What a good and fun game. I haven't played Disco Elysium, but I will definitely have to check it out now.
Esoteric Ebb has both a small scale and a very wide world, one that I would love to see more of. Its scale works in its favor though, as you are on a time-crunched mission to uncover what seems to be a political conspiracy less than a week before a world-changing election. Every character you meet will have an impact on the two main questions of the game: "What happened in the tea shop." and "Who are you voting for?" The amount of freedom the game gives you in both regards is quite refreshing and very enjoyable.
While still operating on a general Dnd-type base, this game plays very differently from things like Baldur's Gate. Instead, everything is conversation/text oriented, with your six main skills (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma) all speaking up with their own personalities, agendas, and political motivations, turning you into some kind of schizophrenic vessel for a dysfunctional Thanksgiving dinner (a dinner comprising only of apples, appleboy). Combat and battles happen in this same conversation format, and while the game does offer you the option to just straight up punch people in the face (and you often will have to or want too), there is always the available option to use your wisdom or charisma to extricate yourself from the situation (even if that involves you rolling a nat 1 and hugging a troll...).
The game honestly doesn't try to do a [i]lot[/i], but what it does choose to do, it executes very well. The final confrontation of the game was pulling strings from random side-quests I did five days ago, mentioning names that were offhandedly referenced twice, and yet was more relevant to the story than the person I rescued right beforehand. The writing is very well done, and does really make you consider your political stance (both in game and outside of the game), but also doesn't fault you for the one you make, because it openly admits that all of them do have faults. There is nobody perfect in this story, not even you, but you will find many good people in the story. And you're called to be one of them.
So yeah. Esoteric Ebb is not by any means the most phenomenal game I've ever played, but it's very memorable one, a very enjoyable one, and a very humorous one that achieves everything it was trying to do in simultaineously the stupid and serious way possible, and I love this game for it.
Overall, I'd say there's a 50/50 chance you would play it, but those odds should change.
