4/5 ★ – voorgo's review of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

The debate inside me between a 9 and 8 will rage eternal. Who knows what that little star counter says up there right now. It’ll probably change a few times. But it’s a testament to a truly amazing game that had a few pieces I couldn’t get myself to enjoy. The story, art direction, and world of Clair Obscure are fantastic. Story especially goes to such interesting places. It’s one that’s going to sit with me for awhile. But the combat just did not work for me. While there are pieces I like, namely some really cool character kits, the overall difficulty doesn’t feel properly tuned. The battle system relies heavily on parrying and I did not felt like it worked. It’s an example of an “active” turn based game that feels too active. If you don’t parry almost everything, you will die. And so I set the game to easy, which means I didn’t engage with the combat or side activities as much as I would have otherwise. And even then I was so over the combat by the last few levels that I ran past enemies. Granted that’s partially because of the story being so good. I don’t think the combat is bad, it’s just not for me. And there were definitely some quality of life ways to fix that. But as a first game from a new studio they missed those things. At the same time, I cannot fathom how a small team put this together. Is amazing. So maybe tomorrow I’ll change my score back to a 9.