Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Review

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 feels like the game I have been waiting for since Final Fantasy X. Maybe since FF12 but in either case, for a long time. It’s takes the turn based formula and makes it feel fresh. Doing so while avoiding all of the strange semi-action turn based changes that so many JRPGs have adopted in recent years. It’s packed with interesting characters, a beautifully designed world and plenty of systems and side quests to keep even the deepest RPG nerds engaged.

Expedition 33 seemed to appear from nowhere. I had heard about it once or twice in passing but until the week it was due to release I hadn’t looked into it at all. I browsed through the various videos on their steam page and was impressed by the line up of voice actors they’d assembled. There’s plenty of familiar voices and a couple I was less familiar with. Watching them work behind the scenes made it clear that they enjoyed being there, a good sign that the brand new studio was doing something interesting.

I then watched the trailer and was hooked. The world that had been built was clearly beautiful but it was also intriguing. A broken world filled that felt familiar peppered with magic and mystery. This same feeling is pervasive even in the first minuets of playing.

Something bad has happened, people are broken but its clearly not fresh. If you’ve watched the trailer, which I’ll count as ‘not as spoiler’, then you’ll know that whatever has been happening has been happening for around 70 years at this point. The world didn’t just break apart, people have come to terms with their reality.

I love this. The people accept their reality and unlike so many other games, every conversation isn’t just an excuse to tell one tiny extra step of background lore. There’s a big evil across the world, everyone knows that. There’s magic and pieces of islands floating in the sky, that’s not new. Everyone clearly lives in this world and just because you’re the protagonist doesn’t mean you need everything explained to you as if you’re an alien.

This way of telling the game’s story helps to build a deep sense of immersion that I feel is missing from many games. The storytelling here is some of the best I’ve seen in a long, long time.

This continues throughout the games three acts as we learn more about the world and why things are the way they are. Each act has it’s own narrative arc which opens up more and more of the world as you move through the story. A story that is full of interesting twists and turns, many of which I would never have seen coming.

Coupled with the narrative progressing, Expedition 33 does a good job slowly introducing new systems. You start in the prologue area as just a single character. You battle a couple of tutorial enemies and learn the basics of the combat system. A traditional turn based system with quick time events.

Beyond the classic attacks and skills there’s a dodge and parry system that forms the core of any battle. Enemies are relentless in their damage and so the parry and dodge system help keep damage away in the first place. Normal difficulty has a parry window that’s short but doesn’t feel overly gimmicky.

I tried a couple of battles in the other difficulty levels which gave a good spectrum of difficulty around the timing which gives people options if they’re not looking for a punishing experience.

As you progress through the story you’ll find that each character in your party has unique skills and their own unique battle system. You can take three party members into battle allowing you to pair party members together in fun and interesting ways. Combining this with a wide array of skills, weapons and passive skills and there’s plenty of build engineering waiting to happen.

More than anything, its obvious that there has been a lot of care put into the game. The studio is new but its made up of developers from larger studios who grew fed up with the way AAA games were being built. Expedition 33 focuses on being a great game more than anything else. Next to so many other games focused on larger maps and endless rounds of collectables and paid cosmetics, Expedition 33 feels like a reminder. A reminder that games don’t need to be run by giant studios to be wonderful.

I strongly recommend you pick up this game. It’s the best game I’ve played this year by a long margin. It really deserves every bit of praise its received to date and I hope this new studio goes on to make many more games.