From the opening strains of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s beautiful title track, it’s clear that this is an RPG that’s embracing its own sense of style. With French-language vocals and sweeping orchestration, it sets a tone for a game that feels unequivocally French. When you see the twisted remains of Paris, you’ll understand why.
Clair Obscur begins in Lumiere, a city set within a fantastical interpretation of France. In this world, the oldest members of society die out, erased by the Paintress, who paints a number on her cursed monolith once a year, erasing everyone of that age. Each year, that number gets lower, slowly but surely edging towards zero. Clair Obscur opens with you bidding farewell to those aged 34, your love amongst them. Gustave, our central character, voiced by Daredevil star Charlie Cox, sets out as part of Expedition 33, a group dedicating the final year of their life to trying to combat this inevitable destruction of the human race, fighting back against the Paintress and her inexplicable taste for number-based death.
Clair Obscur is simply stunning. You should check out one of the game’s early trailers to get a true sense of it, but the team at Sandfall Interactive have captured the fantastical and the unlikely in a way that feels genuinely unique. Sunlight reflects off the dust particles floating through the air, the landscape shifts and shimmers while mist caresses your character. Looking upwards, though, it becomes clear that this is a broken land, with floating rocks and giant growths filling the purple-hued skyline. Beneath it, you soon find the ugly side of this world, coming across the remains of your Expedition, routed beneath the enemy’s banners.
Gustave takes this poorly, sitting amongst the fallen bodies of his bodies and manifesting a pistol that he holds to his own temple. It’s only the interjection of teammate Lune that stops him from joining them. There’s a close-run vein of darkness and depression that Clair Obscur looks to plough, and Cox’s delivery only heightens the sense of pain and loss that lies at the game’s heart. You can expect the drama and emotion to be maximised by the stellar voice cast, which also includes Andy Serkis and Final Fantasy XVI’s Ben Starr, and I found myself hanging on every word of dialogue during the preview.
The Expedition’s health and safety is at the centre of your experience. You can heal the entire group using Chroma Elixirs, as well as keep a watchful eye over the Expedition’s status and key objectives at any time, and this plays into the idea that this quest isn’t just about one person, it’s for every remaining member of the human race.
Combat is played out via turn-based battles, and the same attention to visual design found in the environment has made its way into these encounters. The UI experience has to be the most stylish we’ve seen since Metaphor ReFantazio’s, with your battle wheel letting you access Attacks, Skills, and Items, all of which you’ll need to utilise to prevail against Clair Obscur’s fantastical enemies.
There’s an active element to these turns, though, where pressing the dodge button at the right time might see you escape from damage. If you time it at the last moment, you’ll gain a Perfect Dodge and earn additional charges on your Overcharge Meter.
That Overcharge Meter lets you perform your most powerful attacks, and here too Clair Obscur wants you to be involved, giving Skills extra damage if you successfully time the right button press with your attack. You might wonder about the return of QTEs, or hark back to your favourite Mario RPGs, but they serve to keep you on your toes, unable to look away for a moment.
Finally, there’s Parrying, which rather than getting you out of the way, sees you hitting a smaller window of opportunity to repel enemy attacks. If you’re able to successfully Parry multiple attacks in a row, you can answer back with a devastating counter. Parrying feels excellent here, maybe even a little overpowered, but successfully pulling one off gives you a shot of endorphins that most turn-based RPGs can only dream of.
It’s clear that Clair Obscur doesn’t want players to be passive observers during its turn-based battling, and it feels closer to an action title than many other RPGs. You have to be well prepared and engaged if you want to get the most out of it, getting your party through encounters in the quickest time possible, while incurring the least damage.
Giving you something else to think about, some characters can inflict Stains on enemies. These elemental marks can cause additional damage if you’re thoughtful about the order in which you attack, and single attacks might produce multiple effects. Lune’s Ice Lance skill inflicts both an Ice Stain and a Light Stain, and you can then consume them with opposing skills, such as a Fire Skill like Immolation. These also play into Elemental Affinities, and while some might cause additional damage, you might heal enemies if you choose the wrong one.
Tonally, there are aspects of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 that remind me of Eternal Sonata, the JRPG set within the dying mind of Frederic Chopin. There’s the same quiet sense of the inevitable that creeps into every moment here, while the exquisite orchestration brings both melancholy and grandeur to the incredible events. There’s a darkness here that’s utterly unmatched, and while some might find the atmosphere oppressive, there’s a kernel of hope to wrap yourself around.
There’s plenty to juggle in Clair Obscur’s combat systems, and I came away from our preview thoroughly invested in the world and its turn-based action. For fans of role-playing games, this is one Expedition you don’t want to miss.