You ever get the feeling your playing a game wrong? But it's still a lot of fun anyway? Yeah, that basically sums up my experience with Disco Elysium, though, having finished the game a while ago and looking back on it, I'd be hard pressed to suggest a "right" way to approach the game, and I think that's the point. Where a lot of games, especially in the last 10-15 years, approach the design of "Player Freedom" by literally allowing the player to go wherever and do whatever, focusing on a mechanical and physical idea of freedom and choice, I'd say Disco Elysium focuses more on the idea of freedom of significant actions, and their consequences.
Now, that isn't to say Disco Elysium is a sadistic game, gleefully punishing the player for choosing the "wrong" option, but rather that the game feels like... a laid-back parent, who watched you jump into the well and looks down at you asking "Did you have a plan to get out?". In this metaphor, when the answer is "no", there's a chance you'll find a secret underground network of tunnels that will eventually lead you out, but not before you uncover the secret history of a failed political revolution from 25 years ago or something. If you've never played the game, that may sound absolutely ridulous, and it is, but I'm telling you, that's as truthful as I can be without spoiling. And I don't want to spoil anything significant, but the rest of this review will have a few "out of context" spoilers about my time with the game.
Now, while I enjoyed the design of the game, I will admit, there were a few areas where I save scummed my through to a specific result because I didn't want to do the alternative option. The main instance of this was, effectively, because I didn't want to understand advanced racism. Which, I think, might be the sort of thing I did to feel like I played the game "wrong", especially on a first playthrough, where the wonders of being bad and wrong can lead to results that range from fascinating to hilarious.
The reason I save scummed, by the way, was because of the main mechanic of the game (aside from reading), that is also its most divisive: Skill checks. It's a mechanic straight out of a TTRPG, when an option might use of the many voices in the detective's head, the game rolls a 6 sided die, and adds your level in that skill to it. There are around 20 skills, so you are never going to be good at everything enough to put all the checks in your favor, which can be frustrating, but I think it adds a bit to replayability... probably, I haven't replayed the game yet. Another part of that is that, based on each skills level, each voice that cooresponds to each skill will chime in more. This is helpful... up to a point. The game has a sense of "too much of a good thing is a bad thing", so if you have too high of a level in a skill, it may get in the way.
Now, there are tons of different paths you can take to the end of the game. There's even a Steam achievement for beating the game without seeing the central plot hook of the story ever, but I've only played once. The big thing that I think makes this game, and many others for that matter, unappealing to replay to me, is that restarting means all the character development is reset, and I already know the answers to a fair few of the mysteries, and that's just something that sours restarting games like this to me. I loved my playthrough, and I may go back for a second one... some day.
If you're curious, here are a few highlights of how I got through the game: