GordonJAGReview Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Review

It kind of sucks when you play the game of the year in April. It means that whatever comes out over the next 8 months just won't be able to hold up. And even then, that’s underselling how good this game is. When I first saw the trailer for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, I thought it would be a stylish, flashy JRPG. I did not expect it to become my favorite game of all time, easily dethroning my previous two favorite JRPGs, Persona 5 and Metaphor: ReFantazio. On every level that a video game can be good, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 masterfully excels. Seriously, when I was trying to think of criticisms or things I didn’t like about the game, I couldn’t think of anything. Everything the game did hit so well. The immediate hook, the broader themes, the flashy gameplay, the characters, the story, the audio design, the outstanding music, the graphical quality, the art direction, the progression, the side content, and everything else that will use up too much of this review's character count. Legitimately, it all hit and came together to make a video game experience that I will probably never have again, which is both wonderful and immensely depressing. I guess if I had to think of one thing that I wouldn’t mind seeing adjusted, it would be making the parrying timing on the normal difficulty just a bit more generous. It doesn’t have to be a lot, I promise. You can even punish me for using it. If I land a parry in this hypothetical extended window, the developers can have someone throw an ice cube at my head or something. I’m going to do my best to keep everything in this review spoiler-free, at least compared to what’s been shown in trailers, but I feel like that only goes so far. To get why E33 is great, it's something that has to be played, or at least watched. There are so many wonderful story and character moments throughout the entire game, even with optional side content. This doesn’t have any major plot or character details, but here's a spoiler warning just in case: the game has two endings, and I think both of them are outstanding. The biggest gripe people will have with the game is the turn-based combat. It’s just one of those combat system types that doesn’t mesh well with everyone, even if the combat system is flashy, stylish, and fun. It’s sort of alleviated by having quick time events that enhance your attacks and allow you to dodge/parry attacks, calling back to games like Super Mario RPG or The Legend of Dragoon. Mixing real-time combat with turn-based combat usually doesn’t work that well, but Sandfall managed to strike the perfect balance between them. Neither one feels like it intrudes upon the other, and the difficulty curve for dodging and parrying is nicely ramped up as you get farther along. The parrying is especially enjoyable. It’s frustrating to miss out on a counter because you only managed to parry 8 out of the 9 hits a boss threw at you, but it’s the good kind of frustrating. It’s the kind of frustrating that gets you in the headspace to get things done and not the kind of frustrating that makes you think you had no chance in the fight. The parrying is helped tremendously by audio and visual cues that aren’t too hard to pick up. When I got them down, even a new enemy’s cues were easier to pick up on the fly. In a way, it all comes together to almost feel like a rhythm game. And the actual gameplay of the combat aside, it’s all presented so well when you get into fights. Trying really hard not to spoil stuff, but there’s a boss fight later in the game that is in a very cool area and has significant plot and emotional relevance. A thing happens in the fight, and one of the best boss themes I’ve heard in a game starts to swell, and I legitimately thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen in a video game. It all happened without me having to attack, dodge, or parry, which makes it so much more impressive that it still felt so cool. As much as I like the gameplay, the biggest draw is the setting and story. There’s an extremely powerful and effective prologue that has everyone 33 and older fade out of existence, including Gustave’s ex-girlfriend, Sophie. In my case, I’d followed the game since it was first announced, so I knew that would happen. It may have lessened the emotional blow compared to people who were seeing it for the first time, but it was still an extremely powerful and moving way to show us people who are forced to face an early death they knew was coming. They did an excellent job with Sophie, having her tell Gustave that she’s fine, but right before she fades away, it’s obvious just how terrified she was. See, it’s a miserable story in a good way. The plot is driven by death and grief, focusing on the group that makes up Expedition 33 and how they know what they’re doing is essentially a suicide mission. Despite the party having to deal with all the inevitable death and sorrow around them, they keep moving on and moving forward, determined to make sure they can stop people from dying younger each year. It’s full of hope, resilience, and human emotion. I love it when a game takes something wild and insane (like a gigantic pillar with a number telling you when you’re going to die) and it's able to make it feel human. Yes, there would have likely been panic after the first few waves of death, but people are resilient and adaptable, so I fully believe that people would start facing that kind of situation with a mixture of sadness and hopefulness. This misery is offset by the characters having real, human chats with each other. They don’t usually talk a lot, often using their facial expressions and body language to show how they feel about a situation (a remarkable thing for a video game to pull off), so it means more when they do talk. Conversations aren’t going over things everyone in that world already knows, meaning it’s up to the player to fill in the gaps. These moments show characters who, when faced with an impossible task and sure death, are still able to push forward and move on. And it isn’t just Expedition 33 that gets that treatment. There are numerous journals found around the world that detail what other Expeditions and characters went through over the years as their world was ripped apart. These are all little stories that do so much to add to the game’s worldbuilding and give us more insight as to how other characters felt about what was going on in the world. Maybe some weren’t able to process the death around them, maybe some succumbed to grief entirely, and maybe some were able to move past it faster and easier than others. They’re all a bunch of little stories that add up to reinforce the overarching narrative and the game’s themes. When all that gets explored through a genuinely beautiful world filled with amazing scenery, guided by top-notch art direction, it elevates the experience. Every area you visit is different and unique, even if the area isn’t fully playable. Seeing each area makes me wonder what happened to it that made it end up in such a state. I’ve been critical of games for having excellent graphical fidelity while ignoring true art direction to make their game stand out from the crowd. Shiny graphics are nice, but you need genuine creativity backing those shiny graphics to make them memorable. E33 manages to have both. Not only does it have both, but it maximizes both of those visual elements to make the most visually stunning game I’ve played. Genuinely, this is the closest to perfection in a video game I’ve come across. There is nothing in it that I can say I dislike or feel even slightly bothered by. It almost feels like E33 was specifically created with everything I personally want out of a game in mind. I almost feel bad for whichever game I play next. There’s absolutely no chance it’ll be able to hold a candle to E33.