Hansha Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Review

I feel like most people here either don't do this game's justice. It's either a 1/5 or a 5/5 stars, and this game is neither. I want to preface this review and give Sandfall Interactive a huge praise for such an achievement with such a small team and reasonably low budget. It's certainly one of the best games of the year and one of the best debut games of a studio ever. Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 is an overall great experience albeit not perfect, with some issues in storytelling, game design and sometimes a bit rough around the edges. The game features an excellent soundtrack that will remain on your head for days - especially the Alicia and Lumiére tracks. The soundtrack is usually piano and string-heavy which makes sense since the game revolves around Belle Epóque aesthetic, though there are couple songs that are electronic based and in my opinion not very fitting - but still sound great. Gameplay-wise it's very JRPG - both the exploration and the combat - with obvious inspirations from Persona and the classic Lost Odyssey - and then with a sprinkle of what I'd call Dark Souls-esque with the parry/dodge system. As an RPG, you build your own characters with a set of skills, attributes and "power blocks" called Pictos and Luminas. The latter, especially, allow you to create a lot of diverse builds which can make new playthroughs pretty fun. Although the game has an overworld exploration system, it's usually very instance based - you enter a portal - and then you get a somewhat linear based level. The game will take you around 20-30 hours to complete the main story, but there is a lot of side content to do and a lot of it can only be done after you finished the main story - you can easily clock out at 60-70 hours. However, for me, this is a game design flaw as I don't feel like completing the side content anymore after beating the story final boss - the game "ended" with it - I'd rather have all the side content available for me at all times and scale the enemies accordingly. In terms of story, Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 starts off strong and continues strong with a lot of mystery and intrigue, with interesting characters and good dialogues. Though for me the game lost itself in the last chapters, raising more questions than answering, reveals a convoluted story that trivializes what had been setup until then and rushes itself to an ending. Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 double-A cracks sometimes do show up with some bugs, poor lipsync and facial animation. Despite all this, Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 is certainly one of the best games of the year and one you should give a try - even if you dont like turn-based RPGs very much.