Surprise, its another opprotunity for me talking about how much i LOVE DISCO ELYSIUM

cough

So, just for context, if you haven’t played DE. Thoughts are basically a extra type of equipment you can get from talking to people (or yourself), and they’re all unique. There are also plenty that are impossible to get both of due to how the diolouge or story goes, but there are two of those that are forced on you at the start of the game…

Also youre amnesiac

After some intro dialouge, your thoughts chime in to ask you a simple question: where IS your home? You’re given two dialouge options here, either to try and figure it out or to give up instantly and become a “hobocop”, and these unlock either Lonesome Long Way Home or Hobocop, respectively.

What makes this thought so interesting is how these two are the ONLY constants in every person’s playthoughs, regardless of anything else they do. Equipping thoughts is easy, unequipping them takes a whole skill point, it is impossible* to get any other thought at that point, so naturally every person enables it and leaves it there for the rest of their playthrough.

*you can possibly get Inexplicable Female Agenda beforehand from Garte if you know what youre doing

So, now, that obviously begs the question: why? Why make these two thoughts, LLWH and HC, so integral that it nearly forces every player to have it enabled?

In my opinion, the game is outright asking you what you really want from it: Do you want to know more about this sad detective, delve into their past? Or do you want /content/? LLWH does not give very many bonuses outside the learning cap boost, besides giving modifiers to some checks. HC, on the other hand, has multiple unique dialogues, and is even considered a copotype by the game.

Of course, you CAN still go out and do the wacky, absurd stuff with LLWH, or delve into the trauma with HC, but by even asking the question, by having that thought always linger in your mind, both literally in the game and outside of it, really frames the whole game beautifully. Having it as your first super impactful* choice really starts you out with a certain mindset.

*yes you could consider your conduct with klassje impactful, but the copotype point system is a whole other thing i could talk about and /that check/ ends up barely mattering

*also running from your bill/haggling it down does NOT matter after day 1 so it also doesnt count

Not many games I can think of use this kind of framing, the only other one I can even think of is how OMORI’s two endings represent the same kind of divide: reconnecting and recovering, or /more content/. And I find that beautiful.

Please play Disco Elysium.