REVIEW: ‘Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’ Wears Its Inspirations On Its Sleeve

The first thing one notices about the new RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is its beauty. The developer, Sandfall Interactive, has created a beautifully rendered world that punches far above the weight of its thirty-member team. Its characters emote with intricate detail. Its attacks land with dazzling explosions of particle effects and energy bolts. Its world is filled with photo-real and meticulous details. But that can all be seen from the game’s first trailers. So, how does the entire package stand up?

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is heavily inspired by classic JRPGs, complete with world exploration, turn-based battles, and a high-concept story narrative filled with existential questions. It is set in a steampunk world that is on the brink of destruction. Years before the game starts, the world was shaken by the sudden appearance of a colossal, god-like being known as the Paintress. Every year, the Paintress paints a new number on her monolith, and anyone of that age is killed, crumbling away to ash and blowing away in the wind.

Players are put in control of Gustave, a skilled inventor who just lost his girlfriend to the Paintress and is on the chopping block the next time the Paintress puts up a number. Along with Gustave, players control a small group of party members on a journey to try and stop the Paintress for good.

With that dark setup, it is no surprise that the story of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is very dark and moody. Less than an hour into a playthrough, players lead Gustave through a maze comprising piled-up corpses of previous expeditions to stop the Paintress. There are numerous scenes where characters spill their emotions on one another in melodramatic speeches. For the majority of the playthrough, the tonal balance works well. The emotional moments hit as they are intended, and they kick the story off with a lot of emotional gravitas.

The party members in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 are built on basic tropes.

It is only later in the playthrough that it begins to lose its luster, but the story remains intriguing enough to maintain momentum nonetheless. Along with the game’s main story, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 offers players a party of adventurers to interact with and learn about throughout the adventure. This is another area where the game strongly emulates the JRPGs of the past that inspired it, but this time to its detriment.

There are six party members in total, with each one falling pretty squarely into a familiar archetype found in countless JRPGs. This would be fine as a foundation for the characters, but throughout the game’s playthrough, very little differentiates the player’s party members from the characters of the past that inspired them. Players of almost any major JRPG will have a hard time connecting with these characters.

But of course, the party members aren’t just there to talk to. They also fight alongside the player and can be customized throughout a playthrough via their skill tree and gear. Overall, the gear system is very barebones. Players can cosmetically alter their party members with options discovered while playing, but it doesn’t impact gameplay beyond the visual.

Each character also has a single weapon slot, with multiple weapon options found during your adventures. However, finding new weapons almost universally acts as a direct upgrade over the weapons found for that character previously, rather than presenting different build options, which makes the system pretty uninteresting.

Skill trees in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 are also pretty underwhelming. The skill trees are set up like webs with different interlocking paths with slight themes. However, characters level up enough during natural play that they end up unlocking most, if not all, of the skills regardless. This leaves each character ending up at roughly the same place in the end, regardless of the path the player took to get there. The system ultimately lacks variation or impactful player choice.

Combat is by far the strongest aspect of Clari Obscur: Expedition 33.

Combat is a snappy, traditional turn-based party affair with genre features like attacking enemies in the overworld to go first in combat and quick time events to increase the damage of outgoing attacks and decrease the damage of incoming ones. Each character also has their own mechanics and combat style to account for, which helps bring some fun variety.

For example, Gustav has a mechanical arm that is powered up by using skills. Then, when it is fully powered, it can be used to deal a high-damage skill one time. Another party member is a mage who specializes in elemental attacks, which leave traces of the element behind, which she can then activate to modify future attacks.

Combat is by far where Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 shines the most. It is fast and kinetic with attacks that feel impactful thanks to wonderful animation work and explosive effects. Its party members each bring a distinct playstyle to work with, and the pool of enemies is fun to learn and defeat. The quick-time events help keep players locked into the action for every encounter. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 doesn’t necessarily bring anything new to turn-based combat, but its rendition of the system is a fun and effective one.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a competent new JRPG with which genre fans will likely be pleased. However, it does very little to iterate on the foundation laid by those that came before it. Instead, it’s content to offer its flavor of what has worked before. There is nothing wrong with that, but it does hold Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 from becoming something special. Ultimately, it’s a fun and well-made, but uninspiring RPG.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 releases April 24 for PlayStation 5, PC, and Xbox Series X|S.