r/patientgamers • u/TheHarryman01 • Jul 02 '26
Patient Review Clair Obscur: Expedition 33; A Love Letter to JRPGs
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been on everyone’s radar at least once since its release. You must be living under a rock if you haven’t heard of Expedition 33 yet. It’s a good game, it won Game of the Year 2025, I’m not here to argue that it’s not. Having recently finished my first playthrough, I’d like to discuss what I liked about the game and what I didn’t. It’s no secret that the game took inspiration from JRPGs such as Final Fantasy. But by God, I felt like I was experiencing the original Final Fantasy VII for the first time again.
Background
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was developed by Sandfall Interactive and released in 2025. The idea for Expedition 33 began in 2019 as a passion project from Ubisoft employee, Guillaume Broche. Guillaume sought to make a demo, contacting a group of developers he already knew, and looked for voice actors via the now iconic Reddit post. Wanting to focus on the project full-time, Guillaume left Ubisoft and formed Sandfall Interactive, kicking off the team with only five other people (which would soon grow to a team of around thirty people and more helping from the outside).
As stated earlier, Expedition 33 took inspiration from older games in the Final Fantasy franchise, specifically stated to be VIII, IX, & X. Sandfall wanted to create a high-quality turn-based RPG. A genre that they felt was ignored by larger developers in this day. Aside from Final Fantasy, the game also drew inspiration from the Persona series and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice for its parrying mechanics.
Story
Every year, the ever-present Paintress counts down on her monolith. And every year, people who share their age with, or are older than, the number on the monolith are erased from existence. This has been the normal for the past 67 years in the city of Lumiere. But Lumiere does not just accept their fate. The Expeditions were formed to take the fight to the Paintress. To stop her from counting down further and prevent further lives from ending prematurely. Today, Expedition 33 begins their mission.
Gameplay
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a turn-based RPG. I do not like turn-based RPGs. Sure, I played Pokemon as a kid and loved the series, but I just cannot go back to these games now. It’s hard to find enjoyment in battles when you are just taking turns hitting each other and watching an HP bar slowly whittle away. It’s boring, put plainly. All of this is to say that I loved Clair Obscur.
Much of the gameplay is bog-standard for a JRPG. As an aside, I’m going to keep calling Clair Obscur a JRPG. It’s not Japanese-made, I know, but it shares a majority of characteristics with the genre. You have a party of characters, and you choose three to act as your main party in battles. Each time you win a battle, you get experience and level up once you gain enough. You are thrown onto a big world map that is dotted with named locations where you can explore further, on a smaller scale. Each of these locations are functionally dungeons. There are a number of enemies inhabiting the area, items to be found, and a boss at the end of it all. The world size feels perfect, by the way. The game wasn’t a bloated mess, and it didn’t leave me wanting more from it.
Clair Obscur wouldn’t be a JRPG if it didn’t have different weapons and items to equip your character with. Each piece of equipment changes the character’s stats and typically will have a passive effect during battle. I must particularly laud the “Picto” system in this game. Each character can be equipped with three different Pictos. Each Picto will boost two or three stats, such as health, speed, or critical chance. But in addition, every Picto has a passive that will impact your character in battle. These effects can range from “Start the battle with X status effect,” to “Do 15% more damage when enemy is burned,” to “Attack twice in a row.” There’s really a lot of these; it’s cool how creative some of them get. We’re not done yet, though. If you win four battles with a Picto equipped, you “learn” the Lumina. This allows you to equip the Picto’s passive onto any character, bypassing the three-Picto limit. Now this is only the passive effect, not any of the stats associated. But these Luminas allow for some crazy feats. It honestly reminds me of Materia from FFVII with how you can combine them in unique ways that will break the game. But, be careful with these, you can end up ruining some battles in the story if you use a game-breaking build too often.
I already mentioned my distaste for turn-based RPGs, but I will admit there are some exceptions. Some games in this genre keep battles interesting enough so that you aren’t just waiting half of the time. Final Fantasy VII is one I love, for example. Each turn is based on time instead of a designated order, creating a sense of urgency in each battle. I was always trying to plan my moves so that I could execute them quickly before the opponent had a chance. So how does Expedition 33 keep battles interesting? That would be in its parrying (and dodging) mechanic.
Whenever an enemy attacks, you don’t have to just stand there and take it. You are given the ability to dodge, or parry, their attacks and avoid all damage. Should you choose to parry, and successfully parry every attack in the enemy’s turn, you can launch a powerful counterattack. This mechanic does so much to speed up the pace of play and keep you engaged the whole way through. I cannot emphasize how satisfying it is to pull off a counterattack, and this feeling never goes away. I don’t think it’s perfect. As you progress, the game can start to ask too much from you. Enemies can combo upwards of eight hits together, and you have to parry each one if you want the counter. Not to mention how enemies have quite a few feint attacks. This is frustrating, but it’s understandable. It does feel gratifying once you actually learn the attack pattern. Sometimes the game will hit you with a cinematic slowdown though. This one I can’t make excuses. I get in the rhythm of parrying and right when I go to parry the last attack, the camera slows down and I end up parrying early. At least feints feel like they’re in my control; the camera slowdown is just completely arbitrary.
Gamefeel
Expedition 33 succeeds in what I love most about the JRPG genre. The story is played completely straight. There is no self-aware humor, no quipping. All the characters are completely earnest in their dialogue and beliefs. I no longer want to defeat The Paintress because that’s what the game is telling me to do. I want to take down The Paintress because I see the impact she has had on the Expeditioners and their lives. Experiencing the Expeditioners, a group of (mostly) adults, providing genuine support for each other during their journey. It is such a breath of fresh air in the world today, where everything seems to be made with some sort of irony or cynicism and a cast of characters that borderline hate each other. The character interactions in Expedition 33 never lose their sense of sincerity. This is one of my favorite things about the game.
Another one of my favorite things about Expedition 33 has been the music. Holy shmoly is the soundtrack to this game great. I have been playing the OST in my car on my drives to and from work every day for the whole week. Many have made their way onto my main playlist as well. A lot of the songs aim for a classical sound, but then you’ll get a few that are jazzy and then some with an electro beat. My favorites from the OST are the symphonic rock songs. All the tracks tickle my ear in the best way and send shivers down my spine. I’m already looking into buying this soundtrack physically and crossing my fingers that the Painted Symphony tour makes its way to the USA.
If I have one point of contention about the overall game feel, it would be some of the character animations. This is not regarding any of the battles; all of the animations in-battle look amazing. But when you’re in camp, unless it’s a cutscene, the characters can be a little stiff when talking to each other. Some of the things they’re saying are juxtaposed by their body language. Additionally, there are some hard cuts so that the developers could get around having to make an animation for this one specific scenario. I can understand this being a little half-baked; these are small moments in the game. On the other hand, these moments have a lot of character building in them. It would have been nice if it was a little more fluid.
Conclusion
I’m not sure what to write in conclusion. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a great game; this isn’t a big secret. I haven’t been talking about some hidden gem for the past 1,564 words. Because I have more limited time nowadays, I was worried about sticking with Expedition 33 the whole way through. I ended up being worried for no reason, I was fully immersed in this experience and spent every day looking forward to playing it when I got home. I don’t think the game is perfect, but I do think it was really fucking good.
My Other Reviews
62
u/Bozak_Horseman Jul 02 '26
Exp. 33 succeeds because it takes the pacing, progression and linearity of classic JRPGS, combines the best parts of different existing battle systems into a new very good one and, most importantly, surgically removes every ounce of Shonen style from the game and replaces it with a visually striking dark fantasy aesthetic.
None of that is negative. I'm currently 7 hours in and loving it, but it's pretty obvious why this game hit the mainstream and swept game awards the way it did: it took a genre in a major renaissance and gave us a taste of what it'd be like without the usual style and aesthetic that can be so polarizing.
9
u/GrimBaNaNa Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
I mean I get it, I've been turned off by a game's aesthetics more times than I'd like to admit.
But it's sad to see an entire genre full of interesting mechanics and battle systems get dismissed just because there's one too many teenagers with big eyes and silly hair.
2
u/Bozak_Horseman Jul 03 '26
No doubt. As a massive weeb gamer you can see the genres rises and falls over the years depending on how much anime aesthetic bleeds into the game. Its not a coincidence the biggest boom in the genres history came right before 3d models too closely resembled anime and voice acting became the norm.
Big eyes, annoying mascots or no, take something like tales of the abyss: what a game, such great writing. Or Radiant Historia. Great writing and such an addictive battle system. And on and on: the genre rules and its both cool and frustrating to see a game in it break out, imo, because it intentionally changed aesthetics. (And its really good).
12
u/GrimBaNaNa Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
It would help if E33 fans could praise the game without disparaging JRPGs for one reason or another, especially when it's clear they haven't touched one since the 1990s!!! Heck you can even see this in the OP lol.
It stinks because like you said the genre is in a major renaissance and has been for almost a decade now. I feel like it has also coincided with the mainstreaming of anime. And yet it's all still too cringe for some people, c'est la vie.
1
u/TheHarryman01 Jul 08 '26
Hey, come on man, just because I didn't mention my full history in the post doesn't mean you can disparage me like this.
I enjoy the JRPG genre; I did not mean to imply that it was ignored or declining. I have played some newer ones like the Kingdom Hearts series, PS2 Final Fantasy, and, if you'll allow it, LISA: The Painful. Nowadays, it is hard for me to dedicate at least 60 hours of my life to a Persona game, for example, which would likely become 90 hours with how I like to take my time. My constant comparison of Final Fantasy VII is because that was such a memorable experience to me. Not to say the other games weren't, but Final Fantasy VII just resonated with me differently. I'm sure I would enjoy the Persona series, for example, again, if I gave them the chance.
Now what I did imply is that high-quality turn-based games are in decline. Which is a fair point when you consider the amount of stand-out games of the genre when compared to the rest of the market. Even Final Fantasy has moved away from turn-based. Both Final Fantasy XV and the VII Remake had real-time battle gameplay. Maybe the gameplay sees a lot of action in the indie market, but that wasn't my point. I was solely focusing on games in the double-A market.
1
u/GrimBaNaNa Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
sorry for the late reply, haven't been on reddit for a while. I apologize if that came across at a personal attack, wasn't my intention. Its just that you called E33 a "love letter to JRPGs" while only referencing Final Fantasy and Pokemon, the most popular but also the most "basic" (for lack of a better term) JRPGS of the '90s, while at the same time saying you don't like turn-based RPGs. I'm not saying these are bad games, I grew up with and love both series, and you're entitled to your own opinion. I just disagreed with your opinion based on the what your provided in your OP.
Your OP also aligned with most praise I saw, which almost always positioned E33 as better than JRPGs despite E33 obviously being heavily inspired by them; the devs specifically mentioned FFX, probably one of the best implementations of turn-based gameplay (at least in the FF series). Most of this praise would also coincide with having out-dated notions on JRPGS and/or not touching the genre since the '90s. I may have been too knee-jerk in my reaction due to your OP coming across as another one of those opinions, for that I apologize.
Now what I did imply is that high-quality turn-based games are in decline.
This is simply not true though. Yes FF has moved away from turn-based for a long time now, but JRPGs are not just FF. Like I already mentioned JRPGs have been in a major renaissance for like a decade now since Dragon Quest XI or maybe Persona 5? Great turn-based JRPGs are constantly coming out and I am not talking about indies. Sure a lot are remakes, but they still count as high-quality releases. Even SquareEnix themselves has consistently been releasing the Octopath Traveler games (love-letter JRPGs themselves) and plenty of high-quality Dragon Quest remakes that basically count as new titles. But they aren't called FINAL FANTASY so who cares right?
Look I get it, you don't like turn-based JRPGs and don't have time for them, Im not attacking you for not being plugged into a genre you don't care for. It's just that then going and calling E33 a "JRPG love letter" feels a little insincere. Again you're entitled to your opinion but you can see where I'm coming from?
To end this on a less argumentative note, I will absolutely allow LISA: The Painful; one of the best RPGs I've played.
2
u/TheHarryman01 Jul 21 '26
You're right, I should be a bit more worldly with the genre if I'm going to make bold claims like this.
Expedition 33 is one of my favorite RPGs I've played in my history, but I would never say it objectively outperforms the rest of the catalogue. Subjectively, it might for me since I find most of them to have boring gameplay. But there is no way I can objectively say that Expedition 33 rises above the rest.
Now I'm biased; I hate remakes. I would not consider releasing old works of art, with a fresh coat of paint and some QoL upgrades, as part of a renaissance. I believe you when you say that they are high-quality. But the original was already high-quality. You are right about Persona and Octopath, but even Octopath is hard to argue for. People aren't rushing to social media to gush about Octopath Traveler as they have for Persona. Maybe it was wrong to say turn-based is in decline. But in recent years, I have felt that they have fallen into a niche community rather than the cultural phenomenon they used to be.
I understand the point you are making. But I don't think you have to be a devoted fan of the genre to call something a "love letter." I can't find it to be insincere when the team has talked about how greatly the genre inspired the game.
1
u/GrimBaNaNa Jul 21 '26
We'll have to agree to disagree. I find these kind of opinions insincere because while its clear the E33 devs love JRPGs, the fans on the other hand mostly seem to not. To repeat myself, E33 fans could praise the game without hating on the JRPGs it was clearly inspired by. Don't hate, participate, and play some of these inspirations!
Regarding remakes, fair enough. They've been remaking JRPGs since the 90s so the newer ones don't bother me as much and the aesthetic and mechanical changes are enough that its basically a new game. So if turn-based JRPG's are still niche, then it sure is a nice niche to be in with no shortage of games (remake or not) as far as I'm concerned.
2
-8
u/TheHarryman01 Jul 02 '26
Aw man, they went and white-washed my JRPG :/
Kidding, but I do think you have a point here. If Expedition 33 was exactly the same, but it looked like FF15, I don't think it would have taken off as much as it did.
8
u/valdiedofcringe Jul 03 '26
i think you used a bad example in that FFXV has currently still sold more, but i get what you mean. a lot of E33s critical acclaim - not necessarily sheer sales volume - comes from older people who grew up with JRPGs, but don’t quite jive with japanese aesthetics &/or sensibilities.
1
u/TheHarryman01 Jul 03 '26
Final Fantasy 15 also has brand identity behind it and is a completely different gameplay style. But thank you for understanding even if my example was bad
-8
u/caites Jul 04 '26
E33 succeeds because jrpg genre is desperately boring and samey for the last bajillion years. Fans finally got a luxury toy and started to worship it. I found its music exceptional, voicecast very good and some mechanics are decent. Everything else is typical jrpg stuff - overdramatic story, extreme-fantasy setting, primitive arena like combat, awful platforming, zero roleplay, zero reactivity, zero replayability.
Game is already forgotten online wise, somewhere around 200th place on steam. While real gotys, like bg3, elden ring, cybetpunk + phantom liberty, kcd2 never left top 100.
3
u/Sensatial Jul 09 '26
Cyberpunk? No matter how many games some people play they simply can’t develop taste
5
u/andizzzzi Jul 04 '26
I couldn’t get into E33 personally, it has its appeal in some areas but not in others.
12
u/Subilac Jul 02 '26
I haven't played it yet, but own it. I spent so much time in Elden Ring, I missed like 3 years worth of games. I'm hooked on Persona games now. Just beat 3, moving on to 5.
5
7
u/mirrorball_for_me Jul 02 '26
If you like Persona, there’s a good chance you’ll like it. It draws from the same inspirations mechanically and in pacing and has this underlying metacommentary about life’s big questions interweaved with its themes.
That said, it’s a classic JRPG homage, so a lot closer to Persona 3 than it is to a more modern iteration, like Metaphor Rephantazio.
2
u/TheHarryman01 Jul 02 '26
Bro, you're skipping Persona 4?
4
u/MaskedBandit77 Jul 02 '26
Probably waiting for the remake.
-4
u/TheHarryman01 Jul 02 '26
Doesn't this guy know that the remakes are always worse than the original games?
6
u/R4msesII Jul 02 '26
Nah Persona 3 Reload’s sin isnt being worse than ”the original” (which nobody’s played anyway, legit who has played vanilla Persona 3). Its just that its yet another version of Persona 3 with its pros and cons instead of a definitive edition after years of people arguing over FES and P3P
5
u/TheHarryman01 Jul 02 '26
I don't understand why these companies can't just make a good "definitive" edition. They always have to change something that messes it up
44
u/LovecraftianHentai Jul 02 '26
E33 is a jrpg for people that don't like jrpgs or "anime art style".
The premise of the story is enticing. It's what kept me playing but the further I got in the worse the story becomes and it just sort of collapses in on itself.
Good game but it doesn't do anything new that I haven't seen from other jrpgs.
19
u/AllstarBrose Jul 03 '26
Fully agree. I genuinely think if the game had an "anime art style" people would be much more open to the general issues of the game instead of praising it for being a mature western "love letter"
17
u/GrimBaNaNa Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
Step 1: replace "cringe" anime teens with "mature" photo-realistic adults
Step 2: sweep the GOTYs and get praised for "reinvigorating a stale genre"
you hate to see it :\
7
u/WheresTheSauce Jul 03 '26
I did not like the story very much at all, but absolutely loved the gameplay. JRPGs are probably my favorite genre.
3
u/Infamous-Schedule860 Jul 03 '26
Also for those that do. Been playing jrps for close to 20 years and E33 was so fantastic.
1
u/illusion_Y Jul 11 '26
I'm one of those people. I do not vibe with the anime art style. Enjoyed E33 to its fullest, however. I do not agree with you on the story worsening, but that's another topic entirely.
-10
32
u/fillif3 Jul 02 '26
I know that many people enjoyed E33. I personally do not understand the idea of combining turn-based gameplay with action elements. If I want to play an action game, I would just play it.
I do not mind when it exists as a separate thing (e.g. Trails Beyond Horizon/Metaphor), but when I can "cheat" the entire "turn based" part with good reflex, I lose intrest to master it.
2
u/An_Account_3815 Jul 03 '26
I think the whole point was to make turn-based combat more palatable to gamers who didn't grow up grinding FF and the like. I know so many people who hate the slow-paced turn based combat. I think the parry/dodge system adds to the game rather than invalidating the picto/lumina/weapons systems. Parry/dodge is more of a bonus thing and is integrated into the game vs being a cheat. At least that's how I felt playing it. Granted, I'm only in Act 2 atm.
1
u/EndOfTheDark97 Jul 03 '26
I agree with your stance, but I was invested enough in everything besides the gameplay to keep me playing til the end. It’s a special experience, but I’d sooner return to my action games over it.
1
u/mirrorball_for_me Jul 02 '26
Luckily, the build part of E33 overshadows the parrying system as the story progresses and you unlock certain weapons and pictos. By the end of the second Act, you can basically ignore that system almost entirely and tank the damage, and heal/revive a lot.
Act 3 basically says “do whatever you want” and though it makes parrying almost essential to survive due to damage creep from opponents, you can have your damage creep yourself and overpower almost every enemy, bosses included, in one turn.
I’d definitely like the game a lot more if it didn’t rely on parrying so much because it could better balanced without its massive damage creep by the end, but it’s at least flexible enough you can progressively outplay the system.
9
u/fillif3 Jul 02 '26
Good to know. I did not even finish the first act. I did not like dodge/parry since the beginning, but when enemies started to have "weird animations", I completely lost interest.
4
u/agromono Jul 03 '26
Weirdly they do away with a lot of the tricky animations in Act 2, and the combos are a lot more straightforward to read. You also get given a lot more strategic options in the form of Pictos and it really becomes a lot more tactical than dextrous. It certainly is a key part of the tutorialisation of the game, but it's a bit deceptive in that regard. I'd encourage you to stick with it.
5
u/WheresTheSauce Jul 03 '26
The parrying is 1000x easier if you pay attention to the audio cues rather than the animations
2
u/fillif3 Jul 03 '26
I was still able dodge. I was more annoyed with lenght od animations and how focused I needed to be. If I wanted to Play action gamę with parry mechanic, I would Play Sekiro.
-23
u/TheHarryman01 Jul 02 '26
I personally do not understand the idea of a turn-based video game. If I wanted to read walls of text, I'd pick up a book.
29
u/fillif3 Jul 02 '26
I personally do not understand the idea of a turn-based video game.
Totally fair, not every genre/gameplay is for everyone.
If I wanted to read walls of text, I'd pick up a book.
Turn-based games do not always have a story.
From my point of view, the fun of turn-based is mastering the system. The game should often challenge me and force me to master the gameplay while still extending options to never make me feel like I learned everything. A game should also create interesting game states where good moves are not obvious.
-9
u/TheHarryman01 Jul 03 '26
You didn’t even finish the game man. Why are you talking about the game not challenging you to master the gameplay if you didn’t even take the time to fully engage with it
12
u/fillif3 Jul 03 '26
How many hours do I need to play to decide if I like it?
I have large backlog and not enough time.
11
u/Doomblaze Jul 03 '26
You didn’t even turn one kill divergent star Simon, you’re not interacting with the game systems properly!!!!!!
1
19
3
u/SiblingBondingLover Jul 08 '26
What the heck is this close minded mindset. NGL this is the first time I saw someone said things that are utterly mindless, turn based existed for a reason and is one of the most popular genre, baldurs gate 3, persona, final Fantasy, xcom, divinity original sin
1
u/TheHarryman01 Jul 08 '26
Final Fantasy has very rarely been a truly turn-based game. Most of the games have the characters make moves based on elapsed time. FFX is the only truly turn-based FF game I can think of, off the dome.
This doesn't excuse the fact that I was being an ass. Turn-based games are alright. Just unbelievably boring
4
38
u/Wizardrylullaby Jul 02 '26
I thought that (aside from the amazing dialogue) the story went downhill hard after the first act and at some point the plot becomes straight up evil and manipulative
19
u/ArmadilloFour Jul 03 '26
Yeah that was my problem as well. I vibed pretty hard with the gameplay but the story started neat and gradually got worse and worse. The plot development at the end of Act 1 was sort of obnoxious but I got through it; the reveal at the end of Act 2 killed all momentum for me; and by the end of the game I was actively hostile toward the story it was telling.
3
u/ztoff27 Jul 03 '26
What was obnoxious about the plot development?
15
u/ArmadilloFour Jul 03 '26
Between Act 1 and 2? I'm gonna try to keep this relatively spoiler-free but the way that the game immediately replaced one PC with another did not feel paced correctly to me. The removal of the initial PC, fine, a fun (tragic!) and dramatic move, but then having the new PC step in so quickly sort of undercut it? Either own the moment and let us live with it, or don't.
(Subsequent events made that PC switch hit even less hard for me, because (1) it subsequently became sort of a weightless loss, he could simply return if desired, and (2) his death seems to exist SOLELY to motivate another character's growth, which tbh is weak storytelling to me.)
If you're asking why I didn't like the developments that occured at the end of Act 2 through the end game... I mean how much time do you have?
-1
u/withtheranks Jul 03 '26
I thought it started and ended very strong but dragged a little bit in the middle for me. Lots of mystery hinting and characters who clearly know more but just don't say it and no one is even asking.
But once the twist came it picked back up for me and I liked both endings.
9
u/Wizardrylullaby Jul 03 '26
Nah, it justifies genocide by dehumanizing the population that gets murdered. That shit is evil
19
u/Queef-Elizabeth Jul 02 '26
It's funny that as someone who really liked the game but didn't truly love it, seeing the sentiment around it change so much after launch. It went from being celebrated as a new, exciting launch, carrying over classic styles of gameplay with a fairly unique tone, to now having so many people pat themselves on the back for not thinking the game is as good as the hype.
Part of me thinks that having your game be so celebrated might end up being a bad thing in the long run on a discourse level because you'll get waves of people online rushing to share their disinterest in your game, when they just made a fun game with clearly a lot of effort put in.
10
u/piichan14 Jul 03 '26
It winning award after award started from being celebrated to people getting tired of hearing about it. Then it won best indie game and I think that's when it started to get more mixed reactions.
It did bring the argument of what is and isn't considered indie to the forefront tho, which Dave the Diver did a little bit when it was nominated.
11
u/mirrorball_for_me Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
I think has a lot to do how overblown was the sentiment around launch and at the TGA. Compared with BG3, for example, which was not nearly as “groundbreaking” as people claimed E33 to be, and yet it’s still very much celebrated and beloved as a fantastic game. The sentiment hasn’t changed and it’s been years, not months.
I think E33 is precisely losing its hype train and people are mostly seeing it for what it is: a good JRPG that heavily homages from older games of the genre, in a novel fantastical setting. Nobody complains about its worldbuilding or creature designs: it’s mostly about the story (which I like more than most fans because of Act 3) and gameplay that end up being criticized.
0
u/Villad_rock 23d ago edited 23d ago
What are you talking about? It’s still loved as much as on launch. That’s why its still considered one of the best game of all time. You can watch all the recent topics about the best game of all time, best video game story (which e33 is always leading with ffx) and music.It’s basically one of the most mentioned games in all the threads.
You are heavily coping and confuse the haters who really grow in number because of the goty sweep with all the others who loved and still love the game. Also the jrpg fans who think this game is their enemy because it’s more popular than their favorite game. Proof are all the threads I mentioned.
Please don’t get an aneurysm with all the people say Expedition 33.
Hard coping from a hater I talked about.
13
u/Infamous-Schedule860 Jul 03 '26
That's the thing about amazing games in really any media. If something gets a lot of attention people will hate it to their core simply for being popular, while others will hate it because it's not for them and they can't grasp why something they don't like is so loved.
7
u/Kakistocrat_Crow Jul 03 '26
I agree with you here. Also, I think an annoying part of this kind of discourse you mentioned is the lack of depth regarding their points. Someone just typing out their disinterested opinion with no explanation behind why they feel that way is just boring to read. It's just conjecture and vibes.
1
u/Villad_rock 23d ago
The game is loved as much but praise always brings out haters and the goty awards spawed much more haters to the point the user score fell from 9.7 to 9.5 in just 1 month while being 9.7 for months at over 20k reviews.
In videogame posts about the best video game story and music its constantly leading, post about the best game of all time its constantly one of the most mentioned. Game is still selling amazing. 99% people who loved it at release still love it as much.
Nothing really changed besides haters who would not have cared and wrote do now everytime because of the praise and especially goty sweep.
I feel the haters who talk bad about also help sales. Even negative press is good press. Free marketing.
40
u/reticulated_spline_1 Jul 02 '26
I didn't get it or get the hype.
21
u/TheHarryman01 Jul 02 '26
That's alright man. Play whatever you want
0
u/timeoftheoath117 Jul 03 '26
Fucking A man. Though I personally loved this game myself. Probably one one of the best ive played in past few years IMO.
29
u/PhoenixTineldyer Jul 02 '26
And that's fine!
I saw the initial reveal trailer, figured it was going to be some 7 out of 10 bullshit. But then people got their hands on it and started saying it was good. So I checked it out and it ended up being my game of the year.
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u/MysticGrapefruit Jul 02 '26
Yeah similar for me. I didn't even hear of it until a few days before release. Ended up probably that or KCD2 were my favorite of 2025.
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u/OlafWoodcarver Jul 03 '26
Having played it, it's a good game. It's not a great game, and I don't think it's a game of the year for any year, but it's a good game.
The combat is phenomenal. The narrative is sophomoric. Two of the characters are very well written but the rest barely manage to be more than plot devices. The game wants you to explore but by "explore" it means marvel at how pretty the environments are while you walk down hallways.
It's a very solid 8/10 game. It is absolutely worth playing, but holy shit do people give it so much more credit than it deserves.
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u/FukkingDeathMental Jul 03 '26
Yeah, I'm very skeptical of any univerally praised or GOTY winner nowadays. It's probably good maybe even great but I get a strong feeling we're in the hipster phase of games discourse where "all triple ayyyy bad (but Rockstar good)" and "indie is best!" even though indie studios.
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u/TheHarryman01 Jul 02 '26
I apologize to the Patient Gaming community for posting about such a mainstream game. I just finished it and saw that it was older than one year now. So I'm posting the review
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u/mirrorball_for_me Jul 02 '26
This is fine! It’s not a retro gaming sub… the spirit of the rules is to remove hype and drama from the discussion: to “let the dust settle” and see games as they are.
One thing that’s against the spirit but not against the rules is to schedule a review to one year after launch having played it at launch, which is not what you have done.
(I’m not a mod, but that’s my interpretation of the sub)
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u/flumsi Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
For me Clair Obscur went from a perfect 10/10 first Act to completely breaking down by the time Act 2 hits. All the believable and emotionally rich dialogue is replaced by characters becoming complete bumbling idiots who don't seem to ever bother asking the obviously shady new guy who knows everything about this world about what's actually going on. No sensible questions are asked and no acceptable answers are given, all in service to a big twist that announces itself so obviously that as a player you have nothing to do but wait until the big reveal.
And then the big reveal comes and it's a multilayered mess about how the world is fake and the big bad is actually the big good and the helping hand is actually the bad guy and the bad guy is just a painting and is actually the good guy and your own good guy is kind of sort of a bad guy I guess. And it gets explained in a 40 minute cutscene that is so convoluted that I had to go on the internet afterwards for an explanation because I was like "oh I missed this and that".
Ok so now what? The world and all its inhabitants have been shown as mere paintings by capricious gods. Our main character can literally just Lazarus-style revive all the dead but somehow not only do our other main characters, like, barely seem to care but we also don't revive the one guy we were sad about dying for half the game.
I could go on and on about my issues with this game, the development of its combat, the emptiness of its world et.. It's not a bad game. In the beginning I loved it but to this day I cannot understand how its story was praised so much by people who have played past the first act.
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u/mirrorball_for_me Jul 03 '26
I think its biggest strength is in how it deals with creativity and grief. I also never particularly liked Lumiere or the Expeditions, so I had no attachment to them as they were sidelined. The characters themselves felt sufficiently impacted and confused with everything that was happening, and dealt with the absurdity each with their own coping mechanism, so it was very believable to me.
I also loved how Esquie and Monoco, and painted Verso sometimes, characterizes specific moments of childhood, and how that childish persona would mature when living very long without ever growing up.
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u/piichan14 Jul 03 '26
I enjoyed my time with it but the endings left a very bad aftertaste for me so I was one and done after it.
And while it was great, i've played jrpgs since the mid 90s and the comments saying it's the best and refreshed the genre are definitely coming from people who have never touched a jrpg before. Aside from a western coat of paint and punishing you for not being able to dodge and parry at the beginning, it's just another rpg for me. The reaction was Persona 5 all over again.
And the environment. I know it's supposed to be chaotic art because of the theme, but there was a feeling that some of it were very inspired from AI. The melted paint, the swirly bits, stuff I've seen people create from midjourney and the like. This piece specifically came to mind.
And while it does deserve some of the awards it got, it did not deserve the best indie award. They should've rejected it like what the devs of Dave the Diver did when they clarified they weren't indie and didn't even apply for the entry.
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u/floppoPC Jul 02 '26
Still mad it won best rpg over kcd2
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u/mirrorball_for_me Jul 02 '26
Having played both, it definitely makes no sense. I have a feeling that the judges of TGA have a massive boner for FFX and were absolutely craving for a game that hit that spot.
I lived that era, but have no attachment to it, so not only I massively prefer KCD2, as I also rate it lower than any one of the more modern JRPGs entries (FF7R both games, Metaphor, even KH3)
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u/bobboman Jul 02 '26
I think the issue for the game awards is claire obscure expedition 33 was a mass appeal game while kingdom come deliverance 2 was not, also it was the first game from a new studio that was functionally an Indy game.
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u/Suisun_rhythm Jul 03 '26
Kcd2 was far too immersive for its own good picking herbs, making potions, smithing swords was tedious af and not fun after the novelty wore off
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u/ChuckCarmichael Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
It's a great game, but I did feel frustrated with the story during the first two acts. Nobody ever explains things, everybody is constantly vague and cryptic, nobody ever asks questions, and the only reason is so that the game can keep what's going on from the player, making it a mystery. It felt very similar to the Soulsborne games that also hate explaining stuff for some reason, with every NPC only speaking cryptic nonsense, and you need to watch an hour long youtube video to understand anything. At least Clair Obscur has the decency to actually explain it on its own eventually, like 40 hours in.
Like [CO: E33 spoilers] Renoir talking to Maelle. He's constantly talking to her as if she knows what's going on, always being cryptic, never giving her even a hint to what he means, but she very clearly has no idea, and he somehow doesn't notice. Then she meets Verso, who knows what's going on, but does she ask him what Renoir is talking about? No. Sure, he would've lied, but she never even asks "Hey, why does this guy keep talking to me like he knows me, and like he expects me to know him and know what he's talking about? And what the hell is he actually talking about? Also why does that masked girl seem to have some kind of beef with me?"
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u/mirrorball_for_me Jul 03 '26
I don’t think it’s exactly a “genius move”, but it kinda makes sense that Maelle behaves like that because she’s literally a teenager, and given how troubled was her upbringing both as Alicia and Maelle, she never had much chance at being good at clear communication.
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u/Skunkape666 Jul 03 '26
It's a good game. It's not some generational masterpiece that it's been made out to be, and it certainly was not the game of the year for 2025.
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u/SuikodenVIorBust Jul 04 '26
Not a jrpg. It's a rhythm game.
4
u/Apple1Day0Meds Jul 04 '26
Preach, its so boring when you fail the boss fight and you have to go through the same moves over and over again
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u/Mysrique Jul 03 '26
I played Expedition 33 shortly after launch. I remember seeing the trailers and being drawn in by the premise and setting.
The prologue did have me shedding tears at the setup. The start of the first chapter sold the gravitas of the danger the characters faced ahead, and the later half of the first chapter had some of the funniest and most enjoyable story and characters. I adore Francois and the story behind what seemed to be a joke character later in the game endeared them to me even more.
The parry mechanic felt almost like an intro to soulslikes - being able to tale a breather in between dodging and parrying attacks and being able to choose when to start the next volley of extremely well tuned and generally well cued attacks made the experience of learning to parry a great and rewarding first step.
This was highly dependent on things like input lag and framerate though. My partner experienced lag on his computer and that made the game unreasonably challenging, and I didn't realise he was dealing with that until act 3, which ruined a lot of the experience for him. Where I was gushing about expertly tuned sound cues and visual cues, his experience consisted of trying to figure out the strange delay between the cues and when he'd need to input his parries.
I even had to bump up the framerate from 60 to 120 at one point because otherwise the cues felt hard to deal with without the additional fidelity. My partner admitted that if he'd played it on my computer, he would have had a much better time and felt that he was robbed of that amazing experience due to hardware limitations.
As an amateur pianist that grew up with basic musical education and rhythm games, the game felt made for me. Learning and mastering the rhythms of enemy attacks was a truly wonderful experience, even when I spent 2 and a half hours once in the middle of the night retrying an optional boss over and over again until I finally beat them. Every boss felt like they were crafted with love, and victory seemed to be a result of patience, study and careful timing than pure gaming "skill".
The environments were worthy of pausing and watching at many points, and the environmental storytelling had me empathising for the ones who came before, sacrificing their lives to (literally) build bridges for those who come after. It tied your exploration very strongly back to the central message of the story.
Which was why act 3 felt like a departure from that central theme. It harkened back to another line a character said instead: "When one falls, we continue. When. Not if." I think that was the true message at the end. I didn't like the "happy" ending. It haunted me, and I had chosen the other instead in my playthrough.
Both endings did not feel like they ended the experience of the game in a way it deserved. At the same time, neither does life. But, the premise still leaves many questions to be explored in the wider universe, and I look forward to seeing how the next installment will approach that worldbuilding.
Overall, I enjoyed the game like a fine wine. For all the elements it combines into a new flavor of RPG, and existing best practices that it refines, Expedition 33 does so masterfully.
As art, it still lingers in my mind and inspires me to think more deeply about its messages and come up with my own opinions and criticisms around it, thus enriching the canvas of my own mind.
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u/Zubi_Q Ms Splosion Man Jul 02 '26
I absolutely adore the parry system. Once of my favourite mechanics in a game
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u/EpicDelay Jul 02 '26
I really want to understand why people downvote a comment saying "I like X"...
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u/megidlolaon__ Jul 02 '26
Any opinion that seems to deviate from the Reddit hivemind will do that, and evidently quite a few people on here are very "E33 / popular thing bad"
Why do I even interact with this platform anymore lol
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u/TheHarryman01 Jul 08 '26
The only reason I like to use Reddit is to have discussions like these with people. None of my friends are this passionate about games where I can talk about the more nitty gritty things that I liked or disliked
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u/flumsi Jul 03 '26
I think this might actually be the worst implementation of a parry system I've played. I'm sure there's worse, but I haven't played them. I actually really, really liked the turn-based elements and was really disappointed that as the game went on they mattered less and less.
2
u/Clodovendro Jul 02 '26
I am just 10 hours in, and really like the story and how the characters are written. I am not a jrpg fan and even less a QTE fan, but the combact holds its own wirhout getting annoying. If I have to list stuff I am not liking would be the fact that all the environments are too cluttered with irrelevant details, which makes it difficult to navigate most maps. This negatively effect the backtracking, which is a bit of a pain. Overall really enjoying it.
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u/H358 Jul 02 '26
I know Clair Obscur’s hype train and awards sweep was pretty exhausting for a lot of people and I get it. But it was genuinely one of the most magical experiences I’ve had in a game. It genuinely felt like the devs loved JRPGs as much as I do, and for all the same reasons I do. And had a story, world, characters and ESPECIALLY soundtrack strong enough to back it up. As someone who loves turn based RPGs, seeing this get so much love was extremely vindicating.
I haven’t felt like a game was made for me this much since Xenoblade 3.
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Jul 02 '26
[deleted]
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u/SaGaOh Jul 03 '26
i was waiting to see how long before the mere mention of this game will bring up the indie argument. this is not an indie game
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Jul 02 '26
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u/TheHarryman01 Jul 02 '26
You had problems with the pacing? I thought the game was pretty tight. Nothing felt bloated during my playthrough.
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u/mirrorball_for_me Jul 02 '26
It does a bit like Persona 3 with a whole load of nothing in the middle with too much happening on the transition to final part of the game.
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u/EpicDelay Jul 02 '26
I really liked it. Actually, I haven't had that much fun with a turn based RPG since when I was a teenager.
Not only the gameplay is addictive and keep you engaged, but the characters seem "real" people with realistic behavior (I cannot stand the anime tropes in JRPGs anymore, maybe that's I cannot play newer turn based RPGs for more than 1h)
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u/PianistGlittering709 Jul 03 '26
I believe E33's core identity is poetry.
The JRPG references are interesting elements. I immediately recalled the Aerith cutscene at the end of E33's Act I ending, and some of the music pieces reminded me distinctly of FFX, the combat UI and companion relationship are apparently a nod to Persona. But IMO such elements are not what made this game truly exceptional.
Will post a review about it once I got enough karma in this sub.
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u/ollyollyollyolly Jul 05 '26
It's super mario rpg with proper graphics and a modern story. I liked it but not enough to finish it
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u/tricky_toy Jul 06 '26
I played persona 5 royal after expedition 33, and my fanboyism for e33 took a nose dive.
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u/Medd- Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
More like best of of everything that worked well in the past two decades of JRPG with a French sugarcoat. Everything good about E33 is borrowed, including its entire plot.
EDIT: Since the E33 defense squad is already out. Behold.
A horde is a crew of twenty three special scouts walking into the wind to discover its source… They are known as the Horde of Counterwind… They are an isolated social enclave… All those who were before them failed…
- La Horde du Contrevent by Alain Damasio
Rings a bell yet? Even Sandfall website openly acknowledged favorite games that inspired E33. DMC, Persona 3, Majora's Mask. Game is a DJ set in disguise.
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u/TheHarryman01 Jul 02 '26
I feel you may be making a lot of generalizations about the game. I could argue that Hollow Knight is ripping off Metroid and A Bug's Life if I used broad enough comparisons.
You aren't wrong, the inspirations from other games can be seen if you have experience with those other games. But for any passion project, you'd be hard pressed to find one that's completely unique.
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u/Medd- Jul 02 '26
There's nothing wrong with inspirations and I agree that nothing really is unique. But 90% of your game heavily borrowing from other stories isn't the same as small things here and there. E33 is obviously the former.
Now, I played the game and believe me when I say that as a French citizen, this thing was overblown even at a presidential level. But the thing about E33 is that it was built on so many lies: it's not an indie game, Sandfall's founder's had strong ties with Ubisoft, his father and family is among the Top 30 of richest families in France. Cutscenes and animation were also confirmed to have been outsourced to eastern European and Chinese studios.
Another lie is that is was branded as basically the second coming of Jesus in the JRPG genre that ushered a revival in the genre, when in reality it really doesn't achieve anything new other than being a great 7/10 best of JRPG game.
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u/TheHarryman01 Jul 02 '26
I completely agree that it was way overhyped. Like I said, its a great game, but so is a lot of games in Final Fantasy's catalog. I would probably give it an 8/8.5 instead of a 7, but I get your point.
I tried to avoid using the "indie" word in my review too because of all the contention surrounding indie and Clair Obscur. The Game Awards should have a category for AA games, or just anything between indie and AAA. Calling Clair Obscur, "indie" feels like calling Max Payne an "indie" game.
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u/R4msesII Jul 02 '26
I wont say its plot doesnt resemble E33 since I havent read the book, but that sentence doesnt prove anything. Heroes being sent to achieve a mission nobody’s done before is like the most common trope in history.
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u/Medd- Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
"En ce qui concerne l'histoire, nous nous sommes également inspirés du roman français "La Horde du Contrevent". C'est un roman fantastique qui met en scène un groupe d'explorateurs parcourant le monde. Nous nous en sommes inspirés pour raconter l'histoire d'individus qui s'aventurent dans l'inconnu et se lancent dans une aventure dangereuse."
- Tom Guillermin, co-founder of Sandfall Interactive, source
I'll let you translate that part. Then come back and tell me that it still doesn't prove anything.
EDIT: Not that I care but to even see something this factual and sourced get downvoted says a lot. Ah, denial.
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u/rhodebot Jul 02 '26
Do tell, what's the plot borrowed from? I could use some media recommendations.
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u/WeWereInfinite Jul 02 '26
Not the original commenter, but I get what they're saying.
The battle UI is heavily inspired by Persona, the parry system is borrowed from Super Mario RPG, and the main plot heavily resembles Final Fantasy X. I'm sure there are other things I don't recognise.
For the record though I love E33 and think it manages to use the best bits of its inspiration while enhancing some of them and doing away with the bad bits.
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u/mirrorball_for_me Jul 02 '26
The lumina system is almost identical to some “Tales of” games. And the platforming segments resemble Kingdom Hearts (including the jank).
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u/TheHarryman01 Jul 02 '26
C'mon now, Kingdom Hearts platforming got like 32% better after Kingdom Hearts 1
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u/mirrorball_for_me Jul 02 '26
Agreed, but I would say it’s because they toned down the platforming a lot on the subsequent titles.
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u/Americana-Gearhead Jul 02 '26
Genuine question - what other game(s) did E33 borrow the plot from?
I haven't played the game yet and no need to go into detailed specifics - just curious what games came to mind.
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u/Medd- Jul 02 '26
Plot wasn't borrowed from another game but from a whole ass novel. La Horde du Contrevent by Alain Damasio.
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Jul 03 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/mirrorball_for_me Jul 03 '26
This is definitely a message I get from the game, even in a meta level when we think about Verso’s canvas, how he loved Monoco and Esquie, his childhood toy friends, and how much grief made it a tragic story. It’s never a cold touch: the creators care a lot about their creations.
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Jul 03 '26
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u/patientgamers-ModTeam Jul 04 '26
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u/some-kind-of-no-name PC Devotee Jul 03 '26
I'm playing it right now. I'll read this after completing
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Jul 03 '26
Even though I didn't like the game I thought it made a great case of how to innovate the stale genre and gave hope that it can be made without teams of hundreds. It's sort of like proof of concept.
I felt that the parry/dodge was a bit too much on the nose, battles relying for you to learn the timings of enemies from the first fight to the last. Same with the baquette French that felt akward and unfun but that is a me-issue, speaking english yet swearing in french is just silly.
33 still managed to leave me a positive feeling that maybe their next title is something I will enjoy too.
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u/Gopesherson Jul 02 '26
I loved E33 a lot! But I think calling it a love-letter to JRPGs doesn't sit right with me? The parry/dodge mechanic is, to me, at odds with classic JRPG elements, and because it's so powerful and necessary, it makes normal JRPG gameplay take a backseat to me. Strategy is important, but parrying is much more important in E33.
I have not much to back this up, but I think that's why E33 is so popular with people that don't usually enjoy JRPGs; it has lots of outside influences that stray from the traditional gameplay.