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

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I actually felt something for sophie. You only spend 30 minutes with her, but between the dialog and various events (talking to other people, doing the paint brush duel) I was invested enough in her to feel bad when she got erased. The scene at the sirene boss and some of lune's moments were also pretty good. I also thought the moment when maelle gives gustave's students his diary, and they realize he didn't make it back, was quite touching. The family story left me cold though.
It's not a 10/10 but at the same time most of the modern games leave me completely cold, E33 might win because its competition is so pathetic.

While I liked the reveals in act 3, they are way too meta to the point it really ruins your emotional connection to the characters. Before that events like Gustav's death hit pretty hard.

Honestly I think that's a problem with the parry/dodge system. If a player can avoid all damage with correct timing, how can you kill them except by making the patterns convoluted and extremely damaging. You also stimulate people just going 100% offensive since that makes the fight last shorter, and the damage is so high HP/def barely helps.

Yep, if you are good enough to parry everything then you might as well kill the boss quickly, if you aren't good enough to parry everything then kill the boss quickly since attrition doesn't matter when bosses constantly attack your entire front line. Would be interesting to see a no-dodge/parry challenges, there are a lot of pictos which give you buffs on death so you can have one sacrifical character to die mid-combo to restore your party.

The game pushes the renoir ending hard. The entire story is about letting go and going forward. It starts with you seeing Sophie off. The Renoir ending has color and shows the family together. The Maelle ending is black and white and shows a sad Verso, and Maelle struggling to maintain her connection to the canvas. The only part that doesn't support Verso is that it seems that till the end you're fighting against the erasure of the canvas. Although I disagree with the Lumeire denizens being soulless. They reproduce, have their own culture and community and have their own dreams. Even at the end they didn't show them behaving like puppets. Renoir during the final confrontation also seems to accept they are complex people. He is just willing to sacrifice them if that fixes his family. If he believed they were illusions he would say so. Instead he says something along the lines of "I want my family back, even if that means destroying this canvas".

Honestly, I'm disappointed with how black and white (hah) it is. Instead of making the hard choice of saving the people you fought with, the people that also deserve a tomorrow. The future they fought for for 67 expeditions, or mending a broken family, they say "either Maelle lives in a broken world that refuses to feed her escapism, or you mend the family.".

You can argue that it's kind of aesop that is common sense, but you can't write it well without making the inside world likable and giving the player a stake in it, otherwise it just comes out as preachy. I think the devs did an overall good job, otherwise people wouldn't have cared so much to discuss it.

I agree. If the people in the canvas are an illusion, automatons brought to life, the story is rather limp. It turns the ending into "do you want maelle to self-destruct on these fake people or move on", as well as turning the entire struggle of the Lumieres meaningless. If they are really complex people then the choice becomes more interesting. Are you willing to genocide the Lumieres for the Dessieres. I get the feeling that is the choice they want to make the players make, but then using the language of film to imply the Maelle ending is bad and the Verso ending is good. I think it would be a lot better if Maelle's ending had the warm colors. Everything seems warm and happy, everything went well and you see your party members back. Even Gustave is back with Sophie, but somewhere you know Alicia can't stay here forever. While the Verso ending is sad but shows Alicia outside the canvas.

Thinking about it more, it's less puppets/AI and more that everyone holds a fragment of Verso's original soul, which is basically what Chroma is. The struggle of Lumiere is the struggle of Verso between moving on to the great beyond and sticking around with his loved ones for their detriment.

Holy shit spoilering within text box is completely broken.

Also on a lighter note, if I understood it correctly, Expedition 60 was entirely made of naked men and women who basically swam all the way to the Paintress, rip mad lads.

 

[Waffle Iron]

Again, I'll criticize the inconsistency in how the story developed him.

When I think more about it I think it might've
actually made more sense to reverse the two characters their associated ending. If you flip them around, the Verso ending would have Verso initially be evasive and try to kill the paintress to end it all, but in act 3 he becomes friends with the team and is unwilling to end it all. Meanwhile the Alicia ending would have Maelle realize she has to sacrifice the canvas and accept her father's invitation to the real world.
Ironically in the current arrangement the Maelle ending is where she ends up struggling to stay in the canvas, while in the Verso ending she doesn't. She gets forcefully removed from the canvas, instead of making that choice herself..

Yep, if you are good enough to parry everything then you might as well kill the boss quickly, if you aren't good enough to parry everything then kill the boss quickly since attrition doesn't matter when bosses constantly attack your entire front line. Would be interesting to see a no-dodge/parry challenges, there are a lot of pictos which give you buffs on death so you can have one sacrifical character to die mid-combo to restore your party.

If they just had dodges and the damage avoidance would be 50% to 80% (the closer you get to perfect) I think the balance would be less wonky. DEF/HP would be more useful, and the fights less lopsided.

Also on a lighter note, if I understood it correctly, Expedition 60 was entirely made of naked men and women who basically swam all the way to the Paintress, rip mad lads.

I was going to collect all journals and make a list of my favorite expeditions. But the story really pissed over my interest on doing that. expedition 60 was incredibly strong. Not only did they do incredibly well despite their ace in the hole being being ripped, they also actually found out the true target.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

When I think more about it I think it might've
actually made more sense to reverse the two characters their associated ending. If you flip them around, the Verso ending would have Verso initially be evasive and try to kill the paintress to end it all, but in act 3 he becomes friends with the team and is unwilling to end it all. Meanwhile the Alicia ending would have Maelle realize she has to sacrifice the canvas and accept her father's invitation to the real world.
Ironically in the current arrangement the Maelle ending is where she ends up struggling to stay in the canvas, while in the Verso ending she doesn't. She gets forcefully removed from the canvas, instead of making that choice herself..

Not really, in the end it's a tragedy set up by the character personality and history. Verso already sacrificed his life for his sister and he does so again, not out of his own will to die, but because he knows his family is doomed otherwise. Meanwhile Maelle is analogous to a pain relief drug addict, even if she could potentially do things in moderation she won't because it's torture for her to be in the real world.

Also wonder if the writers worlds are more rigid than the painters. A painting is a lot more imaginative and free to evolve than a written work.

 

[Kane Lives]

Gearing up to take on my first axon, been backtracking to pick up stuff I missed in the initial areas.

Also beat that bitch Chromatic Abbess after a few tries. Parrying is really fun when you get the timing down.

 

[Oggdo Bogdo]

Not really, in the end it's a tragedy set up by the character personality and history. Verso already sacrificed his life for his sister and he does so again, not out of his own will to die, but because he knows his family is doomed otherwise. Meanwhile Maelle is analogous to a pain relief drug addict, even if she could potentially do things in moderation she won't because it's torture for her to be in the real world.

I don't want to downplay the decision made by people at the end of the game, because I know from experience how easy it is to get attached to elaborate settings: but if I had to choose between a pocket universe and my family, I'd pick family everytime.

The choice fucking broke me but I knew I'd make the same decision if I was forced into that situation, regardless of how attached I was to that world.

Spoiler: Ending in a Nutshell

 

[Mussolini’s Merkin]

Picked this up last week due to the positive feedback and finished Act 1 over the weekend. I really did not see that twist coming at all.

Combat is a lot of fun and the game looks gorgeous, I’m kind of shocked something decent came out recently.

Still working on getting my mind around decent builds, I see people putting out ridiculous amounts of damage but my party just isn’t there yet. Is it worth upgrading weapons? Every time I think about it I seem to find and upgrade after a battle.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I don't want to downplay the decision made by people at the end of the game, because I know from experience how easy it is to get attached to elaborate settings: but if I had to choose between a pocket universe and my family, I'd pick family everytime.

The choice fucking broke me but I knew I'd make the same decision if I was forced into that situation, regardless of how attached I was to that world.

Spoiler: Ending in a Nutshell

View attachment 7352325

Tbf, it's more a choice between a broken family and a family comprised of different AI that raised you for the last 16 years. And going back might have you die from an infection in the next decade.

 

[El Chacal De La Trompeta]

just finished act 2. you have to be fucking shitting me
THIS GAME IS SO GOOOOOOOOOOD
i need a minute to continue act 3

 

[4090 Chad]

So I killed the flying snake boss guy in two turns with a team death bomb/Verso solo 1 HP build. lmfao Wasn't even max level or with a max weapon.

 

[Fae Supremacist]

A trailer from late 2022, taken from Sandfall website archives. It seems feature complete, and all characters have their release appearances, including a hipster barista Gustave.
The shading and colors in the Continent are different and more fantastical.

Earlier art from 2021, featuring Sciel as a blonde Archer.

Sandfall's casting call for the main 4 from September 2021. They do mention five main characters in the game, but Verso is not included or named.
Another appearance of blonde Sciel. She looks very bimboified here for some reason.

Gustave is named "Etan" and is also blonde.

The backstory and characterization blurbs for every character are pretty much the same as they are in the released game. Maelle and Lune's designs are unchanged.
Also confirmed that it was PS4 God of War that they wanted their VA performances to be based on, not the PS3 ones, to the shock of no one. Also citing A Plague Tale as having a similar atmosphere which makes sense.

 

[El Chacal De La Trompeta]

still cant believe only 30 people made this game

 

[Fae Supremacist]

I'm surprised neither the devs nor any player discussion, review or article I've seen online brought up The Order: 1886 as a comparison. It's aesthetically very close to E33, and I'm happy a game followed its impeccable art design but with actual gameplay and not cover based QTE visual novel nonsense. Man, what a waste that game was.

only 30 people made this game

Plus eight animators, and the voice actors. More if you want to be a pedant and include the external QA playtesters and musicians.

 

[Croaking Spider]

Storywise FFX doomed world, futile journey to try and stop an eldritch evil, all that.

Out of all of the Final Fantasy stories, the one that stands out the most in similarities thematically is Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (don't recommend you unspoil unless you've finished Expedition 33 because if you draw the dots it ruins the twist)

Spoiler: Final Fantasy Comparison

Like Expedition 33, the core theme of using escapism as a form of grieving is there, with characters all having their own reasons for wanting to maintain the fantasy or go back to the way things started. Like how Maelle wanted to uphold the illusion to enjoy happiness in a non-broken body in a world she had come to love, there are characters in FFTA who were physically crippled, were unpopular, or were struggling in the real world who found a new purpose in a fabricated one. Both games did the theme well, but Expedition 33 pivots to that plot point in a pretty heavy and somber way that I feel is overall better executed.

 

[Dumpster dived waifu]

still cant believe only 30 people made this game

Studio execs will never understand that letting a group of retards freeball a passion project can churn out an infinitely better game than a paint-by-numbers overseer'd project.

 

[4090 Chad]

Studio execs will never understand that letting a group of retards freeball a passion project can churn out an infinitely better game than a paint-by-numbers overseer'd project.

It's more about execs will look at the game they have made and go, "Yea that's cool and all, but where are the extra revenue generators? We need microtransactions or some kind of p2w feature to boost our revenue numbers for our board room and investor calls"

 

[Niggs Monaghan]

Even if it was named Expedition 1488 and everyone was white it'd still be considered woke because one character has brown eyes and Hitler has brown hair and is half Jewish.

 

[Quarterback Rex Grossman]

Even if it was named Expedition 1488 and everyone was white it'd still be considered woke because one character has brown eyes and Hitler has brown hair and is half Jewish.

Also no boobs.

 

[Mister Fister]

Also no boobs.

 

[Oilspill Battery]

Look guys, two sycophantic faggots from the synth "whoa mama futa lover" thread have come to deliver their dipshit opinions.
Lil' bros here bitch about brigading, run to jannies to bitch and cry for help and shill their 100 views "review" videos on this game.
Begone, little grifting clout goblins.

I have never posted in the synthetic man thread, I think he's a midwit retard that does more damage to any cause he's representing than helping it, I don't watch his videos, and I also think you guys are getting ridiculously touchy about your newest flavour of month multiculti black kangs bing bing wahoo goyslop.

Garmers losing their shit about concord, a fantasy game in space having black people, but somehow being "this is actually historically accurate" about 20th century france looking like south africa is why I think gamers deserve to be taken advanced of by big companies both financially and ideologically.

 

[BibiLivesMatter]

Also wonder if the writers worlds are more rigid than the painters. A painting is a lot more imaginative and free to evolve than a written work.

I kind of hope their next game will be this IP again. Seeing how Expedition is set around 1905 real world, It be interesting if they do a sequel through a writers perspective. Like a child coping through WW1 with her fantastical writings that has references to the hell around them. Hope they don't do another one though on the main family, for I feel this game has did a good job telling their story and really doesn't feel like it needs a continuation.