Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

This game sets the bar for me at a perfect video game experience. It's not any singular game mechanic or revolutionary idea that's implemented that makes Clair Obscur what it is, but rather a masterfully crafted sum of its parts. In my 30 years of video gaming, this game has hit like no other. There are frustrations with timing windows (most likely user error though), and Gestral Beach Volleyball is atrocious, but I will do it again for the sake of the GOG achievement. You'll read that it's overhyped; to the contrary I believe overhyped is appropriately hyped in this case. I bought and played "over there", and I immediately bought and can't wait to play here on GOG. Do yourself a favor with this one, stop reading reviews, take the dive and go in blind.

Second time buying. 1st oj PlayStation. Now I get to own it for REAL!

Beautiful graphics and story, great turn based combat system with action elements, and decent (if confusing) character building. It's also learned things from games like slay the spire, funnily enough, in how the skills interact with each other and apply stacked debuffs etc. Unfortunately I had already bought the game on Steam. If I had realized they were planning to release on GOG I would 100% have gotten it here instead :).

Just play it.

TL;DR: If you're considering this game, stop right now, buy and play it. You will thank yourself later for making a great choice. I saw a presentation of this game a few years ago on an Xbox showcase and I waited impatiently for launch. To say that I had high expectations is an understatement. Suffice it to say, this is very risky approach to anything, and especially a new game, from a new and unproven studio. I can happily say that all my expectations were met and then some. Most games are either very artistic but don't play all that great, or are fun to play but you would not necessarily compare them to works of Da Vinci or Chopin. This game is both a great game and a true work of art. Everything about this title is inspired. The music alone is fantastic. When combined with art style, story, world and creature design, acting, and tough but fun gameplay, it puts most other games to shame. To think that something like this came out of a new, small development studio (with a lot of help from contracted artists of course) is almost unbelievable. If you haven't already, look up some documents about how this game came together. This story is in itself a great entertainment (I recommend Skill Up's video). I played it on Game Pass when it launched and loved it there. I though of buying on Steam but I try to avoid that, if possible and much prefer GOG. When I saw it today on the home page, I just had to have it. Now I'm thinking if I should maybe put another 100h in...