Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Review

Devs: Sandfall Interactive Platforms: Xbox Series X/S, PS5, Windows

For the games that come after

They say better late than never and honestly, Expedition 33 is a game I needed to fully sink my teeth into before I began to type up my thoughts. Even then, I needed a few days more to wrestle with the ending and all that Sandfall Interactive managed to achieve with their modest team of developers.

The only word that really captures it all neatly, with a bow tie on top, is wonder.

A game whose world, characters and story hooks you the instant you step across the pier of Lumiere and never lets you go, even when you have seen your expedition through to its conclusion. A staggering setting that gets more beautiful with every new area you enter, an angelic score that has you humming the music every waking moment, a plethora of twists that sees you fighting back tears at the story this team careful crafted and awe at the flawless turn based combat system that has enough optimization to have you tweaking your build every five minutes. Just good old fashioned wonder around every corner. It is beggars belief that in a world where every new AAA release is a coin toss, a core team of 30ish developers managed to craft something so sure of what it wanted to be. An RPG of old.

This could be the longest review I’ve ever written and the starting point is a mystery given just how much there is to praise but I would be in remiss not to start on the part that got its talons in me from the opening moments. The Story and the world you’ll inhabit for the next 20 or so hours. Lumiere is as stunning as it is tragic, a renaissance era Paris painted across the backdrop of impending doom. We are dropped right into this beautiful world during what seems like a festival atmosphere but as the day progresses you discover what is really being commemorated… Gommage day. Every year, a suspicious being on a Monolith visible from the city can be seen painting a number on the pillar and every year it counts down, every person of that age dies, bursting into a shower of rose petals. This year, it is 34, and this so happens to be Gustave’s love interest’s age, who is a year older than he is, making this his expedition year. Every year expeditioners venture to the continent in an effort to stop this Paintress from ever lowering that number again. 20 minutes or even less and you are in. You hate this Paintress who is committing mass murder, you feel for Gustave’s fresh loss and you sympathise with the other citizens of Lumiere who will all face the same fates one day. You are ready to race across the ocean and blaze a path to the Paintress by any means necessary, for those that come after.

Now story is great, and I will go no further on that front in fear of spoiling the best game narrative in decades, but it all falls a little flat if the gameplay loop is dull. This is anything but. Turn based combat may lull you into a sense of on the rails battles but between Pictos, Luminas, parrying, dodging, counters and the varying abilities of each character you could replay this game a dozen times and I’m not convinced you’ll have tried every combination available to you. Gustave can overcharge his metal arm, Verso can accumulate perfection, Maelle can switch stances, Sciel stacks foretell, Luna utilizes elemental stains and MONOCCO TURNS INTO THE FREAKING GUYS YOU ARE FIGHTING. Every character has something innately unique about their moves, you can then augment that with your weapons as they also have elements from fire to ice to light and dark, all there for you to mix and match dependent on your enemy. You really start to get into a rhythm when you start uncovering Pictos and Lumina’s though. Pictos are equipable buffs ranging from anything to extra damage on your base attack to giving you extra ability points on turn starts. These Pictos can then be mastered and made into Luminas allowing you to equip them ALONG with your Pictos to make some truly astonishing builds. For example, my thing was stacking AP, so I would unlock every energising start lumina, give them to my 3 party members, give Verso a weapon that lets him attack twice, give him a lumina that gives bonus AP per attack as well as one that applies powerful on base attack so that not only do all my characters start with max AP, I can attack with Verso, Give him powerful then just insta-swing everyone’s strongest attacks, NUTS. This was the end game but it just goes to show you just how busted you can make your builds if you put some time into it. This is all without mentioning parrying and dodging which are pretty self-explanatory but if you time these right you can swing the tide of literally any battle. Then there are Gradient attacks which technically veer into spoiler territory but basically it’s another special move into the bargain.  

How the game looks is also an achievement for such a modest team. Just such a clear shared vision across the whole game. The game runs as sweet as a nut with not a single crash in my 20+ hours, combat always is smooth (if it didn’t, good luck trying to parry) and the world looks genuinely stunning for what is essentially a AA game. Every area is unique but has clear shared characteristics with other areas of the continent. Enemy design is super varied which keeps every area feeling fresh with a host of new enemies being thrown at you to figure out in combat. You go from under water corral paradises to burning battlefields, to wrecked old cities each location as beautiful as the last.

You’d think by now I would be running out of praise but the true crowning achievement of Expedition 33 is the sound. The voice acting and music is some of the very best we have seen in gaming. Huge names like Charlie Cox, Andy Serkis, Ben Star and Jennifer English all have starring roles here and it really shines through. Every emotional beat feels that bit heavier as these masters of their craft deliver some genre defining performances that make you feel part of this world and every little thing that happens. However, as good as they are and they are great, the real show stealer is Lorien Testard, the games’ composer. Staggeringly discovered on REDDIT, this psychopath decided to not only show up, but show out to a degree hitherto undreamt of. The music is a triumph and the word I used to describe the game as a whole, Wonder, is oozing out of every piece of music littered throughout this game. Every emotional beat is matched by the music dragging us to the depths along with it, the odd reprieves found at Gestral Beaches are peppered with trumpets to lift you spirits and have you involuntarily tapping your feet and every big fight feels GARGATUAN when the orchestral music picks up and you hear some of the most powerful voices you have ever heard, making the world feel truly at stake. It is breathtaking and if Lorien never lays another note for video game, he has left the job as he entered it, at its pinnacle. As much as Lumiere, the Gestrals and Axoms that makeup the continent and the expeditioners that are invading it, the music is one of the game’s main characters.

Expedition 33 is a lot of things but what it excels at most is showing an alternate path forward for the industry we love. See a vision through to it’s end. Don’t try to cater to every audience to reach as many demographics as you possibly can while burning as much money as humanly possible. Make the game you are passionate about with likeminded people and people passionate about that genre of game will flock to its side in support, as the month since its release has shown. Games should always evoke that child-like sense of wonder and few have given me that over the last decade to quite the level that this one has.

RM RECOMMENDS

+Engrossing world

+Always engaging combat

+One of the best scores ever

+Stunning graphics

+Great Voice cast

-The Second one isn't out yet