It’s easy to be sceptical when a particular piece of media is held up as the saviour of a dead genre – especially when that “death” is an exaggeration in itself. Despite covering a few turn-based RPGs on this website, I don’t think that I’m the most avid consumer of the genre; nevertheless, I still raised an eyebrow when Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was a focal point in conversation that would make you believe that the genre hasn’t moved forward since Final Fantasy VII. As I’ll explain later on, there were a lot of things I enjoyed in Sandfall’s game – but I think that there have been enough critical success stories through the years to suggest that the genre is doing just fine. The world is subjective, and it’s genuinely hard to keep track of all of the quality RPGs being released when so many of them command tens of hours of your time – so I can forgive a certain degree of surface level ennui when people don’t look much further than trailers and blurb. Personally, I’m not here to make too many comparisons – I already try and keep other notable games on my radar and discuss them on their own terms – so I’d like to try and do the same for Expedition 33.

Expedition 33 – L’histoire

In a story that follows a group of expeditioners on a mission to slay an entity named The Paintress, Expedition 33 initially feels comfortingly familiar. The game is broadly structured as a series of objectives where you travel an open environment (following waypoints shown on a map) and enter dungeons that have various enemy encounters to overcome and loot to collect. Enroute, there will be light conversations between party members, and each dungeon will typically culminate in a boss battle, a cutscene, or both. What’s most striking is that so much of Expedition 33 is captivating and engaging – on the field, regular battle encounters demand your attention as you are tasked with studying attack patterns that can be dodged or parried with real-time button presses. Meanwhile, the main characters in your party are beautifully realised – they feel like regular people on an extraordinary mission, and not like actors in a dramatic storyline. When you set up camp you regularly have an opportunity to watch a heart-to-heart with the party members (not unlike “Drink Links” in Like A Dragon) – moments that often show an admirably human side to our heroes. Mechanically, these conversations are fairly shallow and it can feel like you’re going around the camp making sure that all interactions are exhausted – but they’re a fun inclusion nonetheless. Sometimes actions speak louder than words, however, as the characters truly shine once they begin a combat encounter. Expedition 33 has some of the most involving and demanding turn-based battles I’ve experienced in the genre for a while, and this approach to an RPG staple is something that could be very polarising: something that could make players shut the game off in frustration, or stay locked into the experience as they rise to each challenge.

“En garde”

The battle encounters generally combine turn-based decision making for your party’s actions, and real-time responses to enemy attack patterns. When it’s your turn, Expedition 33 feels a lot like other RPGs – you’re choosing to heal allies, provide buffs, or cast magic. (There is no mana or MP system in the game – instead, each special command costs Action Points, which can be replenished with each turn or by performing defensive actions.) However, as the enemy prepares their own action, you’ll notice that there are still commands that your party can use: a parry, a dodge, a jump. (The parry in particular grants a large counter-attack if you can parry everything in an attack string, but it often carries the most risk.) In a similar vein to Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth (or various Mario RPGs), you can nullify enemy attacks by reacting with the appropriate button press at the right time. However, this regularly feels like an essential part of your toolkit rather than an excuse to show off – the vast majority of enemy attacks in the game can outright kill a party member from full health (unless you’ve put time into increasing party health, have set up defence buffs or are deliberately exploring a low-level area.)

Consequently, mastering the timing of these defensive actions ends up being the primary means of survival. You do end up obtaining certain skills that grant health to allies or revive them, but when you can be wiped out in a single combo then it can feel like you’re merely postponing the inevitable. There are two things that I took from this design philosophy. Firstly, the encounters are some of the most elaborate rhythm puzzles you’ve seen in a modern RPG. If you know the timings of the necessary jumps, parries and counters then you no longer have to worry about a particular puzzle. Secondly – players would have much less patience for this kind of system if not for the fact that, upon death, you can instantly restart the battle (rather than having to return to the title screen or reload a save.) The instant restart is nothing new – Metaphor uses it brilliantly when players are attempting its tougher encounters – but it’s an essential tool in Expedition 33. (Whilst writing my rough thoughts, I also played devil’s advocate and considered the alternative – if the battles weren’t as punishing as they end up being, I imagine that players would just eat the damage and be less inclined to engage with the defensive systems. So I can kind of see what they’re going for – but it’s a very particular mindset to demand from players.)

Supporting the combat of Expedition 33 is an admirable amount of customisation. Skill trees let characters open up new abilities to use in combat (although each character can only select a maximum of six), whilst Luminas activate bonus perks for characters during encounters – performing an extra attack in a combo string, for instance, or granting a chance for a status effect on enemies (such as Burn.) There are also more advanced effects that come to fruition through several turns – one of my favourite skills required a Burn status to be inflicted on an enemy so that a party member could enter a unique “stance” that opened up a damage bonus; another skill caused ice damage to enemies whilst automatically healing the party for a number of rounds. The generous freedom you have in customising your party takes a lot of the edge off the brutal battle encounters, as you will often walk away from a defeat wondering if there is a different setup that you could attempt for a given encounter. The aforementioned Action Points system plays into a lot of the skill properties, as some skills can grant AP back to party members, allowing them to re-use costly actions sooner rather than waiting for AP to build over multiple rounds. In addition to health, enemies and allies also have a “Break” gauge, and if this is filled then it will stall the subsequent action for one round. This becomes another essential part of the team strategy, as it offers a little more breathing room to build AP. Ultimately, the variety of builds available can inspire players to devise solutions that suit the occasion… but it’s an experience that you have to be prepared to throw yourself into. If this philosophy – the thought of going into encounters you aren’t familiar with, dying, and then building around the encounter – is something that interests you, there’s a lot to enjoy here.

Expedition 33 – Le monde

Outside of the story and combat, Expedition 33 has a great world to sink into. Environments have an abstract and painterly quality to them, and the music is captivating without being overpowering. The architecture is fairly static and you’re rarely doing anything more complex than finding objects to shoot or grapple points that zip you across the landscape, but it serves as a game-wide arena for the main attraction: the combat encounters. Exploring the world map can be somewhat quaint as it often feels like a series of waypoints with a handful of curios and roaming encounters, but I always found the destinations more enticing than the journeys. When so many encounters have party members being KO’d, a lot of the content of Expedition 33 comes from the battles, and it wasn’t uncommon for me to come away from a session with no progress in the story but more knowledge gained about attack patterns and parry timings. After watching the closing scenes and credits, my final save at the end of the game had just under 53 hours on the clock, and I feel like the merciless battles padded out a lot of that hour count. (The intended destinations of Act 3 in particular felt like a steep rise in difficulty across many areas, after what had otherwise been a gradual increase in challenge, and it gives the impression that the player should take advantage of the sizeable experience rewards you receive at that point.) However, they were compelling enough for me to continue to the game’s conclusion, and I would recommend Expedition 33 if you have enough patience and a desire for this kind of ruthless experience.

Disclaimer: it was reported that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 originally contained placeholder assets created with generative AI, and that these were subsequently patched out. Whether this is an excusable practice is something consumers have to decide for themselves. Qazi ended up buying a pre-owned copy of the game for the purposes of playing it and writing this article. (Although to be honest, there’s hardly anywhere left in his local area where he can buy games new…)