ZERO PARADES Reviews

Not at the level of Disco Elysium, but still quite good. Takes a few hours for the game to pick up. I played DE when it was only partially voice acted so the complaints about VA feel overblown. If you are a flagrant save scummer like me, you might run into some bugs that will require you to exit the game and reload your save. I had issues where screens were rendered from previous saves, the game no longer let me click things, and times where my save button was disabled until I exited and reloaded.

Nice idea, beautiful art, but the writing is boring and pretentious AF. Maybe there's a good game somewhere out there, but i just couldn't force myself to care to explore it further. Better go get Esoteric Ebb or just replay Disco Elysium.

I was extremely skeptical that whatever was left of ZA/UM had the cojones to create anything even approaching Disco Elysium in quality but I stand corrected. I'd have to replay DE to really evalute where they stand to each other (I only played it at release) but based on my unreliable memory, I'd say it comes really close, better in some ways but worse in others. One of the load-bearing pillars is being anchored in the spy genre and the second is IMO the choice of the VA for the narrator, which I absolutely love and it's the one thing I'd say that makes the game stand out from Disco but as a disclaimer, I only played the version which wasn't fully voiced (Final Cut). The story and mysteries are intriguing, the characters are fun (hi Petre) and the game has so many little details that it completely pulled me in and I couldn't stop thinking about it until I finished it. And let me say here, this is not a short game so the memories of that one and half weeks is shrouded in haze. Last but not least, the elephant in the room: if you can separate the business from the art then you might enjoy it but I don't blame anyone for not wanting to play a game from a company that pushed out the original creators in such a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ way.

I want to be honest about the conditions I'm writing this under: I'm the least objective critic this game could have. I love the work it was built on, and I resent the hands that built it. I swore I wouldn't give these people a cent. Then I did it anyway, the way an addict swears off and relapses, eyes wide open, knowing exactly how bad an idea it is, chasing an old high you already suspect this won't give you. The junkie in me won. Not proud. Let's start there. [b]VOLITION [Formidable: Success][/b] — You knew. You always knew. It's beautiful, obviously. Same hand-drawn, melancholy art as the original, because it basically is that art, carried over by people who didn't dream it up. And that's the part that turns my stomach. You build something out of nothing, someone else takes it and wears it like a coat, and now I'm supposed to applaud. The whole time I played, one thought wouldn't leave: this is someone's kid, and I'm watching strangers raise it for money. And no, the launch bugs and the missing voiceover aren't the problem. Those pass. Even running perfectly, it just isn't it. Here's the test: hand it to someone who's never heard of Disco Elysium, let them finish, then give them the original blind. They wouldn't need to be a critic. They'd just know. One was made by people, the other was assembled from the leftovers. You can't ask anyone not to compare. That's the whole point. [b]LOGIC [Medium: Success][/b] — If you steal the house, at least write something worth living in. In DE, the skills were you. [spoiler]Volition, Shivers, Esprit de Corps, Inland Empire — a chorus of selves you argued with for the whole game. Six different Harrys, six different stories inside the same plot.[/spoiler] Here they shrink back into shop upgrades: numbers you feed to unlock bigger numbers. They stole the one idea that mattered and couldn't be bothered to use it. And Cascade. [spoiler]Harry made humiliating, self-destructive choices and I understood every one of them. We've all been Harry.[/spoiler] Cascade I never once recognized. Her decisions come from nowhere; the paths sit there pre-drawn and mechanical, each one greying out the rest, and I spent the game picking the lines a stranger decided "my character" would say. That's data entry, not roleplay. [b]INLAND EMPIRE [Trivial: Failure][/b] — The coat remembers a warmer body. The ending finished me off. [spoiler]You gather a crew, run their tasks, pick a combo, and it all collapses into a rank: are you a Z or an X, career or friends.[/spoiler] That's the fate. A flowchart in the costume of a soul. I did everything I wanted in 28 hours and can already tell you what every other branch holds. [spoiler]Yana[/spoiler] and [spoiler]Violeta[/spoiler] were the only two characters who flickered for me, and two flickers don't light a city. This isn't interesting enough to earn the hours it asks of you. There's a little more action, but it's still a game made of words, and the words never add up to a person. The whole core feels done by rote, like someone reciting a magic trick they watched once, hitting the beats without knowing why any of them work. And a Disco-type game is not supposed to be or feel linear. That was the entire point: the story bends around who you choose to be. First they pressed the original flat into a tidy mobile retelling for the TikTok scroll. Now this. The same move twice, plucking the most alive thing anyone has made in years for parts. I have never left a negative review in my life. I try to respect everyone's work, and I'm sure people put real care into this, people who had nothing to do with how the studio was taken from the ones who made it. But I paid these people, and it's been sitting in my chest like a stone ever since. So, once: never again. Not the next one, not the one after that. The junkie in me is calm about it anyway, calmer than you'd think. Disco Elysium already did the one thing they can't undo: it opened a door, and a whole genre walked through it. The people who love this as much as I do are out there building the real successors with love, not lawyers. [b]SHIVERS [Medium: Success][/b] — Somewhere past this dead opera, in a room you'll never see, someone who loves it like you do is already drawing the next door. Go.

If you compare this game to Disco Elysium, you will probably be disappointed. But, I think this game succeeds at what it's trying to be and had me hooked after a certain point early on in the story.

I really enjoyed my time with this game. If you're looking for more Disco Elysium, it's not exactly that, but it sure scratches that itch. -------------------------- The writing is stellar, and so is the voice acting. Whatever "corporate vs. creative" calamity happened in the aftermath of Disco Elysium, it's obvious that there are still talented writers working at ZA/UM. The dialogue and narration are sharp, gripping, compelling, touching and funny. Like DE, it's not afraid to tackle difficult topics, or lean into the silliness when a moment calls for it. It made me tear up, it made me think and it made me laugh out loud. As far as a piece of media goes, that's more or less what I needed it to do. -------------------------- People will inevitably compare this game to Disco Elysium, as maybe they should. They may even call it a "disco-like". It's a fair comparison and a fair description. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, in that sense: Zero Parades is heavily influenced by its predecessor. You have the same white/red check system, same skill system, same clothing system, a similar "thought cabinet" system. Zero Parades doesn't reinvent the wheel when it comes to a lot of the mechanics established in Disco Elysium, but it does expand on them in a lot of ways that I found quite enjoyable. Though, I will say, the clothing system basically having no changes at all was a little disappointing. In the original DE, the system felt a little silly and game-y. Leaving a dialogue box to change an outfit, just to get a higher chance on a check is just never really all that satisfying. If ZA/UM make a similar game in the future, I would suggest either making an entirely new system for clothing, or at the very least scrapping this one. But most of the mechanics work well enough, regardless. The stress system is probably the best addition. Based on your actions, choices and thoughts, you'll accumulate stress of various types, or lose it. Exceeding certain thresholds of stress carries certain penalties. From disadvantage on skill checks to outright losing a level in a particular skill. So it's something you have to manage carefully. Preferably with timely sleep, but more likely with various drugs. I find the whole mechanic to be a natural expansion of DE's mechanics, and a great thematical fit for a spy thriller where both the stakes and tensions are high. The new thought cabinet deserves a mention, as well. It is no longer just flat stat buffs/debuffs that sometimes have accompanying effects, but pretty interesting pros/cons dilemmas, with accompanying violation conditions and punishments. Several thoughts can also affect the way the protagonists speaks and thinks. With certain thoughts internalised, you'll be able to have conversations or musings that would otherwise simply not appear as an option. It does a great job of personalising *your* character, and adds a lot of flavour to *your* playthrough. The main character is who you want her to be. It's not quite a "blank slate", but you do get significant influence on decisions and thought processes of the protagonist. And by the end, you do feel like you've played a big part in shaping her. -------------------------- I also really enjoyed the playing environment itself. The city feels alive, with a lot more non-interactable NPCs just going about their day, and certain places changing depending on the time of day or the game state. It felt a lot less "static" than DE. Though, while mechanically ZP is an improvement, I do think it falls a little behind DE when it comes to worldbuilding and painting a clear picture of its world. The world of ZP doesn't feel quite as mysterious, though it does have some allusions to supernatural elements. Saying it's bland would be unfair, but it doesn't quite evoke the same awe that DE did in me. Though, I allow the possibility that maybe I just didn't invest in the right skills, or didn't look closer into some things. -------------------------- As for the story - it's pretty good. Bizarrely, it's a better detective game than DE was. Although, anyone who's played DE should know that it was never really about solving the case. Everything in ZP feels interconnected, and any thread you uncover ties into other aspects of the overall puzzle, and with each new area and each new conversation the picture becomes more and more clear. By the end, you feel like you have a good feel on the whole situation, and are able to manipulate it to suit your needs, just by knowing things. In that way, I think the game does succeed as a spy thriller. Though, it felt like certain storylines could've gotten a bit more time to breathe. It's also worth mentioning that the ending fell a little flat. Not so much that it was bad, but I wanted a bit more by the end. But that does not ruin what in reality is a damn good game. I realise that some people might not want to give ZA/UM money, but to me, this is a game worth playing.

I’ve played the game through twice now; I played through Disco three times. This review is going to be written in half-riddles (nothing recognizable as a spoiler unless you already know it). Zero Parades rhymes with disco, has similar shapes and smells, but it’s also its own creature. The world has less to do with Lynch, the flavor is closer to Pynchon. And though it never reaches the existential horror of the pale, or that shard deep in the church; the silo, the violator, and the two discs offered up things strange and interesting. The cast and locals were more numerous, and though I never met the equivalent of Cuno or Evrart, there were characters and ensembles resonated with me (parallel spies, damaged friends, shape-shifting devils). This game me more opportunities to really reckon with prior failures, to feel guilt balanced with necessities that I didn’t always agree with, and it let me fail in interesting (though not quite as spectacular) ways. I found it easy to like most the characters, to understand their standpoints, flaws, and eccentricities; with a smaller few being tedious (by design). Philosophically, the game is mixed bag. About techno-fascism, communist failures, and globalization, they have some interesting commentary. However, much of their discussions veer towards absurd rather than sincere: tongue-in-cheek rather than biting satire. This is utterly academic, but they make highly specific references (L/W, D/G) that don’t make sense; kinda like they were reading someone else’s notes rather than the source texts. With that said, I loved praying to stars, and the subterfuge of a tarot reading before a bloodbath. Mechanically – though there’s space for refinement. Dress up is more important in this game than it was in Disco, which makes the fact that the clothing cannot be sorted utterly tedious. The skills are not quite as intuitive as they were in DE, nor are they as pronounced (e.g. blueprints is no shivers). The drugs are fun, as are the numerous temporary states that can be applied any number of factors. Likewise, I enjoyed the few unfolding scenes (akin to the gunfight in disco). This is all to say, though it remains based on Disco, there is new and distinct art here. In terms of Aesthetics: there are hits and misses. The city retains a tangibility to it, seeming more alive, vaster, but less polished in places. The special moments where you can change perspective (reveal a hidden angle) are particularly satisfying. Still there’s a coherence to it. The cell shaded affect works better on some characters than others – in for most there’s a blockiness or odd angularity that really doesn’t work in some cases. I think this is a fixable problem. As for the plot – it is convoluted by design. But on my second play through, I started picking up on common threads, interpretations that rhymed, and a better understanding of the imperfect information different parties would have. The intrigue is laid on a little thick in some cases, but I think the narrative and motivations are all reasonably coherent. It’s a case where a number of parties all say different things are wrong with the world, but when you look for common patterns in the critique, you can suss out the larger tentacle. A final note: the ZA/UM split was messy; most of the characters involved were complicated. I plan to check out the games made by every post-schism team. On its own merits, I like this game, and I want to see with the team does next.

Disco Elysium is not a detective story, it's a story that uses a detective plot as a vehicle to let the characters explore various deeper topics, most prominently loss in various forms. Esoteric Ebb is not a detective story, it's a story that uses a detective plot as as a vehicle to let the characters explore various deeper topics, most prominently (in my opinion after only a single playthrough) intent and consequences. Zero Parades is a spy story. EDIT: the above is the gist of it, but I want to elaborate now that I had some time to think about it. To me, Zero Parades feels like a group of talented writers were tasked with writing the first 20% of a story 10 times. Let's start with the meat. Your skills comment on everything, but they have no character whatsoever. In Disco Elysium, skills like Inland Empire, Shivers, Half-Light, Electrochemistry, Drama, Logic, Volition, and on, and on, all had distinguishable traits. They felt like overexaggerated facets of Harry's persona. In Zero Parades, the skills all felt like they were purely functional, like 15 differently colored versions of Visual Calculus from Disco. Not once throughout my playthrough did I feel that my version of Hershel did anything that another wouldn't. Maybe my Hershel did it in a different way, but not in a remarkable different way. And Hershel herself is just a load of nothing. There was very little roleplaying involved throughout the game. My understandanding is that they wanted to make her a more serious character than Harry, which I respect and actually would be very interested in, had it been done properly, but it sadly was not. I think the role-playing aspect is limited to you choosing to act like a regretful or philosphical or professional spy, but nobody and nothing in Portofiro cared or reacted in a memorable manner... Maybe the reason for the above is the absence of a companion. Both Esoteric Ebb and Disco Elysium have a well-written, no-nonsense (but far from boring) character accompanying you, reacting to what you say and do, and moving the story forward when you decide to goof around too much. The absence of such a 'mirror' is felt throughout Zero Parades. And the worst thing is, there are multiple characters already here that could fill that role. One of the main questlines of the game involves assembling your team of assets, both old and new. And these characters are all really well written and interesting in their own ways, but it never amounts to anything, because as soon as their recruitment questline is done, they become bar patrons with a few lines of dialogue. And of course, as usual, your choice of the team does not matter in the slightest after all. This is Zero Parades' biggest and most glaring issue. Whenever you start pulling at an interesting thread, you find it has been cut 20% of the way. The main plot ends in a rushed confrontation you can't lose as soon as it gets interesting. The three conflicting superpowers get only a surface level characterization (I played as a Superbloc spy and have absolutely no idea what Superbloc is, except that it's some stand-in for USSR). A sidequest offering a glimpse into the supernatural aspects of the game's setting feels like a bait to interest you in a sequel or a spin off. Every single side story is either a big load of Nothing, or an Act I of something possibly great that you will never get to see. And finally, mechanically this is just Disco, with all its annoyances. Most noteworthy is that navigating your inventory to find the perfect set of clothing for a check is still just as annoying and immersion-breaking, and there was not even an attempt to improve this aspect. I distanced myself from the ZA/UM drama. After all, despite the studio's actions, the employees there are clearly talented, both the writers and the artists (the Journal and Thought Conditioning artwork is absolutely brilliant, by the way), and I wanted to give them a chance, not necessarily the studio itself. And this is not a terrible game, I don't regret playing it, but I also know that not a single moment of my playthrough will stay with me, and I have no desire to ever replay it. So far, 1 out of 5 (or 6 already) direct successors of Disco Elysium is a dud.

I could attempt to write a long and dutiful review of why I don't like this game, for the reasons are numerous, but I think all you really need is the reason I'm not going to: I don't care. I made three full play throughs of Disco Elysium, I made it all the way to the end of this one too. But unlike Disco, this one is hollow. Every hour that passed the more my eyes started glazing as empty words scrolled past, and by the time I made it to the ending I was just frantically clicking through dialogue I no longer cared about. This game does not leave anything for you to think about on your own, it doesn't have anything to say, your choices don't matter, and it can't even adhere to its own internal logic. There were scraps and hints at things that would have made a much more compelling story which existed only at the fringe, brought up only to be discarded moments later and never mentioned again. The deep irony in this game with all its talk of decaying facsimiles is that it is one and doesn't seem to realize it, a meaningless echo of a much better game.

It isn't Disco Elysium, though it's more than fair to compare the two. Many people who worked on Disco worked on this game, and the effort to improve gameplay systems is apparent; this is a better *game* than Disco Elysium, when it comes to the actual playing, because of the improvements to the dice rolls, the exertion system, the dynamic action sequences, the game's thought cabinet. and so on. Is it as well written as Disco Elysium? I think that's the wrong question. Disco Elysium is a philosophical and political exploration of what it means to be human, disguised as a police procedural. Zero Parades is a "spy" narrative that's really a story about... well, that's the thing. I can't really say the story is about one thing, because it isn't. There's moments of genuine philosophical interest (the motif of "bootlegging," creating derivative works, and the uniqueness of expression vs. mass culture), some really fascinating political worldbuilding (EMTERR is a great concept), some great cosmic horror-adjacent sequences, and a lot of very personal narratives and sidequests about helping out people you failed before (or who have failed you). All of this is loosely wrapped into a "spy" narrative that is real loose on the "spy" part in many places. Disco Elysium was an incoherent, sprawling, rambling exploration of so many different ideas which, miraculously, manages to become more than the sum of its myriad parts. The fact that the ending of that game goes from old-west standoff to detective-thriller to brutal meditation on loss to political-thesis to surreal supernatural zoology to personal reckoning is nothing short of incredible. It shouldn't work, but it does. Zero Parades is a sprawling, loosely-connected series of interesting adventures, cultural satire, comedic side-quests, uncanny horror, surprising twists and reveals, and heart-wrenching vignettes of loss, broken relationships, and "never-to-be" relationships. I laughed out loud a ton while playing this game; my heart was racing at many points; I was sad for and deeply empathetic toward many of the characters, The question really shouldn't be "Is this as well written as Disco Elysium?" because Disco Elysium is one-of-one; the question is "Is Zero Parades a well written and engaging narrative," and I think that, yes, it is. It is of a different tone and timbre to Disco, and it will resonate less with many fans of Disco and more with people who, perhaps, didn't connect to Disco as much. But as someone who has put a hundred hours into Disco Elysium, who loves it dearly, and who views it as one of the best narratives I have ever engaged with in any medium, I can say that Zero Parades felt worth my time. As for the circumstances surrounding the production of the game, others are better situated to speak to that. All I will say is that it is both apparent that Kurvitz and co. were screwed over by ZA/UM and that there are many people at ZA/UM who worked on Disco Elysium, who could have left, but stayed and created this game. Those people ultimately know the situation far more intimately than I, and if they endorse Zero Parades, then that's good enough for me. If I were coming to this game in a vacuum, I would have loved it immediately. As it stands, even with all the expectations and pressures, I found a lot of joy and worth in playing it, and I plan to play it again. Don't expect this to be Disco Elysium; expect it to be something clearly inspired by Disco Elysium, but played in an entirely different key.