Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Intro

Recently finished up with classes and found out my brother had an Xbox Game Pass subscription. Lo and behold, this game was recently released and was available via the game pass, so I decided to play it. And having completed the game, I’d have to agree with the 9/10 rating on both Steam and IGN. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 made me regain hope for triple-A game development as a segment of the game industry with the potential to create “good games.”

The game as a concept isn’t necessarily novel. Especially the whole discussion of how “novel” the interactive turn-based combat system is, when Paper Mario did that on the N64. Nevertheless, no game development company has taken that turn-based combat system and put it in Unreal Engine. The developers saw this gap in the market for “a high-fidelity graphics turn-based RPG” and decided to craft the masterpiece that is Clair Obscur: Expedition 331.

Dodge & Parry

The combat system + the graphics make the entire game. The reason why an interactive turn-based system does so well is that it creates immersion. It rewards and encourages the player not to go on autopilot by adding an incentive to participate in each encounter2. In contrast, with non-interactive turn-based games, it easily gets boring after you finish a build, and you mindlessly do the same rotation every battle.

Another point of praise is how “smooth” and good it feels to execute dodges and parries.

  1. The visual effects after hitting a parry are accentuated to create that visceral weight (similar to impact frames in animation).
  2. How reactive the dodge and parry buttons are, even against massive frame drops, makes the parry/dodge system feel fair towards the player.

My only critique of where this fails is a problem with level design more than anything. I call it “victory roading” the player, as an analogy to the long and repetitive battles before the Elite 4 in Pokemon.

There is a specific segment of the game where even this combat system falls victim to “victory roading”. Due to the sheer amount of the same mobs you fight, it gets to the point where you have already memorized all their patterns, and it becomes banal clearing through them. Besides this critique, I’d give the combat system an S.

Character Builds

The character build customization in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is standard. Each of the playable characters gets different weapons, and each of the different weapons specs the character into a specific build archetype. Characters have attribute points to allocate per level, a skill tree to unlock new moves and outfit customizations.

The more “novel” feature in the game is called “Pictos,” which can be considered accessories, of which you can equip 3 to a given character. Each of these “Pictos” grants specific benefits to the combat system, like buff duration, mana regen, or increased damage.

On top of those benefits, they grant general stats for a character. The cool part is that after using the “Pictos” for some amount of time, the benefits of them can be equipped by spending “Lumina.” I give the character customization system an A.

Visual Cohesion (and Lore)

Clair Obscur: Expedition 55 wouldn’t be the game that it was if everything were replaced with a polygon that glowed red to signal an attack. The fantastical and otherworldly monsters that you play against in the game are what tie the game together3. There aren’t really any “hard and fast” rules for designing the monsters besides selecting the theme and making the designs “fit.”

Reflecting on the question of thematic design, I see that a lot of designs that end up within a theme contain a sense of environmental logic. Anthropological research has shown how what we interpret as “desert” themed arose from how people designed garments to be breathable. A desert creature might have ventilated plates or another “functional element” as a crucial aspect of its design to match the theme. Either way, I feel that in each of these different environments, the respective mobs were fitting4.

Lore, it’s definitely important, with the design tying in with the story. Lowkey, though, it fell off midway.

10/10 game.

If you want to play the game: https://www.expedition33.com/


  1. The decision to execute on that vision and fill that segment is, in hindsight, very profitable for them. ↩

  2. Well, unless you are playing in story mode and can face-tank everything, dodging, at minimum, is required to defeat most of the enemies. ↩

  3. Cool combat system + Cool mob fights. ↩

  4. The boss fights in this game are amazing. ↩