Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 - Final Fantasy/Persona inspired FRPG

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After a handful of fights and several deaths, I feel I have a hang of the dodge timing and flow of fights. I felt this way right after beating the big green guy in early Act 1. The game does a fantastic job of teaching you with and without tutorial popups. Sometimes they challenge you so you can learn things even faster. Very cool design tbh. I also found the writing was one step ahead of me and using jujitsu to counter my "trope detector" and subvert it in small ways. I really missed that feeling and I think that's why I am so engaged. It also is able to explain things in a refreshing, indirect way that intrigues you. Dialogue is said, and gives you enough clues to deduce a fact by working your way backwards logically. Fun!

After deducing the redhead's age and hearing the dialogue with/from her, I realized she truly is just a kid in over her head. There wasn't going to be an inappropriate relationship between her and her guardian. Nice to have some boundaries in a JRPG for once. Her VA is Shadowheart from BG3 so when I first saw her character I thought she was just a short, euroface, 20 something.

Anyone else notice the lip-syncing is way off? I don't let it distract me too much, I figure it is either audio delay, or that tech is tedious and expensive to perfect. Could be the DLAA messing with the timing too.
 
Der weiße Teufel said:
I just want to say that I am really impressed someone actually managed to develop such a creative, fun game with an intriguing and touching story without adding pointless DEI into it. Maybe I missed some hints or dialogues somewhere, but there was nothing obvious shouting CURRENT YEAR. I even find the humorous interactions cute and funny instead of the typical ironic quip meme humor you get usually.

Haven't looked into possible coping and seething because the game seems to be a huge hit without pushing diversity checkboxes, but maybe nobody wants to go and outright say "game sucks because no uglies and trannies!" Youtube did suggest a video to me about how people are desperately trying to find minor flaws ("they keep saying it was only made by 30 people but there are so many more who contributed!" yeah no shit, but you don't need 2h credits to create a good game) and some game jorno scum gave it a lower score "because the genre doesn't appeal to everyone" (pretty sure they gave Wokeguard raving reviews).
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Well, the usual faggots will always find something to bleat about. Even in this thread, there were some tourist culture war dipshits, complaining about some prop characters in the prologue being niggers.
Bruh, who gives a shit!?

This game has two white male leads, a harem of good looking women and some weird non-human bros, being goofy and funny. No homos, no niggers, no gender shit.
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This nigga is my homie, even if he's a footfag.

Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus said:
Cleaning up stuff before what I assume is the last boss and I've been having fun rolling Monoco stacked as a suicide bomber buffer. Battle starts and he explodes for damage, procs burn, hits the rest of the team with +AP and shield, and then the second chance picto brings him back. Probably better ideas but it's pretty funny and immediately puts the rest of the team at 9 AP on turn one.
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Yeah, I've experimented myself with the Auto Death picto. It's really funny and you have a lot of tools available to make your meme a dream.

Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus said:
That's how I've gotten through most of the game: copious amounts of slurs. The worst ones are when I get the life or death parry successfully, have a brief "fuck yeah!" moment, and immediately get slapped by the follow-up attack. I'll be damned if it's not fun, even if I am terrible at it.
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Yeah, there's some Chromatic bosses, that are a real pain in the ass. I've recently attempted Chromatic Danseur and Chromatic Jar, and after a couple of tries, I said "fuck you niggers! I'll come back once I drink more milk".
 
I just watched a heart-to-heart cutscene between two grown women WITHOUT ending with a shoehorned romance. They even said "friends" in their dialogue.

Amazing. I'm glad that I can watch two adults having an emotionally charged conversation without it getting romantic.

I wish they add a mini-map or something later. I'm tired of face-fucking every polygon to try to find lootables.
 
Estate said:
Well, the usual faggots will always find something to bleat about. Even in this thread, there were some tourist culture war dipshits, complaining about some prop characters in the prologue being niggers.
Bruh, who gives a shit!?

This game has two white male leads, a harem of good looking women and some weird non-human bros, being goofy and funny. No homos, no niggers, no gender shit.
77.webp
This nigga is my homie, even if he's a footfag.
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Oh yeah, I forgot the foot thing. We can't all be perfect and he is a real bro.

I don't get how literal copy paste NPC niggers in the beginning can ruin the game for anyone when the rest is free of any of that gay shit.
 
Yeah, this game can't be compared to Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 because that other game actively shoved an anachronistic black guy in your face to natter 24/7 about the equally anachronistic superiority of the Kangz culture of that time, along with other blatant "we hired a diversity consultation firm for this shit!" nonsense.

On the other hand, this game has some black people but
Lumiére is not a real place in Earth; it's a magical plane created by a Painter that clearly has attachment issues to her dead brother.

This game has the aesthetics of the Belle Époque era of France, but it's not a historically accurate game unlike what Kingdom Come Deliverance is touted to be.

Also come on, this is JRPG-influenced. JPRG love its diversity more than people think. You'll find black- and brown- and even red- and green-skinned characters that pop in and out for no reason other than the people behind the game think it's cool. There are nowhere in the game do I feel that I am being preached at about some race or gender superiority stuff, so it's not like this game has the taint of Sweet Baby Inc and their ilk.

Even when Gustave dies and the real protagonist is revealed to be Maelle, it never feels like a "Surprise! This is a girl boss game now!" bait and switch. It's just how the story is, and it's an interesting one.

I do get why people are wary, as these days, black characters and troon-like women are basically color codes that the game going to be a DEI shitfest, but I don't feel that this game is anywhere near that. It is a lovely bastard child of Bloodborne and Final Fantasy conceived with love - and as a plus, with a storyline full of twists and turns that still manage to make sense in the end. Oh, and it hits the feels too.
 
I gave it a try after "borrowing" a copy online. Whats with the input lag for dodge and parrying? It made me not want to play it after rematching shadowhearts VA character and dying because of the terrible input lag. Is it worth playing?
 
Fully Eshay Skits Bruh V4 said:
I gave it a try after "borrowing" a copy online. Whats with the input lag for dodge and parrying? It made me not want to play it after rematching shadowhearts VA character and dying because of the terrible input lag. Is it worth playing?
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I've heard input lag being an issue with controllers but I haven't had too much issue myself.

The timing is a bit odd, the dodge is generous but parrying is a few frames shorter than Sekiro (I'm playing on Expeditioner) so you basically have to press it right before you get hit. I do think the tutorial fight's timing is kinda ass though, the enemies in the first area are way easier to get the hang of.
 
I have nothing against the game itself, and from what I've seen I'm actually mildly interested in giving it a try, maybe I'll like it, maybe I won't, but Claire 33 feels like another one of those games that after a couple months of intense promotion (with the sort of delirious enthusiasm that only ever seems to accommodate flash in the pan works), and unanimous agreement that this is an important development in the world of gaming that will be forgotten mostly by this time next year by the people boosting it the hardest.
 
Pirated this game to see if it would run (I do this for basically any non-indie game these days) and was so pleasantly surprised that I bought it.


Studio's first game, it runs okay (could be a lot better but asking Unreal to run at more than 30fps is like asking a Discord moderator to get a job). It also runs great on Proton (Linuxchuddy), so happy to support them. No bullshit Denuvo DRM either.

Main character looks like Robert Pattinson and it's very distracting.
 
Chapalapachapa said:
also just found out gustav isnt wearing a glove, he is missing his entire fucking arm
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Yeah, Maelle makes a comment about it in the opening when he's throwing rocks out towards the water, saying he could probably throw further with his other arm. In a later cutscene (first camp I think) he's throwing with his mechanical arm. Lune also makes a comment to Gustav in camp about how his apprentices would be excited not only because Gestrals were real, but they were also impressed by the arm they built.

The first Gestral you meet also initially wants Gustav's arm in exchange for taking you to the village, but Maelle convinces him that Gustav would help him make "something better" when they got there instead. The "something better" in question is an optional boss you can find in the village, which you'll need a mushroom from Esquie's nest to finish building.
 
Croaking Spider said:
Yeah, Maelle makes a comment about it in the opening when he's throwing rocks out towards the water, saying he could probably throw further with his other arm. In a later cutscene (first camp I think) he's throwing with his mechanical arm. Lune also makes a comment to Gustav in camp about how his apprentices would be excited not only because Gestrals were real, but they were also impressed by the arm they built.

The first Gestral you meet also initially wants Gustav's arm in exchange for taking you to the village, but Maelle convinces him that Gustav would help him make "something better" when they got there instead. The "something better" in question is an optional boss you can find in the village, which you'll need a mushroom from Esquie's nest to finish building.
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how the fuck did they managed to make this thing with so little manpower. i didnt see any of that in the gestral village.
 
Chapalapachapa said:
how the fuck did they managed to make this thing with so little manpower. i didnt see any of that in the gestral village.
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It comes with the freedom of not having to wade through corporate red tape, not being designed by committee to make content "safe" and "for everyone", and no bullshit microtransactions or predatory monetary practices to appease shareholders and recoup bloated development costs. This game would have never left the ground if it had been pitched at Ubisoft. Which honestly is probably for the better, because there is no way Ubisoft could have conveyed this story and subject matter properly in a mature manner. Hell, I don't think it would have gotten off the ground at Square Enix even as a hypothetical, given how the FFXVI producer felt. Aged perfectly, by the way. I wonder how goofy he feels right now.

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A small handful of developers poured a lot of passion and talent into the game that they themselves wanted to play. The soundtrack is easily one of if not the best of recents times. It's 8 hours long and everything I've heard so far slaps. They released a game at a budget price on discount and said "here, we made this, we put a lot of love into it and we hope you like it". And it sold a million copies in 2 days and has glowing reviews, even among the culture warriors and people who otherwise wouldn't be interesting in a turn-based RPG. I'm used to seeing big name YouTubers glaze new games for sponsorships or views, but it's been a while since I've seen everyone from 2 view nobodies to big names singing praise for a new release. The game absolutely deserves its flowers. The biggest flaw of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is that Sandfall has set an incredibly high bar for their future releases. Imagine if the first song Michael Jackson put out was Thriller.
 
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Watched an hour of a stream and jesus christ, that UI is needlessly messy. It also reeks of Metaphor 'inspiration' and the graphics themselves look short of an unreal tech demo. I can appreciate indies not having the polish and all, but that UI is tethering on chink slop
 
⋖ cørdion ⋗ said:
Watched an hour of a stream and jesus christ, that UI is needlessly messy. It also reeks of Metaphor 'inspiration' and the graphics themselves look short of an unreal tech demo. I can appreciate indies not having the polish and all, but that UI is tethering on chink slop
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I find it very clear and legible during combat. The high contrast and sharp angles pop and give you all the info you need. Not as stylish as persona's , but persona is purely turn based and the UI can be as distracting and eye catching as it wants. The graphics are not industry gold standard, but this game is the hypothetical "small team, medium budget, no crunch" project everyone begs for. The music and story keep the momentum going more than anything.
 
⋖ cørdion ⋗ said:
Watched an hour of a stream and jesus christ, that UI is needlessly messy. It also reeks of Metaphor 'inspiration' and the graphics themselves look short of an unreal tech demo. I can appreciate indies not having the polish and all, but that UI is tethering on chink slop
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I played it for a couple hours last night and it was legible enough for my sleep deprived brain to get through. Graphically I think the game looks... fine? It does lack some polish but on the other hand it also doesn't run like absolute dogshit. Some of the initial set pieces like the harbor at the start of the game are pretty nice and the general aesthetic of the game kind of feeling like a surrealist painting trying to spill out into the real world is somewhat unique as far as "ruined cityscape" settings go.

The soundtrack goes incredibly hard though. I felt like people were glazing this game at first so I had somewhat higher expectations but I've been pleasantly surprised overall so far, and I've played a lot of JRPGs over the years, and I can really tell the devs have too.
 
Chapalapachapa said:
how the fuck did they managed to make this thing with so little manpower. i didnt see any of that in the gestral village.
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So much of those 9 figure budgets are eaten up by management bloat, fixing pajeet code, wokegeld, marketing, moneitization consultants, bribes, clusterfuck organization. Well organized small teams don't have that shit, like how the 90s and Current Chinese companies operate, and expect the small organized teams to start filling in the AAA void.

Hell, Id software is one of the few competent AAA companies left and they have something like 300 people.
 
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