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

This game is amazing. I started playing it a couple of weeks ago (beat it a couple of days ago) and just could not put it down. It consumed my life, from the soundtrack to the art, to the builds, the memes, everything. Usually every year a game has this grasp on me (RDR2, Witcher 3); and I think for this year it is this game. The premise of the game without being spoilery, is that you the player take control of Gustave, an expeditioner in the town of Lumière. The reasons for the expeditions is that every year the Paintress paints a number that goes down. Whoever is the age of that number or older dies, this is called the Gommage. Your job as expeditioners is to sail away as a last ditch Hail Mary to find anything to prevent the Gommage from taking more lives. The story is amazing. The characters are fucking fantastic, rich, vibrant, and layered. The game had me in tears multiple times from the writing and the mixture of the beautiful graphics and soundtrack. The exploration and gameplay is also great. Essentially the game is a turn based rpg with real time parry and dodging mechanics. It’s great for people that don’t like the genre as you’re constantly engaged every turn, and you can sometimes win fight off the merit of your skill rather than optimizing your turns with spells and attacks. Exploration is also fantastic, there is so many areas and sub areas that you can find just by exploring, opening up this rich and alive world. I will say not as alive as some other games (Elden Ring) but vibrant and lively enough. The little complaints I do have of this game boil down to just some untested side modes (Gestral Beaches). It felt like some of the side content was more of the novelty of having it rather than a fully fleshed out or even barely tested thing. Again they are very short so it doesn’t even matter that much. I honestly can’t find many negatives of this game, this game completely took me off guard. I heard good stuff of this game, but when I finally sat down and played it, Oh my God, by the end of the prologue I was hooked. I took me 50ish in game hours but I did manage to complete the game 100%, and honestly was tempted to try out some new game plus, I loved it that much. Please do yourself and play this masterpiece of a game. The small team of devs spent so much time and love crafting a game that while it has its small flaws, comes out to be this beautiful story. This truly feels like a landmark game in gaming. (4.9/5)