Our Problems Will Still Be There In The Morning.

[rionaleonhart]

I've finished Clair Obscur: Expedition 33!



I beat the Paintress.

Riona: The thing is that I know this is act two of a three-act story.
Ginger: The final act is just an orgy rhythm action game.

Alas, that was absolutely not what happened next. I wish I hadn't been aware that there was another act to go; I feel I'd have reacted much more strongly to everyone Gommaging if I'd fallen for the 'the journey's over, this is the end of the story' vibes!

I'm fascinated by the painting reveal! There are echoes of Greek mythology to it: the painter family are essentially a pantheon of gods, and the people within the painting both exist and suffer because of their petty family drama.

'Lune impulsively kisses Verso on the cheek. Caught off-guard, Verso smiles at her, a question in his eyes. Laughing, they return to the others.' I exclaimed 'cute!' aloud.

Lune just implied she might be interested in a relationship with Verso if he didn't have his casual thing with Sciel, and NO, GUYS, YOU SHOULD BE IN A POLYAMOROUS TRIAD, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND. Very disappointed in the game for not recognising the potential here.

I'm a little dubious about the ending choice. I feel the game wants you to side with Verso; it seems like the thematically fitting choice. Let go of your grief, let things end, move on.

However! This canvas is an entire world! Populated by living, thinking beings! I'm not going to destroy the world and kill all the characters I've been spending time with just so one family can move on from their grief; are you kidding me?

The emotional stability of the gods does not trump the lives of their creations. If you have children in the misguided hope that it will solve your emotional issues, and it turns out that it just makes things worse, you cannot respond by killing those children; they have their own existence now, and you have a responsibility to them.

I've spent the whole game fighting for those who come after. I'm not going to rob this world of having any future at all.

Basically, I think the ending choice fails because - at least for me - there's a very clear correct answer, and it's not the answer that fits the game's themes. As Ginger suggested, it would make more sense for the choice to be 'Maelle remains in the canvas' versus 'Maelle permanently leaves the canvas; she can never return to that world, but the people within the canvas live on', rather than 'Maelle remains in the canvas' versus the unacceptable 'the entire world within the canvas is destroyed'.

Although the ending choice didn't quite work for me, I have to retract one of my previous criticisms of the game: the fact that Verso joins the party immediately after Gustave's death! I saw an interesting post by voelene on Tumblr pointing out that Verso is supposed to feel like a jarring replacement for Gustave. You can't give the player time to grieve Gustave before replacing him; the entire point is that Verso's existence prevents you from grieving properly. Verso will always be a replacement, a substitute, a second-best imitation of the dead; that's what he was created to be in the first place.



Overall verdict: what a game! The concept is interesting, the scenery is gorgeous, the battle system is fun and the soundtrack is absolutely extraordinary. I don't think it's a perfect game, but I think it comes very close.

Comments

[doreyg]

I'm so glad you liked this game! :D

I'm also glad to see that you disagree with the Verso ending as the "Good" one. I don't mind it so much in the game itself, as personally I feel they did a fairly good job of presenting both endings as messy and non-ideal and downright painful (in a way that grief is)... But I have been blocking a lot of people on tumblr for getting evangelical about it, is what I'm saying. XD Let go of grief, sure, but this is an entire painting of sentient beings who are very keen on holding onto their lives. They do not all deserve to die because one family absolutely refuses to go to therapy even when held at swordpoint.

I also get very irritated at people who excuse Verso absolutely everything (and argue that HE wants the canvas destroyed, so his choice is the only one that matters), while demonising Maelle. They both make pretty much exactly the same set of decisions! They're both, at least in act 3, hugely selfish people who make decisions that benefit only themselves while pretending that they're doing it out of altruism. At least Maelle's selfish decisions don't lead to multiple genocides.

If you have children in the misguided hope that it will solve your emotional issues, and it turns out that it just makes things worse, you cannot respond by killing those children; they have their own existence now, and you have a responsibility to them.

This made me laugh quite hard, but I absolutely agree with it. Stop trying to kill your children, Aline and Renoir!!

Ooooh, I can tell you my one and only ship now for this game. :D It is, despite not usually shipping incest, Verso/Maelle. They're just so messed up over each other and obsessed with each other, and also in Maelle's ending she can trap him in eternal torment because she loves him and can't let go. Beautiful. <3

[rionaleonhart]

It's such a great game! I'm so glad I picked it up.

But I have been blocking a lot of people on tumblr for getting evangelical about it, is what I'm saying.

I've also seen people insisting 'the people in the painting are fake, obviously you destroy it and it's stupid not to', which is a stance I can't quite get my head around! We've been hanging out with these 'fake' people for the entire game, and it's clear that their existence is very real to them. I've been so invested since the start in ending the Gommage and letting these people live full lives; you're never going to sell me on 'obviously the only correct course of action is to destroy every inhabitant of this beautiful world, and the world itself, because we should consider this one family more real than all of them'.

I have found myself thinking that Verso/Maelle has some intriguing potential! Absolutely fucked up in so many fun ways.

[doreyg]

you're never going to sell me on 'obviously the only correct course of action is to destroy every inhabitant of this beautiful world, and the world itself, because we should consider this one family more real than all of them'.

That is also an attitude that really, really confuses me. Because... The family are also not real, this is all a video game. It's a very good video game, that does a very good job of creating various levels of fictional world! But they're all fictional. I just don't understand going "Oh, but THESE characters are real so we should listen to them!" because they're also not real!

(Especially when the realest character, as such, seems to be regarded as Verso. Who is himself from the canvas! I don't understand why his desires apparently matter the most, when by such logic Maelle is actually more real than him and so surely should get more say! Oh, I'm confusing myself.)

I have found myself thinking that Verso/Maelle has some intriguing potential! Absolutely fucked up in so many fun ways.

It just hits a really fun level, for me, where the characters do genuinely care about each other... To a level where it becomes ultra unhealthy, actually. They've already crossed so many lines! Why not cross a few more! :D

[felis]

Yeah, unfortunately, the ending(s) of this game didn't work for me, either. Which is unfortunate! But I don't think they thought this through, or really grappled with the ontological status of the created world. Because as you say, the game very clearly leans towards Verso's as the good, "more mature", ending, in line with the themes, and boy, did that annoy me. I was glaring at the screen even more than my girl Lune was glaring at him when I watched his ending. (And what were the relationship levels even for, if not to make all these people and relationships important to Verso, too? The answer seems to be: to unlock Gradient Attacks. Blech.) Lune was the only one who was allowed to at least get angry - both at the end, and after the first twist, when she accused him of "false dichotomies". But since she's not "real", it didn't actually matter to the story. And the thing is, even the ending choice you call the "correct" one (and in theory, I'd agree, since I also agree with your Gods/parents analogies!) is depicted in a way that's all about Alicia again, instead of the people she theoretically saved. She's the puppet master, forcing her will onto the world, also not respecting its autonomy, and that's not really much better either.

I'd say ultimately, if you don't buy into the bait-and-switch at the end of the second act - "the world you've been trying to save is only a painting and the actually important and real people here are the Dessendres" - then there's no way the ending will fully work for you. Because seeing the people in the canvas as their own beings with their own right to live is not something the game supports in the end.

[rionaleonhart]

It's really weird that neither ending seems to recognises the fact that what's at stake is an entire world full of living people! As you say, the game seems to take the stance that 'the actually important and real people here are the Dessendres', which just doesn't work for me. In the end, I was never going to be satisfied with this game's resolution, because the story the game was trying to tell is fundamentally different from the story I was experiencing as the player. I'm glad to know I'm not alone, at least.

[tinkaton]

Verso's ending definitely feels like the one that follows the game's themes to their obviously intended conclusion, which is why I picked him in my playthrough despite normally being pro-endings-where-everyone-lives-and-is-happy lol. But I honestly loved that both endings kind of suck, I think Maelle's ending is fascinating (as is Maelle herself). I would've been fine picking an ending that that let her stay in the painting until she died or whatever if it wasn't so blatantly a horror movie for Verso sjdhfjksdf. Plus the kind of Omelas vibes of not letting Verso's soul rest. I wonder if that ending would be better received if it had let Maelle take over fully? Like she's now powering the Canvas, real Verso is free, whatever. GRANTED that goes against what she actually wants (keeping Verso) so I guess it's all moot anyway lmao.

Also I was really surprised Gustave never came back during the actual game. I was SO sure it was going to happen sdjhfskjdf. How dare they make me look stupid. Who creates a party with 2 teams of 3 fighters only to leave you with a total of 5 members!!

[rionaleonhart]

But I honestly loved that both endings kind of suck, I think Maelle's ending is fascinating

I don't mind that both endings suck; the 'there's no best ending, all the endings are bad in their own way, so you just have to go with what feels right to you' approach worked well in Life Is Strange 2! But I do think the ending choice kind of fails because one ending has substantially worse consequences than the other, for reasons the game barely seems to pay any attention to. 'All the endings are kind of bad' is a good strategy to leave the player conflicted over their choices, but I experienced very little conflict when presented with 'things suck for one family' versus 'kill everyone and destroy the world'.

I agree that Maelle's ending is fascinating! I enjoy the horror of her keeping Verso trapped (although my experience was slightly diminished by the fact I'm terrible with faces and failed to recognise him as Verso when he showed up to play the piano at the end - I was going '?? is that Renoir?' - which made everything more confusing than horrific).

Who creates a party with 2 teams of 3 fighters only to leave you with a total of 5 members!!

That does feel really surprising, especially as you're able to swap in the reserve members if your main party falls! You'd expect a full reserve team, but no; you've just got to carry on the fight with an incomplete party.

[lassarina]

I agree with you about the ending! Throwing Maelle out of the canvas would be completely different if it was in a vacuum and you didn't know Renoir was going to immediately genocide the entire contents of the canvas. I feel like this is simultaneously a story about grief (where the Dessendres and the Expedition each represent one of the five stages) and a story about how creations take on life beyond their creator, and the latter part isn't really being addressed by the main narrative in the same way.

I would also be orders of magnitude less upset about Maelle's ending (I find both of them incredibly upsetting for different reasons) if she had not painted Verso back into existence. I understand this is the peril of a sixteen year old god given the ability to reshape reality, but Maelle. Do better, my love.

[juushika]

So Verso is that, right, a replacement (mechanically, thematically), the perpetual stand-in, placeholder for someone everyone wishes he were? Sciel would absolutely trade him for her husband, no offense haha.

And Verso is as real as Sciel or Lune, as any of the people in the painting, who are also, mechanically, thematically, reiterating the same cycles of grief as the Dessendre family. I appreciate the parallels that Geller finds in his video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9NKzr9_rZaY

And also they're reductionist, right? Of course types and ways of grief parallel each other; it's a ubiquitous experience, especially in this world & for the Dessendres, and it's personal every time but also recognizable, repetitive. Being able to draw parallels between multiple experience of grief doesn't mean that they're related; except, in the painting, one literally gave birth to the other.

So painted Verso is both real and unreal, a complete person and a stand-in. Maelle isn't. She's always more powerful, more central, and then eventually she's a god; she is more than real. And she wants to have it both ways, residing within as a peer and controlling the existence of those within the painting: who gets to die and who doesn't, who gets to grieve and how.

I don't think it's possible to go into Act III without realizing that it is Act III, that that was too easy and so the story continues; thus the blanket Gommage is startling imagery but lacks emotional impact: even after Gustave's death, they wouldn't kill EVERYONE, not yet, not for realsies. Maelle wants to have and exert that same thematic power, to suddenly undermine the meaning of all death, suicidal, accidental, structural. A nice idea, but when it happens in Act III, it feels ... insincere.

So does her ending.

And, I mean, obviously: all of these people, Maelle included, are made up, fictional. Just a game.

For me, accepting the false binary of the two endings means taking Verso at his word. He's right about the addictive and destructive nature of the painting; he's right that Maelle is lying about her relationship with it; but, more than that, his unconscionable opinion has to be his own, not a narrative choice. It is a narrative choice! It is a false binary! All of this is made up--but what gets to be more real? Are we Maelle, to decide death should or shouldn't work in these more pleasing ways, to restructure a better narrative? I find the endings more interesting than satisfying, but granting Verso realness, personhood, and autonomy, in the same act that he erases an entire society of (made up) people is ... I think that's pretty clever.