Disco Elysium

Pros It starts out with intrigue right from the get go. You can't quite remember anything after apparently waking up from some serious binge drinking, but are probably a cop, and are in a strange hotel to investigate a suspicious death.

Curious setting. There's a kind of 50s or 70s vibe, or both, but it seems to be an alternate universe or dystopia in which there is unusual tech, and the way society and politics are organised is strange.

Character abilities are so very different from anything else. The categories of abilities are largely reflective of mental and physical characteristics a detective or cop could benefit from, ranging from empathy to visual acuity, and from persuasiveness to logic and reasoning. These are divided into subcategories for more specific skill sets. And on top of that, raising the level of a skill too high can have both positive and negative consequences.

It really feels investigative. It has a combination of the various items to pick up and decide how or where to use them later, and a dialogue option system built around interrogation.

Cons The characters are also quirky, but often to the point that it feels too over the top or tongue-in-cheek to take it very seriously.

Whereas the first 4 of the above 5 points would each individually be a strength, the combination doesn't really work for me. In trying so many unique and quirky things all at once, it goes a bit too far. The end result is more like an artistic experiment than a cohesive and fun-to-play game. You really need to be in just the right mood to play it for long, but since it's so story and dialogue driven it's also not the kind of game you can just dip into for half an hour here and there.

It's can be a bit too slow.

Overall I'm glad I gave it a try. It's quite the experience. But I'm also glad it wasn't too expensive, because I can't imagine ever finding the time to finish it.