Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

 Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is one heck of a game.

I played this on PC.

I'm not sure where to start with this game. I suppose I should run through what it is, since not everyone seems super aware. Essentially, it's a turn-based RPG (maybe even a JRPG, though that's a distinction I don't think is worth getting into) with active mechanics to complement that turn-based nature. If you've played Paper Mario or the Mario and Luigi games you might know what I mean. Essentially, after selecting a move, you'll often have to complete a quicktime event to adequately achieve that move and, more importantly, you are tasked with dodging or parrying incoming enemy attacks as they come at you. While that may seem like a minor facet from the outside, learning parry timings and getting used to the flow of combat is vital if you want to have any success in this game, especially if you have any interest in the side content.

The other part of that, though, is the RPG. With any RPG, there's generally a balance between playing a role in a story and the sort of leveling mechanics and progression you'd expect from the genre, and this game is no stranger to either. There's some amount of role-playing to be done, largely in the form of dialogue choices with the supporting cast, but most of this is pretty superfluous. You do have a great deal of control over how your characters appear, however. Many of the collectibles in this game are cosmetic in nature, with both hairstyles and outfits being incredibly abundant, and tweaking characters' appearances in games is something I always enjoy so I made a point to get as many of these as I could find.

Some of the outfits and hairstyles get pretty silly.

As for the other half of the RPG, you have an immense amount of control when it comes to how you develop your character. It takes a bit of time to build, but once you have a decent amount of equipment there are some truly wild things you can do. A lot of this comes down to the Lumina/Pictos systems; essentially, there are perks that you can equip and, after a set number of battles with those perks active, they enter into a pool that all of your characters can tap into. 

For just one example, there's a Pictos that kills you as soon as a battle starts. That might not seem super useful at first glance, but when you combine it with one that buffs your party when a character dies, it suddenly makes sense. It got to the point where I would enter into a battle, watch one of my characters die, deal some explosive damage when they died, see the rest of my party get buffed because she died, watch the enemies get debuffed because she died, and then I'd watch that character revive because of another perk I'd stacked onto her. The way that all of the systems interact in this game is maybe hard to explain, but if you dig into it there's so much depth to be found.

Just look at all those perks activating.

As far as the story it's, well, very good. The plot in this game takes a lot of twists and turns, but at its core it's a really strong, straightforward fantasy with likeable characters and exciting events and stakes. It's also surprisingly funny at times. There's a levity to the world that doesn't feel out of place, despite the horrors these characters might occasionally encounter. Characters like Esquie, a giant, lovable stuffed animal of a creature, or the goofy goblin-esque Gestrals keep the world from ever feeling overwhelmingly sad. 

This scene was an early highlight.

And this world is often a sad one. I doubt I'm the only person you'll hear say this, but Clair Obscur is a game that deals heavily with grief. When I say that though, I don't just mean in the obvious sense. Sure, there are tragic events and the setting is a grim, largely hopeless one so some of this was to be expected, but what surprised me was that the whole breadth of the grieving process is dealt with. Characters who have accepted their mortality, others who are desperately fighting to survive, people angry with their situation, some who have given up and entered into a deep depression; there's a lot going on and all of it is handled surprisingly well.

I deeply enjoyed this game. I'll admit that I wasn't incredibly interested in it prior to its release, but the critical reception, along with a glowing recommendation from a friend who, in his own words, "detests both French people and turn based games in equal measure," made me know I needed to give it a shot, and I am so very glad I did. There's a very high chance this'll be at, or at least near, the top of my end-of-year best-of list, and I highly recommend this game. There is so much going for it and I could gush about it for way longer, but I don't want to waste any more of your time.