We've recently finished our first playthrough, and I must say: I'm a little disappointed. Heavy spoilers for the ending of the game, so be aware of that when reading here.
I found the reveal of the true killer kind of annoying. It's a completely random person we've not seen throughout the game yet, so there was no way of us putting pieces of information together to form a theory - it's a completely unrelated person. In addition, I didn't like the motivation he had for killing the mercenary. Sure, he's a veteran of the former revolution, he despises everything that's not communist and took a problem with a mercenary having a sexual relation with a woman he spied on for months. But that whole parasocial sexual relation, the peeping, the ultimate motivation for the killing... I don't know, kinda yucks me out and didn't feel compelling at all.
Imagine if, after the tribunal, Klaasje's disappearance was related to her actually being the killer. That would have made sense. But she was likely just afraid of how he leads would make her look like the prime suspect, so she fled. Still, I probably would have preferred her to be the killer somehow. Some kind of spy/agent working for some corrupt people who want smash the union or something.
Then the whole thing with Ruby. It was an intense encounter finding her under that ruined factory and the confrontation was quite dangerous - we almost died there. But her ultimately not being related to the killing at all apart from staging the lynching was also just kinda annoying. I get that we didn't have any other leads that made sense at the time so Ruby was the only logical suspect. But her just completely vanishing after our realising that she's not the killer felt anticlimactic.
Then the encounter with the phasmid. It was cool, I guess, but ultimately, it didn't really contribute a lot to the story, I feel like. It's insinuated that the Deserter was somehow aware of its presence on his solitary stay on the island, but you don't know for sure if he actually saw it. Who knows - maybe both Harry and Kim hallucinated. There is nothing scientifical that would explain the phasmid's existence. But even putting all of that aside, it was a little disappointing to me that you don't even see the reactions of the cryptozoologists. Felt a little robbed of that.
Then there was the ending itself. After finding out who the killer is, I was 100% sure that the game wasn't finished yet. The huge climax when you are confronted by your former colleagues felt similarly intense to the tribunal itself, and I was sure that this would lead to further development in the story. But nope. It's over, just like that. I feel like something was missing there, but I can't quite put my finger on it.
So yea, my unfiltered thoughts I had on this. It's still an amazing game and I'd really like to make another playthrough. But the ending did kinda suck to me. I've read a bit of discussion on the ending online and some points felt valid but didn't change my mind too much, overall.
Thoughts?
I think the beauty of the killer reveal is that it changes the story we thought we were experiencing the whole time. We think it's a detective story, maybe with themes of redemption and economic struggle and love, but it's actually a story about the struggle of being human against the spectre of a devastating past.
The killer has sacrificed this humanity for his cause, and he hates seeing lives unfold at a distance. He thinks he's serving some great cause but it's ultimately petty. And we see what happens when a person gives everything up for this one purpose only for that to fail.
I didn't pass my check to speak with the cryptid so I don't know how that changes the perspective of the game at all. Maybe I'll do a replay and go for it, but the existence of the cryptid just underlined that things aren't what they seemed throughout the story.
That's also a very good point. Thanks for that.
Actually, I'm not sure if you even can pass that check. It stayed at 3% for us even when we equipped clothing that raised the required stat (was it EC?)
I was very invested in cryptid story in my playthrough and had good odds in that check. The conversation with phasmid literally made me cry. Along with Dolores Dei dialogue and the dialogue with Revachol after completing the night club quest, this is what absolutely made my playthrough. I can imagine how phasmid interaction without it would seem weird though...
I think we might have had different conversations with the phasmid. Maybe I didn't pass some check
Did you accept the pheromones from Morell? Approaching the phasmid is actually one of a couple of "fake" or "dishonest" checks in Disco Elysium. It's only possible if you accepted the pheromones, otherwise it will always fail regardless of your roll.
Getting to talk to the phasmid definitely changes the impact of the scene.
No, I hadn't. Guess I robbed myself of good dialogue but oh well
I passed that check, it is possible. But it mostly depends on doing other quests earlier.
And I highly enjoyed the talk with the Phasmid, although I have to admit to understand only part of what it said.