Topic: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 -OT-

Been ages since I've seen you here @Ralizah hope you're doing well hon!

Seems like it's going down a treat with you too... I look forward to hearing your thoughts in particular and see whether it continues to live up to the hype.

I however am keeping my distance for a good long while given my seemingly adverse reaction to gaming "Masterpieces"... Maybe in a few years when everyone isn't hyping it up to the heavens

I love the idea of a world map with a ton of optional dungeons, but so far, it's a little disappointing how many of these optional areas amount to... nothing. Just, like, one screen with an item.

@Thrillho Yeah, there's a LOT of depth in this system. I do have some issues with how OP dodging and parrying can be (spent about thirty minutes chipping away at a much higher level enemy I clearly wasn't meant to beat yet just by dodging literally all of his attacks lol), but it's still quite a bit of fun.

@HallowMoonshadow Absolutely, Foxy! Between the job, gaming, reading, family time, boyfriend time... yeah, I've been juggling a lot. But I do want to pop in here more, especially when I'm playing stuff that takes me out of my Nintendo bubble a bit.

Yeah, I've been rather irritated with the way this is being glorified by gamer culture online, which is probably why I avoided playing it for so long. I believe they're updating it with additional quests and stuff at some future date, so waiting makes sense anyway.

You're still traumatized by your experience with NieR: Automata, aren't you? It's okay. There's a lot of 'masterpieces' I've bounced off of as well.

@Ralizah There are some pretty huge optional areas as you progress (you've not really said where you are in the game yet) and by the time of act 3 it's much more open world which I didn't actually like so much; I much preferred the tighter, linear main part of the game.

And I quite liked that you could take down some high level enemies with the right level of patience and commitment. There are some that are very much designed (seemingly) to be beaten because of the dodge and parry mechanics though.

@Thrillho I just got to Act II. So... yeah, just past that part lol

It seems to be following the FFVII progression of ultra-linear to practically open world as your navigation options improve, which I've always thought was smart. I usually prefer doing my own thing to being led around by the nose (my favorite parts in God of War 2018 were the optional dungeons and side areas lol), so I'm looking forward to the increasing emphasis on exploration.

@Ralizah I thought the second act was where the game lost a lot of its steam plot wise. I won't spoil anything for you of course, but if the game gets boring at some point, rush the main story, which is worth it.

So I just finished the game. Completed most of the optional content, too, so I was pretty OP. Killed the final boss in two hits, and that's only because of the new phase in the middle lol

I'll likely do a NG+ run or something at some point so I can clean up the achievements. Probably after the free DLC with additional content releases. But certainly not anytime soon.

I'm still figuring out how I feel about the game, but as for my initial feelings...

Strong themes/characters/music. The existentialistic themes and somber plot and aesthetics reminded me heavily of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (which, being my current all-time favorite RPG, is a plus). Lovely environments, too, and the combat is fun, even if it's unbalanced and IMO needs tweaking in sequels. And the character performances... yeah, there's a reason so many are up for awards this year in this category.

The character writing for your party members is strong throughout. I can see why people really like this cast.

Despite being a Western-developed game, the developers very clearly LOVE Japanese RPGs and capture a lot of the same charm in this title

The plot is... disappointing, though. I won't go into detail, but I was VERY underwhelmed once you find out what's actually happening in the game. It doesn't take away from how good the character writing can be, but the game spends a lot of time foreshadowing eventual revelations that were far less interesting than I hoped they would be.

I'm not really a fan of how many of the boss fights have no real build-up or significance to them. Probably 70%+ of them are just some random enemy that looks like it came out of a From Software title jumping your party in a cutscene.

The dodging/parrying system takes over the game. To the point where character builds don't generally matter nearly as much as muscle memory when it comes to mastering fights in this game. As I mentioned above, I do think the system is a lot of fun mechanically, but it needs to be dramatically rebalanced so that the turn-based and more active elements balance each-other out. Pictos (the 'badge'-style add-ons that you use to learn new skills, which usually have dramatic stat buffs attached) need to be rebalanced as well, since they can also dramatically overshadow character builds.

Also hate when games make it where doing the optional content before the final boss (of which there's quite a bit) trivializes that final story area.

There's a lot to love in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. It's easily the best Western-developed JRPG-style game I've ever played. It's clearly a labor of immense love on the part of the developers, and I'm very excited to see how their next game turns out. I've seen so many adult JRPG fans talk about their yearning for a game that captures the essence of those titles while still delivering a more mature and 'adult' experience, and that's exactly what developer Sandfall Interactive delivered with Expedition 33. So I understand the love.

Expedition 33 is a solid 8/10 and a very good debut game for the studio, but it's not my GOTY, and I have the sneaking suspicion that it's enjoying as much attention as it is at least partially because the more Western-friendly aesthetics and mechanics of this game have drawn in an audience of gamers who usually pass on more traditionally Japanese fare. Thus a lot of the rhetoric in gaming spaces about how this has 'elevated' or 'revived' turn-based combat when fantastic turn-based JRPGs released literally every year.

It is a bit daft. I've said it a few times on here but I wish it had been designed to keep to a tight story line and then open up the world in the end game as I thought Act 3 lost a lot of direction but I get why it doesn't do that from a story point of view.