Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

We got around to finally playing the game. After reading quite a few positive comments about it, my expectations were quite high.

The world is beautiful and intriguing. But knowing what surfaces you can jump on or not is in no way clear. Sometimes the same-looking rock can be climbed or jumped on, and sometimes not. This makes it quite hard to know where you can go.

The story keeps you wanting more. What I like about the story is that it's not filled with fake cheerfulness. The story will also surprise you, well, at least it surprised us.

The music is also really, really nice. There were more than a few songs I enjoyed more than usual. I think I will actually listen to the soundtrack separately. Some really good vocals in them.

Another thing I enjoy in the game is French. There are some sentences in French from time to time. I've studied French in school, and I still try to improve using language apps. So getting to hear some French was fun.

The characters feel genuine

The characters are very well written. They feel authentic.

The stories of the characters are different from one another. Some have had more hardship than others, and you get to learn all about it.

Gameplay-wise, it's also nice that all the characters have their own thing. They have a unique weapon type and their unique skills. Your party won't consist of all the characters, so you get to choose the playstyles you prefer.

I'm not fond of the UI

One thing I don't like is the UI, especially the character profiles. I can't really put my finger on it, but the UI just feels a bit clunky and complicated. Even though it really isn't that complicated. But somehow the button mappings feel off. Of course, you get used to it the longer you play.

Jumping and toggling running is not great

When you try to toggle between running and walking, you can't simply do it while standing still. Most of the time, it's not really an issue, but there are a few instances where it gets a bit annoying.

Jumping in general feels a bit unreliable, and it can get frustrating, especially when the platforms you are jumping on don't really behave logically either. It seems like you must have the camera pointing forward when you try to climb a ledge. Again, most of the time it's not an issue, but there are a few activities where you absolutely must be able to jump to small platforms. And sometimes you can't really decide if the character climbs or jumps... if you play the game, I'm pretty sure you'll know exactly the place I'm talking about.

I loved the Gestrals

I won't say too much about them, so I won't spoil anything. But I found them super cute.

But I didn't find the Gestral minigames very fun. At least one was way too long and punishing. The Gestrals in them were still cute, though. And the rewards were quite fun.

Humour

There is also quite a bit of humour in the game. As someone who copes with humour, I enjoyed it.

Some of the humour comes from the clothing options. I will spoil this a bit, but there is a costume set called "Baguette". And it's exactly what you might think. Red beret, striped shirt, black pants and you even have a baguette on your back. The only problem with that costume set is that we didn't want to change it to anything else.

Gameplay and thoughts on the game

The battle system allows you to actually plan how you will approach a battle. One annoying feature is that you need to learn by heart how specific monsters hit. There wasn't often a real way of figuring out visually what was going to happen; all had to be remembered.

One thing we missed constantly was a minimap. The lack of a minimap sometimes made it a bit difficult to navigate the world. The game will show you the main way with lanterns, so you can tell the difference between the optional ways. Well, that is if you can recognise which lanterns do that. We always didn't.

All in all, I would definitely recommend the game. Even though I didn't like every single thing, I think the game is excellent.