Clair Obscur Expedition 33 review - an outstanding, inspiring turn-based RPG

When I first laid eyes on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, I knew it could be special. That said, I never anticipated such an ambitious swing from first-time developer Sandfall Interactive, one that is both a love letter to the turn-based RPGs of yore and a potential vision of the genre’s future.

The stage was set with RPG cast including Andy Serkis, Charlie Cox, industry meme machine Ben Starr, and Baldur’s Gate 3’s Jennifer English in what has to be another shoo-in come award season.

Paired with the Chiaroscuro-style visuals that lend the game its name, a powerful and haunting soundtrack, and the immediately gripping premise of a dwindling civilization forced to watch a monolithic woman scrub a fraction of them from existence every year, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 had everything going for it from the jump.

You control a small team, part of Expedition 33, setting sail from Lumiere (a gorgeous mirror of Belle Époque Paris you’ll immediately liken to Bioshock Infinite) to take down a ghoul known only as the Paintress. Dozens of teams have tried and failed for decades, but the hope is that advancements in tech will finally help them seal the deal. Any expedition that dies trying rests easy knowing they’ve blazed the trail for the next. For the ones who come after. Lest there be none left to try.

Expeditions are typically made up of those destined to die the following year, but Expedition 33 has one more eager participant – Jennifer English’s Maelle, a lost and lonely 16-year-old girl who wants to head out to battle with what remains of her family. It’s a moving, painful start to a story about dealing with grief and the frailty of life. Truth be told, that’s not even the first tragedy.

You’re introduced to this close-knit family early on. Maelle shows Charlie Cox’s Gustave the ropes (literally) as they travel from a quaint rooftop garden down to the streets of Lumiere for equally heart-wrenching reasons. It’s the annual Gommage, the day the Paintress paints a new number on the monolith, scrubbing anyone of that age from existence.

Given this has now happened some 67 years in a row, the locals are shockingly at peace with this ultimatum. So much so that the Gommage now doubles as a festival. Hardly a bon voyage, and not quite a funeral, it’s a final farewell and the end of an ever-shortening road they’ve always seen coming.

Once Expedition 33 sets off on their adventure to ensure this year’s Gommage is the last, your target suddenly seems further away than ever before, with an overworld straight out of the best JRPGs blocking your path. Littered with diverse biomes, treasures, trinkets, and enemies you can kill to score free weapon upgrades, straying off the overworld’s beaten path is often exciting and rewarding. Some of its zones are single-screen areas akin to the pre-rendered backdrops of PS1-era RPGs, but the majority are longer levels packed with enemies and even the odd platforming challenge.

But the real hook is Clair Obscur’s reactive take on turn-based combat. Learn your target’s attack patterns, and the ever-expanding dodge and parry system will let you take on anything. Few attacks have hyper-obvious tells, but subtle cues can help you find the rhythm of your enemy’s arsenal. Test the waters with a forgiving dodge, then try for a counterattack through a more precise parry the next time around. Toss in a few other complicating factors, including jumps, triggers, and special counters, and you have a recipe for a hyper-stimulating take on a genre once deemed too slow and stale for the HD era.

What’s less enjoyable is exploring the larger levels. Though environmentally diverse, most are shallow, as though Sandfall couldn’t work out what other challenges to present besides combat. They’re not straight-up corridors to sprint through, but they ultimately boil down to cookie-cutter labyrinths with item candy at the end of each hallway, broken up with clunky platforming.

With no mini-map and a disappointing lack of truly memorable set pieces, events, or noteworthy landmarks, it’s easy to double back on the same path and accidentally respawn enemies when you rest at a checkpoint you thought was new. These winding paths often feel intentionally distracting: another dead-end to sprint to and from without learning more about the world around you. Mythical creatures up for a chat (and a fight) sometimes add a fleeting bit of flavor, but they can only do so much.

Narratively, I can understand the lack of a fleshed-out navigation tool. It’s a fresh expedition, after all. But with each checkpoint flag numbered after the team that left it, it’s easy to imagine a mini-map that’s etched out as you progress.

Characters have some light banter as you wander around zones, but they rarely comment on their surroundings. They’re quickly desensitised to the mass graves and signs of grand battles, and seldom voice their thoughts, opinions, or theories on what’s going on. Instead, we get vague chats with spectres only worth reminiscing on once the story all falls into place.

When the cryptic hints of the larger tale are eventually (and appreciatively) dissected, I felt the intended emotional impact might have hit harder had the build-up been more thoughtfully dolled out through each level. Despite the documented inspiration from Lost Odyssey, there’s sadly nothing like Kiyoshi Shigematsu’s ‘A Thousand Years of Dreams’ here to complement the narrative threads.

Thankfully, Sandfall Interactive’s wonderful combat means you’re always looking to sprint headlong into the next fight. This is a confident and stylish turn-based system inspired by Persona 5, Honkai Star Rail, Lost Odyssey, and Final Fantasy’s long, rich heritage. Each playable character has their own key mechanic: sword stances, coloured mana, charges to balance, a combo system, and even one who collects a new skill from every defeated enemy.

AP points dictate how each character’s turn plays out, with every skill costing a different amount. Using either a skill or a basic attack ends your turn, but you can mix some skills with ranged AP shots to hit enemy weak points and cancel attacks, break through shields, and lay the groundwork for your next assault. Before long, you form a powerful team sequence to react to the enemy’s offensive and defensive maneuvers.

Paired with equippable ive abilities and countless weapon effects, the synergies and scope for experimentation feel almost infinite. And if all three of your party die, you’ll call in your final two. This dramatic last stand pushed me over the finish line in some of the game’s toughest fights.

It’s a robust system that allows for an irable level of strategy. Take the time to wrestle with its initially convoluted systems, and you’re sure to see sparks fly. It’s just a shame that the drab customization screen grows so cluttered and hard to decipher. Being unable to reference each equipped effect in a fight also makes it hard to efficiently utilize the lot until you finally settle on a rhythm.

Luckily, you can make it through the 30-hour adventure on the default difficulty with well-timed dodges, parries, and some optimization of your ives. And if you’re just there for the story, there’s an easy mode to speed things along.

Even considering my major UI and level design concerns, this is a frankly astonishing first go from Sandfall Interactive. From its tactical, stylish combat to its standout vocal performances and soundtrack that’s up there with Uematsu’s work on Lost Odyssey, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 will stay with me.

It’s a heartwrenching story that paints a moving picture of love, loss, and the complicated chemistry of family, while exploring the agonizing moral dilemma of what it means to bring children into an uncertain world. It’s also an essential contribution to a genre unceremoniously ostracised for foregoing evolution in the face of tradition, and a new modern classic that will surely inspire other developers for years to come.