I never played the original version of ‘Disco Elysium’ but dear god, I wish I had got onto this gem earlier. This top-down, Noir styled RPG developed and published by ZA/UM is back with TLC improvements for its avid and dedicated fan base. Coming with new dialogue, voice acting, and quest lines, ‘Disco Elysium: Final Cut’ is back, a little more polished and I love it.

The story opens up with a cop. An amnesia-affected cop. Tropey cliche much, but no this story goes much deeper than that. After-effects of a drunken drug-fueled binge, our protagonist is dragged into a murder mystery all the while trying to solve who he is and why is his life so miserable?

Teamed up with a detective from another precinct named Kim, we must solve the many disgraces with the city of Revachol, all wrapped up in civil discourses and political injustices. The days are long and there are many leads to investigate and evidence to analyse.. Crime waits for no one. The story in this game is completely engrossing; piecing together a well-written but non-linear approach to a narrative.

Your first major decision as an RPGer is the choice of character. Choose from three sets of pre rolled characters or customise your own with his own initial attributes. Picking your own stats dictates your brainpower, the real main character of the game. There are 24 areas to look into your inner psyche, and as you gain experience you can develop these more. This inner thought tank pushes developments along.

Pointing and clicking steers the character to objectives and interactables for you to pick up and analyse. Despite being on the Nintendo Switch, I found the controls were manageable but probably more fluid on PC.

You can also interact with NPCs in indepth but interesting conversations. These conversations can lead to outcomes with a percentage of its success rate leading to a resolution either good or bad. The dialogue is very well written, dark and complex yet simple and engaging. Rarely do you feel overwhelmed and bogged down in text, a hard balance in a conversation heavy title.

Even for the Switch with its clear graphical downgrades, the top-down graphics are packed with detail despite the size of the characters. With the ability to zoom in and out, each area can be scanned with a meticulous detective eye. The environmental sounds are spot on, drawing you into the case even further and making the characters even more compelling. The voice acting is definitely the newest shining star to this rework. The narrative of the brain ticking away by jazz musician, Lenval Brown, is certainly the most captivating of them all.

The autosaves can be quite a time apart which at times made me scared to close the application preferring to jump in and out instead. As much as the conversations were riveting I didn’t want to hear them all over again if I lost progress.

Disco Elysium is a charming but gritty detective tale that you won’t want to stop following the bread-crumb trails of clues. With unique and memorable characters built through excellently executed conversations and dialogue, you can tell that this studio has put a lot of love and care in delivering a gorgeous noir adventure.

Written by: Stacey