Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Review
Before and after release this is a game that had a lot of buzz. I was pretty skeptical, even resistant to buying into the hype, but despite a few rough edges, this game has me completely enamoured.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is the debut game from Sandfall Interactive, and is a turn based RPG with quick time events and parry mechanics during combat. It wears its inspiration on its sleeve, borrowing heavily from Final Fantasy 10, while mixing in ideas from Persona 5, and even Sekiro. It would be easy for this game to end up a derivative, lesser version of those ideas, but it mixes them into a package that feels like a big swing, and one that lands quite well.
Every year, people a certain age or older disappear, caused by a mysterious figure known as the paintress. In order to stop her, each year an expedition is sent out to pave the way for those who will come after, in hopes that one day they will end this cycle. You follow Gustave, a man taking part in the titular expedition 33 on his journey to stop the paintress.
Within the first hour of the story, I felt more emotions than I had from plenty of games that had far more time to impact me. The music, the art, the writing, the voice acting, it all feels so expressive. Games often lack subtext, and this is a game that feels like it revels in it. Many scenes you can look at characters and wonder what they’re feeling, what they’re not saying, and it adds significant depth to the story.
The story takes some big swings, with each act feeling significantly different than the previous one. I’m still not sure where I land on the game's ultimate ending, but I appreciate that I have mixed feelings about it. It’s not simply good or bad, it’s complicated, and messy, and far more interesting than where a lot of games end. This game went for it, and it’s so refreshing to see.
The big swings extend beyond just the story, and the turn based combat feels quite refreshing with some new ideas added to the usual mix. Each character has their own mechanic, which makes them each feel like they have their own flow in combat. Gustave has an overcharge mechanic, where each hit adds a charge to his gauge, which allows him to unleash a powerful attack. Lune has stains, where skills can both add different colored stains, and consume stains to add extra damage and effects.
It makes each battle feel like it has more moving parts, as each character is fighting to their own rhythm, while still setting each other up and working together as a team. As a player, you’re always alert since when the enemy’s turn begins, you’re not off the hook. Rather than setting down the controller and waiting your turn, you have to dodge, parry, and jump over enemy attacks to keep your characters out of danger, or even counter attack.
Combat feels snappy and active, keeping the player constantly engaged during a fight, and there’s plenty of options both in and out of combat. Pictos, which act like accessories, also provide various passive bonuses. You might find one that causes an enemy to be applied with burn when attacking, then find another that gives more critical against burning enemies, and another doubles burn applied. So many of the effects combo with other ones that before you know it you’ve got plenty of builds available at your disposal.
However, this is also where the rough edges come into play. Managing your pictos is a bit of a pain, as you’re quickly swimming in dozens of pictos, and have to change them out fairly often. Even finding the pictos can be a pain as there’s no map available in the dungeons. I’ve gotten lost plenty of times, and probably missed plenty of areas by not being able to tell where I’ve been or where I should further explore. The world map only exaggerates this problem, there aren’t any fast travel options to quickly move across its sizable map.
There were a couple minor technical issues, like getting stuck on objects, or characters in cutscenes having an odd jitter. Occasionally you can feel the smaller budget of this game, but this game really draws you in and gets you to buy into it. The environment and world is stunning, it feels big, beautiful, but dangerous and bizarre. It helps that the accompanying music is stunning, and quickly ended up on my spotify playlists.
Clair Obscur isn’t a perfect game, but its imperfections never really soured me on the many things that it does exceptionally well. The story, the characters, the combat, it all felt refreshing enough that I was willing to overlook some missing quality of life issues and odd design choices. The current games industry feels safe, so worried about not making their return on their ballooning budgets that everything starts to feel like the edges are sanded off.
This game is rough around the edges, and I love it for that exact reason. I can feel the passion present in every square inch of this game. It’s a little highbrow, and perhaps the game leans into this idea a bit too much, but I can’t help but feel like this game is a work of art. If only because it evoked strong reactions in me, it moved me in a way that games lately often fail to.
I adore this game. Unless my feelings change with some distance, this game has a real chance at ending up on my top 10 list. It’s a brilliant game, and while its inspirations are clear, it’s made its mark as something unique. I can’t wait to see what’s next from this team, and I can only hope that more people see this game as more of what this industry needs, passion.
