Tech: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 review

Ever since I saw the previews for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, I knew it would be a game to watch. After all, how many stylish, mid-budget JRPGs do you see nowadays? And how many are debut titles from a small French developer?

Clair Obscur's plot is part Final Fantasy X, part Logan's Run: every year, the godlike Paintress paints an ever-decreasing number on a distant skyscraper-sized Monolith, and everyone who is that age or older gets erased, Thanos-style. Every year, Expeditions are sent to the Monolith to defeat the Paintress and end the cycle, but none have ever succeeded...or even returned alive.  You are the latest group to attempt the impossible - Expedition 33.

It's a wonderful setup for an adventure, and Clair Obscur delivers, sending the titular Expedition through surreal landscapes full of nightmarish enemies straight out of a FromSoftware title. You'll combat them in old-school JRPG fashion (a line of your characters standing across a line of enemies, with everyone taking turns whacking each other), except that you can, and frequently must, dodge and parry enemy attacks in real-time (this is not a game for people who hate QTEs).

That would be reason enough to play the game, but Clair Obscur is also unique in that it is not Japanese, but French - very French. The game employs a Belle Époque aesthetic that is rarely seen in video games, and an awesome soundtrack from Lorien Testard, featuring (French) singer Alice Duport-Percier:

Downsides? Well, while Clair Obscur's core gameplay is quite fun, that's all there is; there are no puzzles or minigames to break up the cycle of dungeon running, combat, and cutscenes.  Overall, though, this was a great game, and an easy recommendation for anyone who grew up in the glory days of the JRPG.

Rating: 90/100