Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (2025)

Do you... Love turn based games... Love dodge and parry mechanics in turn based games.... Enjoy a dark, moody protagonist... Like at the box art...

I think I will finish the game, as the story is interesting. But the combat is leaving me feeling very underwhelmed currently. I feel agency to craft my build, though it is a little restrictive. I am not a fan of 'we created all these options for you' but you really only have 2 choices. Skill trees are boring.

I do not like the dodge and parry mechanics. Turn based is about strategy. I play turn based games to relax, which this game isn't. So playing takes a lot of focus and energy.

Active turn based:

Megaman X Command mission has provided an example of how to do active components in a turn based game. Dodge and parry is so boring in comparison to the 20 year old game. The characters and battle systems have yet to evolve. I am hopeful.

The exploration is pretty good:

The story is exceptional, and the cutscenes feel really nice. There is a nice gradient of high budget cutscene, mo-capped scene with great effort, minimal effort scenes and in game dialogue that is voice, and text based interactions.

I am reflecting on my recent experience with Final Fantasy 7-2. And really wish it had a similar pacing here. The pace of exploration blends well with how the story is told, rather than fighting it.

I wanted to like this game, I wanted to shout "it deserves GOTY!" because I haven't been able to say that for three years almost. But it comes short of expectations and whatever incredibly inflated hype people built around it.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (2025) is a turn-based RPG game made by Sandfall Interactive. It has accrued more honorifics than Baldur's Gate 3 did at its release and nearly everyone who had the temperament to be insufferable came out of the woodwork to swarm the player base.

Much like in Fallout: New Vegas and Baldur's Gate 3 cases, it's hard to have a negative or somewhat negative opinion on this game without being thrown tomatoes from the peanut gallery but I'll do my best to dodge or parry (heh) some of them.

The game isn't bad by any means: its characters have a certain charm to them - I do own an Esquie plushie, if that's what you're asking - and the banter between some of them is fun and engaging... still, I couldn't push past mid-way Act 2. Spoilers ahead.

The moment Gustave dies the main reason to particularly care about the entire expedition is gone. None of the other characters are as expanded or as written as he is in the first few beats of the games, so much so I should have expected his death since, in retrospective, it looks like the most cliche thing in narration. Starting from Maelle herself and the heavy handed hints about her general importance to the story to keep you grappled in to Lune whose existence is tied to just pertinence to the plot (which I guess it is intended, considering the 'others' are merely reflections of a world Maelle herself envisioned and painted?) and then to Verso - whose flat delivery of every line made me profoundly enthused with the character at large.

The whole game cannot let the player understand and come to terms with the major plot beats by themselves, favoring a heavy handed "this [character/plot beat] is very important" 'peinture' (heh) over everything that can be considered as such, making characters like Lune and Sciel just kind of 'there' in the greatest scheme of things. They serve to Maelle and to further Maelle's importance, rather than act as characters in their own selves; this reflects poorly since you can gauge the importance and significance of Verso and Maelle in the early stages of their story and connect the general plot without even having to google it: Maelle is the Paintress and is deeply tied to Verso and Renoir, everything in this world is somesort tied to a trauma or something that happened that might have killed Maelle or severely injured her - which proved to be right after I searched on the wikia.

I don't know if it's because the hints were too many but after somewhat figuring out that I was going to be stuck with - specifically - Verso for the rest of the game, I just couldn't really care that much about it. Ben Starr's delivery was flat in ways I cannot understate, so much so some of the more emotional things he said were delivered so awkwardly I thought there had been some sort of issue in the recording room.

You might not notice I haven't spoke about the gameplay and that's simply because it's... okay. It isn't bad, it isn't extremely good or genre-breaking, it's just okay and sometimes it can be frustrating (mainly in the minigames) but overall, it serves it's purpose to be as flashy and as satisfying as it could be - and as someone who is not a particularly big fan of turn combat games, I cannot in good conscience overextend on it or make scathing critiques. It exists, it's fine, it serves its purpose and to be fair, it's enjoyable.

However, there's too much to remember as far as dodge/parry mechanics go that makes me painfully aware that sometimes I forgot the symbols or the color coding.

All in all, it's an okay game. I simply wish it was more in terms of narration since some of the characters are genuinely interesting and the world created can do so much more with it.

"Cool asf graphics, the story and setting is pretty original! I couldn't really feel for the characters though, the whole game kinda reminded me of how important the main cast is for me to enjoy it. I think, objectively, it's worth high praise for the overall effort they put in the game, but personally it wasn't really my cup of tea." (Context, She is french)

"Fantastic story and a few fantastic characters, namely the Dessendre Family, Esquie, and Monoco, were all wonderfully written, but the other party members felt lacking and felt like they were there to be a love interest for the player should they choose to pick to play Verso (Which I did end up doing). Even near the end when their character arcs felt good, it felt like it was trying to connect itself to the narrative through Lune and Sciel butting in talking about their grief, which is FINE if it weren't for them feeling one note. The entire Dessendre families grief is very compelling but and I understand the need to destroy the painting as the mother and Alicia couldn't be trusted around it, but would it not be possible to just seal off the painting in a way they wouldn''t be able to access it, for example encased in concrete, buried with Verso? Learning about french customs or recognizing some through my partner who I played this with was fun and engaging on a story building level. The gameplay I had problems with, since parts of it felt tacked on or rushed and other parts of it felt redundant, I see no point in there being a difference between dodging and perfect dodging when the option to parry, which is a perfect dodge with more benefits is in the game. I don't think the tradeoff of maybe having more time to dodge is worth it at all, and while the jumping felt incorporated nicely near the end it wasn't at an interesting mechanic initially. The Rune System and building however was excellent and I really liked how well certain runes meshed together with different play styles. I also believe that the hype I was given prior to me playing this game made me expect more, which is on no fault of the game but did sour my experience when I've seen other games do what Clair Obscur 33 do but better. Though I do believe it is a great game, I refuse to accept it as the best JRPG of all time as many have claimed it to be. It is however a fun romp that might drag on a bit depending on what kind of player you are. 7/10" (Context, He is not French; most side content was completed besides two optional bosses, those of which the difficulty spikes in)

It's a rollercoaster. It defies all expectations. It brings you along on a journey for survival where everything starts enigmatic. The Paintress is the ultimate cosmic horror entity, defying comprehension, and it's exhilarating the idea that the expedition is getting closer and closer to understanding what is going on. Mysteries unravel, the world becomes familiar whilst also maintaining a fantastical quality. The story is top tier and utterly destructive at the end. Everything winds up in a final philosophical question. There's no clarity on good or evil just obscurification of a grand problem once thought to be incomprehensible and now reduced down to the paths that grief can travel. Shortly put, it's a masterpiece. A perfect blend of pain, humor, love, and narratives on life itself.

The JRPG combat style with quick-time elements makes the combat utterly addictive. I didn't want to stop. I kept fighting enemies as much as I could because the thrill of battle was the best. Parrying never stopped being satisfying. The animations for the attacks were so beautifully done.

Not to mention the overall graphical design of this game was realism at its best in modern gaming. Every world is so meticulously done and the most ethereal and epic music you've heard graces your ears at every turn.

I have very little to criticize apart from the empty feeling that accompanied many parts of the maps and the lack of interesting finds whilst exploring. It was also quite easy to get lost in certain parts. What's good is that there's relatively little backtracking.

Anyways, it's the pinnacle of RPGs. #StanVerso

What a debut by Sandfall Interactive, well-deserved GOTY winner in a year with other strong contenders (Ghost of Yōtei, Silk Song, DS2).

As a fan of turn-based combat, I really like the mechanics of Expedition 33. It's fun to experiment with different character builds and optimize your whole party, though it is a bit unfortunate that some characters are clearly more valuable than others, and you'll probably eventually end up settling for the Verso/Monoco/Maelle combo. I've seen some people complain about the lack of maps inside the levels, but I personally found that it adds to the atmosphere of an expedition.

Presentation-wise, I found the experience top-notch: the dark-fantasy Belle Epoche settings were beautiful, the monster design was original, and the soundtrack REALLY added to the atmosphere for me.

The story was pretty good overall, though I found things started to drag after the end of Act 2. Clearly, the game expects you to grind at this point for a bit until you tackle Act 3, at least if you haven't done many side quests until now, and I could have done without that. For now, I'm just happy to have finished the main story. I need a bit of break from this world until I get into the postgame.

It's refreshing to see none AAA games be crafted with both passion and high quality fidelity. Raising the standard of what a game should be. We got this with Baldur's Gate 3 (which again is technically indy but also highly produced) now redefining an otherwise stale genre. Showing that, if done competently, there is still a big crowd for this more old school and passionate approach to game design. Clair Obscur combines the old school with the new school while not shying away from either. It's got a mature plot that doesn't treat you like a dummy or over explain itself. It's got a cast of complex characters, that when you learn more about the world, their characterization makes more and more sense. The game presents questions subtly, but again doesn't highlight these questions in contrived ways. One of my more favorite examples of this is with Verso.

I found myself questioning his motives and feeling uncertain about him, and right at this time another character calls him out for the exact reasons I was thinking. This shows a combination of intent and awareness that is sadly pretty rare in highly produced media. You certainly wouldn't see this in a blockbuster film or AAA game. And that's refreshing. Having competent writers that know when to keep something a mystery and when the right moment is to explain more. Some of these explanations are even optional. As part of a side quest you can choose to skip. While this type of high quality optional side content isn't novel, all FromSoft games feature high fidelity optional content that often feels like a critical path, it's not common.

The game has a great sense of pacing. Where the critical path is always clear and the pacing is high octane wherein you can honestly barrel down the critical path making this a fairly short RPG. I ended up spending close to 70 hours, because I really loved the world, exploration and combat loop that I wanted to upturn every stone. The game paces exploration well, where you regularly get new traversal options, which organically open up new optional places to explore. The game slowly opens up until the end when you gain full access to the world and a huge host of optional content. Yet you can ignore that and b-line it to the end. I love this design. Allowing you to put in as much as you want into the game. While I can empathize with devs wanting to shoehorn in content that costed millions of dollars and months of work, I always respect when a game respects my time. But also doesn't hold my hand and allow me to have the experience I want. Fortunately for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (mouthful title aside) I was eager and enjoying what it had to offer. I ended up doing all the optional side quests and even beat all the super bosses (which are honestly pretty ludicrous in terms of difficulty but are 100% optional).

What Clair Obscur is about boils down to classic RPG exploration, narrative and combat. After recently playing through a classic turn based RPG (Skies of Arcadia) the improvements that the Sandfall has made to the turn based RPG are salient. One issue I had with Skies of Arcadia was honestly the pacing. Combat and movement were so slow... you couldn't skip combat animations and some would last well over 30 seconds, making all combat kind of a slog. Even if I liked the aerial ship combat, it was still as slow as molasses. In contrast, everything in Clair Obscur moves at a breakneck pace. You traverse the world fast. Sprinting and using a grappling hook to barrel forward. Combat animations are fast, where I could wrap up a combat encounter sometimes in under 30 seconds. They also side stepped the issue of random encounters by including enemy avatars on the world map. While this feature isn't novel, it's in my mind the best way to handle these type of RPGs. I've never heard or met someone who likes random encounters because it always affects the pacing of the game in a negative way. Enemies also only respawn when you rest at this games version of a bonfire. Where you're healing items will also replenish. I do really like this system. In most Final Fantasy games, I would always cling onto consumables until the bitter end, but by having limited, but replenishing at check points, healing items I found myself using them regularly.

I also like the simplicity of the types of items you find. You basically only find resources, weapons or cosmetics. Which keeps your inventory from feeling bloated. You can find duplicate weapons, but when you do, you keep the higher level version. You can also find items that act as shards like you would use in a Souls game to upgrade weapons.

A big mechanic and system of the game are the Pictos and Luminas. This feels similar to FF IX (one of my favorite Final Fantasies). Where you equip a picto and after 4 successful battles you learn it as a lumina. Lumina are a limited resource where you can equip additional learned Pictos for various passive buffs. This is the core of building characters. It does feel like a mix of FF IX and Paper Mario's badge system. It's functional, but the cumbersome and hard to navigate menu make it feel messy. Not to mention the sheer volume of pictos/luminas that you will have access to by the end game. I ended up spending a lot of time in menus toggling on and off various pictos to make an optimal build. I think the general concept of Pictos/Luminas is cool but I don't think it was implemented well. I honestly don't like how you gain more lumina points. You get these items that increase a given characters lumina by one point. They also passively gain one lumina per level. The issue here is how these usable items are limited and the sheer amount of lumina a character can have is pretty ridiculous. It's nice to be able to customize so richly, but it also forced me to focus on a handful of characters, which made my backup team feel weak... and so I just didn't use them. I think these limited use lumina should have impacted the full team so no one fell behind. Non-party members already gain passive XP when not used in combat, so it's weird to still have this limitation. Luminas make a big difference in the strength of a character.

So I do feel kinda mixed on the pictos/lumina system. It's not bad, but certainly lacks polish compared to the rest of the game.

Combat itself is great and will probably make or break your enjoyment of the game since it is a primary focus. It's turned based, yet requires you to react to quick time events. You need to parry and dodge in real time, like Sekiro, to be the most successful. You can beat the game's critical path without defending if you grind enough, but the Super bosses and decent amount of optional bosses are impossible without mastering parrying and dodging. These super bosses, Simon in particular, are pretty ridiculous. I spent hours trying to master their attack patterns, because you need to play nearly perfectly. It was satisfying to beat these guys, but it was a hefty time investment (that was fully optional to be clear) that does also require grinding or at least tackling other side content. I never grinded once, but by the time I finished the game, the final boss was joke from how over leveled I was from doing all the side content. This isn't a criticism, but I will say it's probably best to focus on the main story before doing any side content. If you want to maximize the enjoyment of the game.

Aside from the turn based quick time event reactions, all characters also play very uniquely. You can load the same luminas on all characters, but their moves and gimmicks will still be unique. I like this design decision. Making each character feel unique. And it is fun coming up with broken builds and combos. Most enemies I could beat within the first action of combat by the end of the game. Verso's follow-up attack in particular was stupid broken. I ended up one shotting some of the harder optional bosses with it. Well I guess it's not technically a one shot since I need to shoot 10 times first.

Aside from being fast and you mostly being able to choose when you get into combat, the game has great writing too. The world is fascinating and they have a good explanation for everything by the time the credits roll. It's a satisfying journey that covers heavy themes that inform the character motivation and explain why the world is the way it is. The game does have humor, and that mostly works for me. It doesn't do the awful trope of forcing glib one-liners on you. They instead feel organic and like coping mechanisms from the character. Feeling like thoughtful characterization rather than a forced joke to ease the tension. I didn't love Monoco's characterization across the board. he was one the weaker characters who's jokes didn't often land on me. But he did still end up as a main party member. So I didn't find him too grating.

I don't really want to spoil too much of the game so I'll wrap it up here. Clair Obscur is a great game made by people who love video games. It pays a loving homage to the old school while modernizing it to make it feel great to play. Not an easy task. Certainly curious and excited what Sandfall does next!

Now that it has swept the Game Awards, it hardly feels like I'm adding much to the discourse to throw my two cents in. But here they are: Clair Obscur is a bold, assertive and exceptionally polished game from an "indie" studio with years of AAA experience and a ~$25mil budget. Take from that what you will.

What I wasn't prepared for was just how anime it would be. The stakes are stratospheric; the music is didactic and extra; the drama is melo. And I'm here for aaaaaaaall of it.

There's no question it's the best looking game of the year. Art nouveau and painterly surrealism blend seamlessly together with JRPG creature designs. Locations feel distinct and fun to explore. And everything has this oil paint richness to it, which goes a lot further than a multi-million dollar engine that can generate more leaves or whatever.

As for the writing, it's generally strong, and carried by exceptional performers. There's some contention around the major plot developments late in the game, but that's a good indicator of just how much the writers swung for the fences. It's also great to see a teenage female character who isn't remotely sexualised, and in fact has one of the strongest arcs in the game.

In the late game, some of the battles feel less skill-based and more like endurance tests, like the worst of the Soulsborne bosses. Bashing my head against the same enemy for 10 minutes straight is just not fun. You know which boss I'm talking about.

Adjacency to Soulsbornes goes a lot deeper than a few boss designs - it's woven into the fabric of the game. Just as Lies Of P did (another recent Belle Epoque masterpiece), Clair Obscur proudly displays its influences, weaving them together into an eclectic but cohesive composition.

My game of the year remains Silksong, but nothing has come as close as Clair Obscur. It's very exciting to see it given the recognition it deserves.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

Admittedly, calling Act 1 "Gustave" kinda gave the game away. The moment still hit, but once I'd established I was effectively playing an Attack On Titan game, it was easier to see the writing on the wall.

The Act 2 ending works for me, but the core problem with Act 3 is the shift from propulsive mission-based storytelling to open-world exploration. It takes the wind out of the narrative sails, which makes the huge difficulty spikes like Renoir's Drafts as much a mental boundary to leap as a physical one.

Fuck Simon.

This game is at the same time a pure joy to play and watch and also a profound and touching narrative.

The additions to the mechanics of classic turn-based JRPG keep things always fresh and fun.

The world is beautifully built and matches the theme perfectly.

You genuinely root for the characters as their personalities are unique and their motivations are legitimate and mature.

I won't spoil the narrative here, but it can touch deep within the hearts of people that face similar situations in real life.

While some may not like the grind of an RPG (me included) I feel that this game deserves a 10/10.

The story, the characters, the art, the battles. All well deserving of a 5 star rating.

If you didn't like the twist that's on you. It was hinted from the beginning and you could piece it together by yourself and I loved that.

This experience opens introducing you to loss. It makes sure to give you the chance to love a character it has every intention of taking away in a handful of minutes.

The exposition could've been a text crawl but it chose suffering. This is what we call a theme. Every little corner of this story and world is lovingly crafted tragedy.

Where your typical RPG is made of hopeful teens having an upbeat adventure to save the world these are depressed middle aged adults on a knowing suicide mission.

And this before we even get to the gameplay

The combat asks a lot from you. But it's fair and slow to introduce complexities. For a turn based , you will need to utilize timing and reaction and not in some Mario RPG kind of way, it's crucial to your success because your party members are fragile and they will die easy if they don't dodge and counter and you will not deal enough damage if you do not get precise damage quick time events. At least, in the begining. The strategy of equipment and skills unfolds a tremendous synergy that opens great potential for power and exploitation. This is much of the fun. You are constantly collecting new equips as you are improving your parry timing and learning enemy patterns. Random battles are not a ceaseless parade of grinding but a select number of encounters that are each challenging. Items are not variable collectables but all replenishable on rest, like an estus . This encourages more strategy as you can't use up your items. It all leads to a very satisfying incline.

My only complaints are that one, the enemies all look like identical golems and there is a story reason why they look like this that eventually gets explained but it doesn't take away from what feels like unremarkable design choices to me. And two, the story though well crafted can feel a bit loose at times, events feeling like stumbling through nonsense without significance or reason. It does all come out well in the end but along the way you wonder if there is a plan.

This game is like a drug being mainlined into your bloodstream. It's so well crafted to deliver the experience that gaming is meant to be that you will question if it can be real.

Initially, I had not had much interest in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, as I'm not very fond of the QTEs of JRPGs. However, turn-based and parry-based are my favourite types of combat, so, I thought I should at least try it. Soon, I found myself liking the combat quite a lot, but the thing that drew me in was the mystery of the game's world.

The reveal did not disappoint, although there were times during the second act when I thought it might be a letdown. Now, after rolling the credits, I can say that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is the most original and thought-provoking fantasy game I've ever played, with a great concept, surprising and profound themes, a relatively rare setting, and a lore that, although not scarce, seems to only scratch the surface, leaving a lot to be potentially explored in a franchise. And I surely hope that it will be a franchise. One thing that feels underwhelming is the characterization. From the start, you get cutscenes with heavy emotional impact which will make most people care about the characters, but this is hiding the lack of depth of the characters. Still, not that bad for a high-concept story.

Visually, the game is quite beautiful, but what stands out more is the soundtrack. Trop magnifique.

The only real complaints I have are about some quality-of-life elements, like the lack of loadouts, fast travel on the world map, the lack of map markers and maybe a couple of others I can't think of right now.

Great to see that the game is getting the reception and success it deserves, too. I don't think another game will be able to snatch that GOTY away from it in 2025. Either way, we have a masterpiece here.

Expedition 33 no es solo un videojuego con una enorme sensibilidad artística, personajes carismáticos y un mundo que atrapa desde el primer momento con su belleza y sus misterios; es, además, una experiencia tremendamente adictiva, con mecánicas tan bien diseñadas como divertidas de explorar y explotar.

Más allá de un gran guion, el juego destaca por una forma de contar su historia poco habitual en el medio. Su narrativa no pretende revolucionar el género, pero está ejecutada con tal cuidado, personalidad y corazón que logra posicionarse como una de las propuestas mejor escritas de los últimos años. Cada elemento está trabajado con mimo, creando una experiencia redonda, inmersiva y memorable.

'For those who come after'