5/5 ★ – Sefferson's review of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

As I made my way through Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, I told myself I wouldn’t write a lengthy review as I didn’t know what else to add to the conversation. I still don’t entirely know what to add, but I want to double down and say that the hype surrounding this game does not even do it justice. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a generational masterpiece, from start to finish. Every time I thought the game had showed me its whole hand, it completely flipped the narrative on me. This comes from both the gameplay and the story, everything comes together to make something downright unreal. Let's start from the top. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a turn-based RPG, and I know that can turn some people away from a game, but you are doing yourself a disservice if that is a deal breaker here. It took me a long time to really come around on turn-based combat in games, and I still find it to be less engaging at times than more action focused combat systems. This game though, I am confident if anyone gives it a short, they can find something about the combat that works for them. I have never played a more engaging battle system, and I do not say that lightly. The level of depth in this battle system is unbelievable. You can build your characters around whatever playstyle suits you best thanks to the Pictos and Luminas system. I genuinely feel like I just scratched the surface on the way all the passive skills can be synergized together, and the different party set ups you could create here. The other aspect of the battle system that makes it so engaging is the ability to parry or dodge enemy attacks. Some battles end up becoming a rhythm game in the middle of the fight, and as the game introduces new dodge and parry mechanics to the fights it comes together as one really, really cohesive system. With the freedom of Pictos and Luminas, mixed with the parry system, even the most insurmountable encounter can become trivialized. One of the aspects of the game I came to appreciate most early on was the flexibility. There were several fights that I fought over and over, just trying to perfect my parries so I could come out on top. Sure, I could have just come back later like I would have in any other RPG, but there was something incredibly rewarding about taking down an optional boss I was absolutely not "supposed" to fight yet. Throughout the game, if an enemy's health bar visibly moved, I would push myself and attempt to take down the boss. Every encounter I beat early, I was rewarded with a wide variety of items, my favorites being unique Pictos. I keep mentioning the Pictos, so I might as well dive into the system and express why it works so well. As you explore the world, you will encounter a wide variety of Pictos. These Pictos serve as passive stats and skills. Each character can equip three Pictos, which feels fairly limiting, but the system is so much more complex than that. After four battles with an equipped set of Pictos, you will learn the Luminas for those Pictos. Essentially, Luminas are Pictos without the passive stats, just the passive skills. With each character level, they gain another Lumina Point, which can be used to equip mastered Pictos as Luminas. It sounds overly complicated, but once it clicks, the possibilities are downright infinite. Over the course of my time with the game, I messed around constantly to come up with new ways to make my characters even more powerful. Every Picto has its time to shine. Fairly early on, you can encounter a Picto that makes it so at the start of a battle the character with it equipped dies. Sounds kind of worthless, but then a bit later into the level where you find that Picto, you will run across another one that damages enemies upon death. Combining the two can make it so you don't even see battles at times, and combing those two further with even more that you can find later, you can build one of your characters to literally just be a bomb that explodes on enemies and provides your team with a ton of buffs. I could go on and on about the system, but I don't want to ruin the surprise of the limitless builds you can make, and I honestly can't wait to play through again and try new combinations. Exploration in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is probably one of its weakest points, but even then, it blows most other games out of the water. Each new area you discover is linear, but there's so many little paths you might miss if you just run forward, and there is tons and tons of collectibles to find in each area. It can be difficult to navigate these areas and find everything in them, and there were several times I felt like I had very thoroughly explored an area, only to find whole branching paths later on upon a revisit of the area. Each of the main levels in the game is connected via a massive overworld map. Think of how old-school JRPGs had large interconnected areas connected by a big map. The overworld map is one of the best parts of the game, exploring the overworld, especially as you unlock new methods of travel on it, is always rewarding. There are secret areas, collectibles, optional bosses, etc... While I find the exploration to be one of the weakest points of the game, the overworld more than makes up for the linearity of the main levels, and the main levels being linear funnels the player to the good stuff. The presentation of these areas, and the world that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 creates is unlike anything I have ever encountered before. It practically negates the negative feelings associated with the main levels being fairly linear when every corner you turn is a new landscape or horizon just begging to be your new desktop wallpaper. Around the halfway point of the game, I finally found a way to put my thoughts into words. I have never played a game that stopped me dead in my tracks more often than this one. The art direction is ridiculous, and makes every area feel wholly unique. There were so many points where I just had to standstill and move the camera around just to take in the environment I was standing in. Beyond stopping to just look around, the game also made me stop on several occasions due to the music or the story. The music...Good lord the music...I don't want to oversell it, but I do think this is the best soundtrack I have ever heard in a video game. I've played a lot of video games, and I love video game OSTs, but the way that this soundtrack has taken over my life shocks me. Every single song is incredible in its own way, and there's not a small amount of them either. Every area has multiple themes, multiple battle themes, multiple boss themes, etc. You are constantly being fed new music. There were countless bosses where I just put down the controller to listen to the music. I have gone out of my way to finds streamers who have clipped their reactions to certain tracks, and it brings me great joy to see so many people just absolutely shell-shocked by how good the music is. Yet, above all else, I think what sets Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 apart from any other game out there is its story. Early on, you don't necessarily know where the story is going, and a big part of that is the way you just get thrown into the world of Clair Obscur. There is no dialog explaining how things work upfront to help you understand the world, no large exposition dumps to ensure no player gets left behind on the story. Instead, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 trusts the player. The story is beautiful, the story is tragic, the story is unlike anything I have experienced from a video game, and the game lets you piece it together. I have never played a video game with a story that has kept me on the edge of my seat as much as this one. I have never experienced a video game story that flipped its narrative on its head as often as this game does. I don't want to say too much, because the story is the real standout here, and it is one of the best stories I have ever seen. Please, play this game. Experience this story. If you are someone who is turned off by the way the game throws you into its world, give it time, it will all make sense in the end, and what an end it is. I have very, very minor nitpicks with the game, and I want to air them out in the event they are a deal breaker for anyone. The only one that really impacted me throughout is the lack of savable loadouts. With how many Pictos and Luminas you learn, and with how many character specific skills there are, it would have just been nice to be able to quickly swap them. The menuing as a whole in the game could afford to be a bit more user friendly. Something that did not bother me at all, and instead impressed me a lot, but I could see bothering someone else, is the lack of waypoints. It is very easy to stumble upon the story path while trying to explore as a result of this, but the fact the game never made me feel like I needed a waypoint throughout is a testament to how well designed the game is. When I bit the bullet and purchased Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, I went in with tempered expectations. I told myself there was no world where it met the hype for me, after seeing people nonstop talking about how amazing it was...And I have never been so happy to be proven wrong. If you had told me upon finishing this game I would be able to say with confidence it is my favorite video game period, I would have laughed at you. Please play Expedition 33.