It’s truly heartwarming to know that Japan is no longer the only country from which you’ll find RPGs. Over the last few years, the gaming landscape has seen much evolution, with budding teams from all over the world trying to make their own vision come to fruition. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 may not have the easiest to remember name, but can this new team from France make a splash in a genre full of competition?
Every Year, Death Comes
The story of Clair Obscur starts with Gustave, an engineer who lives in the town of Lumière. Beyond the town’s sea lies an ominous monolith, where a mysterious entity called the Paintress appeared out of nowhere. Every year, the people of Lumière celebrate a festival known as the Gommage, where many people’s lives are claimed by the Paintress before they reach their golden years. This festival also signals the start of the next Expedition.
The Expedition is a group of valiant warriors that sail forth to the island where the Paintress’ monolith is located. This is done in an attempt to vanquish her to ensure the Gommage doesn’t have to be celebrated ever again. Unfortunately, the previous sixty-seven expeditions thus far have ended in failure for one reason or another, making the townspeople lose all faith. Some even just call the idea of these expeditions a fool’s quest, and voice that humanity should just accept that death will come to them all eventually.
Unfortunately, the way the prologue introduces itself has got to be one of the worst I’ve ever seen. There’s this constant feeling of “am I missing something here?”, as if you closed your eyes, opened a book on a random page, and proceeded to confusingly understand each of the characters’ backstories, causing some scenes to lack the intended emotional impact, especially during the beginning.
There are three acts to the story in total, and while by the tail end of Act II, it does get slightly better, its melodramatic tone is marred by random lore bombs. This takes away from the narrative the game attempts to build, and I don’t think it’s okay or acceptable, especially in 2025. World-building is essential to a good RPG story, and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 doesn’t do that well, in my opinion. It took several hours before the story showed any semblance of being engaging, and by then, my interest had gone from waning to slightly piqued.
“It seemed to me that the developers highly valued the gameplay more than the story, and while that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it does mean that, for people like me who prefer to play RPGs for their lore, this game definitely falls short of my expectations. I am also generally wary of recommending games with the ‘it gets good after a certain number of hours’ caveat.
With that said, the soundtrack of the game is exceedingly good, and I have no complaints at all about it. This is especially true for the battle themes tuned to each enemy’s personality in the boss battles. The voice acting of the game also has some rather big names in its cast list, and they’re not there just for show. Perhaps they could have been a tiny bit more expressive in certain scenes, but it’s evident that a lot of effort was poured into those two aspects of the game, and it shows.
An Intricate Battle System
Combat in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 works in a classic turn-based system. You have pretty much all of the typical elements of an RPG here, with each character wielding two weapons: a long-range and a close-range one. There are a number of things you can do, but every character has a limited amount of Action Points in a given turn. Using a regular attack will grant you 1 point, while using a Skill will trigger a Quick Time Event, similar to the Action Commands in Paper Mario, that significantly increases your damage if you successfully press all the required buttons.
After all of your party members perform their attacks, the enemy’s turn will begin; this is where the battle system truly gives you the chance to shine. There are multiple ways enemies will come at you, and you can jump, block, dodge, and much more, with the system evolving as you progress through the story. The most important one is Parrying—if you successfully parry all of an enemy’s attacks flawlessly, you’ll trigger a Counter, dealing significant damage back to the attacker.
Another system present in combat is Pictos, which are stones that can grant various Passives to each of the characters. Upon clearing five battles with those Pictos, their passives can then be permanently attached to a character. Because of their varied effects, some characters greatly benefit from their passives. You also only have access to a limited selection of healing items in battle, so using Healing skills is vital if you wish to survive.
Perhaps one of my bigger gripes with this system is the disparity of damage that Parry is capable of doing. Countering an enemy will deal damage that far eclipses the amount you can generally do in your turn alone by simply using your regular attacks and Skills. Since the timing is unusually strict, it can make combat incredibly frustrating at times, especially with some enemy combos. While I understand what Sandfall was going for with the Parry, it failed to keep me engaged and frequently felt tedious. It can feel like the reliance on parrying takes away from many other elements that attempt to make this combat system unique.
Overall, though I do have issues with the combat system, it’s overall a solid blend of turn-based and action commands that do enough to keep you engaged. The character customization is solid, providing avenues to experiment with. While combat certainly isn’t something revolutionary, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 takes the best of its inspirations for the most part.
Lost Without Guidance
As you explore the game’s overworld, you are able to press Triangle to get a reminder of your current objective and a compass that can point north. This is where one of my major gripes lies with this game: the fact that there is no mini-map. According to an interview with the developers conducted by Eurogamer, this is an intentional choice, with the producer going on record saying that he wants to “preserve the game’s sense of discovery”.
While I can only speak for myself, I believe a map is something that is fundamental to an RPG. When you remove such a core feature, you have to base your game design in such a way that a player wouldn’t complain about it missing. Very few games actually manage to accomplish that. The way Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 gets around this is by making its areas feel somewhat linear in nature, while still providing some cool extras to discover.
One of those extras is the voiced logs left behind by the Expeditions that came before. These provide a bit of a glance at what others have passed through in a given area. The in-game achievements also imply that you’re meant to fumble your way around, as many of them have this “Find your way through”, followed by the area’s name in it.
Frankly, some areas of the game felt deeply frustrating to navigate, as I constantly wished for a small indicator to help me find my way, or maybe even a map I could fill in. A common issue was that I would sometimes unwillingly return to the start of an area because I got utterly lost, especially in the later parts of the game. Not to cast shade or anything, but the latest titles in the Xenoblade Chronicles and Final Fantasy franchises both feature what I just mentioned, and they still manage to capture that tingly feeling of discovering something new to do.
Graphically Stunning, But At What Cost?
The 3D realistic art style of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has to be one of the game’s standout features. With the advent of powerful engine tools such as Unreal Engine 5, you can create truly awe-inspiring worlds. That said, such a graphical marvel does mean you’ll have to face a huge performance cost, especially on PC. My own machine isn’t equipped with the latest and greatest parts, but it’s still within the recommended specs. Yet, the game felt like it was walking rather than running.
It was tough to keep the game running well at a consistent 60 FPS, even with all settings set to Low. Perhaps the most mind-boggling part is that the game only supports three upscaling technologies: Temporal Super Resolution (TSR), Intel’s XeSS, or NVIDIA’s DLSS. Unfortunately, support for AMD’s Fidelity Super Resolution (FSR) appears to just not be a thing, which is a very strange choice. FSR is a technology that could help machines on the lower end, as it is more widely available, and would’ve perhaps provided me with a better experience.
One solution that came to mind was running the game on GeForce Now, which would’ve provided the required specs. However, given how precise and strict the parrying mechanic is, you’d likely run into issues before long. So if your PC is on the lower end, definitely consider picking up the console version if you can.
Impressive, But Not By a Lot
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a graphically beautiful game—that much I can say. Genre-defining, though? I don’t think so. It wears its inspirations bright, without doing much to push the medium forward. As a turn-based RPG fan myself, I simply could not play this game for very long before something left me frustrated and forced me to put the game down. The fact that it took me several hours, right up until the very end of the game, for the story to finally hook me didn’t do it any favors.
It’s hard to deny that there was a clear vision behind Clair Obscur, and I do think the developers did well for their debut, prioritizing gameplay over story and offering it at an accessible price. But at the same time, I can’t say I’d recommend it or call it a must-play, even if that makes me the outlier in this equation.
Disclaimer: Kepler Interactive provided Final Weapon with a PC (Steam) copy of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 for review purposes.
