Review from steam purchase: The conversation about the literary quality of video games and whether they can be consider as masterpieces with artistic quality has been going on for a while, and although it is true that video games have artistic and literary quality, no game has really hit the narrative heights of high literature (or even mid-tier literary works), but Clair Obscur breaks that tradition. Undoubtedly, Clair Obscur is high art (I say this as a PhD in the arts). The storytelling opens strong with a melancholy tale and grips you. It's tone and voice is wonderfully framed by the game's aesthetics and aural design. It is simply sublime. As an RPG, story is king, and this story is the best I've ever experienced in a game. That said, at times the game gets in the way of the story (as is the case with many story-driven narrative-based games). And I don't mean that it's too difficult. In the context of the game, a ragtag group of expeditioners trying to take down an all-encompassing aethereal being who commands lovecraftian demons, the game SHOULD be difficult. Players SHOULD get frustrated and throw the controller at the TV in anger while screaming WHAT SIMON WHAT IS THIS STOP ATTACKING ME STOP ATTACKING ME WHY AM I DEAD?!? What I mean is that later in the story after the world starts to open up players can go back and forth and grind and spend hours becoming strong enough and learning patterns to the point that bosses start becoming easy. This is specially true in Act 3 with the Dark Shores. This is a game where we are supposed to be oppressed and threatened all the time because of the narrative, but in true and tried game tradition we players become stronger, master the game, and then the thread kinda goes away. That said, that's more of an annoyance for me than something that takes away from the overall experience. Every work of literature, from Gilgamesh to Beowulf to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner to Don Quijote to Sundjata to Matsu Basho to The Wheel of Time, has some minor flaw - a silly thing that keeps it from being perfect. For Clair Obscur it's that gameiness getting in the way in Act 3 and the somewhat clumsy controls during the world map bits in narrow parts of the map. That said, the battles are so great! People tend to say they don't like TBS, but the way E33 makes them active, almost soulslike in difficulty, is wonderful. They are a direct descendant from Lost Odyssey, where there were turns but also QTE and in-time button prompts for attacks. This one adds that heightened level of interaction for defense as well, so whenever you attack you have to time your hits, then you have to time your dodges or jumps or parries (PARRY IT) while keeping track of each character's unique ability, whether it's Maelle's stances or Gustav's Overdrive or Monoco's feet (lol). It's not a perfect narrative game, but it's not only a masterpiece but also the best example of the JRPG genre so far, and likely for a long time, and as far as I'm concerned it should go up on every shelf next to Keats, Blake, and Wordsworth. And the music! Ah, sublime! It's a must get. 9.9999999/10.
This game pays homage to the adventure / rpg traditions of gaming. It takes the player through original game boy, nes, 16 bit, 32 bit, and "HD" eras of gaming. Gameplay evolves depending on what period you are playing. When playing in a 16 bit field, you'll find monsters are few, but tough. While fighting on an HD field with ambient light, you'll find a Shining Force Neo stream of enemies. The game does not take itself seriously and uses most of the tropes from adventure / rpg tradition (running around town asking people for an item that was in front of your face all the time, the "wizard" character learning magic by "reading books from my uncle's library", etc). I do understand some of the negative reviews. The game doesn't add any new innovative mechanics. The game doesn't break any ground in storytelling. It doesn't mean to. It's meant to honor and parody at the same time the games of old. And with characters like Clink and Kaeris using Cloud's Sword to defeat the evil Zephyros from destroying the the world from his home base - the Mana Tree - it does what it sets out to do spectacularly.
