Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Definitely the most overrated game of the decade, without a question. Unfortunately Steam doesn't have a 'neutral' review, but i definitely wouldn't go solely into the 'recommended' territory with this game. Upon completing the main story and some of the optional content, i can confidently say that the combat is absolute dogsh*t and i was on the verge of falling asleep, wishing the combat encounter would just end as fast as possible, and sometimes just avoiding combat entirely, especially when you have to fight the same 2 enemies 10 times in the row. But the worst part about the combat is most definitely the fact that despite how 'complex' it may seem, it's just the most generic parry slop. All that building your characters, weapons and finding the best pictos combinations does is make the combat last shorter, but it's a completely optional mechanic, you can just skip ALL OF THIS and just parry and you'll be fine. On the other hand, you're absolutely ♥♥♥♥♥♥ if you even dare to miss one parry (especially in act 3), which for someone playing on PC can be QUITE frustrating, considering that more times than not, your parries don't even get registered. Outside of combat, the gameplay 'loop' and exploration is extremely bland, you're just collecting the same 3 or 4 materials, which majority of them you won't even get to use. The story itself was actually very good and enjoyable, but by act 3, it started to fall off hard, and it's nice that you get to decide the fate of the characters at the end. As for the characters, they are all pretty likeable, which helps a lot in a story driven game. There's luckily not too much dialogue, which is common in modern games, and mainly, the dialogue isn't half bad. I also liked the hangout events with the characters, definitely helped in making the characters likeable. Overall, there's not much woke stuff in this game either, except for the very dysgenic NPCs (you will see a LOT of black people when walking around Lumière, which isn't exactly accurate to how France looked like BACK THEN) Probably the best part about the game is the music and visuals. Undeniably, the game is very pretty, and i most definitely agree that the music in this game is top notch. Despite all the positives, i wouldn't recommend this game to anyone solely for the terrible combat. If it was purely a story game without the AWFUL combat, then sure, it would be a much better game. But even then, it is most definitely not worth all the praise it got. And this is absolutely NOT an indie game, so the fact that it won both 'Best Independent Game' and 'Best Debut Indie Game' at TGA is very undeserved and also proves that Geoff Keighley is a sellout hag. If this is considered the best turn based RPG ever, then you all must have lost your mind, absolutely ridicilous that people call this 'one of the best games made EVER' 😭🙏 Definitely wouldn't buy this for full price, even the 18€ i spent feels like a waste. There's so many other better games(even some that came out in 2025), so there's no reason for this game to be glazed THIS hard. I think people forget that gameplay is the main element of videoGAMES.