in that it's supernatural, let's you know things that should be impossible for you. I think Esprit de Corps is better because it's also useful for other things (mainly interacting with Kim).

- Volition has saved me from so much bullshit it's wild. It generally has a more friendly tone which is comforting.

- Authority is more opinionated than most.. I guess you could say. You are a cop so there are a lot of authority checks, it's never not useful. I don't know how people with 1 Psyche managed going thru the game to be honest.

Lastly, I should mention the voice acting! Lenval Brown is the voice behind the narrator. I can't emphasize how much I love his acting. I like the subtle differences between the skills and the general deadpan delivery. It's enough to give some interest but not too much to get in the way of the narration. 10/10 no notes.

GENERAL NOTES ON THE DIALOGUE

This game is not afraid of being uncomfortable in the slightest and it's fucking great. I think a lot of stories focus too much on making their characters cool or at the very least somewhat respectable. DE has zero qualms about that, which admittedly makes it hard to play for people who can't deal with second hand embarrasment. There are a few times where it's hard to look at what's happening on the screen, but not in a bad way! I appreciate that, the "not in a bad way" part can be hard to come by...

Sometimes DE can be uncomfortable in other ways too. You can definitely see that from how people reacted to the politics of it.

POLITICS

[Note: I have finished the game now and my opinions have changed wuite a bit. I thought 1.5 days was like the midway point of the game but I was incredibly wrong on that. I haven't seen any of the political quests but I did watch the communist one. I'll be hoing off that.

Overall, game's critism of ultraliberals are way harsher than what it looked like at first. Which makes way more sense to be honest. Joyce's self awareness is the exception when it comes to these guys. She has a marxist view on sone things but she thinks the capital is inevitable so even though she knows how she got into the position she did, she doesn't really care.

This game is pretty marxist and I'm not sure how I didn't catch that early. I forget that class consciousness is not that common.

I like the game's message on Communism. It's an overall positive one, we should believe in humanity's future. However, it does point out how bad the way the students go about it is. They are unwilling to engage in anything capitalist but that is the current system we are in. They can't even agree to put up posters for their club because advertising is capitalist lol. But you can't get anywhere otherwise. Having people in the higher ranks sympatize with you is a good thing.

I struggled with this when I was picking my major, when I was reading dtwof this comes up as well about a character studying to be a lawyer so I'm guessing this is a pretty common issue among young communists.

There is also the fact that they are unwilling to team up with people who don't have the almost exact same views as them. Leftists arguing with other leftists, what else is new, right?]

I am someone who tries to learn about politics because I have to, not because I want to. So I never understood why some people base their identity on which economic system is best or whatever.

To me, DE's commentary on the Moralism and Fascism routes seemed much harsher, a lot of people seem to agree with that. I am not knowledgeable enough on politics especially on the economic front but I can guess why that's the case. DE is pretty clear on it's opinions regarding social issues: You should have compassion for your fellow human.

Bigots aren't bigots because of "facts", they feel disgust for others different than them, and they try to justify that to themselves. It's a disgust reaction that comes from what they were told as kids, in a way. I'm guessing this is why fascism is represented by Endurance i.e. Your literal guts.

Let's get back to the main point: Ultraliberal and Communist routes are mainly about economic beliefs. DE does critize people who believe in the taxation thing but mostly for the stupidity.

Moralism refuses to adknowledge the faults and the suffering in our system. How can you make things better if you can't even do that? And fascism actively tries to make things worse for everyone besides a select group ( a big understatement, I know. I'm just trying to get my point across)

It's weird to say this because people there are communists who think Soviet Union did things right... "Tankies" is what they are called I think. Those people are definitely not compassionate for their fellow human, ignoring the suffering of people under the Soviet Union rule, Estonians being one of a part of those people. But a lot of communists don't even like tankies or agree with them so that's why they think the game flatters them.

I am not good with this kind of analysis... I need to finish the game and talk to others who actually know their shit to gather my thoughts.

CHARACTERS THOUGHTS

I haven't learned much about Harry as of now so he is a blank slate as far as I'm concerned. I will skip him but I want to say: I think it's fun to play as a character that is utterly unrelatable to me, even though I'm familiar with this type of character by now.

Kim Kitsuragi

Before I get to the main text I want to say, is it just me or is the circle behind him on his portrait suppose to be a halo? Like in Christian artwork? I think it's intentional, I love that tbh. Anyways,

I can see why everyone loves him for sure. He is really patient with you, it'd be understandable for someone in his position to get mad at you for having to explain everything to you, but he doesn't. He is like a safety net for the player I guess. He is not overbeafing at all though, letting you do your bs for the most part. He creates great contrast against the player. A stupid guy looks even stupider when there is a smartass next to them.

He also has a lot of fun dialogue just by the virtue of being a deuteragonist. I heard he does leave later on but so far he has been with us for the entire time basically. Everytime you fucking click on something there is an option to tell Kim about it.

Personality wise he is quite closed off, though that is mostly because he is on duty. He is just doing his job right? But some of it is just hoe he is like. This makes all the more satisfying when you convince him to join you in your escapades. The lengths people will go through to make this guy crack a smile is nuts. It's so funny. There are a lot of things outside of that but I just want to mention one more: he seems really interested in mechanic stuff. Especially for big machines like cranes. Like one of the best thing you can do for him is show him the insides of a plane or other complex stuff like that.

Also, he does have a lot of swag. I'm looking for some clothing and maybe I should get a orange bomber jacket. It is my favourite color.

I had more to write but I can't think of it right now, let's stop here.

Klaasje Amandou

I knew pretty much nothing about DE besides the fact that the hanged man was her boyfriend who everyone thought raped her. So I tried to talk to her during the entirety of day 1 to no avail. So that's that.

She is the first person you see when you start the game and she makes quite the impression. I love her voice and the way she talks. I wish I could interact with her a bit more. It's hard to speak about her for now. I'll try to talk to her again on Day 3 after I do the autopsy. I took a break to write this so that isn't done yet.

She is Dutch I think? Not really because Netherlands doesn't exist in DE but you get what I mean. I learned about that when looking up her name.

Her relationship is pretty wild, what we know is that she and the victim did drugs and fucked a whole bunch. From the way she talks about him she looks like she is fond of him and I don't think she is lying to herself about that. However, he is a horrible guy, just listen to the recording, I can't really imagine the relationship being healthy. It's seems like an obsession more than anything.

Also, it's interesting that Titus and his gang were so sure she wouldn't say that she wasn't raped. It doesn't look like they scared her into it but I doubt she would agree with them otherwise. Maybe they had an agreement and she bailed out and reported the lynching anyway? I think she is hiding something important. I don't want to doubt her but... it's hard to trust her for now. I will try though.

Cuno is like a celebrity around here

I think the ledger was a test of resolve and I fucked up. Our past will catch up to us and we'll learn the truth eventually, so there wasn't any point in delaying the inevitable.

I didn't take a screenshot but shivers tells you to "LET GO". Could refer to the ledger. Could also refer to a person.

It's in the voice of a woman too so could be a quote from her. I'm leaning towards option two, so I threw the ledger away. I wonder what others did here..