4.5/5 ★ – gabicus's review of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a flawed game. Its difficulty isn’t tuned well at all, at times feeling trivial, other times feeling way too punishing. Its active combat system, while novel, isn’t perfect. And its endgame content didn’t really work for me. Despite all of that I’m still giving this a 9/10 because the art direction, plot and music are extremely inspiring and they make up for the downsides of the experience. This game is incredibly artistic. From the French operatic score to the black and white scenes that feel ripped from a noir movie. The tone will vary wildly from gut punching to hilarious to just plain bizarre. That it’s all delivered in a AA RPG package is very impressive. I had my issues with the combat, the lows were frustrating but the highs were pretty satisfying. I do think they built some decent RPG systems that let me create some great synergies. The ending of the game brings together all the plot threads to such a great and unexpected conclusion. This game has a vision in a way a lot of AAA games lack. I wish they were able to iron out some of those issues cause this could’ve been a confident 10/10. But from a debut title, I have a lot of respect for this studio. It’s a flawed game but it’s a compelling title that I was thinking about constantly and that makes it worth recommending.