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Opinion - Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

I will say out front that I didn't finish Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (I stopped playing mid act 3). I didn't like it as much as I'd wanted to. However, I do think it is objectively a good game. A game of the year contender, in my opinion.

It's just… not my cup of tea.

My woes with the game started pretty early on in the shape of the accessibility of the combat system and the exploration.

The combat system is refreshing, a nice addition to the turn based genre. I loved how unique each character's fighting style is. I loved exploring the different team compositions. There's good variety there, and none of the characters felt like a waste.

The combat itself is, however, not very accessible for the less experienced/skilled players. The game relies heavily on the parry/dodge system, and while you can — mostly — work around it with a good strategy and/or some grinding. Some battles force you to parry. Most of those battles are optional, at least one of them is not.

I'm not new to parrying/dodging, but I'm not good at it. I found the timing for dodging okay in the normal difficulty (expeditioners), parrying on the other hand was hit or miss for me. This didn't become an issue until the second act, where I encountered those fights that REQUIRE you to parry. I struggled with those, and found them annoying.

Having a retry button would've made a world of difference…

Expedition 33 has autosave only. No manual saving. No retry button. A lot of dying by trial as you learn to dodge/parry any specific foe. I was stuck in a cycle of dying to an enemy, having to walk back to them, sometimes skip cutscenes, only to die again and go through this process all over again. The wasted time and repetition in-between deaths. Drove. Me. Crazy.

I eventually gave up and switched to easy difficulty (story). The timing for parrying/dodging became easier. It made fighting the particularly annoying mobs/bosses less stressful, but some of my enjoyment towards the combat system was lost in the process.

There's a lot I love about it; there are some things I'm neutral about; and then there's the lack of a “Retry” button. I honestly think it's inexcusable in this day and age.

Just as bad as that, is the lack of a mini map. The overworld has a map, the confined areas do not. I spent a lot of time lost or retracing my steps. Especially after coming back from a break.

It wasn't fun. It was frustrating. It made exploration a lot less welcoming, which is a shame because the design and art direction of this game is BEAUTIFUL. There's a lot to explore, but you need a good sense of direction and patience to fully enjoy it.

As the game progressed, ignoring the things above became harder, but for 2/3rds of the game the story managed to carry me through those annoyances.

Until it couldn't…

You could start seeing the cracks in the writing appear as early as act 1, but it was in act 2 when they became impossible to ignore.

I already had a pretty accurate idea of what was going on halfway through act 2. The game is designed so the player can piece things together from the information given. And yet the game is also designed so that the characters themselves remain oblivious until the very end. Whenever something suspicious happened they were quick to sweep it under the rug and move onto the next objective…

At times the characters felt very complex, but at times they felt like marionettes to the plot.

I know from act 3 and the ending (which I eventually spoiled for myself), that this might be an intentional flaw in the characters. [spoiler] It's a way to question the painted people's humanity. How much of them is real and how much of it is the will of the painters. [spoiler] But the game is quite wishy-washy about it, and didn't gain my suspension of disbelief, at all.

The final blow to my enthusiasm came in Act 3.

The game's overarching theme is how to deal with grief, and it pulls the rug from under the players many times to make them experience grief alongside the characters. I think the devs achieved their vision successfully in that regard. But the way this is executed is sometimes… questionable.

You spend most of your time learning about characters and things that become — more or less — irrelevant after act 2. I think the game wants you to let them go as part of your own “grieving process”. And while that idea is thought provoking and even poetic. In practice it made ME feel like 2/3rds of the game were pointless and it became hard for me to care about the final resolution. It didn't help that I didn't find the characters and the story of act 3 very likeable. Particularly not when compared to the characters the game was asking me to give up.

And that's how I end up here. Unable to finish the game because the lack of certain quality of life features make the gameplay frustrating, and the story no longer grips me in a way that makes up for the annoying parts of it.

I do think this is a must try for anyone that likes deep mature storytelling and turn based RPGs. You might be better at parrying and navigating than I am, and not be as frustrated by the gameplay. Acts 3 might click better with you. Honestly, even the music and art alone is a good reason to check this game out.

The game is good, even if I didn't enjoy it as much as I hoped I would.

Who knows, maybe they'll eventually add a retry button and a mini-map. I would definitely give it a second try if they ever do. For now, I'm happy to stop where I am and play something else.