There's an enormous amount of joy to be found here, while you frantically steer your character away from madness or take a dive into chaos, making good use of outlandish dialogue options.

It's not just that Disco Elysium is well written. Sure, it's really pleasant to read, often hilarious, and the themes it explores (being a loser, investigating a police case) are refreshing after decades of a save-the-world routine in other RPGs. But the main draw of the dialogues are the skills, because in Disco Elysium, each and every one of your 24 skills can and will interrupt your conversations to voice their own opinion on the matter at hand or give dubious advice.

This new and original way to experience conversations in RPGs rewards every character build with unique interactions, like when the Encyclopedia skill interjects to explain historical facts, or when Endurance urges you to... convert to fascism. Obviously, it's not always a good idea to listen to those voices in your head, as it can lead to dramatic consequences.

However, failing a task or proving to be even more of a loser is never grounds for reloading the previous game save, like it would be in other CRPGs. Here, failure opens new doors instead of closing them, allowing the character to try new things and to experience situations so incredible (like when he puts his gun in his mouth and threatens to kill himself if a suspect doesn't talk) that they feel too important to just discard them by reloading the game.

Be careful though: characters in the Disco Elysium remember what you said to them, and it might be difficult to question them as a cop if you previously told them your name was “harbinger of doom” or if they have seen you fail horribly at karaoke. On the other hand, who knows? It might sometimes be easier if people pity you.