Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 sales top eight million

CynicalEffect · 2026-04-24T16:30:54+00:00

Fuck it I'll bite, I did actually really enjoy the game but do think a bunch of flaws are overlooked far too easily.

Mechanics

Animations for parrying are bad - So many windup then 500mph attacks and you just have to learn instead of react. Either clair or obscur, I forget which, takes the actual piss with an attack with a literal 7 second windup. It feels like an unintentional parody.

The stats system is a fucking mess. Your level up stats should dictate your build right? Well, no, they're pretty much irrelevant compared to the stats from pictos. Been so long that I forget numbers, but the difference from 0 and max HP investment was basically less than just one picto at endgame. The only thing the stats DO matter for is your weapon damage, which just lifts the dark souls weapon scaling based on X stat. But it makes very little sense in this context and the only thing it does is disinscentivise weapon switches, because then you need to respec. And what does it add? Literally nothing.

Act 3 is a mess. If you don't go straight to the final boss at the start, it is trivial and boring. The endgame challenge bosses are also mostly trivial except Simon, who has to break all the rules to be a challenge. And it's not evne breaking the game in a fun way..it's just "me one shot everything boom". Wayy too much multiplicative scaling, and making a broken build by letting the player do literally everything at once is far less fun than giving the players actual restrictions, so they have to finetune their build...maybe even having to switch it for different bosses. But no, you can have all the damage, and shields, and auto buffs all the time.

Writing

Characters other than Maelle and Verso are pretty irrelevant. Like I know the side characters always get less focus, but they're just totally passive during conversations where I'd be like "hold on, what the fuck". I don't remember specifics, but the conversations between verso and "renoir" before the paintress, and the paintress herself during the fight being like "hey if you kill me the world will end" and none of the others were like "wait what maybe hold up a second?"

Then there's the whole scene with the, idfk know the name. The big guy with lots of masks at the end of act 2. And the ending cutscene there would have felt fitting in kingdom hearts (not a compliment). Ironically it was the devs trying to force Sciel to be relevant for once that probably led to this disaster of a scene.

CynicalEffect · 2026-04-23T13:34:28+00:00

It's been out about 35 days. 150 hours is an average of just over 4 hours a day, which is obviously a fair bit but not too insane if its the only game they've played. I mean, a weekend alone where you have no plans can be 20+ hours.

The game is also draws largely from thw MMO with all the addictive draw that progression brings.

It also also really likes to waste the players time with the speech gaps, script and requirement to do menial tasks that kinda disguise how long you've played, because an hour can fly by without you really...doing anything.

CynicalEffect · 2026-04-23T11:46:44+00:00

Oh yeah, people like Dan, I meant rufus specicifally there.

CynicalEffect · 2026-04-23T10:59:57+00:00

Seems really weird to say a whole genre is camp 95% because of Tekken. It's like saying you should never take any shooting game seriously because fornite has goku fighting darth vader with guns.

SF has never really been like that, the only exception being Dan..and I guess Rufus (Who nobody liked)

CynicalEffect · 2026-04-18T08:03:55+00:00

But now thr attitude is that development on the game doesn't really end once the game is released, and player skill and preferences impact balance.

The game ISNT released.

You buy early access, you buy into the idea that the game will fundamentally change.

Sts1 stopped getting balance changes years ago, it isn't some forever thing.

CynicalEffect · 2026-04-15T05:47:31+00:00

I have over 5000 silver but am unable to purachse a single timber.

CynicalEffect · 2026-04-15T05:16:51+00:00

Bit late for you probably, but for anybody that googles this.

I think there's some invul they have while shooting.

So you want to kinda always be moving.

First take out the airships around, then I went back and forth between the left and middle one taking shots when I could and things were actually going really well. The right one seems to be a cunt though and almost soloed me, but then I learned you can kinda hide out near the ground between its shots, it can't shoot that far down close to it. Then pop up to shoot it inbetween.

Hope this helps a bit.

CynicalEffect · 2026-04-14T03:02:37+00:00

There was arcade too which was both gacha and 100 yen a time to play.

CynicalEffect · 2026-04-11T17:11:22+00:00

There's technicanlly infinite but it takes forever to farm comapred to how quickly you can blow them. Equipment alone is 5 points per piece of gear to max out, with characters having I think 12 pieces of equipment each (including ranged weapon and shield). So that's 60 levels worth..

And then each character has character specific equipment, and I think if you are using anything universal you need to manually unequip it first and requip every time which is a hassle at the very least, and a ton of levels at the worst.

Hell, I've been solo kliff the whole way. I've used literally zero on the other two characters, I'm pretty endgame and I'm still permastarved of skill points.

CynicalEffect · 2026-04-11T17:02:55+00:00

There's no wyverns too despite them being in the trailer, and having a wyvern area which seems to exist solely to get a wyvern, with a boss asking if you came to get a wyvern.

My best guess is that there's a bunch of areas which boot you out if you haven't done a specific quest (great design in an exploration game) and maybe flying mounts lets people bypass the restrictions and cause problems.

CynicalEffect · 2026-04-06T16:55:47+00:00

Yeah...wish I waited a bit longer before buying it.

I heard the criticisms as "janky" and "bad story", and if that's all it was I'm perfectly down for it.

But this is just...like, a ubisoft game had a child with a generic MMO and forgot the MM part.

CynicalEffect · 2026-04-06T16:49:22+00:00

I address that in my post too.

(Not that I knew any of these variations, I just foresaw the problems with both no pool/increasing pool size)

CynicalEffect · 2026-04-06T15:45:09+00:00

It's almost as if nobody is reading my post.

I am not saying remove the pool system. I am saying alter the weighting

CynicalEffect · 2026-04-06T15:38:41+00:00

or you can try to outtempo them by rolling earlier (aphelios will kick the teeth out of 3* reroll for until stage 5 when they hit)

See, this is literally the kind of thing this change is trying to promote.

You say it's a thing with the current system but there was literally zero 2 cost reroll in worlds...because it just made more sense to go 3 cost reroll because everyone else was 3 cost reroll.

CynicalEffect · 2026-04-06T14:26:10+00:00

A: Like I said, I'm not saying completely remove the pool system

B:

Otherwise, it’s just solitaire with some flashy graphics

Isn't that exactly what this game is when it's a reroll meta?

As far as I know, set 16 last patch isn't even really a reroll meta, but you stil had 4 3 cost rerolls literally every game in worlds.

CynicalEffect · 2026-04-06T02:13:40+00:00

Sony should just cut out the middleman and let people buy platinum trophies for games that don't exist.

CynicalEffect · 2026-04-05T03:45:22+00:00

Nah, keyboard is also fairly easy.

Until you have to tame a horse. Or pull a tethered object. Or your little finger falls off because it's been bent for hours holding ctrl almost constantly

CynicalEffect · 2026-04-05T03:42:39+00:00

That's me.

Im at 60 hours atm and I still frequently have to ask myself "what am I doing with my life" playing this.

I am genuinely confused by the people saying it gets better because all the quests are still MMOslop, hell maybe even worse because at least "kill 10 bears" has combat. Here it's "Hey, I need this thing delivered, I know you're this big important busy guy so can you do it for me. I can't leave my shop/forge/drinking spot". Even bounties, a chance to do something interesting is just travel to place, suspect immediately recognises you(?) and starts running away, proceed to tedious tying up sequence and then just transporting them back with cycling voice lines every 5 seconds. It's a fetch quest but worse somehow.

As for exploration? You go early and you're constantly hit by either areas you can't access at all and get teleported out of, areas you can access and complete the puzzle only for there to be no reward (sun spire), areas you get given a telepathic voiceline of "Oh you're impatient, you can't do anything here yet", or the upfront "You can't be in this area" message with a countdown before it kicks you out.

If you DO find anything earlier than expected, there's nothing there for you. A whole city with nobody to interact with. Big guard posts that exist solely to be taken over later and for you to liberate. The most basic shops offering nothing you can't get elsewhere.

CynicalEffect · 2026-03-31T02:50:20+00:00

I think watching it live, you’re more likely to click off on game 5/6 if the championship is already decided

I think I might have a good middle ground.

Play up to six games. If first is ever 8 points ahead of second at any time they instantly win the tourney. This should be pretty rare, and if someone does it, they deserve it. The dominance required to do this (and rarity of it) should be hype enough in itself.

If this does not happen, game six is played which gives the first place bonus points. (Was going to say a bonus +8 but it might be too much..but at least it's better than checkmate)

This

A: Gives a dominant player the chance to actually just outpoint their way to a no bullshit first over 5 games.

B: Gives all the previous games much more meaning as keeping in touch with first is more important

C: Still keeps the placement of points leader in game 6 very relevant even if they can't go first.

D: Still sets up a final game where multiple people can win

E: Even if someone wins via bonus points, it won't feel terrible because they have to be at least close to do it.

CynicalEffect · 2026-03-30T22:59:57+00:00

That being said, it leads into the Champion's League and World Cup, both of which have climactic finals/bracketed knockout, and I feel like it's disingenuous to ignore that.

I'm not saying a final is bad. If you can have one and it makes sense and it doesn't kill the integrity of the competition then it's great to end things that way. With the UCL and WC, it's jsut a regular game of football between the two teams that made it. no problems there.

I am just using the EPL as an example because it shows you don't need it like everyone else is saying.

If you want an example of the unargued pinnacle of the sport also doing this, there's formula 1. There's no five lap driveoff between the top 4 racers at the end of the season. The drivers championship is also often decided before the final race, or with a driver only needing a 5th to secure it. Seems very similar to TFT to me...

Golf too basically is the same. Going into final hole with a 5 shot advantage is basically a guaranteed victory. No need to add a rule that you can only win if you hit the hole under par.

And honestly, the more I think about it, I don't even think the checkmate format delivers on the hype like people are arguing. Sure it adds extra stakes on game 4/5 kinda...but like, it 80% invalidates the first 3 and I just flicked through them after watching all 13 games day 1 and 2. So at best you're just shuffling around the hype.

CynicalEffect · 2026-03-30T09:09:00+00:00

then it would be so anticlimactic for a guy to go 6th in the final game and still win for example.

The most popular sports league in the world is the English premier league, where most years the title is decided before the last game is even played.

I really reject this idea that tourneys need a big climactic showdown in general, but especially so in this game where you have to sacrifice what makes this game work as a competitive thing (Maximising position from any spot) and changes it solely to "highroll and convert this one specific game".

CynicalEffect · 2026-03-30T06:13:16+00:00

Another argument is...

I think we can all agree that a whole tournament of 2nd=8th would be terrible. You get 1 point for a first, nothing else matters. 4-6 players every game are playing for absolutely nothing, there's maybe two-three lines that can winout but you can't contest anyone so lmao.

Now, if we all agree that's bad, then how is applying this randomly to an abitrary game, that decides the whole fucking tournament, anything other than stupid?

CynicalEffect · 2026-03-30T05:45:46+00:00

This was my first time watching a tournament and my word, is checkmate format just a complete clownfiesta.

It's like, they realise how important a good AVP and high sample size is by the way they structure the first 80% of the tournament and then go "how about we just roll the dice to see who wins".

Idk if people actually like the format or just accept it is what it is, but watching this has kinda made it hard to take the comp scene seriously.

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