Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Good!!!!!!!!!!!

One of the best games I have ever played. Everything and every aspect of it is absolute perfection. It's a wonderful piece of media, and a work of art nonetheless.

This is genuinely one of the most incredible game of all time. We typically do not think of video games as art, especially with today's prevalence of always online live service games, this game is art, in every meaning of the word, and it is a masterpiece, a magnum opus. They painted, not with paint, and paintbrushes, but keyboards, and mice and the result is the best game that I have ever played. It was one of the most heart wrenching experiences I have ever had, and I am sad I cannot have the experience again. It's clear that this was made with love, care, and passion by every single person that touched it. The sound track is entrancing, the gameplay is excellent in ways that I don't have the words quite to describe, storytelling that always manages to answer your last question give you two more, the fact that one of the last achievements in the story still has ~40% completion is wild, characters you instantly fall in love with, all in a visual environment that is breathtakingly beautiful. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a masterpiece, and you need to play it. It's definitely a weeeee, not a whooooooo.

absolute french, i love this game

9/10. -1 point cuz French

Simply amazing

well deserved goty <3

The hype this game gets is all 100% warranted. "Clair Obscur: Expedition 33" is really that good. I would recommend this game to basically anyone who is willing to play a turn-based (JRPG-like? It's technically french so it can't be a JRPG by definition...), and especially to those who like RPGs. Every part of this game is great, from the story, to the gameplay, to the aesthetics of the game. It isn't flawless, but all its flaws pale in comparison to how much good there is in the game. The main gameplay of this game is a turn-based RPG. Every character plays differently from each other and can all be built many different ways to fulfill different roles. I really enjoyed how each character's gameplay style added variety to combat and building characters, and I honestly hope more RPGs in the future differentiate their characters as much as Expedition 33 does. The other main system of the combat is the active defense systems, where the player can defend against attacks by timing the correct defensive option at the right time. In particular, if the player successfully parries all hits of an attack, it allows the party to make a powerful counterattack. This system reminded me a good beat of the Mario and Luigi RPG games. I believe the game is designed to be fully beatable (at least on normal difficulty) without being particularly good at defense, so please don't be put off by the action elements if you're concerned about them. That being said, the hardest optional parts of the game do require being good at defense, so that is a consideration. While the defensive mechanics are strong, I do think that the game requires you to be very strong on the offense as well to complete its harder challenges, especially as your offensive damage starts to outpace defensive counterattacks, so I think the game somewhat dodges being too reliant on parrying. The only part of the combat I dislike is the elemental affinity (resistance, weakness, etc.) system, as it feels kind of at odds with the rest of the combat design and mostly just feels negatively restrictive, though fortunately it's not that impactful on the combat of the game. Obviously I can't get into too much of the story, but it must be said that this game has one of the best stories of a game I've ever played (and of other media too). The atmosphere of the story is immaculate, the character writing is top notch (this game has some of the best written characters I've seen), and the themes of the story are powerful. I want to give a particular shout-out to the dialogue writing in the game, which feels so natural, well motivated, and well paced. The motion-capture actors and voice-actors do absolutely stunning work in this game and they make the characters really come to life. Aesthetically this game is beautiful. The world of Expedition 33 is vibrant and full of color. The locations are all very diverse and unique, as well as feature many different interesting landmarks and terrain. The soundtrack of this game is absolutely stunning, from the more atmospheric/ambient exploration and overworld themes, to the dramatic and cinematic music used for story beats, to the bombastic and epic battle themes. This game has one of my favorite soundtracks of all time while also being one of the best looking games I've ever played. My only main criticism of the game is its refusal to tell you things sometimes. While the level design is good enough that it reasonably functions without it, I would have appreciated some sort of marker or map to help navigate the environments, as it can get a little frustrating getting lost. Finding side locations can also be kind of difficult for the same reason; the game sometimes struggles to point you towards locations you'd like to visit. The game also doesn't have any real way of telling you which locations you haven't explored yet or when you should try to explore them. There are many locations which you will simply be too weak for when you first reach them, but remembering to revisit all of them can be difficult as you continue, causing you to miss stuff. Figuring out when exactly you are at the right power level for a previous location can be particularly frustrating, as there's no way to check without having to go all the way back and check for yourself. It's especially draining backtracking all that way just to learn that it's still too hard to you. I definitely would've appreciated a more detailed map. Overall, Expedition 33 is truly one of the best games I have played and is definitely a must play for basically everyone. If you're just a little bit interested in playing or at least willing to try thigs game, please give the game a shot, it will easily be worth your time.

Fantastic game that hits on every aspect. Great combat, amazing music and designs, engaging story all the way through, plenty of interesting end-game content to keep you busy if you so desire. Well deserving of all the GOTY awards it won last year.

Fun game. Even though it's turn based, still very engaging with dodges and parries.