Topic: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 -OT-

@Kairuuu Good to know! It’s been a phenomenal experience so far! I would like to tackle the optional bosses in the “danger” zones before I wrap up the main story. Do you have any recommendations as to what level you should be for them?

@Kraven I don't quite remember what level I was when I did each one, but the 'danger' warning for an area goes away once you reach certain levels. You could try to tackle one at your current level and if you feel it's too strong you can always come back. I'd strongly recommend you wait until you finish Act II because, without spoiling too much, you get something that will help you significantly. You'll also be able to continue exploring after you finish the main story if you decide to do it that way!

Not every area marked 'danger' necessarily has a boss in it however!

Endgame, optional boss(es) spoilers:

Apologies for the wall of spoilers. It's mostly just me ranting but I don't want to potentially ruin anything for those playing so read at your own peril. The sense of achievement when I beat this clown is going to be off the charts.

I've finally done it. I've beaten Simon. That was absolutely insane but I am overwhelmed with joy right now. I won't sleep tonight.

Just need to get to level 99 and kill the mime in Lumiere in NG+ for the platinum.

Just finished the game after about 50 hours of playtime. Man, there's so much to do in this game, which is great for people who want to spend more time in this world. But after 50 hours, I just felt like wrapping up the story.

I thought the ending was phenomenal. I chose Maelle's ending simply because that's what we've been fighting for all this time. I've read a lot of people's perspectives on Verso's ending but one thing most people seem to forget is that even though the world isn't real per se, the people in it are real and once you create life, it's hard to take it back.

At the end of the day, there is no good or bad ending but whichever one you feel is the right one. Giving the player the choice to pick the ending they want with both positive and negative repercussions was simply brilliant. It makes the choice more personal and more thought-provoking.

Everything about this game is just fantastic. I haven't experienced such a unique game in a long time. For me, this game will define this generation for me. In a sea of iterative experiences, Clair Obscur is such a breathe of fresh air. EVERYONE should go play this game right now!

Been blasting the soundtrack and reminiscing about this game all day. It's so beautiful. I genuinely think this may be one of my favourite games of all time.

I'd definitely love to do a NG+ run on Expert at some point. It would be really cool to play through the game again, with all the information and everything I know about the story, to see what little details I could pick up on that just passed me by the first time.

I am two skills away from obtaining all skills for Monaco, but they are locked away in a high danger area. Therefore, I’m doing a bit of grinding to reach level 80, and then I’ll tackle the more difficult section. It shouldn’t take too long to get to that level since there are a few good XP farming locations.

I’m also trying to make my way through the Endless Tower, and as the name suggests, it feels endless. It’s quite difficult too. All other trophies are obtained, aside from reaching level 99 and killing some optional endgame bosses. Once I reach the max level I’ll probably pursue finishing the game. My plan was to have the game wrapped up 100% by Friday, but I highly doubt that will happen. It will probably take me another full week to do all that I want to do, mainly due to time constraints.

@Bentleyma What do you think it is that has spoiled the enjoyment of the game for you? Initially you were quite excited about it, so is it just a matter of the game getting too boring, or too difficult? Or is it a matter of it being over-hyped and under delivering on expectations?

I’m just asking out of curiosity. Not every game is for every person, and we certainly have plenty of consensus masterpiece games that I didn’t get along with. I’ve yet to play Clair Obscur, by the way, but plan to soon. I’m confident it will be right up my alley, so don’t worry about discouraging me from playing it. Just interested in the dissenting opinion. Perhaps it’s just the timing isn’t right?

Probably a bit late as you've rolled credits but for anyone struggling with parry timing, attacks do have an audio cue. Here's a short vid I found showing it in action.

@Bentleyma Hey, you gave it another shot, and the game isn’t for you. That’s okay, man! Not every game has to click with every person. I totally understand your feelings since the game is quite linear, it seems like you’re going through one story moment to the next. For me, I think that’s what I was needing after the expansive RPGs as of late. All the bloat was cut off and I got an experience tailor made to my tastes, all the while still getting to experience optional stuff, and there’s quite a bit of it too.

A NG+ playthrough on Expert is very tempting. I really want to pay more attention to the dialogue to see what things get mentioned that I completely missed the first time around.

Count me in as another that liked the look of this game but couldn't quite get into it. And it's really down to the parry/dodge system - it really doesn't feel that intuitive to me and tbh just stresses me out more than anything.

Glad others are enjoying it though. Everything else about the game seems great.

The thing about the parry/dodge system is that you can never know when to parry/dodge when encountering an enemy for the first time. You have to encounter them multiple times and learn their patterns. The cool thing is that previous enemies will show up in later areas, so you will encounter them again. There are no apparent audio/visual cues and I think people expect that nowadays as it's been common in many other games.

But there doesn't have to be any cues as you will naturally learn enemies' pattern over time and become better at parrying/dodging. You will even be good at it in general later on, which makes new encounters more doable than when you started out. This is what keeps the gameplay interesting. Parrying/dodging would feel incredibly repetitive and eventually pointless in a game that's 50+ hours long if you always knew when to parry or dodge. To me, it's very clear that the developers put a lot of thought into every aspect of this game.

@LtSarge - Every attack has an audio cue, I linked a video on the previous page that shows exactly what to listen for.

@Shigurui It's not apparent though. I played through the entire game and didn't notice any audio cues.

@LtSarge - Did you watch the video I linked? Once you know the cue you can't unhear it. Its clear as day.

@Shigurui I didn't start noticing the audio cues until I started facing certain enemies but once I began hearing them, I agree, it does become quite clear.

@Kairuuu - It is quite obvious, I noticed it very early on but couldn't pinpoint it so I just adjusted the music audio and never had an issue since. I do play with headphones so maybe that's how I caught it early.

@Shigurui @Kairuuu I just watched the video and yes, you are both correct. It's hard though to figure that out on your own. I remember trying to listen intensely at the start of my playthrough and I just couldn't hear anything, so I stopped trying to listen for a cue. I've watched plenty of other people play the game and none of them has figured out that there's an audio cue.

Not to mention that it can still get quite tricky to nail the timing as there are many other sounds going on as well as the enemies having unpredictable attacks and you can't react fast enough after hearing the audio cue. Which is why memorisation of enemy attack patterns becomes even more important later on in the game.

But yeah, seeing as how there is a clear audio cue, then there's even less of a reason to complain about the parry/dodge system.

@LtSarge - As above, adjusting the music audio helps a lot. Another thing to note is the pitch/tone of the cue sound can differ depending on the enemy. I tend to let them smack me about a bit to find the cue then restart the fight when a new enemy appears.