Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

I didn't do much open world side-content after Act 2. I just went straight to the end. Played on Expert difficulty the whole way and I'm exhausted with the gameplay for now.

Fuuuuck. Just finished up Act 2. I can't wait to see how Hollywood fucks the adaptation of this up. Looking forward to finishing up the story.

Those last two bosses of Act 2 were also brutal. As I was doing the Monolith Lumiere I was really getting sick of the fucking parry minigame, but those fights really took it to a whole new level.

the really natural human interaction/dialogue is really interesting. especially as it contrasts with the insane surreal world, where no one ever really comments on the world or its logistics.

it was one thing that bugged me at the start. how, fake, the town was. empty buildings. no food. no platforms. like, if this was a city t hat was shattered and teleported here. in the last 67 years, there would be tons of reconstruction. scaffolding, boardwalks, etc to make livable. and its not. or the expeditions. only expedition 100 had any survivors. 66 years of expeditions, and not one returned. and they never changed tactics? never established a beachhead? aka, just take the beach, build a dock, hold it and send half the team back home to report? never sent larger expeditions?
do they fish? how close can they get to the island?

Caliane said:

the really natural human interaction/dialogue is really interesting. especially as it contrasts with the insane surreal world, where no one ever really comments on the world or its logistics.

it was one thing that bugged me at the start. how, fake, the town was. empty buildings. no food. no platforms. like, if this was a city t hat was shattered and teleported here. in the last 67 years, there would be tons of reconstruction. scaffolding, boardwalks, etc to make livable. and its not. or the expeditions. only expedition 100 had any survivors. 66 years of expeditions, and not one returned. and they never changed tactics? never established a beachhead? aka, just take the beach, build a dock, hold it and send half the team back home to report? never sent larger expeditions?
do they fish? how close can they get to the island?

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Your many questions will all be answered.

Kirun said:

Your many questions will all be answered.

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Yeah. I think I enjoyed the way they tell the story at the start the most out of any RPG I have played. It's an original and wildly unique setting, and they just give no fucks about explaining things, you'll work it out as you go. The whole vibe of these people being absolutely fucked in a situation that everyone knows is doomed and filled with soul-crushing despair and they are just living their lives as they can, being normal people - chef's kiss.

Gustave isn't batman or the punisher - he's just some guy doing the best he can, and wildly out of his depth. Everyone is pretty much putting on a brave face - those other 67 expeditions were amateurs, but you guys, we have faith in you ! ;p

Just got to act 3. For the most part it's been straight forward in terms of difficulty. Either fairly easy (especially once you learn the fights, which is a very strange thing to say about a turn based game, I have a feeling a lot of turn based games will adapt similar mechanics in the future), or the mobs were "oh this is for later". But once act 3 hit...

Lets go explore! Oh what his this, get wrecked. What is... wrecked. Over there then, wrecked. Other than the main objective, I don't really know where to go that doesn't feel like I am severely underleveled. I am level 50-54 with around 130 light points or whatever on all characters. I can do more than 9999, but hitting for 20k still only takes about 2% of HP bars on most mobs.

That said. Great game. Expect it to get quite a few nominations for game awards, even GOTY. It should win best music, can't see any game beating this in that category. That the main developer of this game randomly found the composer for most of the music after listening a song on Soundcloud is crazy.

Droigan said:

Other than the main objective, I don't really know where to go that doesn't feel like I am severely underleveled. I am level 50-54 with around 130 light points or whatever on all characters. I can do more than 9999, but hitting for 20k still only takes about 2% of HP bars on most mobs.

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I had exactly the same issue and eventually found the best places to go at the start of act3:
First 2 missions on the endless tower.
Maelle's side quest.
The main objective.
Then after you've gained a bit of power from those, dark shores is an excellent place to farm grandiose catalysts.

sakkath said:

I had exactly the same issue and eventually found the best places to go at the start of act3:
First 2 missions on the endless tower.
Maelle's side quest.
The main objective.
Then after you've gained a bit of power from those, dark shores is an excellent place to farm grandiose catalysts.

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Yeah, this. I'm only slightly ahead of you (around level 80).

Although I'd throw Frozen Hearts in there after The Reacher (Maelle's side quest). And if you can bumblefuck you way through it all and keep pumping Maelle, you can do Dark Shores and grab Corpseso and tons of Grandiose and start progressing. My issue with Act 3 is Maelle is basically everything. She was hitting for like 300k when I first got into Act 3, and the rest weren't doing shit. They're starting to catch up, but Maelle's now hitting for 1m+. And to get anything required for the builds to make them not suck, requires being able to completely shit on everything.

I still haven't finished the main quest, just cause I know once I do, I probably won't bother finishing anything else.

That's actually my main complaint with the game right now, is Act 3 feels super disjointed from the rest of the game. Before it, everything is very on rails. Suddenly the game shifts entirely to "go do whatever you want, there's dozens and dozens of new zones, but good luck finding them and knowing how difficult they are!" I'd say at least 2/3 of the Pictos aren't available until Act 3, and only if you basically grind it out (probably post ending if you're a normal person). Not sure how many hours are left in the story, but I don't want the ride to end yet.

Otherwise, Acts 1 and 2 were a fucking blast and probably some of the best storytelling in a video game I've ever seen. One of the things I noticed that really makes the characters feel alive is the eyes. I don't know if this is a new thing or I just never noticed it in anything else, but there was a cutscene at the camp at one point, and you see Maelle's eyes just tracking back and forth on Gustave's face as he's talking. Like...an actual human.

Making a separate post, but I went back and reread a bunch of the thread, and someone posted a Twitter post that said they were making this a movie. When I was in Act 1, I thought this would make an awesome movie. Now? There's no way you can condense this shit into even 3 hours. It really needs to be a series.

For instance, the opening of it, unless you do a voiceover, which will really cheapen the emotional impact, you're likely looking at at least 10-20 minutes to establish everything. A couple minutes to establish that it's a fractured French town (Paris?), then having some characters essentially follow the prologue of the game and explaining the Paintress and expeditions. In order for Sophie and the others to have maximum impact on the viewer, they need to develop at least a little character. I figure you could do almost an entire first episode on just that. At the very least, ending it with Expedition 33 landing and leave it on a cliffhanger.

I really hope they don't fuck it up, but I'm pretty sure they will. It's such an interesting story.

Gravel said:

My issue with Act 3 is Maelle is basically everything.

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Maelle is obviously the best but Monoco should be able to do a lot of heavy lifting too. Many of his skills do absurd amounts of damage.

I never really used Monoco. His ability seems super gimmicky. Although, I could say the same about Sciel who I also use.

In act1/2 it's annoying to build new characters cause lumina points are limited and you probably already invested what you had in your team. Maybe I was just lazy but I never bothered with sciel or monaco in the main story. Sciel I used only later or in some key fights in act 2 because her abilities to give her turn and boost damage makes her a low investment option.

Gravel said:

I never really used Monoco. His ability seems super gimmicky. Although, I could say the same about Sciel who I also use.

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The only gimmick is how you unlock, the actual abilities are really good. Lampmaster attack is one of the best AOE attacks you can get IMO.

Yeah, I ran into that Grosse Tete guy by accident, killed him, and my game crashed. Looked it up after and saw that it's a missable if you don't have Monoco for that one kill and skill. Loaded an older save, and now I've just got him in my party permanently. Basically, he almost never does anything anyway.

And that's cause I finally got enough pictos on Verso that he basically skull fucks everything. Anything that's left alive and Maelle dumpsters it (up to 8 million hits on her). Started just flying around randomly doing islands and ended up in Flying Manor (after shitting on Sprong, Golgra, and the dragon). I knew it was "later," but outside of Draft (which I also dipped my toe in, but got owned by those giant lamp dudes, similar to the ones in The Reacher), it sounds like maybe it's the highest level area. Which is a shame cause it's got a thousand fucking pictos and weapons in it. I basically ran out of money buying pictos off the vendor (almost 1 million total). It should finish up most of the ones I still need outside a handful here and there. Still got one more boss and then the main one to go.

I did remember another complaint I had had a couple days ago, but I got reminded of it a few times today. And that is that the whole looking for random shit on the ground really sucks. Not because I hate finding it, it's actually a good little dopamine hit. But the zones are all so damn gorgeous and I feel like half the time I'm not even looking at them cause I'm just trying to search the floor for the next collectible glowing item. Maybe I will do a NG+ just so I can look around and appreciate the setting more.

That Grosse Tete guy respawns in one of the Act 3 dungeons. Flying Manor I think? I know, super useful info now. I'm pretty sure you can encounter everything again either through respawning dungeons or specific fights in the endless tower.