Esoteric Ebb is a story heavy D&D inspired RPG where you play a Cleric trying to solve the mystery of a tea shop that has blown up. This ends up being a much smaller part of the game as the focus moves onto the people in the town and an upcoming election and the parties involved but it's the north star you'll keep coming back to. I really enjoyed the writing in this game, there was real depth to the characters and plenty of funny situations. It's heavy on politically themed issues as well and while I did enjoy this it can start to go on a bit at times much like its inspiration Disco Elysium. I noticed this in not just the screen layout but the way my stats would pipe up during conversations. This works less well than it did in Disco Elysium given it's just strength, dexterity etc. It also treat HP in that abstract way Disco Elysium did but it was weird when I'd randomly fail a charisma check and lose HP as a result because for the most part HP is related to physical damage like in D&D. It diverges from D&D style rules and just does what it wants which while fun can end up being unpredictable.

My favourite part of the game was how well it let me role play. I used to be really bad at playing a role in a game until I played some proper good sessions of D&D in real life and it clicked with me that you just pick who you are and go with it. Even if that's being the most evil bastard you can be, you have to trust the DM or game designer has created something to accommodate that. I choose to be a proud Cleric who asked everyone which way they were voting in the election mainly as a means to let them know I was voting Freestrider. A clever way the game encouraged me to stick with this was by giving me a increasing XP multiplier every time I said I was voting Freestrider so by the end I was getting 100+ XP every time I said it as opposed to 5 the first time. The loot system also helped with playing the character I wanted to because there's just so many items to modify your character's stats that my starting build didn't define me and even if it did I could just go absolutely all on one specific stat. Beyond those systems the dialogue options almost always had a silly choice to dig my heels in on or the opportunity to flirt in inappropriate situations and while these rarely rewarded me with something it just made things that bit more fun.

The biggest knock I have gainst the game is the combat which is all carried out in the dialogue tree. There just isn't a lot to it and failure meant reloading a save and hoping for dice rolls that went in my favour this time. Even at that dying was tough as I pretty much always survived the hit dice checks and carried on with 1 HP. While combat is influenced by your stats it's so infrequent that there's little point in building your character towards it. Beyond that there were a few times I felt a bit lost and it's a case of revisiting locations and conversations but sometimes waiting for something that happens at a specific time. These were just mild annoyances in a game that had me enthralled once its hooks go into me.

Esoteric Ebb is available on Steam and at the time of writing is 10% off. It took me about 20 hours to complete and it's a pretty easy game to get through. I was awash with various healing & spell recovery items by the end. I strongly recommend it especially for fans of D&D and Disco Elysium.