We Continue.

[rionaleonhart]

My gaming partner Tem has been away for a few days, so I've been taking an enforced break from ludicrous child soldier simulator The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy.

I was itching for something else to play in the meantime, so I've picked up Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. I'm having a really good time with it!

The central concept of Clair Obscur is so interesting. This is the main reason I took an interest in this game; I looked up the central premise and went, 'Huh, that's really unusual and fascinating.' The fact that a lot of people I follow on Dreamwidth are playing and enjoying it definitely helped to recommend it! But just learning the premise was the first thing that tempted me to play this game.

I'll pop the premise behind a short cut, just in case anyone wants to go into this game knowing nothing at all. This cut only contains the basic concept of the game; there's a more spoilery cut further down the post.



Every year, for the last sixty-seven years, a woman known as the Paintress has painted a vast, glowing number on a monolith, visible for miles around. Every year, the number is one lower than the year before.

When she paints the number, everyone of that age or above dies.

She's just painted the number 33.

Expedition 33 is a party of people in their early thirties, knowing they only have one year to live, setting out in an effort to kill the Paintress and stop this constant whittling down of the population.

The stakes are so interesting! We're not fighting to save the world; we're fighting to reclaim the full length of everyone's lives. It's fascinating to see this world where everyone knows they're living under an ever-shortening deadline.



I was a little nervous about the battle system, but I'm enjoying it! It's challenging - more than once I've had my party wiped out during a regular enemy encounter - but I'm having fun. I tend not to like games that really expect you to be able to parry with precise timing, but it turns out that's a demand I'm a lot more comfortable with in a turn-based battle system; I only have to focus on parrying during the enemy's turn, rather than having to worry about it all the time.

The scenery is gorgeous. I love how weird and dreamlike the landscapes are. Incredible soundtrack, too.

Major spoilers below the cut! I've just reached the Forgotten Battlefield.



Almost the first thing I learnt about Clair Obscur, after the basic premise, was Gustave's fate; I scrolled down slightly too far on the Wikipedia page when I was looking up what the game was actually about. I learnt that Gustave would die before I even knew Gustave was (theoretically) the main character.

However, I didn't know when he would die. My initial confused impression was that he would be killed pretty much immediately. When the expedition was massacred straight after landing on the continent, I thought Gustave's time had come.

(Side note: the immediate massacre on landing was such a good way of getting across the fact that the Expeditioners really have no idea what they're getting into.)

But no. He was killed ten hours in: just long enough for me to let my guard down and start really relying on him as my favourite fighter in battle. Alas!

I knew that Ben Starr voiced a character in this game, but I'd mistakenly concluded that that character was Gustave. To me, Renoir also sounds a little like Ben Starr putting on an older voice (although it turns out he's actually Andy Serkis; it's possible my perception of his voice was influenced by the fact that he looks suspiciously like an older Gustave!), and I correctly clocked Verso as voiced by Ben Starr when he showed up. During Gustave's death scene, I was slightly distracted by going '??? is anyone here not voiced by Ben Starr????'

When Verso was talking about the downsides of immortality - living on while everyone you know dies - I really wanted Expedition 33 to point out that they've also seen everyone they know die, and they don't even have long life as a tradeoff.

I'd assumed that, after Gustave's death, Maelle would be the main character, so I slightly resent the game for defaulting to controlling Verso afterwards. No! I don't care about you, Verso; we've only just met! You haven't earned the right to be the player character!

I have pettily removed Verso from my combat team, even though his skills are pretty similar to Gustave's and I was previously playing a team of Gustave, Lune and Maelle. I don't actively dislike him, but I don't like that he showed up immediately after Gustave's death; it makes him feel too much like a replacement!

Will I end up loving Verso? Extremely possible (although I wouldn't say I really love any of the characters in this game so far; I like them well enough, but they're not the main draw of the game for me). I just happen to be in a 'mild and irrational resentment' stage right now. I'm still having an excellent time with this game!



As a final note: Clair Obscur is perhaps the Frenchest game I've ever played, which is saying something, given that I've played Assassin's Creed: Unity.

Comments

[pauraque]

What is it about it that makes it so French?

[rionaleonhart]

The Frenchness makes sense on account of Clair Obscur being developed by a French studio and set in a French-speaking setting, but I'm struck by how much the game revels in it! Characters wear berets and Breton shirts, you fight a surprising number of mimes, you can use a baguette as a weapon, and every character has an unlockable outfit that includes a baguette strapped to their back, which I'm fairly certain is distinct from the battle baguette.

[necrophilia]

There's also little language nods in the English localisation, such as gendering "a person who paints" in a way that's not really in vogue in English and the adding of an article in "we continue" on the battle victory menu— like, even if that's both thematically relevant and charming, which it is, I am pretty sure it comes from the fact that just "continue" without an article and conjugation would be grammatically awkward in French.

(Note that my French is of the Canadian persuasion, not the European.)

[pauraque]

That's amazing. More games should have battle baguettes.

[necrophilia]

Expedition 33 is a party of thirty-two-year-olds, knowing they only have one year to liv

They're 31 or younger, actually! Part of the horror of the Paintress; as you are aging up, she is counting down. So for every year you get older, you lose two years of your life expectancy. It's why Gustave tells Maelle, who is canonically sixteen, that she only has nine years left. He's done the math. (Note that I have not done the math to verify his numbers are correct. I could... but I don't want to and I won't.)

I can't say I love any of the characters, except for one that fascinates me utterly. You haven't met them yet. But Verso is so delightfully sketchy. The mystery of the world kept me interested more than the characters, even though they all have exceedingly competent characterisation on paper.

[rionaleonhart]

So for every year you get older, you lose two years of your life expectancy.

It's true that thirty-one-year-olds will be dying the next year, and I failed to mention that, but at least some of them would still be thirty-two-year-olds, who are also doomed! If you hit thirty-three after 33 appears on the monolith, you still won't die until 32 goes up.

I look forward to meeting the character who fascinates you!

[necrophilia]

If you hit thirty-three after 33 appears on the monolith, you still won't die until 32 goes up.

Do we know this for sure, though? We only see one gommage and it isn't like the game has a codex. 🤔 Judging by the funereal nature of it, you are probably right, but I don't know if that's been confirmed.

[rionaleonhart]

I think this was an assumption I made based largely on incorrectly remembering a detail, now that I check! I thought Maelle said at the start of the game that Sophie was thirty-four, but no; she's thirty-three. I've had a poke around, though, and apparently one of the writers has confirmed that you live until the next Gommage.

[doreyg]

I am so glad you picked up this game, as I was sure that you'd like it! My husband basically binge played it in May, and we've talked about it almost exclusively since. We're on holiday at the moment so he can't replay it, but we've been watching various LPs to tide us over and I expect him to pop it on the moment we get back. It's so good!!

Maelle is my absolute favourite character, to the point where she may already be my favourite character of the year. I can definitely understand slightly resenting Verso when he first turns up, they killed Gustave!, but he does fascinate me also.

I hope you continue enjoying the game!

[rionaleonhart]

Given that I'd already been eyeing this game up, I read your thoughts with interest when you posted about it! I was particularly intrigued by the fact that you said Final Fantasy and Persona were influences; that might have helped to encourage me to buy it.

Maelle's my favourite as well, and I play as her whenever the game will let me! As I've said, I don't really love any of the characters yet, but Maelle is definitely the one with the most potential to win my heart.

[lassarina]

I do think it would've benefited from having a little time without Gustave to get used to Verso, but I also really like the way the camp scenes reinforce that he *is not* a replacement for Gustave to anyone else.

I want Esquie hugs.

[rionaleonhart]

I do think it would've benefited from having a little time without Gustave to get used to Verso

This would have helped a lot, I think; just let us go through an area or two post-Gustave but pre-Verso. You make a good point, though; the story scenes do a good job of showing that Verso is no substitute for Gustave in the characters' relationships.

[felis]

Clair Obscur is perhaps the Frenchest game I've ever played

Right!? I've been watching a Let's Play recently and it is so very French. I actually dug up my old Amelie soundtrack to play in the background when I wasn't watching it, because it continued the mood perfectly. Even apart from the mimes and the baguettes, the clothes and the melting Eiffel Tower, there's something about the characters themselves that comes across as very French to me. ... or maybe it's the French curses they kept even in the English version. :P

Anyway, I can't say I love any of the characters either (I'm a bit further than you in watching), but I do like Maelle and Lune quite a bit, especially Lune's pragmatism and goal-orientedness. And I totally get the Verso resentment, and the feeling that he's supposed to almost seamlessly replace Gustave. He doesn't really, but it does feel that way, yeah. (There's a conversation he has with Maelle about grief that started to thaw me - and her - on him a bit I think.)

[rionaleonhart]

It does feel designed to be played to the Amélie soundtrack, now that you mention it!

There's a conversation he has with Maelle about grief that started to thaw me - and her - on him a bit I think.

That's good to hear! I hope I warm a little to Verso. He does have interesting potential, as a character who's seen many Expeditions go by, and as a character with very different experiences to the others; he didn't grow up seeing every person older than him being steadily, inevitably wiped out.

[felis]

It just occurred to me that my Maelle-Verso comment was a bit spoilery, sorry! I kind of assumed you'd already gotten there, because it is still fairly early on, but I guess it depends on the frequency of the camp rests.

[larissa]

Oh I should not have clicked on that spoiler, I am not that far into the game, LOL.

Still, glad you're enjoying it! I've kind of taken a break from the game right now but I'm looking forward to playing more.

[rionaleonhart]

Oh no! Oh nooooo, I'm sorry for spoiling you. I hope you enjoy it when you come back to it, even if I've cursed you with knowledge!

[larissa]

No, it's on me, I shouldn't have clicked!! MISTAKES WERE MADE. But now I have something interesting to look forward to :D

[juushika]

My partner is playing this game rn and I'm insane about it. I was also compelled by the very high concept premise, and I love how it makes for generous, strange, dreamy settings. But it does the thing where every time I go "wait, wouldn't that dramatically impact [facet of society or character background]," the answer is, yes, and they've thought about it and it'll come up in lore. Is anything more satisfying than a big concept that doesn't just float, nebulous, but has repercussions??

ROT13 this part as mild spoiler re: the Gustave, Verso, Maelle situation (we're, I guess, about 2/3 in): Znryyr vf gur cebgntbavfg ohg abg gur CbI, juvpu vf n aneengvir gevpx V ybir. Naq va n aneengvir vapernfvatyl nobhg qbhoyvat naq neg, gur vqrn bs n cebgntbavfg frra sebz jvgubhg vf vaperqvoyl gurzngvpnyyl ncg.

[rionaleonhart]

It's such a fascinating premise! Although sadly I can't indulge in my habit of going 'that's an interesting premise; I'm going to steal it for AUs', because, as you say, it'd dramatically impact a lot; it'd be hard to write a Clair Obscur-inspired AU without getting bogged down in worldbuilding!

I'm trying so hard not to deROT13 the spoiler bit. No! I must be strong!

[rosa_heartlily]

Really glad you're enjoying it. I'd managed to avoid spoilers, so Gustave's death hit me like Aerith's did back in the day. Ben Starr as VA can reconcile me to any character :D

A couple of games that are possibly more French (but are less 'knowing' about it) are Beyond Good & Evil and Evil Twin, both by Ubisoft.

[rionaleonhart]

The Aerith comparison is really interesting; thenicochan drew the same parallel! I suppose it probably would have a similar impact, although I was spoiled for both deaths, so I had a more muted experience.

[rosa_heartlily]

That's such a shame, in both cases. They would lose so much of their impact :(

[thenicochan]

I loved the game, and I was able to go in without spoilers so Gustave stuff ended up clocking me as potentially being impactful the way Aerith's stuff was back in the day. It's like-- you don't do that to your protagonist in an RPG ten hours in! You just don't!

I felt weird about Verso coming right in after Gus, but I also felt it was justified later on. The plot just keeps twisting and hurting me. I hope you enjoy it!

[rionaleonhart]

I'd be fascinated to know how Gustave's death would have impacted me if I hadn't known about it in advance! But, alas, I suppose we'll never know. I'm having a good time either way!

[apiphile]

Boyfriend calls it "Gallic Despair: the Video Game" and a mutual acquaintance agrees that it is the Frenchest game he's ever played too.

[rionaleonhart]

To be honest, I'm not sure why they didn't go with Gallic Despair: the Video Game as the official title.

[walgesang]

This game is certainly on my wish list! I didn't hear that bit about the Frenchiest game, though. :D

[rionaleonhart]

I hope you have a good time with this game (and its intense Frenchness)!

[tinkaton]

ooh I'm glad you're playing this, I'm excited to read more of your thoughts haha.

I thought the premise of the game was really cool too, it's definitely different! the gameplay is fun too, though I'm pretty terrible at the dodging and parrying so sometimes for really hard side bosses I drop the difficulty down to easy mode lmao

I'm at the beginning of Act 3 so I haven't finished the game yet, but Verso does grow on you haha, or at least he did for me. I think he's really interesting, though I still miss Gustave 😔 I didn't know about his fate so it really took me by surprise!!

(the beach landing massacre was soooo good also, I assumed most of the expedition would die given that, you know, there's only like 6 main characters, but that scene was still super shocking lmao.)

[rionaleonhart]

The parrying is so satisfying when I get it right! I... frequently do not get it right.

Verso's definitely growing on me a little! The relationship-building scenes at the campsites are so good.

(And yes, the massacre was such a striking moment! It sets the tone and the stakes so vividly to kill off almost all of the expedition straight out of the gate.)