Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

I got wind of this game a few months ago, and it interests me. Little did I know at the time what this game would become to me and many other gamers.

First I want to congratulate the Devs at Sandfall Interactive. They put passion, love, and gamers first into their game and they deserve all the success they are achieving.

Its been a long time since a game came out that I kept going over in my mind while doing other things, running errands, cutting grass, working or whatever and I was going over in my mind tactics and strategy to beat those bosses as well as wanting to keep playing to see what's next in the story. No matter what I am doing, I want to hurry and finish so I can get back to this story.

Story and Concept: The story is pretty unique, never seen anything like this in my long history of gaming. I have not had any story that grabbed me like this one did so quickly in games, movies or even TV in 10+ years. The first 20 minutes, just the intro, had me hooked and caring about this cast of characters and the world they live in. The sense of loss and hope comes out strong in the writing and acting. I have not finished the story as of this writing, but I can tell you it has twists and turns that will make you go through a full range of emotions.

Writing and Acting: I am almost at a loss of words here. I have played games over the years that had good stories and acting, but this writing and the actors delivered a riveting story and performance even better than some movies and TV performances of the most top rated shows and movies. I am really looking forward to the rest of the story as I play through it.

Visuals: I run an NVIDIA 4090 and have had only slight FPS drops in some areas but not enough to complain about. Graphics are maxed, DLSS all that stuff. The artwork and style in this game is incredible.

Combat: I am generally not a Soulslike gamer, but also in the past got bored with JRPG’s. I am in the middle though when it comes to these types of games. The way they put in dodge, parry, jumps, timing, all of it is a great way to rejuvenate JRPG’s and keeps you interacting with the game instead of pushing a couple buttons and sitting back to watch the action. I find it a good challenge. You will gripe, complain, swear up and down you hit the buttons on time when you don't, and when you do, it’s a very satisfying moment.

UI: No big issues with the UI though I think it could benefit from loadout tabs. Maybe start with 2 or 3 and find loot or get rewards to increase to 3-5 loadouts.

Character Progress and Pictos: There is a lot to this and may get confusing to somebody like me who does not play these types of games often. Pictos you will need to carefully read each description to try to match what character build you want for each character. Though maybe confusing to players new to this type, it is not very complex once you learn what is going on with the Pictos. The ability trees are good and give good detail on what the abilities do. Weapon leveling is also something that can be a little confusing but the guide in game is good on explaining things if you miss anything in the play tutorial.

Photo Mode: Sadly there is no Photo Mode, but you can still get some great screenshots if you time things right. A game as beautiful as this needs a Photo Mode. Maybe the devs can add this sometime in the future.

This will be one of those games that I will finish, and come back to for multiple playthroughs as the years go by, and every playthrough I will watch every cutscene like it was my first time.

I recommend this game if you love JRPG’s.

I recommend this game if you don't like JRPG’s.

The game story is captivating, the game play is spot on, the visuals beautiful, the character models top notch and has many years of replayability.