When I put together my list of which 2025 indies to check out based on y🙈our 2024 favourites, I paired up 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Metaphor: ReFantazio (the best JRPG of 2024) with 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (the most anticipated JRPG of 2025). That was the first time I had thought about Clair Obscur since it was featured in Xbox's showcase at 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Summer Game Fest last🧜 year. But since then, I've been th♏inking about it a lot.
I hadn't given Clair Obscur much consideration. I know there are a few people at TheGamer who have been excited for it for a long while, but it's rare that I look ahead more than the ꦿcurrent year for upcoming games, and rarer still for that courtesy to be extended to new games rather than sequels of things I already enjoy. And while I like JRPGs, I've seen just as many bad🌺 ones (maybe more bad ones) than I have ones I've adored. But something tells me Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 could land on the right side of this divide.
Clair Obscur's Paintbrush Villain Is The Best Hook
Leaving aside games like Balatro that come out of nowhere, my two biggest surprises in the past two years have been meaty RPGs. Last year it was the aforementioned Metaphor, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:which I wo💧rried (than𝐆kfully incorrectly) might stumble as it tried to embrace high fantasy when Persona had nailed the cosmopolitan vibes, and the year before that it was 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Baldur's Gate 3 as it took the world by storm.
The pattern won't necessarily continue this year, and even if it does it might not be Clair Obscur - could Fable finally emerge? - but that does make Clair Obscur worth paying attention to. And I have to admit, I'm not sure I've been paying enough attention so far. All I really knew was that it was a turn based JRPG (and it describes itself as such despite not being Japanese, so 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:let's n♏ot go d𝐆own that rabbit hole again) with a Belle Epoque, which I'm secure enough to admit my brain defaults to 'it looks like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Lies of P'.
I had no idea of the story, but having read up on it, that seems like the biggest hook. The reason it's called Expedition 33 is because the villain of the game, the , decides once a year to paint a number with her magic paintbrush (next up, 33), and everyone who turns that age in the next yea🦹r dies. Or possibly😼 everyone who is currently that age dies on the spot. The game's advertising so far has not been entirely clear on how this works, but I suspect that is by design - it's such a unique hook, and so different from dull world ending stakes or played out wars with gods that every third JRPG seems to revolve around.
Turn-Based Plus Action-Combat Could Be A Recipe For Success
There's also more to the gameplay than I first realised. The turn-based menus have the sort of flair we see in Persona, an attitude that is sorely lacking elsewhere in the genre, but it also merges real time action combat into the mix, too. This makes it the inverse of Metaphor - where Metaphor has you start with action combat t🧸o gain an ꦦadvantage for the turn-based battles, ꦚClair Obscur has you mash buttons during turn-bas🗹ed attacks to increase your power, add more strikes, or deflect blows.
I promise I have played JRPGs not made by Atlus, there's just a lot of touchpoints here.
Of course, these ingredients need some substance behind it. The flourishes with which quicktime events are presented (generally considered dated in gaming, despite offering an action-edge here) is reminiscent of 2024's 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Flintlock, which shared a publisher with Clair Obscur (Kepler Interactive) and disappeared wit♈hout a trace. We may find out the reason why few games have merged real-time combat with their turn-based framework is because it doesn't quite fit.
However, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has rapidly risen up my most anticipated list for the year, even if there are some fears over how all these elements come together, as well as notable pitfalls for a smaller studio taking on a genre that is infamously sprawling in scope. With it set to appear in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Xbox's upcoming showcase alongside Doom, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:South of Midnight, and an unannounced game (maybe Halo?), it might kick off the year in style, and go fro🐻m strength to strength from there.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Top Critic Avg: 92/100 Critics Rec: 97%
- Released
- April 24, 2025
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ // Blood and ไGore, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Sandfall In꧒teractive
- Publisher(s)
- 🌠 ꦬ Kepler Interactive
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
Your comment has not been saved