I recently wrote an article about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 blew me away. You can read the article here if you wish to do so. Now, to put this into perspective, I was probably only around 4-5 hours into the game at that point. Let me tell you, though: this game only got better.
The story twisted and turned to the point I was in complete shock so many times. As I went through the story, I thought I knew what was happening. I mean, I genuinely thought that the heroes were as we knew them, and I thought I had the story figured out.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been this engaged in a story for a video game. Red Dead Redemption 2 was one of the last games where I reached the very end, and I thought, “Yeah, nah, I’m gonna start again.” Thankfully, Expedition 33 had a new game+, which was a huge plus for the game.
Even on the story alone, this game is already a Game of the Year contender without question. Then there’s the other stuff to come with it.
The combat is turn-based. Simple as that, with a twist. It adds a dodge/parry mechanic to the fights, meaning you can’t just stand there and tank the hits in the normal, traditional turn-based games. This requires you to think, listen to the audio queues, learn attack patterns, and go again. It’s very Dark Souls-esque.
Turn-based has always appealed to me as I loved the old Final Fantasy games growing. I honestly believe the Final Fantasy developers should take note of what Sandfall Interactive has done here because it’s proven that turn-based combat can still be amazing, can still be engaging, and can still be intuitive. I hope this isn’t the end of what Sandfall has to offer with this franchise, and continues with this theme of combat. Whether it’s a sequel or a new story within the same setting, I’m all for it.
Oh man, the music. Damn, the music. I’ve got the album downloaded on my phone, and I’m set for a 4.5-hour journey on 9th June. You best believe this entire album is getting shuffled as I drive down. What this composer has done may be the best music in any game, ever, in history, period. If Lorien Testard doesn’t win every award possible for sound or music this year, it’s an absolute travesty.
50 hours in, I am yet to get the platinum trophy, but I’m close. I have the Gestral Beach events to do next, and I’ve been worried about this for a long time. I’m terrible at those climbing games. I do have every aim to get this complete as it’s a game that will live forever in memory. The fact that this game is £44.99 on the PlayStation store is crazy.
There’s so much to do even after the story. I went through and got an invincible Verso build, which was stupid. In all fairness, I’m terrible at parrying at the best of times, so imagine my delight when I fought Simon. For 2 hours straight, this man ruined my entire existence of life.
If you’re wondering what build I used, I followed this YouTube video and focused on getting 505 lumina points for him:
Simon was so easy that Verso got him down to less than 40% by himself. I then used Maelle to Stendhal the last bit of health, it was so easy, but the grind to getting all of the pictos was lengthy. I enjoyed it as well, that’s the thing. I knew that this grind would cause me to become practically invincible. It’s one of the better things about the game. There are so many different variations to build from.
You have 5 playable characters but can only have 3 on the field at any one time. A lot of these characters can play so differently depending on how you build them. It’s overwhelming at first, but once you get through the game, it can become so enjoyable experimenting with different abilities and skills.
I never reviewed the game; it would be pretty pointless for me to do so now, but if I did, it’s an easy 10/10 game. I’m glad I have the game digitally as I know fine well that in a few months’ time, I’ll replay from the beginning again. I do hope Sandfall considers DLC, but I wouldn’t be mad if they didn’t. The game’s a complete masterpiece.
Also, can I just say – I never encountered any bugs whatsoever in the entire game. Others may have done so, but I asked my brother the same question, and he was even shocked that he had never thought about it. He also never encountered any.
This is why the developers deserve so much praise. The team consisted of approximately 30 people. The fact that they managed to put out a game this good and so perfect with such a small team is an astounding feat. We see studios with 100s of employees and developers, yet they shovel out utter trash. I’ve always said it, when you have a passionate team that truly and deeply care about their project, care about its reception, care about its fans, then you can rarely steer wrong.
Sandfall has set a solid standard in the gaming world that games can still be captivating, still be entertaining, still be intriguing, and can still pull you in from the first 30 minutes. It doesn’t happen often anymore, and studios have lost a lot of trust in recent years, especially Ubisoft. Bravo, Sandfall Interactive, bravo.
