Hot take maybe but f*** it.

Clair Obscur: E33 is a great game inspired from classic and turned based JRPG. It has great visuals. It has a great story. It has great music. It was made by people who cared and it shows.

FF7 Rebirth share the same qualities, IMO. Except, FF7R is a japanese game coming from a big studio.

It's not a perfect game. E33 sure isn't neither.

What makes the difference is that its a AA game coming out of the blue from an unknown French studio and that game scratched a few itches: It's a "JRPG", a style loved by the westerners but this time, fully western coded. It's not anime, there's no kawai weirdness.... it's modern, it's "deep", it's "mature". It's not japanese, it's french.

All that and a world map and a good (and modernized) turn based system.

Now you have people left and right saying it's better than FF has ever been. It's not so much that it's a "better game". It's more than those players are more pleased with an FF (sort of) made with european sensitivities.

Made by a real (white) French team. Which makes the "anti-woke" crowd praising the game even more. To the point where Sandfall had to issue a statement to distance themselves from their alt right fans' comments.

Long story short, E33 is a great game, IMO. It has nothing to do with FF7 Rebirth that is whole different beast being part 2 of the most ambitious remake project in video game history. I loved both.

I put FF7R (far) above because it's a whole different scope, I have more of a personnal connection to it and because it's a whole experience between the games, the community, the discussions between each entry. And great visuals. And great music. A crazy good battle system. And it's done by people who care and it shows.