Those who know not that they are not.
The city of Lumiere was sent to the sea 76 years ago in an event known as the Fracture. In the distance on the main continent is a Monolith. Every year, The Paintress waves her hand and paints a new number onto it. All of that age are erased from existence in an event known as the Gommage. As Gustave, a member of Expedition 33, your goal is to stop the Paintress from ever painting death again. To say more would spoil one of my favorite stories, not just in video games but for any medium of entertainment. Sandfall Interactive’s debut title is a triumph.
Lumiere and Humanity’s Last Stand
This review will remain as spoiler-free as possible, for saying too much would ruin some amazing plot beats. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is available day one in Xbox Game Pass, so let me guide you on why I fell in love with this title and why I think it’s worth your time. Things begin in the city of Lumiere as the prologue sees you control Gustave, an inventor who is 31 years old. The monolith counted down to 34 a year ago, and all those who are 33 are preparing to die.
Gustave and dozens of others are part of Expedition 33, a (so far) fruitless attempt to stop the Paintress by venturing to the mainland. Lumiere was cast into the sea in “Year 100” when an event known as the Fracture split the land asunder. The Monolith was raised and the number 100 painted on it. Every year since an Expedition has gone out to try and stop the Paintress and has failed.
As the number changes, all of that age fade to dust and flower petals in an event known as the Gommage, which directly translates to Scrub. This opening scene is full of heartbreak as everyone who has reached 33 years of age prepares to die. In this world, the thought of falling in love, having children, or planning in any way is hopeless, and it is beautifully written.
While you mainly focus on controlling Gustave, there is a main cast of five characters throughout the game. Maelle is Gustave’s ward, an expert fencer and arguably the heart of the team. Sciel is a teacher who uses a mix of gambit-style card attacks and a double-sided Scythe. Lune is a scholar who uses a mix of fire, ice, lightning, and earth magic. Finally, there is Monoco, an interesting creature native to the main continent that can transform into enemies and use their abilities.
As you progress throughout the title, you’ll come across other characters like Verso. He’s a mysterious character who wears an Expedition uniform and has a white streak in his hair. There are so many more, but talking about most would venture heavily into spoiler territory, so I’ll skirt around it as best I can throughout. Also, Expedition 33 is a bit of a rarity as a turn-based RPG in this active combat world.
Turn-based Goodness
As the prologue ends, you’ll take control of Gustave and slowly form your party. Clair Obscur is played from a third-person perspective, featuring light platforming and lots of turn-based combat. As you explore areas, you’ll see enemies standing around; if they touch you, they’ll start first in combat. If you use the right bumper and blast them with some chroma (a magical substance that makes up everything in this world), you’ll attack first.
Combat is your “standard” speed stat-based turn system from JRPGs of yore. This being a French-made game, the RPOui moniker suits things best. Every turn in Expedition 33 is active, whether on offense or defense, by default. As you choose various abilities, they’ll each require one, two, or three presses of the A button to time things. Perfect timing will add a small benefit, and missing the input at all can lead to negative outcomes. You can turn this off in the accessibility settings if you prefer.
Defense is more complicated with multiple buttons being used to fend off attacks. The right bumper is used to parry moves, B is for dodging hits, the right trigger is a late-game “Gradient Parry” for enemy super moves, and the A button jumps to dodge larger ground-wave hits. All of these work on various degrees of tight-timing windows, and the game’s difficulty modes loosen or toughen those requirements. I played through on normal, and the game could be damned hard at times.
Learning the timing for your attacks is easy enough, but timing out all of the various enemy moves can be a lot to remember. To counter this, the game’s various areas tend to have the same 3 to 5 enemies to keep the learning and memorization at more manageable levels early on. Most enemies have 2 basic attacks, with tougher variants and bosses upping it to 4 or 5 different attack patterns you’ll have to learn. Parries always earn you Attack Points (AP) and will be key to progressing through the game.
It can lead to some early frustration, though you can change the difficulty at any time if you’re feeling overwhelmed or just not up to constant combat. There is a lot of it, interspersed with light exploration in between. Exploration is generally focused on two paths: one brings you to the goal, and the other will help you find various items that power up your character or let you buy cosmetics from the game’s various vendors. The creators of this game are obvious in their adoration of the classic JRPG, using many of the genre’s best tropes to guide players through its incredible story.
Some enemies have obvious weak spots as well, and you can use your AP (attack points) to shoot them for extra damage/benefits. The AP system is everything, as you start with a single move per turn, and every action is dictated by an AP cost. You can do a basic attack for free, use items like healing tints, or use an ability that has an associated AP cost. Your skills, Pictos, Luminas, and more can earn you second attacks, gain back extra AP, and a lot more.
Pictos, Chroma, and Bathing Suits
While the game’s combat is highly repetitive by design, it is greatly influenced by your gear choices. Skill choices, Pictos, and Lumina are key to crafting the most ass-kickingest group possible. Every fight in the game earns you experience points. Those points give you 3 stats per level. Your stats are classics like Strength, which has you do more damage. There’s agility, which dictates how quickly you get a move in combat. Anyone who’s played an RPG before will be right at home.
As you level, you’ll also get skill points, which each character can use to unlock their abilities. You can have six abilities active at any time and change them in the pause menu when not in combat. Finding the right mix of skills to complement each other was key to advancing through the game on normal difficulty. I ended up having a few builds focused on fire and marking. Enemies can be weak to certain elements, so I couldn’t always rely on fire. Everyone was weak to being marked for extra damage, though, and there are dozens of team builds you can go for with all of the various interconnected systems.
Pictos are various passive buffs, of which you can have six equipped per character. They’ll offer up bonuses like “20% more crit change to burning characters”, or “Gain 1AP at the start of every turn”. Each of them can be leveled up to be available as a Lumina after four successful fights while equipped. Luminas are the Picto buffs being available to every other member of your party.
To equip them, you’ll need to level characters and feed them an upgrade material, which will gain them Lumina points. By the end of the game, I had over 100 available per character, which allowed me to equip nearly every Picto I had found. Depending on the strength of the Picto, they have an associated cost, with some being 1, others 3, 5, and even upwards of 20 or more. It’s a deep system that gives that constant carrot-on-a-stick appeal that games need to keep people engaged.
Finally, you have cosmetics, which can be found in the game through various activities or purchased from vendors for Chroma. Chroma is found on the ground as a glowing white mass, and I found far more than I could ever spend, which was nice. Certain activities on the game’s various beaches give you bathing suits, and fights against mimes get you the “Baguette” outfits. There’s a mix of silly and serious throughout everything in Expedition 33.
Unreal 5 gives and takes
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is made by a smaller team, using Unreal Engine 5. I played the first half of the game on Xbox Series X in performance mode, and it looked and ran well. It wasn’t as stunning as some of the early footage we saw. I found the 60fps responsiveness to be necessary for combat, so I gave up the far better-looking quality mode while on console. In that mode, it not only looked as good as the early footage, it looked better. After moving to PC, because I have a good one, so why not, the game went from pretty to gorgeous.
If it wasn’t such a timing-focused experience, I’d suggest the quality mode. It might have just been in my head, but I had a far harder time with parries and dodges when in quality mode on console. I had things on Ultra for most of my time on PC, but had to turn it down there as well in the final few areas. I started experiencing stutters that made it impossible to avoid damage, lowering from Ultra to High fixed things on my 5800x/7900xtx AMD rig.
Expedition 33 is Xbox Play Anywhere and on Game Pass, so hopping between versions was easy-peasy. I fell through the world one time, but in a nice twist, the game immediately reset my character onto the ground only a few seconds into my descent. It’s good that the game is decently polished, as Sandfall shoots for the stars with where this one goes.
The art style only gets wilder the deeper you get into the game. The scope and scale are far bigger than a team of this size has any right to pull off this well. Again, no spoilers, things continue to feel inventive throughout. The premise and good looks sold me on wanting to play this game. Once I was in it, seeing just how much more inventive and over the top than I could have ever imagined it being, I was in love. The graphics serve the story, which is served by one of my favorite soundtracks of all time.
Tomorrow Comes
With all the gushing I’ve done around the game’s combat and visuals, I have to return to its biggest strength. The story is told through amazing writing, voice acting, and music. Clair Obscur wears its inspirations on its sleeves. Sure, the systems come from the greats in the JRPG space, but the story is a mix of Fast and Furious (it’s all about family), Attack on Titan (crazy world-bending powers), and so many more of my favorites in Anime and beyond.
I needed people to talk to about this game, multiple moments had my jaw on the floor, and the number of times I said “this game is amazing” was something I lost count of over its second half. The story both did and didn’t go where I thought it was. Seeds planted early on paid off in ways I never dreamed of, and the excellent writing helped feed an all-timer voice cast.
Charlie Cox of Stardust and Daredevil fame voices Gustave, bringing humor and wit. Jennifer English is the game’s soul as Maelle, who is Gustave’s ward. Voicing someone so young, she sounds like a teenager who is tired of her life on the mainland, wanting to escape to the continent to try and make something of what time she has left.
Sciel, as voiced by Shala Nyx, brings a mix of pain and hope to the team. Lune is voiced by Kirsty Rider, who brings an earnest thirst for knowledge as the scion of parents long-lost to a previous expedition. Monocco, as voiced by Richard Keeble, is hilariously stoic, given some of the funniest lines in the game that had me laughing out loud as they caught me off guard.
It’s hard to say much about Ben Starr’s Verso. He is amazing throughout his time, as is Andy Serkis’ Renoir. They are key parts of the game’s mystery, and each appearance they made has me questioning what was going on. As you talk to each of the main crew in camp, you’ll build up relationships with them, unlocking new abilities like Gradient Attacks (cool super moves) and side missions. It’s an all-star voice cast that takes excellent source material and gives it their all. Supporting this is an insanely good OST.
Lorien Testard’s soundtrack bounces between classical piano melodies, high-paced string pieces, and ripping guitar solos. They elevate every moment, popping off from the start and never relenting through the end. Boss fights get unique tracks full of new instruments and melodies that all cohesively feel like one product. It’s on a Final Fantasy level for me, which is the highest praise I can offer to any game.
The devs have said you can expect 30 hours for a playthrough focused on the story and up to 60 if you want to do everything, and I believe it. I’m pretty damned fast at games, playing them for a living now. I went to every area and did everything I could find for as long as I wanted and ended up with roughly 40 hours of playtime, loving nearly every moment of it. My only complaint, outside of performance issues, was the lack of clear enemy levels. I would occasionally go off the beaten path and find an enemy meant for later on, but there was no visual indicator that let me know it. Dying means a quick reload to your last auto-save, but still, some clear “you can’t hurt this guy and he can one-shot you” indicator would have been appreciated.
Wrapping Things Up
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is an inventive, beautiful experience like few others. Being the debut title from a studio and a new IP, it is an incredible achievement. Go in with as little knowledge of the story as possible.
Whether you download this on Game Pass or plan to buy it, experience it. If you’re anything like me, you’ll be full of wonder and tears as you fight to stop the Paintress from ever painting death again. Tomorrow Comes.
