Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

[logincrash]

Well, that's what would happen if you turned on all the blurriness features. What happens if you turn the AA *OFF* and use only the sharp edges without blurring?

All the hair and trees would look like floaty shimmery ****.

>at 1080p

What the **** do you expect?

I expect a game to look crisp at my monitor's native resolution. Games from over a decade ago look and run better than any UE5 slop that comes out today.

[Valter]

Well, that's what would happen if you turned on all the blurriness features. What happens if you turn the AA *OFF* and use only the sharp edges without blurring?

All the hair and trees would look like floaty shimmery ****.

>at 1080p

What the **** do you expect?

I expect a game to look crisp at my monitor's native resolution. Games from over a decade ago look and run better than any UE5 slop that comes out today.

I always look back on Witcher 3 fondly for this. Over a decade ago still looks and runs stellar. I'm sure there's other examples, but point is there's a standard that devs should try to meet.
And to be fair,I must point out that I am able of running this game max settings with max quality DLSS and it's a solid 60fps. Meanwhile Oblivion Remastered framerate ranged from 15-45 FPS at any given moment with absolute minimum settings Make of that what you will, but this game is not horrible for 2025 standards

[Grumpyboy]

really tired of this trend of digitizing people into video games
you can make literally anything and you choose to copy existing people?

agree .. I an SICK to death of them inserting voice actors into in a game as actual characters , all it does its make them way more important than they need to be, which is problem because most of them are woke , its also means talented people wont get hired cause they are not pretty , and most importantly it limits creativity

It also destroys all creativity in character design. Instead of having characters with original designs and real artistic vision, whether to match the game's environment or the character's writing, we just get mirror images of real people.

It's artistic laziness.

The moment a game features characters that are just reflections of their voice actors, I instantly lose all interest in it.

I suspect the VAs are demanding it, its another sign of decline the AAA firms agreed to such an obviously bad idea , it weakens the firm (they become more dependent on particular VAs as they gain recognition ) , wages increase, and it strengthens the VAs with no benefit to the games , and considering much trouble the VAs cause with their woke bs , its doubly stupid , the LAST thing AAA needs is celebrity

[DecadeRiptide]

This game looks overrated.

[DecadeRiptide]

Also where is Expedition 1? Why 33?

[Cipher]

Also where is Expedition 1? Why 33?

You have to play the previous 32 entries in the franchise before even beginning to imagine playing Expedition 33. That's why some people get this masterpiece of a gaming event that comes once in a lifetime and some people don't.

[DecadeRiptide]

For real though the only thing that comes to mind when people bring up this game. The devs seem freaky

[rusty_shackleford]

Weirdos get off on forcing you to participate in their fetish

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

agree .. I an SICK to death of them inserting voice actors into in a game as actual characters , all it does its make them way more important than they need to be, which is problem because most of them are woke , its also means talented people wont get hired cause they are not pretty , and most importantly it limits creativity

It also destroys all creativity in character design. Instead of having characters with original designs and real artistic vision, whether to match the game's environment or the character's writing, we just get mirror images of real people.

It's artistic laziness.

The moment a game features characters that are just reflections of their voice actors, I instantly lose all interest in it.

I suspect the VAs are demanding it, its another sign of decline the AAA firms agreed to such an obviously bad idea , it weakens the firm (they become more dependent on particular VAs as they gain recognition ) , wages increase, and it strengthens the VAs with no benefit to the games , and considering much trouble the VAs cause with their woke bs , its doubly stupid , the LAST thing AAA needs is celebrity

AI VA can’t come soon enough to put these people out of work.

[Grumpyboy]

This game looks overrated.

it is unless you like Harem Romantasy novels , and being mr friendzone around hot chicks, for 30 hours

[Norfleet]

For real though the only thing that comes to mind when people bring up this game. The devs seem freaky

[Valter]

[Tangerine]

That's not wholesome chungus.

[Valter]

Haven't seen environments this fantastical in a long time. Feels lovely and whimsical to explore

Also parrying is far from the horror stories I heard from people. Yeah some attacks can be unintuitive or feel cheap, but the patterns are clear once you see them once or twice.
The parrying window is unforgivingly tight, but it's quite rewarding to get it right.

Wait until you face Simon.

Okay listen, my point stands for moves with slight physical movement tells, not this *******... Final Fantasy zoom zoom zoom instahit you whatever cursed weeb ******** this guy pulled on me. Though only 2 of his moves were unreasonable to react to, rest was fine.

[Valter]

Done with some 99% completion rate or whatever at a 70 hour mark, just dropping some post-game thoughts.

Fun game, was absolutely engaged in minmaxing my damage output and theorycrafting builds with all the different kinds of weapon passives. Immense enemy variety but unfortunately, as is expected in a long RPG, by the late stage of the game a lot of them are just variants of older enemies which means similar moveset and similar parrying patterns. Bosses are definitely a highlight with some really cool and grand spectacle moments that reminded me of @Val the Moofia Boss's vigorous speeches on the merits of turn-based combat.
Oh but the loot is mostly upgrade materials and they're uninspired to say the least. "Magic Stone Level 1. Magic Stone Level 2. Magic Bone Level 1. Magic Flower Level 3..."
Boss loot can be weapons or skills but even then most of those are just sold at shops with the rare exception of a drop being actually exclusive to that boss. It really felt unsatisfying to get loot in this game. Lacking in variety, uniqueness, etc etc. The weapons are cool and unique, just not the way they're acquired.

Exploration was... a chore. Beautiful landscape, loved finding out all these new optional locations in the world purely out of my own curious volition, often with hefty rewards. And yet, the game does that Pokemon HM "you need Dive to access this area, come back later" kinda **** which made me backtrack a lot and backtracking is laaaaaaaaaaaame.
But extra points for the immense amount of side content. I really wanted to see the story through so I kinda rushed the final boss thinking the side content was minimal and I'd just reload a save later to see what's up real quick. But nope, another good ~15 hours of game and bosses were waiting for me.

Main Story was great, definitely leaning hard towards the serious, dramatic and emotional. Was worried the writers were going to be high off their own farts and while the allegations have some merit, it's not at the level where it's obnoxious.
The mystery was also well done and left me guessing for most of the game, though it was irksome to notice some characters that should be asking more questions oddly refrain from doing so in what I can only guess is an attempt at preserving the pace of the plot. Felt a bit lazy but it's not a big deal, though despite these painstaking efforts, the mystery still managed to unravel a bit too early imo.
Also, the writing quality kinda takes a nosedive during more casual scenes, some more lighthearted conversations or moments alike at camp. Felt kinda stiff and awkward at times, to no fault of the acting itself. Fortunately these scenes are few and far inbetween.
Voice acting was so good, outstanding really. I do agree with the sentiment that the facial expressions were somewhat off, particularly during in-engine cutscenes.

The world itself is honestly... not that interesting. It's just a beautiful looking nightmare sprawling with monsters. There's like a couple friendly tribal monster societies about as interesting as a sack of potatoes. And that's it. The best worldbuilding comes from finding out what happened to previous expeditions and how it all ties back to the main plot itself.

TL;DR Really enjoyable story if you're down for a dramatic tale and enjoyable game if you're down for buildsmaxxing and memorizing some attack patterns through trial and error.

I still don't get newgame+ as a concept. "Here you go bud, do it all over again but higher stats?" huh?

[logincrash]

Watching a streamer play the game for the first time. There are these paintbrush people. They say they have a chief and when you actually meet the chief, it's a woman brush clearly voiced by a black chick, lmao.

[Valter]

Watching a streamer play the game for the first time. There are these paintbrush people. They say they have a chief and when you actually meet the chief, it's a woman brush clearly voiced by a black chick, lmao.

Sounds like a fit for unga bunga tribal people

Don't see any black chicks in the voicing credits, though one Mathilde Mazen has no photos that I could find

[logincrash]

Okay, started up the game again just because the streamer made me interested in it. The opening of the game is incredible, sets the mood pretty well and the acting and the music are great all around. Now, I didn't mention gameplay because the first hour or so is pretty much entirely cutscenes.
And speaking of cutscenes, YOU CAN'T ******* SKIP THEM. I'm not going to play this game. I already was forcing myself to look at the disgusting UE5 visual slop. Having to watch all the cutscenes I've already seen is another strike against it.
Genuinely, if you're interested in the story/characters/setting, just watch a playthrough on YouTube or something.

[Valter]

Okay, started up the game again just because the streamer made me interested in it. The opening of the game is incredible, sets the mood pretty well and the acting and the music are great all around. Now, I didn't mention gameplay because the first hour or so is pretty much entirely cutscenes.
And speaking of cutscenes, YOU CAN'T ******* SKIP THEM. I'm not going to play this game. I already was forcing myself to look at the disgusting UE5 visual slop. Having to watch all the cutscenes I've already seen is another strike against it.
Genuinely, if you're interested in the story/characters/setting, just watch a playthrough on YouTube or something.

Yeah you can skip. On kbm it's F>ESC

[logincrash]

On kbm it's F>ESC

What kind of ******* harebrained nonsense is this?

[Valter]

On kbm it's F>ESC

What kind of ******* harebrained nonsense is this?

figured it out on my own somehow. skill issue

[wndrbr]

Was greatly enjoying the game, completed half of Act 2. Then the story got spoiled to me by accident, and the absolutely ******** plot twist completely ruined the game for me. I'm no longer interested in continuing.

[Faceless_Sentinel]

Was greatly enjoying the game, completed half of Act 2. Then the story got spoiled to me by accident, and the absolutely ******** plot twist completely ruined the game for me. I'm no longer interested in continuing.

Can you tell what exactly was it?

[wndrbr]

Was greatly enjoying the game, completed half of Act 2. Then the story got spoiled to me by accident, and the absolutely ******** plot twist completely ruined the game for me. I'm no longer interested in continuing.

Can you tell what exactly was it?

The premise of the game is that after an apocalyptic event that fractured the world and populated it with monsters, a god-like being called the Paintress started annually erasing every person older than a certain age from existence. She started doing that by erasing people older than 100 years old, then on the next year she erased all the 99 yrs olds, then 98, etc. Soon people realized that if no one stops her, humanity will be wiped away. Every year, the last human city sends an Expedition of volunteers to head to the Paintress' lair in an effort to kill her before she can erase another batch of people. The game follows Expedition 33, a group of 33 yrs old survivors on their last year of life.

And the plot twist is

► Show Spoiler

The Paintress is a severely depressed woman whose son died before the events of the game. Instead of accepting his death and letting him go, she decides to trap herself inside a magic painting (the game world) where her son is eternally alive as a painted character. Paintress' husband is not happy about this, he enters the magic painting himself and tries to destroy it from within so his wife could finally move on, but he's not strong enough to do that at once, so he just erases the painting layer by layer (hence people getting annually removed).

Basically, the whole gameworld is fake and made up and doesn't really exist, most of the characters are literal painted NPCs with no agency (including the ones you play as), nothing you did actually mattered, there is no point in reading worldbuilding notes and journals you find because none of that actually has a meaning. The epic inter-generational struggle against impossible odds, the sacrifice that people of the last city made by sending expeditions year after year - all of that was ********.

[Faceless_Sentinel]

Was greatly enjoying the game, completed half of Act 2. Then the story got spoiled to me by accident, and the absolutely ******** plot twist completely ruined the game for me. I'm no longer interested in continuing.

Can you tell what exactly was it?

The premise of the game is that after an apocalyptic event that fractured the world and populated it with monsters, a god-like being called the Paintress started annually erasing every person older than a certain age from existence. She started doing that by erasing people older than 100 years old, then on the next year she erased all the 99 yrs olds, then 98, etc. Soon people realized that if no one stops her, humanity will be wiped away. Every year, the last human city sends an Expedition of volunteers to head to the Paintress' lair in an effort to kill her before she can erase another batch of people. The game follows Expedition 33, a group of 33 yrs old survivors on their last year of life.

And the plot twist is

► Show Spoiler

The Paintress is a severely depressed woman whose son died before the events of the game. Instead of accepting his death and letting him go, she decides to trap herself inside a magic painting (the game world) where her son is eternally alive as a painted character. Paintress' husband is not happy about this, he enters the magic painting himself and tries to destroy it from within so his wife could finally move on, but he's not strong enough to do that at once, so he just erases the painting layer by layer (hence people getting annually removed).

Basically, the whole gameworld is fake and made up and doesn't really exist, most of the characters are literal painted NPCs with no agency (including the ones you play as), nothing you did actually mattered, there is no point in reading worldbuilding notes and journals you find because none of that actually has a meaning. The epic inter-generational struggle against impossible odds, the sacrifice that people of the last city made by sending expeditions year after year - all of that was ********.

Thanks for the warning, will not waste my disk space on this game.

[DecadeRiptide]

When is expedition 34 out?

[Valter]

Was greatly enjoying the game, completed half of Act 2. Then the story got spoiled to me by accident, and the absolutely ******** plot twist completely ruined the game for me. I'm no longer interested in continuing.

Can you tell what exactly was it?

The premise of the game is that after an apocalyptic event that fractured the world and populated it with monsters, a god-like being called the Paintress started annually erasing every person older than a certain age from existence. She started doing that by erasing people older than 100 years old, then on the next year she erased all the 99 yrs olds, then 98, etc. Soon people realized that if no one stops her, humanity will be wiped away. Every year, the last human city sends an Expedition of volunteers to head to the Paintress' lair in an effort to kill her before she can erase another batch of people. The game follows Expedition 33, a group of 33 yrs old survivors on their last year of life.

And the plot twist is

► Show Spoiler

The Paintress is a severely depressed woman whose son died before the events of the game. Instead of accepting his death and letting him go, she decides to trap herself inside a magic painting (the game world) where her son is eternally alive as a painted character. Paintress' husband is not happy about this, he enters the magic painting himself and tries to destroy it from within so his wife could finally move on, but he's not strong enough to do that at once, so he just erases the painting layer by layer (hence people getting annually removed).

Basically, the whole gameworld is fake and made up and doesn't really exist, most of the characters are literal painted NPCs with no agency (including the ones you play as), nothing you did actually mattered, there is no point in reading worldbuilding notes and journals you find because none of that actually has a meaning. The epic inter-generational struggle against impossible odds, the sacrifice that people of the last city made by sending expeditions year after year - all of that was ********.

since you're in spoiler territory i'll just clarify one thing without expanding too much on it

► Show Spoiler

Yeah the people in the world are painted creations, but they are unlike fictional beings as we know them irl: merely a static, unchanging handcrafted products of an artist. In this universe, since these painters use Magic! these creations seem to be fully independent, autonomous and conscious. They would never be able to rebel against their creators (like the Paintress) otherwise.
So the claim of having no agency is odd, though I can kinda understand it in the sense that they are indeed unable to leave the painting and if someone outside destroys it, they're gone too. They have no agency over their fate in that regard.

[DemoGraph]

To continue from this.

This thread made me watch a LP video of COE33.


I've watched the first 18 minutes of the vid knowing basically nothing about the game. I can say the following.

So, a guy meets a girl. They broke up previously. Now she gas to go on some one-way-off expedition that is basically a death sentence. They're seeing each other for the last time. He's, understandably, pretty nervous. She gives her last goodbyes to everyone, including him. Together they head to a harbor thinking about future they could have had together, the last walk of their common life...
And the first thing that the player can do is platform jump the girl on a pile of boards to pick up some pennies.

Absolutely tone deaf. Whoever designed this is a ****** and should be drown in ****.

The end.

That LP hooked me after all, so I've watched through it.

► Show Spoiler

Plot presentation is decent. The main premise of the plot is dumb. As are most plots that use "it was all a dream" trope. So, you've made the majority of your characters irrelevant? Congrats and **** off. The lead writer is obviously feminist, daddy issues stick out of plot so hard it hurts (also Civ 6 is written as one of her favourite games, lol). The dialogues are decent, though often too edgy for life - people don't talk this way.

Chars are very uneven.
Jailbait was fine. Obvious Silent Hill Alessa rip-off, but written by a woman. Since the first prophetic dream, it was clear that it's she who's supposed to be the protag. Since she's a dumb teenager, her preferred ending is obviously a bad one. Seems believable enough to me.
Lune is sexy. Se. Xy! Has more balls than everyone else combined. Would handhold and breed an asian horde with.
That other female has some nice character touches, but then she forgets her supposedly cherished dead husband and fucks a first **** she stumbles upon. It's especially dumb since the sex scene neither wasn't hidden nor did it provide any character development for any of the characters. Meh.
Gustave is a whiner, I've actually cheered when he died. His death scene also was too prolonged to be impressive.
Gustave mk2 turned out to actually be the protag (check his MC forelock!). I think he was decent. He had some character inconsistencies, but since he's an incomplete memory backup, it's in character for him to be erratic.
Daddy's last decision was surprisingly humane.
Dolls are comic reliefs. Fat doll was fine. Monkey lord is probably some reference I don't get.
I found it curious that despite an excess of female characters, the males make the majority of meaningful plot decisions.

Game mood is all over the place. It goes from trying to be an over-the-top dark drama to happy platforming and back. Absolutely dumb. Corpse piles were obviously stolen from Souls and were utterly inappropriate. Ditto "darksign" enemies. Even if rebranded into erasers, black spheres in this contest are just meh. Canvas is white, they should've been white. Or white noise. Or something.

Music is nice, but it was often badly applied. Devs should've realized that a typically structured lyric-centered song is a bad idea for combat soundtrack or main theme. Also, I think that music variety in the game wasn't that good. Leitmotif is properly maintained through the OST, but its transformations could've been more diverse. Probably it was a first big project of the composer?

Level geometry seems to be simplistic.
Level art, on the other hand, is probably the best thing that came out of this game. Carla Deveze, lead environment artist, also seems to be hot. Pretty inside, pretty outside. Would doubleteam her with Lune.

Gameplay seems to be meh. It's a Final Fantasy-style 3v3 turn-based combat with jRPG-styled ******** monsters, but with popamole soulslop evasion. Boss attacks that paint half a screen into special effects only to deal 0 damage are absurd. No strategic layer, no base. Strategic map could've been replaced with POI node graph.
UI is conceptually nice, but graphically atrocious - too much clutter.

RPG elements - I think there was no C&C? Each of the two endings could be chosen freely before the last battle.

Good:
+ Plot presentation is okay.
+ Environment design is very good.
+ Lune is yummy mommy.
+ Edit: Daddy's quote on art, mirror and mask is surprisingly deep. I've reread it again and found another layer of meaning. Very cool.

Bad:
- Plot structure.
- Combat.

All in all, though I definitely don't want to play the game itself, I liked spending 4-5 hours skimming through this visual novel.

[rusty_shackleford]

When is expedition 34 out?

It would be 32, akshually

[Breathe]

Was greatly enjoying the game, completed half of Act 2. Then the story got spoiled to me by accident, and the absolutely ******** plot twist completely ruined the game for me. I'm no longer interested in continuing.

Can you tell what exactly was it?

The premise of the game is that after an apocalyptic event that fractured the world and populated it with monsters, a god-like being called the Paintress started annually erasing every person older than a certain age from existence. She started doing that by erasing people older than 100 years old, then on the next year she erased all the 99 yrs olds, then 98, etc. Soon people realized that if no one stops her, humanity will be wiped away. Every year, the last human city sends an Expedition of volunteers to head to the Paintress' lair in an effort to kill her before she can erase another batch of people. The game follows Expedition 33, a group of 33 yrs old survivors on their last year of life.

And the plot twist is

► Show Spoiler

The Paintress is a severely depressed woman whose son died before the events of the game. Instead of accepting his death and letting him go, she decides to trap herself inside a magic painting (the game world) where her son is eternally alive as a painted character. Paintress' husband is not happy about this, he enters the magic painting himself and tries to destroy it from within so his wife could finally move on, but he's not strong enough to do that at once, so he just erases the painting layer by layer (hence people getting annually removed).

Basically, the whole gameworld is fake and made up and doesn't really exist, most of the characters are literal painted NPCs with no agency (including the ones you play as), nothing you did actually mattered, there is no point in reading worldbuilding notes and journals you find because none of that actually has a meaning. The epic inter-generational struggle against impossible odds, the sacrifice that people of the last city made by sending expeditions year after year - all of that was ********.

Why don't they just all go to destroy her at once?