Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

I went in expecting a promising indie RPG and came out the other side having cancelled two evenings of sleep. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 drops you without preamble into the city of Lumiere, where once a year a colossal entity called the Paintress crosses the sea, inscribes a new number on her monolith, and everyone of that age simply ceases to exist. The number this year is 33. Your party knows it. You know it. The clock is ticking before you touch the first menu. That is precisely how you open an RPG. The combat is the headline mechanical achievement, and it earns the attention. Sandfall calls it a Reactive Turn-Based system: each character takes turns in speed-determined order, choosing from a Battle Wheel of Attack, Skills, Free Aim, and eventually Gradient Attacks. What separates it from any other turn-based game is what happens when it is NOT your turn. Every enemy strike can be dodged, parried, jumped over, or countered in real time, reading audio and animation cues rather than praying at a random-number altar. Critically, the developers designed the whole game so that a no-hit run is theoretically possible at any level, because luck and random attack patterns were removed entirely from the combat formula. A perfect parry does not just feel great - it rewards you with bonus Action Points and a hard counter, meaning skilled play directly funds your offence. Gustave builds Overcharge through multi-hit strings for burst windows; Maelle rotates between Virtuoso and defensive Stances; Lune chains elemental stains across the party for area punishment; Sciel and Verso demand the most planning but pay out the hardest. Pictos slot into characters like Final Fantasy IX's equipment-based ability learning, unlocked after four combat encounters and then shared across the party. The endgame opens up into build territory where damage numbers tip into the millions. If you have ever wanted a turn-based game that respects both your brain and your reflexes, this is it. The story is the part I want to talk about for an uncomfortable amount of time at dinner. The writing commits to its grief without wallowing, balances genuine comedy through the Gestral brush-creatures scattered across the continent, and delivers the kind of late-game plot movement that retroactively recontextualises everything you thought you understood about the world. Character motivation runs deeper than "stop the villain", and the party's internal dynamics - particularly the way Verso and Monoco argue like they have known each other too long to bother being polite - carry real warmth. Optional expedition journals scattered off the beaten path document the fates of every previous expedition; I collected all of them. That is the sign of side content that is actually worth your time. The orchestral score, composed by Lorien Testard and performed with French accordion, strings, and full vocal tracks in French, is among the best in the medium this decade. Criticism exists, if you squint. Some players find the plot's larger revelations arrive too abruptly. A handful of lip-sync issues show through in the otherwise excellent voice cast (which includes Andy Serkis and Ben Starr). The world is not open in the sprawling modern sense - you unlock traversal abilities that gate areas rather than roam freely from the start. And if parry timing refuses to click for you, the adjustable difficulty settings are there and carry no shame. What the game is NOT is padded. The adventure runs roughly 50 hours for thorough players without overstaying its welcome, a discipline that AAA RPGs would benefit from studying. For fans of Persona, classic Final Fantasy, Nier: Automata, or anything with an emotionally intelligent script and a combat system worth mastering over dozens of hours, Expedition 33 is the clearest recommendation I have made in years. Sandfall Interactive built this with a core team of under 30 people. That fact will keep me up at night in the best possible way.

Monika · Scout Team

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