I’ve been a lifelong RPG fan and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is easily a Game of the Year contender. It takes pieces from all of its influences and blends them incredibly and refreshingly. For a little bit, I was juggling around The First Berserker: Khazan, Blue Prince, and South of Midnight. While all of those are phenomenal games, well worth your attention, something about Clair Obscur instantly hooked me. I’ve been streaming it on both my Twitch and Youtube channels and it’s tough not to want to explore more offline. I’ve taken down a few optional bosses because I was trying to see if I mastered a mechanic.
Now, before I get too far into this article, there will be some spoilers. I don’t want to get too heavy on the spoilers because this is a game where you should go into it as fresh as possible.
Lynchian Influences? I’m All In
From looking around at various interviews by Sandfall Interactive, the team mentions being heavily influenced by classic RPGs like Final Fantasy, Sekiro, and even David Lynch. David Lynch is one of my favorite people, so that immediately put this game on my radar. I’d also noticed that the combat system is similar to the Judgement Ring mechanics in the Shadow Hearts series, where landing a hit in specific zones either causes a success or a critical success. The Pictos system is reminiscent of Lost Odyssey, where equipping and gaining enough XP for accessories would allow certain party members to learn all skills attached. The option to just start blasting at enemies is pretty much the gun mechanic from Persona 5. The game introduces you to dodge, parry, jump, and other mechanics. I’m deep into Act II at the time of this writing, and the game just introduced a gradient attack and gradient dodge. You could argue that those are similar to the Paper Mario series, but the execution feels more like a Soulsborne game. Speak of Soulsborne games, I am notorious about hoarding all of my items until I’m well past the end boss in any RPG. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 tackles this issue by giving you a finite number of heals, revives, and AP (their version of mana) potions that recharge whenever you rest at a campsite.
While this sounds I’m talking this game up to be derivative, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 manages to blend all of those influences together like some sort of awesome mixtape. I’ve even described this game as like Death Stranding meets Lost Odyssey and those are both on my all-time games list.
This Story Is Wild
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 takes place on the island of Lumière. For the past 67 years, this entity known as the Paintress wakes up and paints a number on a gigantic monolith, and she’s been counting down from 100. Whenever this happens, an event known as the “Gommage” occurs. The “Gommage” pretty much Thanos’ snaps everyone above that age out of existence. I imagine this wasn’t too bad in the upper 70s and 80s but the game is set right as she wakes up to paint 33 on the monolith. Every year, an Expedition team is assembled to try and explore outside of Lumière and see if they can get closer to finally defeating the Paintress. Throughout the game, you stumble upon journal entries from previous Expeditions, and a lot of them boil down to either “Hey, what’s that thing approaching us!?” or “We thought these mushrooms were ok to eat…”
Members of the Expedition 33 team include Gustave (Charlie Cox but I’m not going to lie, I thought it was Robert Pattinson at first, and I’m not the only one), Maelle, Lune, and Sciel. Along the way, you recruit some other characters. The dialogue as you’re exploring and especially when you set up a campsite, is incredibly well-written and gets you invested in all of the characters. Esquie, this large mythical creature that reminds me of Baymax from Big Hero 6, is probably my favorite character and Sandfall Interactive is leaving money on the table if they don’t drop a plushie or merch featuring him.
The prologue has you controlling Gustave on the day of the “Gommage.” The people of the town treat this event almost like a ship leaving port, and my soul was crushed when Gustave held hands with his ex lover, Sophie, as the Paintress awoke and Sophie faded out of existence. Between the music and the visuals, I was stunned. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 walks a line like the Mother series where you’ll have these moments that make you want to take a walk to process what you just witnessed, and other moments like getting attacked by a mime that puts up an invisible wall as a barricade.
Afterwards, Gustave and others set out on Expedition 33. As soon as it makes landfall, nearly every character you were introduced to gets wiped out. You manage to reunite with Lune, Maelle, and Sciel as survivors while exploring the lands beyond Lumière. The final moments of Act 1 completely threw me for a loop, and I’m glad that the Internet collectively agreed to allude to it, but I haven’t seen any major spoilers. With hindsight, it was a little telegraphed, but I was still blown away that Sandfall Interactive made a bold decision, and it raised the stakes for the remainder of the game.
Games Have Stepped Up Their Soundtracks
Hi-Fi Rush and South of Midnight have become a few of my reference points for games where I’ll have the soundtrack on while I’m writing or working on stuff. The music of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is no exception. From haunting opera to funky saxophone, I found myself looking forward to battles and exploring new areas because the backing tracks were a bop. I was in an optional segment that could be best described as “Only Up” and while it was frustrating and challenging, the music kept me dancing a little bit while I struggled to reach the top.
Final Thoughts
It’s incredible to think that Sandfall Interactive is an AA developer and they put out this masterpiece. The return of AA studios has me stoked for the future because I think we’ll get more games like a Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 or an Alan Wake 2, where you can tell a team poured their hearts and souls into it and didn’t have the red tape of their AAA contemporaries. If you have Gamepass, I strongly encourage you to give this game a shot. It’s currently sitting at around $40 to $50 USD, and that’s almost a bargain.
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