ZERO PARADES: For Dead Spies

Если бы можно было поставить нейтральную оценку, то ее бы и поставила. Игра неплохая, но не могу ее рекомендовать, поскольку лично мне принесла разочарование. Не сравнивать с Диско невозможно, уж слишком много оттуда позаимствовано (скопировано?), но сделано как-то небрежно и неудачно. Сразу перечислю то, что понравилось. - В игре потрясный визуал: локации, менюшки, портреты, изображения предметов, одежды — все это очень-очень стильное и классное. - Крутые песни (не фоновая музыка). - Общая атмосфера и лор игры достаточно любопытные. При лучшем сценарии была бы конфетка, а в нынешнем виде только красивый фантик. - Сюжет... неплохой. Есть занятные моменты и парочка любопытных поворотов, но до них еще надо добраться. Фактически самое интересное начинается только к концу. Теперь к минусам... - Текст. Самое главное в играх такого жанра — это текст, а здесь он откровенно скучный и пресный, юмор несмешной, диалоги псевдоглубокие. Все якобы на «взрослые темы», но подано поверхностно. - Персонажи. Запоминающихся героев крайне мало (уровня Кима здесь никого нет). Слишком мало раскрыты, слишком мало времени им уделено, не спасают даже флешбеки со старой командой. Все потому что большую часть времени мы просто шаримся по городу, треплемся о музыкальном элитаризме, ведем бесконечные разговоры о политике с каждым встречным (главная тема любого нпс, больше будто бы ничего нет в их жизнях) и, конечно, ноем, ноем, ноем. Откуда тут взять время на раскрытие персонажей, правильно? - Постоянные повторы одной и той же информации. Игра любит по двадцать раз пережевывать одну и ту же тему, не давая новых подробностей. В конце концов, после сотого приступа нытья у героини становится уже просто все равно, *что* же такого там случилось с ее командой и почему. - Героиня. Вроде бы обладает характером и личностью, но при этом какая-то невнятная и сочувствовать ей не получается, хотя она и пытается давить на жалость. Она показывает удивительно высокий уровень эгоцентризма, смешанного с бесконечным самобичеванием. Ей просто по приколу корить себя за что-то, а потом снова делать ровно то же самое. Она не становится лучше, она не растет над собой. В конце игры она точно такая же, как и в начале. Да-да, в отличие от Диско, где твои решения напрямую влияли на героя и то, каким он предстанет в конце. Ну и мне все равно на повестку, мне все равно, какой ориентации героиня, но вызывает недоумение, когда в сотый раз героиня пускает слюни на разных женщин и подчеркивает, как же они ей нравятся, как она влюблена в одну из них, как хочет другую. Хорошо, первых пяти раз было достаточно, можно мы теперь займемся *шпионской* работой, а не будем слушать очередные твои фантазии? У героини будто 3 функции: ныть, упиваться сексуальными фантазиями, тревожиться с каждой фигни. Еще растерянность вызывали внутренние призывы героини [spoiler]убивать и кастрировать[/spoiler] [i]всех[/i] мужчин. Откуда такой хейт *ко всем* мужчинам, учитывая, что у нее были близкие друзья-мужчины, которыми она дорожила. Просто по приколу? Это должно быть смешно или должно показывать неуравновешенность героини или что?.. Если бы Гарри в Диско говорил подобное про женщин, ой какая бы волна хейта поднялась. А тут типа нормально? - Механика со внутренними голосами Непонятно для чего она здесь. Ее словно бездумно скопировали с Диско, но не смогли придумать для этой фишки хоть что-то интересное и полезное. Чаще всего голоса выдают просто бессмысленный текст или подмечают очевидное. Лишь изредка действительно вытаскивают из памяти героини крохи информации. - Концовка Все закончилось внезапно и ничем, словно был задел на вторую часть. В итоге после титров остается лишь вопрос: «А что это было?» Никакого логического завершения, концовка открытая. - А мы точно шпионы?.. Что парадоксально, нет ощущения, что играешь за шпиона. Это просто никак не реализовано, кроме того, что тебе текстом говорят «ты шпион» и дают пару шифров, которые разгадываются без помощи игрока. С таким же успехом героиня могла быть наемной убийцей или детективом или да кем угодно. Мы только и делаем, что 95% игры ходим по локациям, собираем мусор, бухаем-курим-принимаем, треплемся со всеми встречными поперечными и периодически теребим замусоленную фотку старой команды, говоря, какие мы плохие и все испортили. Именно этим же и должны заниматься шпионы? Да? В игре не раз упоминается «то самое», которым нужно обладать для того, чтобы быть, например, хорошим шпионом. Но сама игра, увы, лишена «того самого», чтобы стать хорошей.

Буржуи украли у крутых мужиков компанию, я не знал. Купил, прошёл. Сначала даже нравилось, потом я понял, что многие моменты так и не будут закончены. Сюжет в целом пустой. Как бы сравнили Донцову и Толстого. Ну просто сюжетик, прикольные развития сюжета, но по итогу прохождения - ничего, много дыр. В сюжет не веришь, персонажу не сочувствуешь. Музыка хороша только в паре местах. Визуал безликий, как будто нейросеть по шаблону наклепала. Фаст-фуд игра. Учитывая предысторию компании покупать бы не рекомендовал.

For those who have played and loved Disco Elysium, this game presents as a conceptual, if not narrative, sequel. However, in many ways it seems more like a remake of the previous game, albeit with some of the details changed a bit. You could argue that the studio is merely refining a format, but the premise, gameplay, and world-building already seem so close to the original that instead it feels like the playing the same game, only with an uncanny distance from what was already familiar. The art-direction and music of D.E immediately gave it a very strong identity, and the writing of the personality cores an intriguing psychological narrative. Unfortunately, those things that remain the same seem like a rehashing of old work, whilst the things that have changed seem uninspired. The visual art is a near copy of Elysium, which is a shame as that was such a refreshing and special quality. Although the preview showed they'd stuck with the same style, so there were no surprises, it would have been nice if the studio had gone in a different direction and given the art team more free reign to develop something unique to this story. From the outset, the music lacked identity, and whilst maybe there was more to discover later in the game, it seems notable that there was a more bland sonic palette here. I personally found the direction of the voice acting to be rather grating - the particular dialect of the main voice, whilst admittedly clearly characterful and delivered with commitment, just seemed a bit off-putting, and some of the inner voices frankly irritating. This was also true of Elysium tbf, and maybe it would have likewise grown on me here too, but only exacerbated the other criticisms. The story and writing (at least in the initial bit of the game), was so close to their previous offering, that it just seemed like playing an underwhelming rip-off of the original game. I'm not saying this is overall a bad game itself, or terrible to play, but by producing something so spiritually close to Disco Elysium, it's bound to draw very direct comparisons. It begs you to consider whether they've made an improvement or a diminishment of their previous work, and unfortunately playing it just made me realise I would rather replay the original game. I'll probably also try the offerings of the other splinter studios, should they ever come to pass, and see where the real talent and vision ended up. Perhaps the one game was all original creators had in them, and the other spiritual successors will be similarly disappointing,. Perhaps the people who really made the first game what it was stuck with Za/Um, but were hamstrung by a creative direction that couldn't decide whether to cash in on the old game or make a new one, and thus ended up stuck somewhere in between. I actually think this could have been a much more rewarding game had they definitively stuck to the same universe with an original stand-alone story - the choice to retain so much of the stylization, gameplay, and narrative devices would have then made so much more sense. Or alternatively, had they had the courage to strike off on a new and more original course, perhaps the new team at Za/Um could have created something more iconic. Perhaps Disco Elysium was lightning in a bottle, and the next best thing will arise completely independently somewhere else.

Before I start this review, I just want to say. If I was asked to do a review exclusively on whether or not Zero Parades is a good game, I would say, 'yes'. It is. However, it comes with a numerous amount of caveats that I want to address which gives it my negative review. Disco Elysium is my favourite game of all time. In my opinion, it is the best game ever made. You can see from reviews, this is not a niche opinion, it really meant something special to alot of people, and not everyone would interpret it the same way. It broke new ground in the genre, and this game here is not the first to try and capture the magic of Disco, but it is the one that gets to update Disco Elysium to splash advertising for the game all over the title screen. The biggest gripe, is that whilst some people still worked on this game from Disco, ZA/UM absolutely ♥♥♥♥♥♥ over the lead writer and designer, publicly ripping the product away from him. Now, they want to attach their name to another Disco-like game. Fine, but in my opinion, with Disco setting such a high bar, and gems lead by solo parties like Esoteric Ebb capturing some of Disco's magic, the bar is innumerably high. Here, we get to some failings of Zero Parades. For one, whoever made the choice to separate clothing and status modifiers from passive checks? Bravo, you have immediately downgraded the game immediately. There are some extremely interesting passive checks in this game, just like in Disco, but you wanna get some of the hard ones? You will have to reset, and literally only put points/conditionings into a singular stat to get a passive check. I say this, because assume I want to hit a 16 Instincts check (not even the highest in the game), well, the passive check takes a base of 6 (unchangeable) and adds your skill modifier. This means I need a MINIMUM of 10 points invested into Instincts, as I cannot leverage points from anywhere else. This, is just straight up dumb. Clothing and statuses only apply to active rolls, this is a ridiculous decision in a game that arguably has more invested into clothing and status potential that Disco, yet with the addition of the exert button (something I actually like) making active checks much, much easier than both Disco and most Disco-likes, you might as well run around naked half the time, unless you're having to roll something in a low stat, clothing is virtually redundant, and you're better off not having it on unless it's purely positive on stats, just in case, unless you know EXACTLY what you're rolling for, which promotes save scumming and/or 'replaying' (ironic, I know, if you've played the game). Status modifiers are in an even worse position. Some great conditionings are straight up ruined by this, because you have to somehow time them with active checks, and all status modifier items are both expensive and temporary, making them pretty much pointless, unless you have a particularly hard red check or something, which is generally pretty rare, and would require explicit knowledge of what is coming. White checks are absolutely trivial, as sleeping reopens them. In Disco, it really felt like you were *actually* making a sacrifice by going sober, but in Zero Parades, nono, it's much better to just ignore all status modifiers entirely. Which is a shame, as there are plenty of cool ideas that could come from some of the modifiers. The other main gripe is that there is some skills that are so *CLEARLY* better than their counterparts it's kind of absurd. It feels much more unbalanced than Disco in that respect, Intelligence feels like it's so far above Relation as a faculty for both volume and usefulness of passives that it's kind of wild. Shoutout to Shadowplay as well, which might as well be the 'are you a good spy or not' meter. This immediately downgrades the main character by proxy from Disco, because whilst the MC in Disco felt like he had *alot* of personality and doing drugs and booze or w/e only made your internal dialogue louder, in Zero Parades, it makes zero difference, and this can make it seem like Hershel has very little personality in comparison, or at least overwhelmingly dictated by a few select skills, when she actually has quite a bit, it's just all gated behind having at least 4 in a stat, something made even harder when caps are much more unforgiving, whereas in Disco you could get modifiers from clothing/modifiers, and it was easier to get XP due to thoughts. If I start off with less than 4 in a stat in ZP? I am never hitting a hard passive of a singular skill in that faculty, even if I invest every single point into that skill and take every single cap upgrading conditioning, it is still impossible. WHY THEN are there 14 passive checks at the beginning of the game? Extremely questionable design decisions. There is also a fair few audio bugs. The "Gang XP" thought is straight up non-functional (another big L, as this is one of the only thoughts that could help with attaining high passives), I've gotten locked out of conversation threads via bug before... There is a slight lack of polish. Although, voice acting great, characters great, story overall is good, I am not sitting here saying Zero Parades does not have good qualities, it does. It's just that it falls short in areas that I do not have the grace for ZA/UM and their ♥♥♥♥♥♥ business practices to look past. In my opinion, you want a game that captures Disco and sticks to the spirit of it? Just buy Esoteric Ebb for a better Disco-like.

The reason why I don't recommend buying this game is because ZA/UM fired Disco Elysium devs, hired new devs to make Zero Parades, had the audacity to say that this game was developed by the developers of Disco Elysium, and then they fired Zero Parades devs. I still recommend playing this game though. This is a good game, and it actually does some things better than Disco Elysium, so I'll start with that. The health system is more fleshed out than in Disco Elysium. There are 3 health bars - 1 for each of your attributes (you get 3 instead of 4 in this game). You can fill them up by yourself to give yourself an advantage on a roll, and they passively fill up during events and conversations very often. And you can't heal in the middle of the dialogue anymore, so you better come prepared. This game is a lot more dangerous. And the outcome of filling up your healthbar is more interesting - you lose 1 point in a skill of your choice instead of just having to reload to the previous save. Using substances (coffee, alcohol, cigarettes, etc) to heal is made unnecessarily overcomplicated in an annoying way though. But that's not a big problem. The story is pretty good, I liked how everything in this game is connected, it feels even more interconnected than Disco Elysium was, which will lead to some negatives later, but on its own, I like this. Almost everything is important. But the main thing that I liked about the story is that while in Disco Elysium you usually become a better person as the game progresses, in this one you become a worse person. This is unique, and it breaks the usual game logic of always selecting the good boy choice to win. It also means it's harder to get the best outcome. The inventory optimization feature is amazing, I love it, especially because in this game there are even more pieces of clothing than in Disco Elysium. Unfortunately, there are many bugs with the voice clips - some don't play, some have the wrong filter, some don't match the text. Not a big deal though. Even Disco Elysium had these problems. A bigger deal is bugs with the quests. I'm pretty sure I couldn't finish one of the quests because it was glitched, or maybe too convoluted for me to understand what to do next. I definitely saw a door that I was unable to interact with though. That was the only glitch like that I encountered though. Some things that seem obvious require pretty specific steps. But often it feels like Ace Attorney games, where it's obvious where it's going, but you need to go through the specific steps that the developers intended to get there. I didn't like how ambiguous it is how much time you have. Spoiler about how much time you have: [spoiler]I realized eventually that you have infinite time, but I don't like that either. It means the choices of what you spend your time on don't matter. Which in turn means that this "you can't win by picking the good boy choices" thing I said earlier isn't true. But it feels true until you realize the nature of time.[/spoiler] Overall, this is a really good game, I enjoyed it a lot, and I think most people who liked Disco Elysium will like Zero Parades. It's not as good as Disco Elysium, but that's just because Disco Elysium is so amazing, it's not this game's fault.

Фу

Basically Disco Elysium if it was written by a neoliberal. The art is as good as Disco's the rest however is of decisively worse quality. The writing is so infantile that I am surprised that this same studio managed to produce DE. Still, as bad as the writing is at some points, sometimes you do see sparks of greatness. Sadly, it just doesn't hold up to DE at all. I would recommend you only get it on a steep sale if at all.

lmfao they laid em off anyway nothing matters https://x.com/studiozaum/status/2078161818841718974?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet