Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Review

When Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was announced last year, it came out of nowhere and immediately captured the attention of role-playing game enthusiasts. With traditional party-based role-playing games finding less and less representation in the AAA space, the debut game from Sandfall Interactive looked like the game that could bring the genre into the spotlight without being a nostalgia-fueled experience, as the setting, story and main cast of characters looked very unique, and far removed from those we are now used to see in similar games. In the end, the game’s dark fantasy Belle Époque setting, the members of Expedition 33, and the turn-based combat system with a twist weren’t just a fluke meant to lure in jaded fans of classic RPGs. They are the well-developed elements that make up one of the best role-playing games released recently.

Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 is set in a ruined world where the mysterious goddess known as the Paintress holds sway over the people of the isolated island of Lumière, a beautiful place inspired by Paris, which broke off from the rest of the Continent following the Fracture. For the past 67 years, the inhabitants of the island have been subject to the Gommage, a twisted ritual where the Paintress draws a decreasing number, which causes the death of every human with an age above that number. To stop the Paintress from decimating humanity, the people of Lumière send expeditions into the continent, which often end in ruin, but not before they manage to leave behind something that could be for those that will come after.

Following yet another Gommage where the Paintress painted the number 33, the members of Expedition 33 head over to the Continent, hoping to achieve what the previous Expeditions couldn’t. Unfortunately, the group is decimated as soon as it lands on the continent by a mysterious man who has evidently lived well past 33 years. The few survivors, who include the engineer Gustave, his foster sister Maelle, the scholar Lune, and the warrior Sciel, following protocol, continue nonetheless towards their objective, not knowing that the world dominated by the Paintress and the Gommage is a lot more complicated than they initially thought.

The Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s setting and story have been influenced by NieR Automata, with its ruined world inhabited by some rather unique creatures, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3, with humans whose life has a set duration dictated by some higher power, but even so, they are fascinating and engaging. Much of the enjoyment of the game’s story, which manages to convincingly alternate between world-building, intimate character development, fist-pumping epic confrontations, mystery, and heartbreaking tragedies, comes from the excellent pacing that somewhat reminded me of what I consider the best-paced role-playing games ever made: Chrono Trigger.

Like the Square Enix classic, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 doesn’t inflate the play time. Every little story development serves a purpose in the grand scheme of things, like the strokes from a brush. Everything comes together extremely well when the adventure ends, ultimately making the 40 or so hours needed to clear the game an enjoyable rollercoaster of emotions that is hugely satisfying, if not a little emotionally draining, like only the best of stories manage to do.

Besides the excellent pacing of the story, the characters are the reason Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is so enjoyable. Even though the members of the Expedition 33 and a few others met during the journey on the continent get the most development, which is greatly enhanced by the tapestry their relationships wove, even those that only appear briefly manage to leave an impact. For example, it is tough to forget about the characters met before the Gommage, and remain indifferent as the ritual concludes. The excellent writing and the stellar performance of the English voice cast, including performances from Charlie Cox, Jennifer English, and Ben Starr, are the cherry on top of the most interesting setting seen in role-playing games in a long time.

Following in the footsteps of classic franchises like the Final Fantasy series, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 plays a lot like a traditional Japanese role-playing game, although with many twists that make both exploration and combat extremely engaging. Of the core gameplay elements, exploration and traversal are the most straightforward. Controlling characters from a third-person perspective, players explore a variety of locations scattered all over the world map, featuring multiple paths to the location’s main objective, usually an intense boss battle, filled with secrets to discover, shortcuts, and so on. The game doesn’t feature any navigational pointers or location maps, which makes exploring more immersive and organic than similar games, though some sort of navigational pointer would have been welcome.

Unlike most modern role-playing games developed in Japan and those inspired by them, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 also features a proper world map, much like each location, filled with optional locations and secrets to discover. At the very start of the adventure, the game feels a little too linear with little to do other than go from one main story location to the next, but after only a few hours in, the game opens up, providing players with plenty of opportunities to unlock new content such as outfits and hairstyles for all characters, additional weapons with different elemental properties and passive skills, Pictos to customize their abilities, and take down more Nevrons roaming the map. On the main world map and inside locations, enemies are visible and generally very easy to avoid, which is a definite plus, as random encounters tend to impact the experience negatively if not appropriately handled.

Though Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s turn-based combat system doesn’t appear to be much different from any other similar system, Sandfall Interactive has done an incredible job making it highly engaging and satisfying within the boundaries of the classic mechanics. Except for regular attacks with the equipped weapons, items, and a few skills, every combat action requires some involvement from the player besides selecting the command. Almost every skill, of which every character can equip up to six, comes with a simple QTE event that, once cleared correctly, increases its efficacy. It’s during defensive actions, however, that clearing QTE becomes more important, as the game offers multiple defensive options that expand as the adventure proceeds, which are more or less effective depending on the situation and the enemy. Dodging attacks is the easiest option that doesn’t offer too many rewards besides negating all damage; parrying, on the other hand, is more challenging to pull off consistently, but it’s infinetly more rewarding, as characters that parry attacks not only negate any damage, but also restore AP, which are used to perform the aforementioned skills, and Aim attacks, which can be customized to deal status effects alongside damage and more.

Even if all characters played the same in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, these mechanics would have been more than enough to make each battle thrilling and exciting, but the developer went the extra mile to give each one of the playable characters some very unique playstyles. Gustave, for example, accumulates charges for his mechanical arm, which can be then used once charged to deal massive damage and stun enemies if the Break gauge has been filled; Maelle, to make another, can enter three different stances that grant offense and defense bonuses and can enhance the effects of specific skills; Lune acquires Essences when using her elemental spells, which can be consumed to enhance the effects of every spell.

Each character’s unique playstyle includes a massive selection of skills learned via individual Skill Trees that further define how each character is played, in conjunction with the passive abilities learned via Pictos, which are incredibly varied and can enhance pretty much every aspect of a character both offensively and defensively, and even the order in which each character attacks. Verso, to make an example, is extremely good at restoring his own AP, and has skills that allow him to act twice in a turn, and restore the AP of the other party members, so the other party members skill loadout can be built around this mechanic with powerful skills that require a lot of AP.

Sciel, whose unique Foretell mechanics make her extremely powerful, has a skill that can stack Foretell on multiple enemies if they are afflicted by Burn, so building the party around this skill can be highly effective. The game is filled to the brim with these options, and even a single playthrough may not be enough to discover all of them, something that lends extremely well to the extensive endgame and New Game Plus, which offer additional challenges beyond Expert difficulty, which, by itself, is pretty challenging even on a first playthrough, requiring perfect execution of the defensive options to clear even regular enemy encounters.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s intriguing setting and charming characters are made even more so by the game’s visuals. Powered by Unreal Engine 5, the game emnploys all the core rendering techniques offered by the engine like Lumen and Nanite – to deliver dense environments with a clear visual identity, tons of detail and generally accurate lighting, though some imperfections creep in now and then, and bloom is maybe a little excessive at times. Character models look as good as the environment, if not even better, thanks to some great animations (especially facial ones) that make each character strikingly believable, even with the average lip-syncing on display. Taking full advantage of all the above are the masterfully directed cutscenes, with a high-quality level that wouldn’t look amiss in a proper movie or TV show.

Though games powered by Unreal Engine 5 usually suffer from considerable performance issues on PC, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is among the few that don’t, at least not massively. On the system used for the test (i7-13700F, RTX 4080, 32 GB RAM), at 4K resolution with NVIDIA DLSS in Quality mode and Epic settings, the game ran at an average of 61 FPS, 24 FPS 1% low during a benchmark session held on the world map and the Monoco’s Station and Frozen Hearts locations which feature tons of particle effects, complete with some battles. Things fared slightly better turning down every setting to High, as in the same scenario, the game ran at an average of 75 FPS, 28 FPS 1% low with minimal differences in visual quality. During traversal, I experienced minimal stuttering, and the most noticeable drops happened during combat, thankfully not when the enemy was about to attack my party, so generally they weren’t too bothersome.

Even more than visuals, the Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 soundtrack and voice acting are top-notch. The adventure’s main theme, which is woven into multiple tracks, is immediately recognizable and sets the melancholic tone of the adventure incredibly well. That is not to say that the entirety of the soundtrack is composed of sad, haunting pieces influenced by the NieR series soundtracks, as there are some surprisingly upbeat and catchy tunes, like the Gestral Beach themes, that are difficult to resist tapping a foot in time with. Likewise, while playing the game with the French voice acting makes for a more authentic experience, given the game’s setting, the quality of the English voice acting is, as already mentioned, stellar. Every voice actor clearly poured their hearts into their performance, often surpassing everything they have done before bringing these characters to life.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 may not be the most innovative role-playing game, but its core elements come together beautifully, delivering an emotional journey that is as moving as it is engaging and fun. It may be Sandfall Interactive’s first expedition, but the French developer has shown it has the passion and the chops to craft a memorable experience worthy of a Game of the Year nomination, if not the award itself.

PC version tested. Review code provided by the publisher.

9.5

WCCFTECH RATING

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33