Leaving my review from Steam after 100% progress and 118 hours of gameplay:
Absolute cinema.
I heard this game was a masterpiece. I heard this is how the next Final Fantasy should be. So I decided to give it a try.
They were not lying. This is the Game of the Year, or at least you'll agree that it's a very strong contender.
It really shows that this game was done by very passionate developers that poured their passion all over it. The world is unique and fascinating, the music is superb and enchanting, the story is deep and emotional, and the gameplay is fun and rewarding!
The turn based gameplay for combat is great and being able to react by dodging or parrying to counterattack is a great innovation, although the idea is not entirely new (Mario & Luigi RPGs, for example). Combat is exciting and if you spend some time to understand how the different characters work and what the different weapons do, you will be able to create a great party that synergizes well and can dominate even the toughest bosses.
I loved the way that the game rewards exploration, both in the world and with the different builds you can use for your party.
You will find optional bosses, additional equipment, lore and more if you wander from the main path. There are even plenty unlockable costumes and hair styles that you can get by playing the game and exploring, just like in the old times!
Very glad to have played this game. I paid full price (although with regional pricing) and don't regret a penny.
Will definitely replay later to relive it.
Leaving this review... for those who come after.
I started playing this via Xbox Game Pass, decided to buy the deluxe edition two hours later after the prologue captivated me, and then finished it after 110 hours with full 1,000 gamerscore.
This is one of the finest games I've ever played, both in this generation and in my entire life. It is a reminder of what people who love games and gamers can make when free of corporate meddling while having a strong enough vision to manage themselves without losing sight of the goal. You can feel the immense love and passion that was put into this game as you play it. It's even more remarkable that the team was made primarily of people new to the games industry, showing just how much talent and drive they had while being led by a director with a clear enough vision to turn that new talent into something extraordinary.
I already said the prologue captivated me, but the story never stops keeping you engaged after that. You'll want to learn more about this world, who these characters are, and what their motivations are at every step of this game. Nothing feels forced, nothing feels unrealistic. Every character is compelling, genuine, and worthy of your sympathy, even the antagonists.
The gameplay isn't particularly unique, though maybe a bit uncommon. The director recounted a story where he explained his idea of a turn-based battle system with real-time parrying and countering to another developer, only for the developer to say it was like Paper Mario. Other reviewers have made similar comparisons to Paper Mario and Mario RPG. Not being unique in no way means the gameplay is lackluster though. It is incredibly polished and satisfying, and you'll never grow tired of it. Seeing the words "*character name* performs a Counter" or "Expedition 33 performs a Counter" will always be a celebrated moment whether you're at hour 1 or hour 100 of your playthrough. It's not uncommon for someone to play this, love it, and then wonder to themselves, "Wait, don't I hate turn-based games?"
The last thing I'll highlight is the music. The soundtrack has eight hours of music from a composer who has never composed a commercial product in his life until now. Despite that, we now have one of the most memorable soundtracks of the generation with music that spans a wide range of genres and in a few songs, somehow manages to fuse these genres in unexpected but very pleasant ways. A certain boss theme has been stuck in my head for several months and is nowhere near leaving it.
This is technically an indie game with a budget known to have been very lean (the exact cost is still a secret), but it feels like a AAA game with a renowned, experienced team in charge of it. In an era where we're jaded, maybe even disgusted by the games industry, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a breathtaking example of how great the industry can be with the right talent and mindset. It reminds us why we love games and brings us back to those days where we played something special in our formative years. Any AAA game studio trying to win back their audience should learn from Sandfall Interactive's example and invest in a few smaller experimental and independent projects. They might find they have some hidden talent just begging to be let loose on the world.
The game isn't perfect. I have a few flaws I can easily point out. However, the immaculate presentation in this game makes you respect and appreciate the choices the developers made, even if you don't like them. I will leave potential players with this tip though: Don't overlevel in the last act. The structure and balancing kind of goes out the window in the last act, and you can easily unintentionally become too powerful. Don't fall into the temptation of doing the sidequests before the final boss. They're meant for post-game fun. Just finish the quests associated with each character at the beginning of the last act, and then go finish the final area and boss. This way, you'll still have a decent challenge and won't kill the final boss too quickly and miss the in-game battle dialogue.
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.
