This review contains no direct spoilers. It's nearly impossible for me to say why I don't like E33's story while being vague, but I'll try.
"I'm not angry, just disappointed." A quote from a character in E33 which happens to describe how I feel about the game.
Giving a negative review to a game that many consider "life-changing" and a "masterpiece" will probably make me seem contrarian for the sake of it. However, given the direction the story went and some of the more atrocious dialogue, I think E33 earned it, which is a shame because I thought for sure I'd love it. If you're thinking about buying it, I'd say be at least a little skeptical of the hype and consider whether or not the dialogue, the game's final act, and the ending all being "bad" could ruin the game for you before you do. If you expect a journey from E33, you'll probably get one, but a journey is remembered less fondly when the destination turns out to be ♥♥♥♥.
Starting with the obvious positives, E33 is extremely cinematic and well-presented, the environments are stunning, and the music is amazing. Given these things, it isn't hard to see why someone would call E33 a genuine masterpiece.
That said, I think this game deserves more criticism than it gets, particularly story/writing-wise. The boss Sirene feels like an unintentional representation of the game itself and how people feel about it (iykyk), and given the praise this game gets, I've had to ask myself whether or not I played the same one as everyone else.
The gameplay of E33 should technically also be a positive since I do like it, but I do have to critique it a bit. Combat has a central focus on parries. This in mind, you'd think parrying would be rewarding, but it really isn't. If you parry all 7 hits of a combo string, what do you get besides AP you can easily get anyway? You get a single counter. And if you miss a single one of your parries, you are denied this small luxury. And because Elden Ring and its consequences have been a complete disaster for the human race, the developers looked at that game and really admired how many obnoxiously delayed attacks were in it and copied some homework. Have fun waiting a full 5 seconds for that one attack to land only for it to come out instantly on the 6th second. So while I like the combat on paper, and most of the time in practice, it does walk a line between being satisfying and being annoying.
The dialogue in this game is usually good/fine, but weighed down by Marvel-esque quips and forced humor. You'll eventually hear characters use modern speech patterns and slang (I ♥♥♥♥ you not one of the characters says "Bromantic" + another moment where someone says "So which one is it?" only for another character to respond "Yes" in that funny internet way) to be "funny" and "lighten the mood." It's like the writers were told "make these characters feel real" and then they decided "characters feeling real" must equal "talks like a modern day person," which definitely doesn't break the tone or take you out of the setting or anything. The multiple palm prints on my face are the result of humorous dialogue, I assure you.
Humor has its place in a dark story and I don't dispute that fact. The problem with E33's "humor" is that it's so desperate to be funny that it constantly breaks the tone of the story and doesn't care that it does. It irked me to the point where I legitimately did begin to care less about the story/characters after one too many forced attempts at a laugh. Some of these moments land and feel like they have a place, but the vast majority don't. Hell, even a few of the expedition journals you can find about people who died are played off as jokes, and when you compare those journals to the intro of the game, you'll probably just narrow your eyes or cringe if anything.
Now for the story, as spoiler-free as possible:
You're introduced to the world with some good hooks, but sadly this game peaks at its intro and goes steadily downhill. Things are fine for a time until act 1's finale, during which some events take place seemingly just for cheap shock value (plus characters acting stupid for the sake of the plot) and fail to justify themselves any other way. Actually, it isn't even that shocking - odds are you'll be able to predict what happens long before it does, so it doesn't justify itself that way either. The events aren't "bad" in the moment, but looking back later in the game, you realize they happened for no reason other than to set the stage for a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ plot twist. In the context of where the game goes, act 1's finale is garbage. It feels like someone said "Hey wouldn't it be cool/funny/random/shocking if we did this at this moment in the game?" and everyone just unanimously decided to throw it in for how quirky of an idea it was.
Act 2's finale is even worse and tries too hard to pull off an M Night Shyamalan twist to the point where it just feels super jarring and random. Think of the dumbest, most random plot twist a story can have and there's decent odds you just guessed THE major plot twist of E33, or close enough to it that I wouldn't be able to say you were wrong. Act 2's finale pulls the rug out from under you so it can say "Ha, gotcha!", then takes the story in a bizarre direction and proceeds to hide behind annoyingly contrived twists. And despite the fact that these events are the storytelling equivalent of upending a set table for fun, you're still expected to care about what happens next and participate in like 60 hours of sidequest hell to provide explanation as to what the ♥♥♥♥ you just witnessed and learn more about things you have no reason (and/or no longer have reason) to care about. Lmao no - I rushed the final boss because I was that out of ♥♥♥♥♥ to give. E33 was so focused on painting a plot twist that it didn't care whether or not what it painted made sense.
The start of act 2 and onwards feels like it was taken from a separate game idea and inserted clumsily into this one, with no regard given to whether or not it'd fit with the rest of the game, and all regard given to how unlikely it'd be for someone to guess the plot twist(s), which is obviously stupid writing that is doomed to sabotage any story and E33 is no exception. Given the previous points, my capacity to care about the rest of the story was already getting low, but I pressed onward hoping I'd see that life-changing masterpiece everyone talked about on the 25th hour or so only to run into act 2's finale and the game's ending(s) and encounter two middle fingers from the story as my reward. I wish my $40 a happy Gommage.
Act 2's finale punishes you for caring, and so do the endings, both of which are bad, but one of which is "moral"/"good" by the game's standards. That ending finishes what act 2's finale starts. To continue my "set table" analogy at risk of spoilers:[spoiler]It lights the upended table on fire because you were too attached to it and it wasn't a "real" table anyway. The other ending is resetting the table but putting mannequins in all the seats.[/spoiler] Both defeat the purpose of having a table. With how often you hear "for those who come after" in act 1, you'd think the story would continue that theme, but nope, it just shreds that in favor of a dumb plot twist that makes it ring hollow. The messages of the final act should flow well with the messages of the first but they're conveyed in the form of such convoluted twists that it feels more like the final act overwrites the first and doesn't pay off the story's hooks in a satisfying manner, destroying all intrigue, and rendering previous stakes and tension pointless.
And that is the most I can say spoiler-free. Everything else about the game is so well-presented, but the story and some of the dialogue are the exact opposite. I guess you could say that's a very "Clair Obscur" contrast.
