Clair Obscur: Expidition 33 (PC/PS5/Xbox/Game PAss

[hudson]

It's like a JRPG, but made in France. Made by a team of approx 30 heads. A game made with so much care that it shows in ways that had me thinking that the game was giving me Lost Odyssey vibes. Maybe a smidge of FFXIII and Super Mario RPG.

The combat is the highlight here. Reminding me back to even FFVIII, but mainly Super Mario RPG where turns have added timed QTE-like elements where you can maximise you attacks, buffs and defence. Like many RPGs these days there's a parry mechanic too. Time it nicely and your character will return the attack immediately. If parrying ain't for you (it's not too difficult as you learn to telegraph the enemy though the animations), you can tap the dodge button, again with a bit of timing. It's all excellent, honestly.

Exploration is fun also, with some detours to take in areas where you may find stronger enemies which may give some goodies.

I've only really scratched the surface, but if you like JRPGs with some of the QTE elements I mentioned above, I'd say this is probably your jam.

Oh and the music is awesome!

But why does the lead character look like Robert Pattinson?

[MartyG]

It looks fantastic and the story is great, but I'm not enjoying the combat in it - even on Story difficulty I'm not hitting the timings - I think there may be input lag issues with controllers on PC because I'm not that bad at this stuff usually, but I'm perhaps only getting 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 even after 5-6 hours playing this. In the end I decided to use a cheat engine and have it hit them for me so I could enjoy the story - and it's a shame there isn't this option in the game to do this as there is the QTEs for the attacks, as I think a lot of people are going to give up on the game as a result of the combat (especially a few boss fights in).

There are also a lot of systems in the game that aren't that well explained - you do need to set up the Pictos in the right way and the game glosses over the importance of these. The lack of mini-map is driving me a bit mad as well, although it seems that if you follow lit lights you generally end up in the right place eventually.

If you can get on with the combat mechanics then you'll really like the game as there is a good RPG on top of it.