Esoteric Ebb

Esoteric Ebb is a remarkably confident CRPG that wears its Disco Elysium inspiration on its sleeve while delivering exceptional writing and meaningful player choice. Though not entirely original, its execution is polished, thoughtful, and often brilliant. One of the strongest narrative-driven RPGs in recent years.

Esoteric Ebb is a fun RPG that relies on well-written dialogue with many genuinely funny moments. However, if you don’t enjoy games that are heavily based on reading or don’t have at least an intermediate level of English, there’s a good chance you won’t enjoy the game.

I cannot say enough good things about Esoteric Ebb, which is positively stuffed with them. Like a good mimic, it's got teeth. It is both familiar in its shape and size and astonishing in its surprising depth and riches. Do not let its appearance fool you: There is a lot more to love about this "Disco-like" than its vibrant surface and wit might initially convey.

Esoteric Ebb is a weird game in the best way possible. It's a bit of a slow start, but once it gets you hooked, you'll want to see it through to the end. While it doesn't offer up information on completing quests, it does give you the freedom to explore the world and characters. If you're a fan of DnD looking for something unique with some solid writing and good humor, then you won't find a better game to play than Esoteric Ebb.

Following in the footsteps of Disco Elysium, this is another political and existential crisis presented as an RPG, though with its own distinctive style and satirical edge.

While Esoteric Ebb certainly doesn’t try to avoid the direct comparisons to Disco Elysium’s style, it manages to stand out through its original setting and entertaining set of mysteries. The ingrained usage of skill checks to help guide conversations and what the game reveals to players helps keep them engaged, with plenty of highly enjoyable quests and interactions to be had all the way through. There’s lots to enjoy here, particularly for those who like seeing how their choices affect the presented mysteries and obstacles.

The problem is that, in the areas where Esoteric Ebb differs most from its clearest inspiration, it's imitating something else. [Issue#422, p.112]

its so cheap for how great it is, best disco Elysium like game , its just perfect, it deserves 12/10 for being D&D as well but its only issue is that there is no voice acting but still amazing.

While wearing its inspirations on its sleeves, Ebb manages to distinguish itself enough to be a fantastic game and a breath of fresh air in the current landscape Fantastic writing and world-building are accompanied by beautiful landscapes and fitting music. Ebb is one of those games that you never forget about after you play, a truly fantastic adventure. There are a few gripes to be had, like a bad mini-map system or some esoteric (ha-ha) quests, but they pale in comparison to the experience this game presents. Also, actually managing to be funny at times is a huge plus I'm genuinely sad I finished this game, and I hope that there will be more games exploring this very interesting world

It's a majestic game. As a fan of Disco Elysium I see it neither as a successor or a replacement, but as a some development of an abstract idea inspired by someone else's approach. It takes a politics as base and deepens it with a heavy personal attachments. For the first time in a while I feel MY personal attachment to like every person I meet here. Gives me straight masterpiece vibes

there is value here, but the game is an absolute headache to navigate. every single conversation has to be five times longer than it needs to be. simple interactions just to say you want to leave a room or ask a party member to do things involve 2, 3, 4 redundant confirmations, as do the menu options for simple things like saving and exiting the game. the maps are extremely difficult to navigate, when you hit journal it opens the map instead of a journal. the map itself is useless, it does not show you where the entrances and exits are, it doesnt show you your location clearly, it doesnt really do anything, and for fricks sake, why is that what opens when i click journal? the game might satiate some people's need for the next ZA/UM game, but it feels like this writer is deeply in need of an editor and wanted to hit that "1 million word count" without caring for the user's experience. i find many parts entertaining, the writing is quite good sometimes, but it feels like this project needed more heads with more critical perspectives to come to fruition. i'm compelled to just go strength to avoid the tedium, but instead it just goes on about fascism if i choose that. the game desperately needs an option to just say "dude i do not want to read all of this redundant and hyper detailed text, i want to play the game" so that we can feel some kind of freedom of movement. the conversations run on so far and go so far off topic at times that i forget where i am and cant figure out where i need to go next. because of this, it would be extremely nice if the journal was actually a f*****g journal. disco elysium gave us full access to a history of everything we said for basically the entire game, this has been a feature in text heavy rpgs going back decades, so idk why that would be difficult to provide. overall, the game feels overwhelming, breaks immersion by not letting the player speak or act in ways that would make sense or be more efficient, and generally lacks cohesive pacing simply because the writer wants to pad the word count. i can tell a lot of effort was put in, but you need to know how to keep things concise. disco elysium suffered from this as well, but it's conversations and interactions did not overstay their welcome in the way this game does.

+ Game concept is interesting + DnD base - Writing is terrible - Woke, constant talks about patriarchy, privilege, the game is pushing an agenda - Men dumb, woman strong and smart - Visual style is not a good sight