Ever since its release last year, I’ve heard pretty much nothing but good things about Disco Elysium. Yet, as with Tides of Numenera, despite buying it shortly after I had no intention of actually playing it. I’ve never been a fan of time limits after all and roleplaying a broke, middle-aged failure was not exactly high on my to-do list (and besides, the deluge of screenshots made playing effectively superfluous anyway since the gameplay is dialog and point/click-based).
After playing for a bit last week I’ve come to the conclusion that all the praise is well-deserved and the screenshots are absolutely representative of the game. I’ve also confirmed that, despite that (and despite the time limit not being as important as it seemed at first), it’s just not the sort of game I enjoy playing. I like having active gameplay in my RPGs… even ones that end up 90% dialog. DE feels to me almost like an adventure game or visual novel.
Moving on we come to Ara Fell, a throwback RPG Maker game whose setting brings to mind early Ys. I never played the original, but the itemization and leveling system was apparently (based on reading an early walkthrough) quite a bit different prior to this Enhanced Edition.
While the innovative (for the genre) mana regen system is refreshing and the irreverent humor manages to avoid Cosmic Star Heroine extremes, like a lot of these games this one suffers pacing issues. The first three chapters are solid enough, but afterward you’ll soon run out of things to craft (making exploration mostly pointless) and the storyline quickly becomes infested with deus ex machina and questionable developments. Finishing it becomes a real chore. Is it worth the $15 non-sale price? Yeah, probably. Just keep your expectations low.