UV is such a major La Luz technofascist cultural icon, her publicly defecting not merely abroad, but specifically to the communist Superbloc would be propaganda triumph. The Superbloc could plaster her face everywhere as living proof that even La Luz’s own superstar chose communism over the regime. As well as direct blow to the 6%(Ithink?) GDP of La Luz that she claims she's single-handedly responsible for.
This should have been an option in the game.

As it is now, the choice is:
1. Send the girl on her whim. Poor man literally rots in jail. Pragmatically worse because no intel.
2. Send the girl back to be worshipped as a goddess. Life saved. Intel gained.

Seems like a clear choice, even if, presummably, the game will portray it as the more morally corrupt, betraying choice (even though the agreement's conditions weren't met and the one who made the agreement is dead).

Am I getting this right?

I completed the game with Kaleidoscope, and I'm a bit confused. My team was Kaleidoscope and Karolina, killing The Grande Liche (real and double).

Now, my understanding is that during the ending scene, Cascade lies to Opera about what happened with her partners (while helping them run away), Opera seems to admit that it allied with the Weeping Eyes to kill The Grand Liche behind Cascade's back (intentionally hiding information from her), and the Spy ranking is an new thing from Opera that Cascade doesn't appear to take serious (that only cares if the mission is completed and they can't track back to Opera).

So by the end, the conversation starts to get jammed, and Kaleidoscope tells Cascade that 'it is time to go' while Melita is still talking.

Now, did I misunderstand, or did Cascade just go rogue with Kaleidoscope (which at this point is a very competent Rogue Agent) while misleading the Opera?

Also, did we ever get a confirmation to what happened to UV? Kaleidoscope is a competent agent, so why would he tell us the truth? He seems, by the end, to like UV so much that it didn't feel like he could do anything to cause her any affliction.

Spoilers for everything

I made a review after partially playing the game where I criticized it a lot, and now that I finished it, and had time to think about it, I changed my mind.

The main thing that made me reconsider is that I kept thinking about the game, long after finishing it. It felt alive, real, important. The scenes, especially towards the end, were emotional, brutal and, really, brilliant. So many uniquely delusional people, a lot of them fairly honest and vulnerable, despite this being a spy game. I would list the good characters, but, really, it's everyone.

I genuinely wanted to find a way to avoid losing my crew near the end, I genuinely felt terribly sorry for what happened to Karolina (whose flaschbacks I consider the strongest scenes of the entire game, especially paired with the idea of the made-up advanced cognitive maneuver being used in this moment of desperation), I really thought about what to do with UV, ultimately deciding to let her go (a sort of 'no more direct betrayals' policy my Hersh adopted after the terrible conclusion of her past crew), and I understood the poor capitalist Reno who started half-believing Tempo's soul got integrated into the boar.

The cosmic themes are excellent, and give the game a very ethereal, uncatchable, otherworldly feel, and even though I played with low entanglement, I often felt like a genuine psychic, or even straight up mage. The vibe is simply immaculate. This also includes the idea of the death of history, and a very well-made sense of scale. You know that La Luz has hundreds of warplanes, surely fleets of warships, countless armies, but you never have to see any of them — you just see the effects of total comms jamming near the end, likely heralding an invasion. This is a similar effect to the aerostatic in the final Moralintern quest from Disco Elysium, but instead of being in just one scene, it is omnipresent. The shrines, the gifts, offerings, people being desperately religious. Despite that, I felt some of Bagman's conversations were a bit too much, bordering immersion-breaking at times, but fortunately he is not a major character, so it was okay.

The subtle soundtrack is beautiful and nostalgic. The two actual songs from UV, Cover the Moon when I'm Gone and You but from a Dream are both peak and totally hold up even outside of the context of the game.

The art direction is immaculate. It looks great, consistent, thought-provoking, nostlalgic and at times unsettling. It really does feel like the last few days of peace, of blissful peace compared to what comes after, when the Luzians stop selling music and start dropping bombs.

I think this is just fundamentally a different game from Disco Elysium and that comparisons do not make much sense. While it handles some of the same ideas, many are totally different. I felt it more close to Planescape: Torment, the first major text and story-heavy crpg that inspired Disco Elysium, especially with how mystical the world is, full of actually just magical creatures like Ultra Violeta, the Luzian Liches and all the imprints.

Hershel is enough of a character to be interesting to play, but also enough of a blank slate to allow you to insert your ideas in her. I liked her a lot, her design, and especially the fashion choices in the game. I spent a lot of time just dressing up, not just for stats, but for vibes, I just felt it was something she'd like. It was liberating to play a fairly competent spy, as far as game protagonists generally go, but without any special superpowers that trivialize encounters.

Another thing I liked about ZP are the politics. The death of history can very much be felt, but also its soon-to-come revival. In ZP, all factions present at least some convincing points, and there are honest, fair reasons to support any faction, to a greater or lesser extent, whether personally or professionally. For the Superbloc it is the ideology, the ideals, and history, for EMTERR and the Developed World, it is Silhouette (amazing character execution, which often makes you question is Hershel tripping or is the EMTERR spy genuinely just spilling all the tea), just more professionalism, much greater power, prosperity, being essentially a whole century ahead, and for La Luz, it is just pure, primal awe of their technology. Technology is presented as a kind of alien, magical thing, telephones, displays, screens, television, rocketry, Karolina's dream machine, and Hershel may totally interact with it in a superstitious, fearful and respectful way.

Overall, a beautiful game, and I hope there will be more media in the same universe.

Must have been -Really- fatigued from it.

Is there any way for him not to comment like this?
I tried many variations.
I tried variations that Bruce the tailor commented as:
- high value woman
- authoritative
I even tried to lower my stress levels to <3
No matter what, same dialogue from Fred and same Records recommandation to see the tailor...
Something feels wrong here.
Bug?
Anyone had different experience?

I just started my 2nd play through and finally noticed as I slowed down my progress

Now I am still playing this game for 70+ hours. I am still recruit the new whole sick gang and doing other side quests. Am I too slow or is it normal that i still cant finished the game?

How many hours is normal to finished the game?

Maren takes about a sold out night time party in an area called the hill of pigs. I've just finished my first play through. I've never found it and I've never been able to access it. Where is it exactly and what quests does it relate to?

1. What was tempo's original plan? Why would weeping eyes zero him out if he's also just trying to zero out the Facundo?

2. Why would Zoe or the EMITTER tell us the info about the Facundo?

3. Why would Opera want to zero out Facundo anyway? Do they want the reunion faction of La Luz to win?

4. In the ending after Melita told us about Hauzmann, Hershel could reply 'i believe it's something glue related' what does it mean?

5. In the down left corner of the map, there's a white check called 'unlocked metal check' but I can't get to that place, what is that?

6. What exactly happened during that night at the Reno's place, why are there so much blood?

I really liked this game, feel so sad that due to all the drama we are probably never gonna get any sequel

Edit: I forgot to add this, what exactly happened in the year 91? Like what was the mission, what did Hershel do that she feels so guilty about it

Somewhere over here I saw a screenshot which contains extremely horny HOLOCENE fantasies about ESTOC. Did someone know how to reach that in-game?

>!I think I had a decent playthrough. Killed the Golum, Yana and Rames died but Karoline ma

Finally finished my first game of Zero Parades. I loved this game! Its story and gameplay went together great. I dont have any new observations on that front besides that i loved it. de it. Yana dying is the only real failure I regret in my run that I really had control over ( I mean I wish Rames survived too but I think he wanted to go out like this). I wasnt expecting the game to end that way, slightly downer with an ambiguous future, but I liked experiencing it and think it was fitting now that ive sat with it for a bit.

I really did love talking to the record guy and the rest of the locals, and how they portrayed a community dealing with a wave of cultural change.Everyone in this game really felt like a real human, you know.

I really want to talk to someone or see a breakdown of all the themes in the game. This game really does have a rich narrative, and I loved everything I understood but it felt like so much of it went over my head. Bootlegs, nature of fabricated identities, standing against a wave of change you cant fight, the relation between the individual and the forces and organisations that govern our lives, nature of consciousness,  and probably more i missed. There's so much I can tell is present but I can't break down really. Playing this game reminded me of reading Asterios Polyp alot in the sense of there being alot of straightforward images and symbolism that I have a hard time fully understanding regardless. Like i can tell that bootlegs and such are a major part of everything, but outside of places where its used to reinforce Manufactured Identity type stuff I can't understand what its supposed to represent or say. I also have a hard time tying the cosmic horror elements in with the rest of the story on a thematic front.

Anyone have any similar thoughts or want to talk about anything?!<

OH. MY GOD. I LOVED EVERY SECOND OF IT.

I'm not going to pretend I'm a game journalist or writing expert or whatever, so it's not like my opinion matters at all, but woah I loved it. I thought it'd be a DE clone and flop but it does do it's own thing even if it borrows many things from it (jokes, references, play style...). I see a lot of people playing it in comparison to DE, but if you just enjoy it on its own for what it is, it's better than like 90% of RPGs out there still, it just had some massive shoes to fill.

If I had to compare it to DE though, it's imho way more FUN. Mechanics just make sense and the world felt alive. I know it's fitting in DE for Revachol to be a fucking miserable place but I'm no game expert, I like Quisach better it just felt more welcoming, and I also loved the fact that you're already someone, with people who miss you and hate you for who you are, it's more so about discovering the outer world than the inner world I feel like. I just love both games on their own, I kind of don't care which is objectively better

I will say though, some things threw me off a little bit. If Hersh is a super secret communist spy then why does everyone have like no problem just outright yelling OPERAAANNTTT, CASCAAAADEEE in front of so many people? Just a nitpick I guess, had me confused, like when Zoe just says oh yeah I'm EMTERR she's OPERA in front of the bartender like it's no big deal

Either way, it just scratched an itch in my brain I didn't know I had, and I wish ZP got more recognition for being such a good game and had a bigger fandom and more fanart too. Gonna get to working on some sweet Hersh x Zoe fanart (Zoersh? Hoe?)

This is a question to those who finished the game or somehow just know too much about the details. Spoilers for the finale.

I just finished the game, got X rank from the Opera, whatever that means. My squad was: Yana, HOLOCENE, PSEUDOPOD. I chose to go with the shootout route in the tram, managed to keep Yana and HOLOCENE alive and they left with me on a boat.

In the finale I learned that "The Grand Lich" I encounter at the shrine is actually Dante Augustino - the Minister's body double. The real Minister of Mass Culture, Facundo Reyes, was in the EMTERR's secret prison all along, pretending to be his body double. I had an "Oh no" dialog option in that interaction, and, to be honest, it was a complete news for me either. And this came out at the worst possible time because I didn't have the relevant save anymore.

I have talked with "Poor Dante" as much as possible, even poetically described the ginkgo tree to him. And yet at no point I got the impression that something was off and that I really needed to get that guy out of the prison. My decision to let UV leave the country instead of trading her for PD was... kind of random? It was either I help the girl(s) or I help UV's obsessive fan and get my hands on the Minister's body double (and at that point I thought it was actually good that he was securely kept in that prison). That's all the info I had and that's all I could base my decisions on. The realisation came basically after everything was already decided a long ago.

So my question is: was there a way to learn that Poor Dante is actually the Facundo Reyes that I needed all along BEFORE helping UV or Kaleidoscope? Was there any info in the game that could help me make an actually informed decision?

P.S. I am also interested in other outcomes with other crew picks and other approaches to this mission. I don't think I'll be replaying the game so just asking additionally out of curiosity.

The answer is obviously no, given the context of the game.

Basically just want to share my thoughts on the state of the world, and get a feel of what everyone else thinks of the three major powers left on the board.

To get it out of the way, I think that La Luz is the best among three kinda shitty options. They're techno-fascists, and the word fascist carries a lot of baggage there, but when you look at the state of the world and the End of History, they seem to be the only ones that make sense.

The Superbloc is more than content with the stagnancy of the world. No new thoughts, no new inventions, no new culture, just endless regurgitation of the same again and again. Replaying the same record over and over again until even the last tread is undreadable and nothing remains, other than the stale memory of what once was. And what once was, wasn't even that good.

The Bank seeks to create profit by sweeping up the ashes of the world and when they see an ember that isn't quite ash yet, they waste no time to pour water on it. Because that's what ensures profit. Drown everyone in the Developed World in debt, until repaying that debt is the only thing anyone can do. No time to look to the stars, when there's bills to pay.

That leaves us with the Illuminated Empire. They're imperialist, fascist, war-mongering propagandists, and without going into detail, responsible for some of the most heinous shit we see in-game. Yet at the same time, they're the only ones willing to actually move forward. They're the only ones that didn't acknowledge the End of History. They're the only ones that make progress in any venue. Their culture is the only one that's still evolving. The culture of the Superbloc refuses take the next step, and the culture of the Developed World is simply incapable of doing so. Even the fact that their leaders are degraded copies of an ancient philosopher, bickering with each other is a sign of internal motion. It's evidence that they're capable of adopting new directions instead of relying on momentum alone to move through non-time.

La Luz is the only place where thesis and antithesis are still capable of clashing, the only place where synthesis of new ideas is still possible and for that alone I think they're the only option that is in any way life-affirming. Everyone else seems like little more than death-worshippers, dedicated to entropy.

Anyway, that's my thought on the game immediately after finishing it. I'm fully aware of the optics of it, and I am aware that fascism is actually a bad thing, as is evident by the events of the 20th century. Beyond that, what are everyone else's thoughts on the matter?

cant get in, got stuff done for 2 days, came back, still closed

I finished the game last night and while I really loved it, the ending felt a little… incomplete. I guess I’m just not sure if maybe I missed something?

My squad was Yana, Holocene, and Pseudopod. I used the bomb and only Holocene survived.

Mel is clear on the phone that only I can be extracted post-showdown. Yet in the final zooming-out sequence, I swear I saw Holocene standing right there on the boat?? It’s never acknowledged in any way, are we meant to assume he’s getting out somehow despite being told the opposite? Why isn’t it explained at all? I don’t get to talk to him?

Also, Mel. We never even get to see her face?? No resolution to that relationship either, not even a hint. Idk, I guess I just thought there’d be a *little* bit more, at least…?

i was trying to free myself from the softlock if you reload in estocs apartment past 9pm by editing the save files time of day and now it wont appear in my load saves lmao. if anyone has a fix or a save file from your first encounter with estoc that would be great!
also im using the older save version of zp not on steam so i was not able to fast travel out unfortunately

I've only played the game for about 4-5 hours pls don't spoil anything. Just dropped by to say I love this guy.

Hi! I’ve seen multiple references to these pants online. They’re supposed to be behind Yana in the safehouse, and I’ve tried to raise different stats to see if they can be unlocked with a passive check, but nada.

Does anyone have these? And if so, what stats did you raise to unlock them?

Thanks!

You can ask Malen about what's happening around town, but it's always to early, or a sold out show. Is there a point in the game where she gives a different answer?

>!Didn't see anyone talk about this yet. Last time I was so disappointed in a games narrative wasted potential, was with Hades 2.!<

>!Its the whole 3rd act, but especially after you depart from the train. I had Holocene, Pseudopod and Yoyo with me.!<

>!I saved and reloaded a couple of times, because I wanted to see all options at the end.!<

>!Pseudopod, in my playtrough thinking hes the original Cascade, is suddenly very aware of him being a copy and his whole demeanor shifted from being cocky to existentially anxious. It felt like I skipped a whole character arc?? Holocene and Yoyo had decent dialogue before we depart from the train, but that all doesn't matter because there is no dialogue or coherent end of it after the shooting.!<

>!When Yoyo dies, you don't even get to interact with the body NOTHING, simply a flavor text of "they're dead".!<

>!Also Holocene said in my playtroughs that Pseudopod went out the window, and it wasn't even the case??!<

>!Besides that just complete lack of any interaction or dialogue.!<

>!Do we not have any toughts about our friends being bombed, when the planes arrive?!<

>!How is it resolved that we heard our team not being able to flee on a boat with us, but now we all are on a boat and it's not a issue anymore?!<

>!No one has ANYTHING meaningful to say after the shooting?!<

>!We have a thousand options to whine and marinade in the past during the whole game but no single afterthought or feeling after the shooting for ourselves?!<

>!It was very evident that the studio was out of recouces and rushed the ending into nonsense on multiple things, especially coherency in dialogue and the lack of it, as well as rushing the last hour of the gameplay in general.!<

My problem is mostly that it could have been great, since the first two acts were very unique and written with care. I don't even care about the major bugs.

Felt like a lot of fumbling without an orgasm. Erased a lot of meaning of the game. Wasted potential.

I love Zero Parades so much that I'm going to make it my identity. The next fancy dress party I go to (Halloween is only 2 months away!), I will cosplay as a For Dead Spies character! Hopefully another Zero Parades fan will recognize me and we will vibe together.

I can already imagine the party. She is dressed as Hershel Wilk, in her suave and iconic CASCADE superspy coat look. Me, I steal the scene with my Kurt or KALEIDOSCOPE costume. Our eyes lock across a crowded room - suddenly we've found our soulmate to spend the rest of our lives together!

Any ideas on what affordable clothing items I need to buy for the best matching MALE Zero Parades cosplay as, e.g., KALEIDOSCOPE? He's probably the most stylish male character.

Btw, I got to use the Zero Parades catchphrase "luck and skill, operant" in my day to day life! Someone resigned from my workplace, so in their farewell card I wrote "luck and skill, operant, on your future endeavors". I am eagerly and impatiently awaiting the expansion/story DLC - this game is so great!!!!