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rionaleonhart) wrote2025-06-05 12:25 pm
rionaleonhart) wrote2025-06-05 12:25 pm
Entry tags:
We Continue.
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.
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.