The following review for Clair Obscur Expedition 33, is a guest review by a dear friend of completexbox, JP from Gabbing About. At Complete Xbox, we always welcome your views, and we love to share and promote them within the wider gaming community.
Where to begin?
Let me preface this review by stating that there will be zero, or as close as, story spoilers after the prologue. It would be incredibly unfair of myself to spoil anything for any of you. It would be cruel to the developers of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 to have their work ruined… and, without a doubt, it would be a version of daylight robbery to snatch away the experiences this game offers.
Now, with all that being said. If you would like a TLDR;
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, is a game that cannot be reviewed easily. It’s a generational experience, kin to ones such as Lost Odyssey, BioShock, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, the first time you saw a film in IMAX, when you read your first comic book, and for me… when I fell in love with Lost.
Sure, there are some pillars we must look at and acknowledge. Music, graphics, performance, etc Yet, I don’t envision any rough edges on them will stop anyone from saying “The best time to play Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was yesterday, the next best time is now.”
Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.
Combat.
I am leading with the combat first, as if turn-based games are a huge turn-off for you, then it’s better to get it out of the way now.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, is a turn-based RPG with reactive battle components. If you haven’t watched any videos, seen any gameplay, or if this is the first you’re hearing about it… imagine Final Fantasy VIII mixed with reactive button presses from games such as Sekiro, Lords of the Fallen, and PaRappa the Rapper.
Depending on what difficulty level you play on, essentially easy, normal, hard, you like pain. Easy will provide very large windows to counterattack or evade mechanics, as well as providing a dampener on the damage you receive from enemies you face during the game. Each tier of difficulty reduces said window by a margin, resulting in less of a “this is unfair” statement when you fail, and more of a “I have to get good!”
You can adjust some difficulty mechanics independently to the core tiers; with the one core one being auto completion of a short QTE (quick time event) window to provide additional damage to attacks. For those Final Fantasy VIII fans out there, think Squall’s Gunblade critical attack via R1 just before an attack lands in combat.
Combat is wonderfully smooth in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, every frame of animation, every vivid colour, distinct sound, and controller feedback from attacks contribute towards the whole experience. You can boil combat down to some essentials, such as primers and detonators, if you wish to do so, but I feel that is an oversimplification to this finely crafted combat system.
You can, like a lot of games, break the system via out levelling content or combining certain weapons with certain Pictos. Pictos are the Materia of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, with each one providing both passive stat buffs and altering something within combat itself. For example: You may find a Pictos automatically casts Shell (an ability that reduces incoming damage by X%) at the start of combat, and also passively increases defence and critical strike rate by a set margin.
Pictos can be a game within themselves, if you choose to have that level of depth on your characters. After every four battle wins, you will have completed the Pictos, thus allowing you to equip it on any character via the Lumina screen. You can have as many Pictos equipped as you have Luminia points, which can be increase quite steadily throughout the game via drops, to create some amazing builds.
Wait, this sounds overpowered? Well, Sandfall Entertainment, the brilliant minds behind Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 thought about this. The passive stat buffs do not apply when equipped via the Lumina window, so you can’t risk going ALL defence and taking close to zero damage. You can, however, create focus builds if you wish – ones that focus on generating AP on taking damage, as an example.
Keep your eye out for the ones that only work when that character is the only active one in combat!
Combat, overall, in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is incredibly satisfying to pull-off. You can just use basic attacks if you wish on trivial combatants, but I’d not recommend it, as you’ll get more experience points for finishing an encounter with no damage taken. You’ll also be able to practice and hone your parry, dodge and evasion skills!
Overworld gameplay
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a mix of both third-person exploration and navigation within smaller maps – such as coves, caverns, cities and the like – and diorama-style camera angles of the overworld map, where locations and enemies can be seen for miles to come.
Combat is almost always engaged by you walking into an enemy on the map, and you can trigger a ‘first strike’ advantage on most of these encounters as well.
Most areas have secrets that can yield rewards from currency to Pictos, weapons to secret enemy encounters, and more! It pays to explore in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and also to revisit some locations as you gain new abilities.
Music.
Do yourself a favour, grab a pair of headphones to play this game with. Not only will it heighten your experience with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, your ears will thank you later for majestic sounds you’ve fed to them exclusively without the next-door neighbour’s dog barking, the mid-life gent fixing his motorbike, or the chattering aunties outside talking about number 24 bleeding in!
Lorien Testard is the composer of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and what a masterful job they have done in creating this haunting masterpiece. From instrumental melodies to impactful character tunes, I encourage you all to go take a listen to it on your favour music streaming app. There are plans for it to be released on vinyl… if this is all 154 tracks? Oh, boy. Colour me giddy!
A long with the music, there are some very key moments with the absence of music is just as powerful. The game is not afraid to mix things up at all.
Performance
I tackled Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, on both Windows and Xbox Series X, thanks to this review key being provided by ID@Xbox. As you would like to expect, the Series X version looks and runs great. Offering both performance and quality options, I’ll leave it to the giants at Digital Foundry to give you the breakdown. I will say that there is some slight hitching when entering new areas, yet it does not occur during combat or terrain traversal in the open world.
My biggest complaint is that the lip-syncing just feels… off. I am unsure if this is because the game was recorded French first? The voice overs weren’t completed until late in the development process? Whatever the case, it can be a little jarring at times.
The PC version outshines the Series X version, but this is a case of adding more chocolate sprinkles to your cake, rather than adding additional flavours or layers. Hitching is still present, but fan patches out there can reduce this almost entirely.
Why we’re all here
Before we touch on the narrative at all, and it will only be touches, I must forewarn you that the story is very, very impactful in places. With scenes that some people may find hard to watch. If you ever feel you need to harm yourself, then please reach out to a friend or family member. You. Are. Not. Alone.
Two of my notes for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, standout to me, even now “The Gommage scene… fuck!” and the seconds I can not even type, unless I risk inviting the wrath of my future self.
The world 60+ years ago was struck by the cataclysmic arrival of The Paintress, bringing about the first Gommage. Now, if like me, you didn’t know what Gommage meant… it’s a form of exfoliation. The removal of dead skin cells. The French certainly have some wonderfully beautiful words, don’t they.
Now, this Gommage happens once every 12 months. And the denizens of this world have come to accept it, accept that their time is counting down at a predictable rate – shown by the Paintress literally erasing and painting their age on a huge monolith. Some people form governments, open businesses, teach children. Other people train to stop the Paintress. They train to, essentially, die and create one additional footstep closer to the Paintress herself, and ensure that tomorrow comes.
You are part of Expedition 33; a crew of individuals that believe they have a real chance this time! They have a new piece of technology that they believe can truly help with the ending of this nightmare.
After the prologue, which does a masterful job of opening up the world to players; from map traversal, showcasing dialogue options, character introductions and motivations. Plus, some nice combat encounters sprinkled throughout. You are then faced with the overall realism of your fate, of the fate of those before you, and the fate you wish to stop for those who come after you…
I have mentioned the music by Lorien Testard, but I have not yet mentioned the top-tier voice delivery of people such as Charlie Cox (of Daredevil), Ben Starr (of the blinded by light meme at the game awards, oh and Final Fantasy XVI), Andy Serkis (my precious Vibranium), Jennifer English (Baldur’s Gate III!), and many, many more. Though, I’d like to give a shoutout to Maxence Cazorla for their heartwarming portrayal of Esquie.
Every single vocal and mocap performance in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 draws you in to the world of Lumière and the surrounding mainland. Be it from your characters interactions with one another, to the cheeky, almost Jawa/Ewok like Gestral race. Speaking of… we don’t speak about Gestral fight club.
Jeez, this is hard to pen without wanting to give specific examples! How about a few of my notes, instead?
“NOCO!!”
“Double Dyad?!”
“The charm of characters when they’re confused”
“Nicholas and his instant creation”
“Oh, well I guess I was wrong about *redacted* then”
“Onions in here?”
Summary
Here is what I sent to my editor after 4 days of playing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
“I think my review will simply be:
This game can’t be reviewed in a traditional sense.
Go play it.
Thank me later”
Also, bring tissues.
Perfect score. 5/5. 10/10. GOTY. GOTDecadeSoFar.