i failed like a 78% or something roll on telling Kim to dance with me i was so so hyped, but i ended up calling him a racist slur, i felt terrible, it ruined my hype
when i saw that, my actual, real world reaction was "...welp, looks like harry finally lost his fuckin mind, hes seeing giant monsters now" fallowed by a momentary "YOU WHAT?!?!" when Kim mentioned he could see it too and harry was in fact not losing his shit
Disco Elysium managed to make me cry, just like the Zelda and Yakuza games did, it's up there in the top three videogame series for me. The phasmid healed my shattered little soul and broke my heart at the same time. I didn't think I could feel that there is something good in the world anymore.
Multiple times, and this one specifically hit home. I live in a forest and my goal is to just exist. I was afraid of talking about the creature because I feared humans wouldn't be able to let it just exist. They can't even with a human that speaks their language. On the other hand, it's ALSO one of the most funny games, 'code 31 officer in need of assistence... ON THE DANCEFLOOR', I was laughing out loud. What a scene. What a game.
"Of all the creatures I've met you are the kindest" i dont know why that line always breaks me, there's something so pure and innocent in that line. This almost godlike entity, the only thing to stand out as supernatural, as the unknown, being so fragile and innocent, almost like a child.
I was about to write the same thing...after being pushed around and judged and treated like crap from one interaction to another this was the only creature that did not judge Harry and found him beautiful flaws and all
I have a soft spot for stories where the conclusion has nothing to do with the thing you pursued the entire time, but is in fact the single most important thing you've ever encountered in your entire life at that moment.
the bug and the deserter aren't unrelated to the story btw. HDB went to the peninsula to drink himself into oblivion bc he can't handle Being anymore. The deserter is a stark image of what he will become if he keeps down the path he has been on, & the phasmid is a chance encounter with a thing that is like what he had been seeking to become. It's the kind of story that appears at the start to be a story about big, wide events in the world where you have to figure out how the crime was caused by external, political factors & circumstances, but as you progress the story the scope of it winds down & down into the main character to reveal that what actually killed the victim was somebody feeling a hurt that HDB feels, after a lifetime of escapism that HDB has been doing, combined with a neurological degradation the likes of which HDB has been inflicting on himself. The part where you choose between "you are the type of animal i want to be" & "i'm glad to be an incredibly sensitive instrument" is the actual conclusion of the actual story -- whether HDB can find a way to be happy. All of the rest of it is just instruments getting him to that point
"... of stimuli, reactionary and experient. To feel the things I feel. And to experience the things I experience, whose experiences are uniquely my own."
@@falconeshieldwhether you like it or not, someday, the Revolution will return (hopefully in a better form, but maybe not). The forces that led to it happening, and being attempted so, so many more times, have not gone away- and likely never will under Capitalism. Remember, just in the past year, Burkina Faso had a Socialist coup (their leader is carefully avoiding using words that will trigger people brainwashed by a lifetime of propaganda to hate Marxism, but it's very obvious he's a Marxist...) Not long before that, we had the Pink Revolution of the 00's in Latin America. Before that, Sweden was on the cusp of reforming into a Socialist system via electoral means shortly before a bunch of CIA influence operations stopped that and set them on a more conservative trajectory... No empire lasts forever. The brutal, evil US Empire that has so much blood on its hands (including that of many, many of its own citizens- most recently from how Covid was handled... a disease that permanently Disabled me, for instance...) will collapse someday. And when it does, there will be a power vacuum- and the potential for change.
@@arne8DDD it means that the deeper psyche is still in one piece, holding the core of what Harry is together underneath everything that was lost. It'd be like a painter still being driven to paint after losing his memories, his lingering attachment to who he is still drives his actions- how it still reverberates inside the deeper subconscious.
The most magical scene in videogame history. The whole game is darkness and resignation, and in the middle of it all there is this one single magical moment. I will replay it now that the final cut is out and I know it will give me chills.
Nah man, the game isn't all that. There are plenty of beautiful moments. If anything the game encourages you to be inquisitive, and to keep on going showing you that you'll find strength and friends from unexpected places.
this is the moment the game tells harry, tells you something. no matter how terrible is the situation, no matter how they made you feel, no matter how much you hate yourself and your life. and no matter how much you ache for past that you lost. sometimes, just sometimes, once in a million year maybe, but sometimes, life is worth living. life is something magical and the magic of it might find you. i am not saying it will, i am not saying harry will make it, but there is no shame in trying. anyway, thats what it means for me. keep dancing lads. i will.
Kim trusting Harry enough to hold off on taking the picture feels like a really crucial moment in his character arc. There are so many hints throughout the game that Kim's put-togetherness is due to insecurity, pride, a fear of ridicule. He's a racialized gay man in a toxic society. He clearly felt emasculated by being forced to play juvie cop for years. He knows his own flaws, he's emotionally intelligent, but he still struggles with them. Harry convinces him to take the risk that he won't have a picture of the phasmid. That he'll have one more thing that other people don't understand about him, that he can't share without being met with scorn. He himself scoffed at Lena, and it would hurt him to be on the receiving end. But he listens to Harry. After all, whether they get the picture or not, Harry was there with him.
@@uygarduman during the homosexual-underground thought quest, at the end you can ask kim if he's part of the homo-sexual underground, after ridiculing you for a bit he says yes, and drama says that it isn't a lie
"If its a Reed you put it in your mouth.. Yum Yum" I've only known them for 3 minutes but Ide kill everyone and then myself to protect this precious giant bug
I rolled this on a 3% check, truly a breathtaking moment... I had written the old lady off in her hunt for invisible creatures that’s she apparently “saw” as a young kid who had just started forming memories. But when I least expected it I saw it! And man did I fucking see it, breath taking, mystical. Literally I was in complete awe! One of the most epic moments in video gaming history.
There is something magical in both scenarios, when you believe it exist and you finally see it and when you don’t believe and the moment you see it is just, no way
If you beat old lady's cryptid quest she confesses that she doesn't believe in cryptids and only went along with the hunt because she loved the Cryptid Hunter. The hunter, who became her husband. She doesn't think Phasimd is real and now, in her old age, she thinks that she's built her entire life on a lie. If you beat her quests before finding the Phasmid, Harry acknowledges that he has to tell Lena that Phasmid is real, because that would make her very happy. If this creature exists, then so does love. Isn't it?
@@LCTesla I guess we are talking about the same thing. I just thought that female voice of Revachol can only be heard in shivers checks. Maybe I'm wrong, tho
@@science_fiction you're right about that. Shivers is basically a 6th sense that receives information from the city, in rare cases intelligible speech in that female voice, written in capital letters.
I think, as revachol and this creature as so tightly linked in existence, they have perhaps influenced eachother, so while they are not the same, they are siblings, sisters, the voice of the city, and the voice of night city.
- Of all the creatures I've met you are the kindest. - Thank you. I also have one final thing to say to you: that woman - turn from the ruin. Turn and go forward. For all mankind. - What woman? - You cannot lie to me. Behind you it smells of fires. So awfully far you were prepared to go in her presence. End it. - I will try. - She was hell on Earth. it doesn't take a three-metre stick insect to tell you that.
Honestly. The final two scenes of the game felt like they were inspired by a poem, that was inspired by a genius fever dream. Easily one of the most beautiful scenes in video game history.
And the moment when the second scene references the first scene, when the Phasmid asks Harry to turn from the woman, to turn from ruin, to let go of the one got away, to not let it consume and destroy him... I was ugly crying at how emotional, creative, full of wonder this moment is. It's transcendental.
@@HugoRBMarques I ugly cried from the "in honor of your will lieutenant-yfreitor, that you kept from falling apart in the face of sheer terror" until credit roll.
I got very teared up during this scene. I wasn’t really bawling my eyes out, but I was emotionally full. My eyes were glassy, as the best moment in the whole game happened. The phasmid represents such a beautiful contrast to the world of DE. It’s inclusion might be seen as completely random and extraneous to some, but it’s sheer sense of wonder, and objective viewpoints to the world surrounding HDB and Kim as they solve crimes provided such a sobering view to the game’s world. To find out that a being this pure, this innocent, and this majestic exists in a world like disco Elysium made me realize, in the game’s final moments, that there is a sometimes unspoken utter beauty to this world, a uniqueness of it that ought to reflect on us as individuals. In a game rife with depression and the effects of alcoholism, along with a drab setting, the music (especially the goddamn music, it’s what made me cry the most looking at the bug with that light guitar picking in the back) the setting… everything. This game focuses so much on the degradation of mental health at every chance it gets, but this moment proves life is worth living. You wouldn’t get to understand its beauty otherwise. This game is a masterpiece.
it's great that it actually is kinda related to the case, because it tells harry about the neurodegenerative aerobic chemical that damaged the deserter's mind
What made this moment even more powerful to me is i was one of the people who wrote "something beautiful is going to happen" at the wall in the start of the game, and going through the game i always felt kind of regretful for writing that because literally everything is going bad and ugly in harry's life and also in my life, and then this happend... a beautiful moment, a moment that gave me hope that no matter how horrible life is, something beautiful is going to happen. This game is a form of art and i thank god that i played in such a terrible state in my life, it saved me and saved my future, thank you ZA/UM❤
It's so great to read these comments and discover that I'm not the only one who loved this scene. What an amazing way to wrap up a truly incredibly game. I spent ages searching for phasmids earlier in the game, and I'd all but given up hope of finding one. The moment when it's finally revealed made the hair on the back of my neck stand up ! Beautiful story-telling.
I just finished the game. The conversation between Harry and the Phasmid (His own mind?) was mesmerizing and fantastical, reinforcing the underlying feeling that there is something paranatural about Disco Elysium's world. After finishing up the Cryptozoology quest I thought was done with the whole Phasmid thing, but still decided to get Lena's address just for the sake of prolonging her hope. And then this happened, it made me sit in my chair in complete silence for a couple of minutes before continuing. I had already been feeling emotional over what was the last part of the game, considering the whole dream sequence, the damned tribunal. However, this moment 7:21 made me completely breakdown into tears, especially the closing part where Volition, Inland Empire, and Authority chimed in. After spending so much time with the absolute wreck of a detective, seeing his mistakes and failures along with his painful thoughts, I had grown attached to him and this moment was my reward. Harry not only had solved the case and discovered a new species in the end, but also, i think, had achieved some form of serenity and mental closure, if only for a moment.
The moment during the interrogation the game said 'LISTEN, NOW.', and the camera went over the reeds, I started crying. I knew it and was still surprised, it COULD also have been another assassin hiding, killing the old communist for talking too much. This was pure magic. I live in a forest myself, secluded from society, and although this is fiction, it hit like when I look up and stand just meters away from a deer, both scared to move, in tears, and excited by pure joy, trying to calm them but be happy when they flee because my species is a bunch of murderers and nature, no matter how strong, is driven to fragility by the weak arrogance of humanity.
The dog in your profile pic would also have killed the deer though, if it was in a pack. Deer are prey animals, it's just how it is. Our destruction IS entirely man-made though, that is true.
@@Hypogean7 i know he would have. But he is in a pack (all rescues), in a forest i bought for their freedom, mine, and the protection of the forest itself against humans, and the pack under my guidance has learned not to kill. Humans have tried to kill him though.
Experiencing this for the first time was absolutely amazing. It's difficult to describe how it makes me feel but It's everything I love about gaming. Having Kim there makes it 100x better, just having the assurance that it is real.
Few of us can begin to imagine the horror of you -- with all of creation reflected in your forebrain. It must be like the highest of hells, a kaleidoscope of fire and writhing glass. Eternal damnation. Even when you're sleeping... And when you wake, you carry it around on your neck. With eyes open that cannot help but swallow more behind the mirror. I feel great, mute empathy for you. H - It was very disorientating at first, but I'm keeping my shit together That must be incredibly hard. The arthropods are in silent and meaningless awe of you. Know that we are watching -- when your tired, when the vision spins out of control. The insects will be looking on. Rooting for you
Goes through the entire play through drunk and high, pisses off Kim getting the lowest relationship possible, ending with the the best possible relationship with Kim still drunk and high, but begining to better myself in the end… story of my life… thank you creators of disco Elysium you have really changed my life.
I am at the end of a narrow funnel. Weightless. So light it only feels like *something* to be me. In truth -- perhaps I'm nothing? I certainly do not have a soul. And if I did, it would never ache. So sweet.
The backround of the creators of the game (who were completely fucked over by a shady company) trying to get over alcoholism and multiple artistic failures leads me to interpret the phasmid as their own sense of regret and guilt coming forward as renewal. who knew that "dude, you aren't so bad" would be a transcendent moment in a video game. It's something we all need to hear more often in life, and playing as harry for so long makes the player have this feeling. the fact that sorry cop is a character build makes this shit hit hard. just a fantastic piece of art
It encapsulates the entire point of the story. We - humans - are the real miracle, for stubbornly soldiering on in the face of heartbreak, depression, failure, poverty, and oblivion.
"You are a Violent and irrepressible miracle. The vacuum of cosmos and the stars burning in it are afraid of you. Given enough time you would wipe us all out and replace us with nothing - just by accident"
This continues to break my heart every time I see this scene, I feel like the phasmid and whenever it speaks I feel seen or understood. I go through a few tissues every time just a wreck. This is my favorite game, and I'll never forget it.
I love the reversal Harry is capable of here: for the entire game, Kim has (rightfully) encouraged him to stand back, to decline to impose his will on a world that might better reveal itself by being allowed to breathe. And the thing is that Kim was always right to do so, it’s only that he had settled into only ever doing so in the service of seeking answers as a detective. Harry’s a mess, sure, but now he’s a mess that’s learned from Kim to let the world in front of him breathe in all its resplendent weirdness, only now without any intent to extract an answer. For once, Harry has the opportunity to teach Kim something: that some mysteries must be left to exist for their own sake, and that seeking an answer would only degrade them. This is the moment where they truly come to understand each other.
I actually were checking phasmid traps after questline with them was ended. And i truly believed in their existence. It's a shame you can't take a picture to those two old geezers, but still, an amazing journey that i would remember.
Truly a wonderful moment in storytelling, I got this after a tribunal that went terribly, I felt kind of cheated because I wanted so badly to get to the island before things fell apart, as if that could have saved more lives. I was prepared for a downer ending where all my failures piled on until Harry was crushed but what I got was something much more beautiful than I could have imagined.
i hadn't felt anything in, idk, about a month? two months? only completely tired and numb, until i reached this scene, it felt like opening that faucet that wont budge to move, i basically spilled half of my bodily water trough my eyelids, thank you disco Elysium :`)
After 20 something years of playing video games I gotta say this one moment is the most beautiful of them all. Your life is a mess, your world is a mess, everyone either actively hates you for your actions or have given up on you because you've disappointed them too many times. But you solve the case, depending on how you play you might even become a better person than you were before, Kim trusts you with this life. And then you find this beautiful magical creature that no one believed in and it validates you, it makes you realize that despite being a mess you still keep pushing forward. It respects you, it will honor you after your passing, there is a bit of love and admiration in it's demeanor. It calls you the miracle because despite being a raging inferno of conflicting emotions in a volatile simian nervous system you still live through the pain. In the words of volition, The urge is strong but you are stronger.
To be honest, this scene is just so beautiful, it makes me feel seen, and it makes me feel like even from the tiniest creature, to the most giant, is rooting for me, to see me succeed.
That inland empire check to talk to the Phasmid is legit one of the best in the game. I get chills when it says “holy is the lord of hosts, all the earth is filled with his glory”
Sometimes i see people in museums looking at art and getting emotional... this is what this scene does to me , i don't know why but it hits so hard.. especially whe he says "of all the creatures I've seen you are the kindest" It's just so profound after the painful journey
man i needed to hear this, thank you weird videogame squid mosquito, also, i cant help but feel that the pale is us, the player? i dont know what else it could be (though i havent played the game so idk), maybe it isnt meant to be metaphorical, but i think that the game is implying that the moment the game started, Harry's alcoholic breakdown and total downpour of thought created a metaphorical opening to our world, as a videogame, thats why its almost a horrible miracle, on one hand they are literally transcending their fictional game reality and entering ours, but on the other, once something is made, it can only stop existing by being unmade, does that feel like a cycle of unending death and rebirth? what a horrifying existence to be a fictional bug species side character in an indie videogame that im watching a youtube video on. and who now technically lives or dies in my thoughts depending on whether or not im thinking about her. Stop making me feel bad about thinking devs! stop making me feel personally responsible for the continued existence of fictional characters by keeping them in my brain and/or computer hardrive! or maybe im just schitzo posting and thats not what this is at all, fuck it, whatever.
the pale is definitely metaphorical. It's a manifestation of Humanity's undoing by its own hands. A literal miracle is needed for it not to consume us all in time. And yet, there's that sliver of hope that we will overcome it, or contend with it. I think this is the message the game is trying to tell us.
for two hours, i reloaded this first 97% roll. I didnt understand, how reload after reload, I kept failing. I looked up whether it was scripted. I knew it was important, so i kept trying... Until I checked my mind palace and realised that I had an unresolved thought that made it so I automatically failed every white check. I unplugged the thought, and got the scene in one go. Wasted two hours of my life. Worth it.
I just realized that the phasmid sounds a lot like Björk. I guess it makes sense since one is an ethereal, alien creature who speaks in a way incomprehensible to mortal men and the other is a stickbug.
Throughout the entire conversation it sounds so enigmatic and otherworldly, but when it describes the one winter when it woke up too early and accidentally ate its own children, it sounded about ready to burst into tears... That got to me, man, I cried like a bitch
I never expected to encounter this being, so it really surprised the hell out of me when it actually APPEARED from the reeds. I remembered the quest helping the people trying to find the phasmid but after doing so I came to the conclusion that they were just searching for something fantastical that actually isn't real. What little did I know... Amazing moment, akin to an epiphany.
I don't know if the phasmid truly speaks, if this is just a reflection of Harry's fractured thought process through exposure to psychoactive neurotoxins emmited by the phasmid, or some combination of these things as filtered by Pale, but god is it beautiful. To hear the awe an animal has for the human mind, to feel the respect it has for the simple act of existence, and especially of such a broken man as Harry, god damn it makes me tear up.
13:26 Kim doesn't hear you two speaking, and I don't think that insect would know about that "middle/working class" thing, so yeah, the words are composed of Harry's thoughts.
sometimes i wonder if the greatest proof we have that we not only exist, but have free will, is our capacity to turn heaven into a living hell, that perspective allows us to turn the greatest gifts that has ever been, into a boring novelty, an irrelevant toy. Like a brat complaining about their birthday lamborghini being the wrong color. we stand on top of a mountain and search for the elevator up, instead of looking down and seeing how far we've come and how blessed we are to just *be* here, when the rest of the atoms in the universe never get to *be* at all.
Just finished last night. I didn't take the pheromone, unfortunately. But even then, the message of the moment still came across (mostly). I've never seen this a game navigate the themes of it's story like Disco Elysium, let alone stick its landing to such a degree. The moment the narrator said you heard a sound from the reeds while talking to the deserter I had the biggest smile on my face. It was like every arc in the game had come to its conclusion at that moment. Every loose end, all the feelings that had built up within the player during their time as Harrier Du Bois finally laid bare, deconstructed, finalized...closure. This was beautiful, almost life-changing work of art.
Just finished the game. When i saw this i was like, well seems like harry officially lost it, but when kim said "I see it too" I JUST LOST MY SHIT sad that i didn't spray the pheromones and lost this whole dialogue 🥲 insane game.
First all the dialogue with the old communard had put me like "wow the ending is sich incredible" Then this Phasmid appear and you understand that it wasn't just incredible... It was legendary...
