Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Preview - Turn Based Romanticism

168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has intrigued me ever since it was revealed last year. The premise is gripping: an expedition of doomed soul𓂃s is pitted against an omniscient deity in an unfamiliar land. And the malevolent Paintress has already repelled dozens of expeditions, add🦹ing another layer of hopelessness to the whole affair. This, combined with beautiful Belle Époque aesthetics and an enchanting main theme, saw this unorthodox RPG sink its teeth in immediately.

With surprisingly deep turn-based combat, engrossing world-building and interesting characters, Clair Obscur has the potential to be the next big turn-based RPG, 2025's 🌳answer to Metaphor: ReFantazio. Developer Sandfall has made no secret of Clair Obscur's inspirations: Final Fantasy, Lost Odyssey and Persona. Anyone familiar with those will recognise their influence in a game which plays like a very high-quality, very French Final Fantasy.

The Paintress Paints Again...

Clair Obscur Expedition 33 Maelle Nevron

My preview glossed over the intr𓆏oduction, summarising the early narr𓃲ative so we can get straight into the core gameplay loop, which was a little disappointing as I wanted to learn more about the setting and how the characters were related to one another.

It wasn't too difficult to pick ꧂up on this information through context clues, however.

In Clair Obscur, a god-like being called the Paintress leaves a number in the sky each and every year, killing every human of that age. "The Continent" in which the Paintress resides is across a sea that only expedit🅠ions cross, mea𝓀ning very little information from failed expeditions travels back to the mainland of Lumière. Despite these setbacks, subsequent expeditions approach their task with a militant fervour.

Insurmountable Odds

Clair Obscur Expedition 33 Gustave and Lune

Our preview party starts with Gustave (Charlie Cox) and Lune (Kirsty Rider), and we eventually pick up Maelle (Jennifer English) after a couple of hours. I enjoyed the interplay൲ between these characters - though all have the same motivation of stopping the Paintress, their personalities shape their approach in unique ways.

Gustave is pragmatic but headstrong. He cares deeply for his comrades and mourns his lost wife who perished in the Paintress' last purge. Lune is righteously dedicated to the group's quest and is intensely curious about the untamed Continent. Maelle is༒ a gentle soul but fiercely independent, holding a natural connection with the strange creatures of the Continent. We also glimpsed Renoir (Andy Serkis) who appears as a mysterious antagonist.

C🔜lair Obscur's party is an ensemble cast. You can appear as any character you want in the overworld, and you control every member in combat. I particularly enjoyed an early scene where Gustave and Lune get into a heated debate over their next move. Too often RPGs eliminate conflict between party members for ease of storytelling, resulting in flat personalities or out-of-character actions. Here, that friction is present.

The narrative is told through cutscenes rather than in-game dialogue options, meaning you're progressing the story rather than i𒊎nfluencing it like you would in Persona or Baldur’s Gate 3. There are limited dialogue options for side quests and such but player choice doesn't appear to be the main storytelling vehicle.

Clair Obscur is divided into smaller maps connected by a larger overworld. Each area is semi-linear - there are nooks, crannies, and branching paths, but all within a contained area. I got lost on the preview's second map and ended up defeating a couple of non-mandatory mini-bosses, which tells me that each of these areas will have🤡 a lot packed into them.

Clair Obscur is also utterly gorgeous. The core visual style is the standard photorealism we’re accustomed to, but its creature designs are delightfully unique. Enemies (called Nevron) are painted by the Paintress, giving them weird proportions and eclectic designs reminiscent of an Art Deco painting. Env🦋ironments are visually stunning too, with especially creative use of lighting that makes each new location feel both ethereal yet lifelike. One area in the preview saw us travel underwater as the bright blue liquid cast a melancholic glow as far as the eye can see.

The score by Lorien Testard is a perfect accompaniment to our party's overwhelming journey. It strikes the epic ⭕tone of its Japanese inspirations but in a distinctive European style. I'm still thinking about one of the combat themes days after completing my previ🌺ew.

Throwback Combat With Surprising Complexity

Clair Obscur Expedition 33 Gustave Bloodied

Despite its strong characters and exploration, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 undoubtedly shines brightest in its combat. It's delightfully simple yet devilishly complex. Your characters have several options available every turn - basic attacks, skills, items and free aiming. The first is self-explanatory, you attack an enemy with whatever weapon your character has equipped. Basic attacks restore action points, which can be useꦯd for skills and free aiming, making them an important tool for setting up subsequent turns.

Combat also regularly makes use of quick-time events, a creati🌊ve twist on ⛄its otherwise traditional homage to classic RPGs. Each skill has a unique QTE map, requiring you to hit tight timings to maximise their effectiveness.

Skills are your bread and butter - magic, buffs, debuffs, healing and so on. You'll need action points to use them, and more skills require more action po🌊ints. Each character has different unique mꦰechanics. When you level up, you can choose which stats to upgrade and which skills to learn, meaning every character can be moulded to play whatever role you'd like.

Gustave begins as a physical damage dealer but I specia♊lised him into something resembling a crowd-controlling tank. Lune is an elemental mage with spell synergies - cas🌳ting an ice spell on an enemy will cause your next fire spell to do more damage and so on.

Clair Obscur Expedition 33 Maelle In Lumiere

Maelle is a fencer, endearingly shouting "En Garde!" whenever her turn begins. Her skills work around a stance system, wherein skills c⭕hange her stats, most often changing the ratio from offensive to defensive. Offensive stances do more damage but leave you vulnerable, while defensive stances are the opposite. With each character, you can see the building blocks for a combat system that isn’t afraid to be complex.

'Items' are tinctures that allow you to heal, buff or revive your party. Using a tincture consumes a turn. I appreciate that Clair Obscur doesn't fill 🌠your inventory with useless nonsense, instead rewarding exploration with equippable passives called Pictos.

You can also free aim, which is the opposite of what you’d expect from an RPG like this. An♒y character can shoot a manually aimed projectile at enemies by expending a single action point, and it doesn’t end your turn. There are also Pictos associated with free aiming, so perhaps there'🌼s a viable shooting-focused build in there somewhere.

The preview build's final boss sꦯpawned flowers you had to shoot before they absorbed tooౠ much power, forcing you to consider how effectively you were using action points.

Clair Obscur Expedition 33 Dead Expeditioners

All enemy abilities can be dodged or parried, too. The timing window for parrying is slightly tighter than dodging, making it a riskier move but one with greater rewards. If you parry every single instance o💛f potential damage during an enemy's turn then you'll perform a counter move, dealing respectable damage to your enemy. Mastering these mechanics is pivotal for success. Enemy'🔯s attack animations are often erratic to bait out premature dodges, and I can see Sandfall getting very sneaky with this aspect of combat to throw off the player's muscle memory.

After four hours with Clair Obscur I am now aggressively optimistic about the full experience. Sandfall is taking a cherished formula and moulding it around the studio's budding identity. The unique touches added to combat and exploration elevate♛ the entire experience, and I hope this ambition is able to reach its full potential when it arrives this April.