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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Review – Bien Joué
By Jonathan ToyadVerified|April 23, 2025|0 Comment
Platform(s): PlayStation 5 (version reviewed), PC, Xbox Series
Genre: Japanese role-playing game made by a 30-person French studio, Story-Heavy
Last year was a bountiful blessing for Japanese role-playing game fans, as it was filled with a ton of winners and even Game Of The Year contenders. Metaphor: ReFantazio, Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, the Romancing SaGa 2 remake – it goes on and on.
Surely 2025 can’t compare when it comes to the genre’s finest going toe-to-toe with 2024, right? As ever, the games industry has its fair share of surprises in store, at least for the genre.
I’ll say this: French developer Sandfall Interactive has made a helluva debut – a Japanese role-playing game dubbed Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. The studio’s debut combines the team’s love for the storied genre, its native country’s aesthetics and sensibilities, and an epic story. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s plot seems simple enough – in a modern fantasy setting, an expedition group sets out of their town to deal with a magic being called the Paintress who paints a number on a monolith down from 100 to kill off people older than the number. It is now 33, and the oldest folks of the town have to set out to deal with the entity. Many have tried and failed, but left flags and journals so that their successors can pursue further and hopefully win.
Expedition 33 consists of leader Gustav, young outsider Maelle, scientist Lune, and card-reader Sciel. Together they explore the unknown world outside of Lumiere and deal with the hazards like Nevrons and Gestrals, and pitfalls in a land that’s so focused on painting and art terms, as well as depicted in a combination of oil canvas aesthetics and film grain. Simply put, it’s a gorgeous art style with lovely orchestral and opera music (and jazz/electronica fusion at appropriate times) that may be divisive for some, but is full of life and charisma to many others like myself who yearn for more art in games.
And the story! By my stars and garters, it is an epic one that touches upon themes of loss, grief, survival, and a few more I can’t spoil. It’s just really well-told, hits the right notes and paces itself well, and does a couple of rug pulls that will surprise and possibly frustrate you. And even if the latter happen, you’d want to stick around because it gets way, way interesting given the changing landscapes and plot escalating.
Speaking of charisma, your cast of characters are awesome to be with. In a desolate and not-so-friendly fantasy world, you’ll definitely want the likes of Gustav, the stoic leader figure on your side. Lune is the focused one in the group but has her moments of levity with her thought process and love of music, while Maelle is the sharp-tongued youth who has her own deep-seated insecurities and major plot revelations-level baggage that is crucial to the entire narrative. Sciel is the aloof and happy-go-lucky battle savant death-seeing warrior with her own personal tragedy pre-Expedition 33.
But above all, props should go to voice actor Ben Starr’s character Verso; we can’t go into detail on why due to spoiler reasons, but he’s definitely an addition to the overall plot you should keep your eyes on. The rest of the cast from Andy Serkis’ mysterious “evil” old man character to even the random friendly Gestrals you come across with Simspeak-but-French chatterings all have their voicework doing the heavy lifting in dealing a healthy combination of drama and comedy in this fantastical voyage. One minute your main characters are contemplating suicide after a disastrous event, the next you’re parkouring to the top while a paintbrush-haired imp keeps score while you’re all in swimsuits.
Combat is inevitable in any JRPG. Expedition 33 has plenty of it in spades, and adopts the turn-based approach but with a ton of participation required. You can use free basic attacks, which then build up Action Points you use for Skills. But when the enemy attacks, that’s when you have to get to button-pressing paying full attention. Similar to the Mario & Luigi series, you have to actively dodge and parry attacks from enemies to not only avoid damage, but to also gain more Action Points to use bigger and better attacks.
Every single enemy’s attacks, from your grunts to big bad Nevrons and even rogue humans with super chroma-induced powers, have telltale signs and are accompanied with their own line of text to let you know what’s coming. You will eat crow the first few fights and have to tank a few hits, but eventually you’ll start getting better at avoiding damage while counterattack. If you parry a full attack sequence, you unleash a powerful counterattack.
And just when you’re used to parrying and blocking, Clair Obscur starts throwing a few more curveballs. These include Gradient Attacks you need to Gradient Parry (usually one-hit kill attacks but with huge telegraphs accompanied with slow motion effects), symbol attacks that you need to jump over and counter, and feint attacks that purposely look similar to attacks you’ve parried just so you get thrown off guard and flinch. It’s challenging yet fair, really fun to go through, and has a lot of impact and style that makes you yearn for the next fight even if the last one was mere minutes ago. The story’s mandatory bosses tread the fine line between challenging and frustrating, with the payoff of learning their telltales and counterattacks all the more rewarding.
Optional bosses like the Chroma-powered regular enemies and special foes with revamped attacks will test your mettle. A tough example include a giant worm puppet monstrosity that has two kinds of headbutt attacks. Getting hit by it means game over, as these attacks inflict Stun which renders you and your team unable to act or evade attacks of any kind. Did I also mention that the worm can attack up to three time in a single turn while also having multi-hitting tail swipes, and can devour unconscious party members to regain its health? Yeah, that’s the kind of optional superbosses you’re going to deal with.
I haven’t even brought up how unique your party members are in battle; they are indeed lovely JRPG treasures. Gustav builds charges with some of his attacks, and can unleash a specialized lightning special move that deals more damage if the charges max out. Lune can cast spells and gain “Stains” that can power up future spells if they’re the right elemental colour Stains. For example, casting Ice spells net her Ice Stains, which can power up her Fire spells that consume Ice Stains. Monoco is a tribute to Final Fantasy’s Blue Mage class; they can use enemy Nevron skills with their own unique properties, as well as spin Monoco’s Beast Wheel that powers up specific skills depending on where the wheel lands.
Maelle has stance changes that gives her different kinds of buffs provided she doesn’t use the same stance attack twice. You even get a party member who builds up Perfection ranking; the higher it goes, the more damage you do. Some of their attacks can get special properties if you’re at a specific Rank, be it dishing out more damage or costing less Action Points so you can spam them more. If you get hurt however, you drop a Rank.
But wait: there’s more! Your weapons can level up to 20 and gain new skills to cater to your playstyle if you are diligent in getting materials to power them up. Pictos are small artifacts that gives a character stat boosts and a unique ability; you can equip up to three of them. However, once certain conditions are met, you can have the unique ability equippable to anyone in the party. That is, if they have enough Luminas points.
Regular abilities cost less while top tier ones like acting first in combat or self-resurrection once per battle will cost 10 to 20 Luminas points. There’s a lot of customization on offer here, with various weapons to change up your playstyle and loads of skills to unlock for each character’s special skill tree, alongside equipping them with the right Pictos and unique abilities.
I managed to create a party where Maelle’s counterattacks hit really, REALLY hard and even give her extra benefits should I choose to dodge attacks instead. Meanwhile, my tank in the party can gain Action Points by just getting hurt, with extra hit points-giving Pictos to make sure they can survive long onslaughts. Once you’re knee deep in a few hours with the game’s combat system, you can’t stop and just want to keep fighting while experimenting. In fact, given time and diligence, you may be able to break the game with the tools available and made hidden for you to discover. We should also point out that there is New Game+ mode, so you can try the whole adventure again in a harder setting with your gear intact.
French developer Sandfall Interactive has done the impossible: it made me give a damn about a JRPG made entirely by foreign hands, aesthetics, philosophies, and nuances without coming off as a tryhard creation. Lord knows there are too many of those the past decade or so. Which is nice that we’re getting a French Lost Odyssey made in 2025 that embodies the best traits of a game channeling the past.
Yes, it is linear as heck in the first half when you wipe away its illusion of a semi-open world playground. However, the entire journey and destination are worth its asking price, attention, and time, making for an unforgettable JRPGing experience.
Even if you’re new to the genre, its narrative and unique world will draw you in, with its turn-based and combat mechanics spellbinding you like a world class French arthouse flick would to film critics. Très magnifique, une expérience merveilleuse, as they say.
Review copy provided by publisher.
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