In the last decade, few titles can say that they have given a jolt to the genre of RPGs like Elysium disk. The most incredible thing, then, is that this work did not do it with who knows what technical virtuosity or mechanical innovations: it managed to earn a place among the best RPGs ever "only" with brilliant writing, a reworking to say the least. atypical of the progression of one's alter ego and an artistic sector of the highest level.
On the other hand, its creators, the ZA / UM, they are anything but a typical development team. Literally a collective of artists who in the initial stages did not count even a videogame and / or programming expert among its ranks, this group of creatives has been able to dominate one of the most difficult genres to face ever starting from a titanic conceptualization work ( born, indeed, from a pen and paper RPG) and perfecting itself with every mistake, all without giving in to an inexorable flow of days that has led the expected development times to even double.
For obvious reasons, therefore, the initial plan was downsized and Disco Elysium arrived in homes in slightly less ambitious form than initially calculated. The fact that it is still one of the most experimental and ambitious video games in circulation even in its "basic" version is a testament to the capabilities of the ZA / UM, yet their nature devoted to perfectionism has led them not to sit on their laurels and to shape to one Final Cut of the game capable of bringing it closer to the initial idea. From there the team pushed on the diffusion by developing high quality ports, and today their curious baby has also arrived on Nintendo Switch.
Will it be a version up to par with the others, or a hasty port in risk of ruining what is good? Find out in the Nintendo Switch review of Disco Elysium: The Final Cut.
Contents: a nice cut changes the whole look
The version arrived on the shores of Nintendo is obviously the Final Cut just mentioned, with all the necessary modifications of the case. It is not, in reality, a revolutionary re-edition, but in terms of content it offers some extra not indifferent, including a full dubbing in Englishwhich is impressive when you consider the sheer amount of text in the game. The acting rehearsals, however, are all of a remarkable level, especially that of the British musician Lenval Brown, to whom we owe the voice of the protagonist and of all his 24 inner voices (his vocal range is really crazy, especially considering that he never acted before Disco Elysium).
In addition to this sea of words, there are also some new quests linked to the "political vision" of your alter ego: these parts of the campaign unlock based on the choices made about your political beliefs during the advancement, and increase the replayability of the title as well as add complexity to the plot (in some cases even new characters and zones).
Finally, the Final Cut even offers one hardcore mode designed to make every choice more difficult and limit the player's chances of approach (with much more likely die roll failures, higher prices, and a whole host of other issues heightened compared to the classic challenge level). In some ways it is an addition capable of limiting some of the original imbalances - it was all too easy to overcome some situations with the right change of clothes - at the same time, however, we are talking about a solution that makes the experience less smooth and the more difficult narrative exploration, thus going against the very nature of the title. It is, therefore, an option worthy of praise, even if not for everyone.
The rest of the options are mostly minor goodies: you can turn off full voice acting (although we don't really understand why you should want to), or select a streamer mode to avoid copyright issues on Twitch and the like. The Switch version retains all these options and loses those related to the graphics settings, since there is predictably no 4K mode here. Yet this does not mean that the ZA / UM have neglected the uniqueness of the platform, given that this port boasts an interface reworked in many aspects and a painstaking management of the visibility of the texts.
Port quality: Revachol on Switch
As already stated, this team of developers is mostly made up of detail freaks and artists, so it doesn't surprise us too much that to adjust the size of the texts and the interface on Switch - especially in portable mode - they have not limited themselves to the standard. , but have even decided to follow the optometrist scale for a more adaptable reading experience. The interface changes are not huge, mind you, yet they are perceptible, still demonstrating a little more effort than the superficial ports that are often seen around.
Il gameplay instead it mostly follows what has been seen for the other console versions of Disco Elysium: each interactive element can be shown at the push of a button, and through the analog stick you interact with the objects in a rather natural way. Unfortunately, the bug related to certain interactions (which require too much pressure to be activated) has been maintained, but it is sporadic and usually it is enough to insist a few times for the action to be performed. Furthermore, if you use the Switch out of the dock, the touchscreen is part of the equation and everything can be done with a few simple touches of the screen, from managing movement and interactions to opening the various menus.
If you enjoy Disco Elysium in this way you face a single sacrifice: a lower resolution with a aliasing much more marked. If you use the dock it is barely noticeable and the visual impact remains almost identical to that of the other versions (even if a little more aliasing remains), instead playing in portability means that each element is more jagged, especially at the maximum zoom level. For the record, we talk about a marginal criticism: Disco Elysium is always splendid to see in action, even with a little less detail and its look highly inspired by twentieth-century art (the artistic sources are multiple and range from Modern Expressionism to Futurism) makes a minimum of seriously ignorable steps by virtue of the general glance. However, we believe it is appropriate to specify it.
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Disco Elysium The Final Cut - PlayStation 4
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Other than that, the flaws on the Switch are very limited. This involves some longer-than-average loading for larger maps and slowdowns that hardly affect the experience during some specific "Shiver shots" encountered throughout the story. Both of these problems are known, and it seems that the ZA / UM want to eliminate or smooth them already with the first patch. Otherwise there have been no structural changes, which means that the few flaws of the original title - a couple of bottlenecks of the progression linked to some main phases of the story and the question of statistics that are too modulable with the equipment already mentioned above - have remained.
Very little to worry about, therefore, for an RPG that remains a narrative masterpiece of rare audacity, able to exploit premises abused to exhaustion such as the protagonist's amnesia and the need to rediscover the game world piece by piece without trivializing them. Disco Elysium is a title to say the least brilliant, beautifully written, almost always able to maintain its overview regardless of the choices made by the player (no matter how absurd they are), and to be among the best RPGs ever with a system built entirely around to the characterization of one's alter ego and to the written text. Its Switch version may not be the most technically extraordinary, but it's clearly curated enough to give Nintendo console owners the experience they deserve. If you haven't already, play it.
Comment
Resources4Gaming.com9.2
ReadersSV
Your voteEquipped with extraordinary writing, unique aesthetics and a structure that is brilliant in its conceptual simplicity, Disco Elysium remains one of the most surprising RPGs of the last two decades, and a must play for anyone who loves exceptional narrative in video games. The port of the Final Cut version on the Switch will not be the most technically extraordinary, but it is clearly very nice, and during our test it seemed well finished and able to offer anyone the original experience in all its power. So good.
PRO
- Extraordinary fiction
- Brilliant management of the protagonist's progression
- The Switch version is well done and retains all the content extras of the Final Cut
- Full voice acting that further enhances the already remarkable immersion
- The progression defects of the original remain
- Some minor technical tricks
- As usual, it is not localized in Spanish
