While role playing games come from all corners of the industry, it’s rare that we see traditional turn-based experiences from studios situated outside of Japan. It’s for this reason that Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 stands out amongst other western RPGs, deeply inspired by Belle Époque France while taking inspiration from Persona and the Mario RPGs. It’s a unique combination of elements that makes for a game with an incredibly distinct identity despite its flaws.
The setup for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s narrative is a simple and oppressive one. Once a year, a giant woman known as the Paintress awakes from her dormancy, painting a new number that ticks down from the previous one on the monolithic structure behind her. Once painted, all people of that age cease to exist, fading into petals and smoke as the Paintress curls up into a ball for another year. The citizens of Lumière refuse to go quietly, though, sending out expeditions each year with the sole goal of taking down the Paintress once and for all.
We step into the shoes of Gustave, a member of Expedition 33 who’s now in his final year of life and hoping to make a difference for Lumière’s youngest. Joining him are fellow expeditioners Sciel, Lune, and Maelle, each with different reasons for leaving Lumière behind in hopes of ending the horror that the Paintress brings. Maelle is perhaps the most notable of the bunch, who, as a teenager, still has a good few years left before she succumbs to the Paintress’s machinations.
Without getting into too much detail, Expedition 33’s initial attack on the Paintress goes awry. Split up with no way to get home or reach the Paintress’s monolith, the Expedition needs to regroup to face the dangers of the outside world while finding a way to bring down the Paintress. It’s a really enticing setup that immediately establishes the stakes and world of Clair Obscur.
This engaging premise also gives way to some really fantastic twists. Sandfall Interactive take some big swings here that result in hefty payoffs throughout the journey that hit even harder thanks to a fleshed out cast of characters and some stellar voicework. It also never falls into the age old trapping of some higher being pulling the strings from behind a curtain. It never loses sight of the appeal of its core conflict, riffing on it with ideas, nuance, and perspective that keep it feeling layered and developed.
Expedition 33’s narrative is also thematically rich. Its exploration of grief and how it can create the worst version of ourselves is simultaneously tragic and cautionary. Perhaps most profound is the way Expedition 33 delves into the way grief spills out and affects people caught in the crossfire. Rash decisions are made in a heartbeat, denial is clung to at the expense of clarity, and judgements are made without considering the perspective of others. It’s a heart-rending tapestry that’s expertly told and presented throughout the main story.
Another reason that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has had so much buzz around it is thanks to its combat system. Visually, it presents like Persona, but plays nothing like it. It instead opts to focus on real time elements ala the Mario RPGs to boost the efficiency of your commands while mitigating enemy assaults. You can attack, cast skills, use items, and even free aim with firearms to target weak points on enemies. A vast majority of these options have real time elements incorporated into their loops.
Skills in particular are made much more effective by perfect timing on the quick time events that pop up each time you use them. Dodging and parrying enemy attacks can net you more AP to spend in combat on high cost Skills. Risking it all for a successful parry leads to a counterattack that deals big damage. It’s an all around engaging and rewarding combat system that has you thinking about how to best approach enemies as you understand their skillsets and tells. Combat’s only issue, is that it becomes far too easy.
Once you get a grasp on timings Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 loses a good chunk of its challenge. Enemies do hit hard and will force you to play strategically, but none of that matters if you’re able to dodge and parry everything they throw at you. It is really satisfying to play well in Clair Obscur, but almost every single enemy attack is able to be dodged or parried. It’s not just regular encounters that the lack of difficulty is present – I managed to get through a few boss fights without taking any damage on my first attempt, though most of them are still excellently designed.
These pains around difficulty are further compounded by Pictos. Pictos replace gear as your primary stat boosters, found throughout the world and in standard progression. Aside from stat bumps, Pictos also provide unique abilities to the character has them equipped. Things like increased critical rate on burning foes, applying offensive buffs when a party member is healed, or boosting damage from counters. Each character can have three Pictos equipped, and once four battles are won with an equipped Picto, the abilities are unlocked for all to equip through Luminas, allowing you to stack Pictos passive effects.
It is a really fantastic system that has a lot of cool build crafting opportunities, but it also means it is so easy to utterly break the game. I had a setup with Maelle where she would get damage reduction, an attack boost, and a speed boost at the start of every battle as long as she was over 80% health. My other party members were similarly stacked and it made the late game a breeze in comparison to the marginally more difficult mid-game. I love breaking RPGs as much as the next person, it’s one of my favourite things to do in endgame content, but it’s far too accessible here in Clair Obscur.
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It undermines the other excellent stuff Sandfall Interactive has worked into the combat here. Each character has their own mechanic to master, Maelle has stances, Sciel has a tricky resource management game that yields high reward when utilised effectively, and Gustave can use his skills to build-up Overdrive, a hard-hitting Skill that grows in strength as you charge it. They’re all so inventive and fun to experiment with, but it’s rare you get to use them to their fullest extent because most battles end relatively quickly.
Between the frequent turn-based battles, you’ll spend your time exploring the Continent and its numerous locales. Like the RPGs of old, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 sports a large world map with smaller zones to progress through and explore. You even unlock your own form of overworld transport in Esquie, an entertainingly goofy mythical being who can break through obstacles, swim through the seas, and soar through the air.
While the zones tend to be quite linear in design, their hub-and-spoke structure means there’s just enough room to venture off the beaten path to find optional goodies and encounters. This is where most of the challenge is found on the golden path, though many of these fights are quite well hidden. My only real irk with these zones is that they can be annoying to navigate if you want to explore all they have to offer. There’s a complete lack of any map function in these areas, meaning you just have to feel your way through and look for familiar landmarks to get your bearings.
Progression is also refreshingly streamlined, but not in a way that feels dumbed down or overly simplified. Not having to worry about all the fluff that comes with equipping gear with arbitrary bonuses is liberating. Pictos replace a typical gear system in that sense, but their strength feels much more impactful and meaningful when you pick and choose which ones to equip. Weapons are similarly handled, providing you with a small pool to choose from for each character that unlock powerful passive effects as you upgrade them. Nothing feels wasted or forced here, leaving the endgame content as a real treat for RPG fanatics.
While development for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 initially began in Unreal Engine 4, the team pivoted to Unreal Engine 5 for its Nanite and Lumen features, and you can tell it was a worthwhile change. The game is nothing short of breathtaking, constantly offering up fantastically rendered environments and draw distances that need to be seen to be believed. So much of this is due to the incredible art direction on display here. It’s so unique and inspired to the point where it feels like anything and everything you look at is screenshot worthy.
There is no better descriptor for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s soundtrack than the word haunting. Lorien Testard has done a sublime job of complimenting the atmosphere of this world while leaning into distinct French motifs to create a score unlike anything else in the medium. It encompasses a wide range of emotions and tempos for countless situations, emphasising the myriad highs and lows of the main narrative. It’s a soundtrack that’s nothing short of phenomenal and will surely go down as one of the year’s best.
Despite some gameplay missteps when it comes to balancing and navigation, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a strong first showing from Sandfall Interactive. A strong narrative combined with some fun and inventive gameplay mechanics make for a refreshing and enjoyable RPG. Couple that with some sublime production values and you have a western turn-based RPG that goes toe-to-toe with many Japanese offerings in the genre. If this is Sandfall Interactive’s first showing, I’m incredibly eager to see what else they come out with in the future.
