Esoteric Ebb

It's not disco, it's disc. While I definitely saw the influences of Disco Elysium and Planescape Torment, I kept feeling another even stronger influence that it took me a while to figure out. I think I finally did. At it's core, this game isn't Disco. It's Disc. As in Discworld. Esoteric Ebb approaches D&D like Terry Pratchett approaches fantasy literature - with pointy sticks, a lot of suspicions and sarcasm, and sometimes, a literal lawyer. Esoteric Ebb's city, Norvik, for example, isn't giving DE's bleak class warfare - It's giving "Guards Guards", "The Color of Magic" and even "Soul Music". It's giving food-for-thought absurd. It's giving Ankh Morpork. It puts the absurdity of the D&D system on the main stage, and surrounds it with characters that are all too aware of the flaws and conflicts of the world they live in, yet each of them finds a way to just get on with it. Because

Beautiful game. Great art, great soundtrack, great writing. Despite having learned from the genre’s greatest, it’s not derivative but stands on its own legs. For years, the answer to "I finished Disco Elysium, what do I play now?" was to look them straight in the eye and slowly shake your head. Now I can tell them to play Esoteric Ebb.

Disco Elysium left a hole in my heart, but Esoteric Ebb filled a different hole that I forgot was even there.

This is an amazing journey. I thought long and hard about all the stuff I wanted to praise in it but in the end I decided to share one single fact: For the entirety of this game my character half jokingly told everyone that he is going to vote for himself and become the new wizard overlord. He had both intelligence and charisma for it. But in the end, after all the challenges and journeys, after that awesome adventure was over when the game actually gave me a chance to live up to all the bullsh*t, I wrote a different name in my voting card. Because it felt right. When a narrative is able to move you this much, it is a sign of exceptional storytelling.

Many games have tried to be a successor to Planescape Torment. Many games have tried to be a successor to Disco Elysium. This game is a successor to Planescape Torment and Disco Elysium.

What an absolute delight. The game is not shy about how much it takes inspiration from Disco Elysium-- not only in its systems, but in some of the basic elements of the plot. You're a cleric (read: cop) in a city-state with a complicated political history, a bumbling mess with a straight man sidekick in a cool jacket whose friendship serves as the emotional scaffolding to a story that is a mix of silly, serious, and surreal. By all accounts, it should feel like a blatant attempt to replicate Disco's success. It really doesn't. Instead, Disco serves as a launchpad for further iteration and invention, a development in the subgenre that doesn't try very hard at all to be Disco Elysium when you actually get into the thick of things. I hear a lot of comparisons to Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett in other reviews and while I think they are apt comparisons to the tone and genre, I think