One can’t deny the big influence of art within the world ofClair Obscur: Expedition 33. From the looming presence of the “Paintress” to the mysterious white-haired man called Renoir who eerily reminded me of the famous French painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir,Expedition 33does a perfect job of showcasing how art and tragedy go hand-in-hand with its unique story. Taking place in a fictional city called Lumière, at first glance, the world ofExpedition 33looks like an apocalyptic Paris. Strangely, Lumière’s picturesque scenery feels almost as if there’s beauty in its destruction. In fact, one of the very first things we see is the Eiffel Tower bent out of shape and almost destroyed but still standing and looking enchanting.
The game opens by introducing two main characters, Gustave and Maelle whose relationship automatically fits that of a protective brother and a younger determined sister. We find out it’s the day of “Gommage,” which later I realized is the French word for “erase.” Every year, an entity called the Paintress wakes up and paints a number on her monolith. As soon as this happens, everyone of that age fades away and stops existing.
Gustave makes his way to say goodbye to Sophie, his former lover who he still harbors feelings for, I was hit with a sense of dread that these characters I have known for five minutes are already suffering a helpless tragedy. However, the people of Lumière have their own way of not giving up and fighting for a better future by sending out expeditions every year where a team ventures into the unknown to take down the Paintress or at least die trying. Every expedition so far has failed from what we know until expedition 33, the team that’s front and center of this story.
With less than a year to live, most of these members have nothing to lose as so much has already been lost to them. By default, they are expected to accept their duty and sacrifice just like those before them. As Gustave gets ready to leave everything behind for a journey that screams death, you can plainly see the burden and newly emerged grief of losing Sophie haunting him. As soon as the expeditioners land at their planned location, things go sideways which splits the survivors who scramble for survival and decide to regroup. Thus, beginning the long quest of defeating the Paintress.
Starting as Gustave and progressing through the story, you get to meet multiple new characters and switch seamlessly between them while exploring. Except for unlocking some new dialogues while interacting with NPCs during rare situations, it doesn’t matter who you play as, since the main cutscenes stay the same. Where it matters, however, is during combat.Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has a total of six playable characters with their own playstyle, weapons, skills, and abilities to master. For example, Gustave’s style is more of a fighter while Lune’s is more elemental based and Maelle uses different stances to attack.
The two ways in which you can determine the build for your characters are through attributes and skills. Attributes include health, defense, agility, luck etc. and while this can affect how they perform in combat, I stuck to boosting my main party’s health and equalizing the other attributes. Every playable character also has a corresponding, easy-to-follow, skill tree. This one’s more tricky as the enemies and bosses in the game aren’t always the same and have different weaknesses. So, I found it easier to keep unlocking, changing, and trying out skills that work best in various scenarios.
Skills, depending on their power, use a specific number of attack points (AP) and if your AP meter is zero, you can either skip your turn or use the character’s base attack to gain back your lost AP. However, there are other ways to get more attack points. One of the most important items inClair Obscur: Expedition 33 is Pictos which essentially works as power-ups giving your party an advantage. For instance, there’s a Pictos that gives you an additional AP any time you get hit or another one that gives you AP for every successful dodge or parry. Pictos can be mastered by winning battles and that same power-up can be assigned to the whole party using an in-game item called Lumina, which can be collected as you explore.
Dodging and parrying your enemy’s attacks is of key importance in every battle. The chance for counterattacks with every parry successfully executed doubles the damage on enemies. This is pretty useful against big bosses but it’s also one of the most challenging mechanics to master in the game. Personally, I struggled with timing my parries and it took me almost twenty hours into the game to actually get a hang of it. There is simply no easy way around it as there are no indicators or accessibility options. But I didn’t let this deter me and instead, I opted to dodge more since it’s easier and gave me a chance to study the attack patterns of the bosses and get into the rhythm of dodging back to back.
Once that was achieved, I slowly replaced some of the dodges with parries and that transition worked effectively. But just when you think you have got the hang of it, the game throws in some new combat mechanics like jump and gradient counters to keep you on your toes while also surprising you with tougher and more brutal enemies. Some battles even went as long as an hour to beat, but I realized the most important thing about the combat inClair Obscur: Expedition 33is patience and concentration.
Expedition 33 boasts a big enough map that doesn’t get overwhelming but at the same time, there are hours and hours worth of stuff that demands your time. As you meet whimsy wooden guys called Gestrals or the friendly Grandis who live within snowy areas, they’ll have requests to obtain specific items in exchange for rewards. Other times, you have the option to hunt down Mime bosses hidden within every area or have some fun playing challenging minigames conducted at the Gestral Beaches for rewards. In some cases, I would unexpectedly come face-to-face against a boss of a higher level and die miserably on a single hit. However, the best part? New areas and side quests open up as you play the main story so it’s almost impossible to get sidetracked or distracted which is something I found to be very convenient in an RPG.
Even with its immersive gameplay,Clair Obscur: Expedition 33is still very much a narrative game that’s driven by its complex characters. The game incorporates RPG elements by giving players an opportunity to maximize their relationship level with the main characters by starting conversations with them at camp. With such a stacked cast, the voice acting is nothing less than excellent as expected. But I can’t complete this review without mentioning the exceptionally wonderful soundtrack composed by Lorien Testard that truly elevates an already good game to make it great. After all, a game that thematically revolves around the concept of art and tragedy is best reflected through music which makes most sense, doesn’t it?
After spending nearly sixty hours of playtime, I can easily say thatClair Obscur: Expedition 33is really one of the best games I had the honor of experiencing this year. It’s one of those games that left me thinking hours later as the credits rolled because as much as I didn’t know what to expect plot-wise before playing it, I was surprised how close to home the story hit. It’s a story about using art as an escapism when life feels out of control and about breaking the cycle of grief and letting go. Ultimately,Expedition 33 is a passion project that will make you appreciate the medium of video games.
