Review: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

I try very hard not to write any spoilers about the games I played when writing a review for them. As a player I like to know as little about the story of a game as possible before going in, I like going in blind and being completely enraptured by the game. The following two paragraphs contain some very minor spoilers (nothing more than what plays in the introductory sequence of the game). If you want to avoid anything story-related, you may want to skip the next two paragraphs.

Clair Obscur sets a scene in a alternate world where every year The Paintress strokes her brush through the air and subtracts the number, visible on the horizon, by one. This then also triggers the gommage (erasure) of all people older than the visible number. When the game starts, you see the number go from 34 to 33. Meaning no one lives to be older than 33. As I am 37, this would have made me very much dead. All willing citizens of Lumière that would be erased by next year go on an Expedition. This expedition sets out to kill The Paintress and remove her curse from the world.

Outside the borders of Lumière live huge monstrosities called Nevrons. These huge creatures aren’t to be reasoned with and just attack mindlessly. The people of Lumière know this and each year they prepare for an expedition to stop the Paintress and learn from the expeditions that came before them. This year, Gustave invented the Lumina Converter, a device that enables expedition members to harness Chroma and use Pictos more effectively.

Chroma is something weird, its both a life force in the world of Clair Obscur ánd a currency used to buy weapons, Pictos, outfits and haircuts. You gain Chroma from defeating enemies and also by collecting it through exploration. Going through all the different paths and finding all hidden places in a level gets rewarded. You’ll find Chroma, Lumina, Pictos or even weapons if you’re lucky. Either that or you’ll find a unique enemy what extra powerful abilities.

Combat in Clair Obscur is clearly inspired by several other games, yet combines these skilfully to bring a unique experience for each enemy. Each enemy sports a different attack pattern, which you can either try to dodge or parry. Dodging has a more forgiving window of opportunity, but parries really need to be timed perfectly. But when you do, you not only block the attack, but you attack in return. Either dodging or parrying attacks always made me feel like I achieved something special. You could say this ability to time a parry or dodge comes from perfect timing comes from Dark Souls, but in this genre of turn-based RPG mechanics I think it has more in common with the Mario & Luigi RPG series. PC Gamer has a nice article on Clair Obscur’s inspirations, as well as the Team page on Sandfall’s website listing all devs favourite games.

As for the party of heroes, you get a certain number of AP (Attack Points) per turn and you can spend these to perform actions during your turn. You can clearly see the influence that Persona had on Clair Obscur with the ability to shoot enemies. You can use this ability to hit certain Nevrons in their weak spot, dealing additional damage. For some enemies this mechanic is more elaborate and you can use your shoot ability to prevent an enemy from performing an attack. At first I thought the ability was tacked on, seemingly inspired by Persona and just putting it in for the sake of the idea. But it’s really well done, allowing for interesting character builds and surprising enemy interactions if you’re open to look for them.

The other thing you can spend your AP on is an ability set that is unique for each character. Gustave builds up charges, Maelle has different sword stances, Lune has elemental stains she creates and consumes with every attack. Sure this isn’t exactly new, but it’s a whole lot more fun than classic JRPG’s that had different classes where the only thing that changed is which spell you cast and the MP cost. Combat in Clair Obscur lives, breathes and occasionally kicks you in the balls.

If this wasn’t enough to create a versatile playstyle for you, then Sandfall cooked up another modifier. Pictos. These are abilities that you unlock with Lumina, another currency that can be found by exploration and through combat rewards, in camp you can spend Lumina on different party members to increase their capacity to equip Pictos. Every character can equip 3 Pictos, these do not cost any Lumina and after 4 encounters the Pictos is mastered, which allows any party member to equip its ability, but it’ll cost Lumina to equip it. These Pictos allow you to gain AP after killing an enemy, or when dodging an attack. But they might also increase your shoot damage, or set your enemies on fire. Pictos is what will make your time in Clair Obscur different from anyone else playing. While you might have some overlap with others, there are so many Pictos to choose from that you’ll definitely find some interesting combinations to accommodate your playstyle.

There’s so much more to say about Clair Obscur, especially the story, that is where the game really shines for me. I play games for the same reason I watch movies or series, for a great story. I have some genre preferences, but the story is what will make or break a game for me. And Clair Obscur is a gem. I haven’t had so much fun playing a JRPG since Final Fantasy X as a kid. I love doing optional stuff and being rewarded for it. I’m not a completionist anymore, because I lose interest in a game more quickly than before if the story arch is done, but I still love going back to places I’ve already been and finding new stuff. That itch really got scratched here. Some optional stuff even provide more background to the overall story which is a real nice thing. It makes all content feel grounded in the world, instead of a sequence that can be skipped.

I found it hard to put this game down, so much so that I missed the deadline for finishing Old Skies for the Adventure Game Club month of May. If I had a top 100 list of games of all time, Clair Obscur would find its place in it. Kudos to the team that made it. I won’t go into the debate about the team size and the outsourcing of aspects of the game. I’m here to review the game, and if a team of 30 people outsourced a bunch of stuff and made this game, good on them. I love the end result, so I can only assume they made good decisions and were able to juggle the output of all other studio’s in a game that’s very polished.