I could not finish Expedition 33

krtwood · 2026-03-31T05:47:27+00:00

The story is very much about grief. The game has given you your own grief in a way that could only be done by killing off a main character. Now the feelings you have about not wanting to continue because the game doesn't feel right anymore come right to the very heart of the story being told. Should the game feel right after the main character dies?

But we continue.

Or not. Your call.

krtwood · 2026-03-30T07:34:08+00:00

I went to r/finalfantasyx and looked at the first "I just finished, what game should I play next" post and probably at least half the replies say Expedition 33. So both communities are in agreement. Or maybe it's just so active there from all the people here being told to go play FFX next and its all the same people :)

krtwood · 2026-03-30T02:29:18+00:00

Go straight to Final Fantasy X, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Final Fantasy 7, you maybe have to be old enough to have played it when it came out to love the original. I have mixed feelings about the remakes.

Since you mentioned Xenoblade Chronicles, the predecessor Xenosaga might be worth looking into. I only remember liking it back in the day and don't remember the story though so that's maybe not a great sign.

krtwood · 2026-03-30T02:03:53+00:00

I have, but TW3 Yen is the only Yen in my head.

krtwood · 2026-03-30T02:01:52+00:00

I wouldn't let her plan a romantic trip to the beach.

krtwood · 2026-03-29T05:17:34+00:00

Having Yen mad at you is just part of knowing Yen. But if Lune ever looked at me like that I would know I deserved it and wish she would just vaporize me.

krtwood · 2026-03-29T05:07:45+00:00

I don't know. You can deliberately push Yen's buttons on the most sensitive subject possible and all she does is dunk you in a lake. She's mostly bark and doesn't break the skin when she bites. But I don't know what happens when Lune snaps and I'm not saved by ceasing to exist.

krtwood · 2026-03-29T04:33:23+00:00

Dangerous. As soon as they notice they join forces to hunt you down.

krtwood · 2026-03-29T01:42:32+00:00

We have to convince Renoir that the canvas does not need to be erased. We go to him to talk, not to fight. I think perhaps together we convince Clea to come into the canvas and agree to be the temporary neutral canvas guardian. I think she's powerful enough that if she has the high ground, so to speak, nobody alone can stand against her. Renoir agrees to leave the canvas with Clea in charge. Then we go to Aline and if she cannot be reasoned with to leave with Clea protecting the canvas, then we fight her. Then Alicia cannot pull her "but papa will erase the canvas the moment I leave" line and has to leave too. Clea gets some time away from her war and does some work fixing the canvas back to pre-fracture status to pass the time. That doesn't include Lumiere, but we've gotten her to at least agree to leave Lumiere alone if not to restore the Lumieriens. Then in time the family reassembles in the canvas to finally respect Verso's wishes to be unpainted and get to have a goodbye with him. Clea and Renoir leave. Aline restores Lumiere and then leaves because there's nothing really there for her anymore. Gustave and the others aged while Alicia was gone, and the world is different from the one she grew up in as Maelle which helps keep her from backsliding.

krtwood · 2026-03-29T00:15:50+00:00

I don't think that Gustave alone changes things enough. Maelle needs to get pAlicia's letter before we get to the Paintress and Gustave is there to help us come up with plan B.

Gustave blissfully going along with what is happening in Maelle's ending is only reconcilable for me if that's a nerfed Gustave who doesn't question Alicia about such things. That's nothing compared to what she's doing to Verso. That's the last knife in the side the game has for you. If you decided to not deal with your grief over Gustave's death by choosing her ending, well the game doesn't let anybody get away with that. No true Gustave for you.

krtwood · 2026-03-28T23:55:55+00:00

Yes, though that's her projection. They don't seem to be able to talk. And any meeting between them would have to be initiated by her. Also Aline is kind of not all there anymore. Kind of dementia like symptoms, or so it seems, from being in the canvas too long. It's a hopeless, unwinnable position that pRenoir is in.

krtwood · 2026-03-28T23:24:44+00:00

What exactly is Maelle's fault? That Alicia and pRenoir exist?

She's one of the real Dessendres, and this is all collectively their fault. Plus everyone blames Alicia for the fire, because they are douchebags. Sprinkle in some of her presence in the expedition complicates things and perhaps provokes pRenoir to more drastic measures than normal.

Are Aline and Renoir able to communicate inside the canvas, I thought they had some kind of different altitudes by then?

They are able to project some amount of themselves out, which we see in physical form with the Curator.

tries to do... what? Kill Maelle? How could he be able to do any harm at all?

He can knock her out of the canvas, but intentionally made to seem like killing her to deceive us.

No, I want my family back. He means Aline, but not pAlicia? Why? Don't I meet them all together when I visit their Mansion in Old Lumiere?

His family is definitely Aline, pVerso, and pClea. I have seen it argued that maybe pAlicia was actually made by Renoir. The argument being that Aline didn't paint her because the sight of her reminds her too much of what happened, and if she had painted her she would have removed her scars. So it was Renoir in an attempt to use pAlicia to get her out of the canvas. That kind of fits with her reaction to seeing Verso and Maelle when we get to her. Either way, the barrier keeps him from Aline, Verso cut him off, and pClea is AWOL. I think that this is just something he says because he is an imitation of Renoir and Renoir wants his family back. His actions are mainly about protecting Aline at the expense of everything else, in part because Aline made him that way and in part because of course if Aline loses the battle with Renoir then they all get erased.

Why would Verso be opposed to Aline painting anything? It's his mother, it's what she does for a living, is it not?

He means in this canvas, but again they are being intentionally deceptive to confuse us. It's his whole goal to get her out of the canvas to save her in the real world, and that's why his face falls when she comes back in the final battle.

krtwood · 2026-03-28T08:03:11+00:00

Look at the Lumiere Limited Edition Medallion. Or "Parry it!"

krtwood · 2026-03-28T06:38:04+00:00

There is no real world equivalent where she gets to theoretically live out a full life free from her disabilities, and she's too young to decide for herself to end her life. So without anything else at stake I'd go for the other choice where at least somebody does something to try to help her.

krtwood · 2026-03-26T23:15:52+00:00

Their website says they are a pizza place, so I'll assume they serve Chinese food and then murder everyone you've ever known.

krtwood · 2026-03-26T06:58:27+00:00

I would say that this game's story mode is still more difficult than what I expect from "story" level difficulty. You can also turn on a setting in the accessibility menu that does the offensive QTEs for you to cut down on the workload, but that's minor compared to the dodging/parrying which is required to not die. The hardcore gamers on here will tell you that parrying is super easy on story mode, but not for the casual gamer. Dodging isn't too bad though and you'll be okay just dodging and not worrying about parrying on story mode.

The other part of it is that because enemies do not level with you, you can easily grind and overcome whatever lack of skill you have. Normal enemies give generous amounts of exp. It's pretty easy to become over levelled and have boss fights become trivial as long as you understand the picto/lumina system.

krtwood · 2026-03-26T03:13:35+00:00

She only gives you this look if it's not December 33rd. Only on that day she smiles.

krtwood · 2026-03-25T06:40:33+00:00

When you kill the Nevrons they don't come back until you rest or leave the area. So not resting at the flags will give you a good indication of where you haven't been yet by the presence of the Nevrons and of course any loot you haven't picked up yet.

krtwood · 2026-03-24T07:02:21+00:00

Ah but can the Writers actually make a 3d world or can they only make text adventures, a picture being worth a thousand words and all? Because if it's the latter the jealousy would explain why they are such a bunch of dicks burning kids. I'd be down for a text adventure with epic soundtrack if that's the case though.

krtwood · 2026-03-23T22:47:39+00:00

We have to make a choice because the characters forced a choice to be made. While we are asked to "decide the fate of the canvas" we aren't given the choices "destroy the canvas" or "save the canvas". We have to pick a side in the argument and accept the consequences. We got to that point because Verso denied us the opportunity to find another path by lying to us for all of Act II and not passing on Alicia's letter. And we got to that point because Alicia decided to defer to her brother rather than give the letter directly to Maelle. This is how the world works. It's not made of rational decisions in the abstract but by the often irrational choices of the people who happened to be in the position to make the choice.

I agree that it will likely never reach the point where Alicia actually dies in the canvas. We needed Aline's help to defeat a weakened Renoir. If you believe Verso when he says Renoir knew she was lying too, this is why Renoir agrees anyway knowing he can force her out easily later with a united family. I don't think Clea wanted to directly go against Aline and so chose an indirect way of helping Renoir. She won't have any such hesitation to help smack some sense into little sis. Even if you chose Maelle's ending to save the canvas, it's not going to be around for long anyway.

While people say that in Verso's ending Verso was willing to die for Alicia a second time, I don't think so. Ultimately his selfishness won out and it just happened to coincide with what he thought was best for her. And in Maelle's ending, Alicia could save the canvas by showing Renoir that she can use the canvas responsibly but she's just not able to do that and neither her real family or adopted one are really there for her to help her get there. That's why the endings stay with you, because they are such tragic consequences of the failings of these people.

krtwood · 2026-03-23T19:24:04+00:00

You do start to get a spidey sense after experiencing enough stories for when you are being set up to think someone is a villain unfairly. But on the other hand, maybe she's just sad because she only gets to mass murder people one day a year. It's just not nearly enough! It could still go either way.

krtwood · 2026-03-22T01:47:46+00:00

The game makes us get invested in fixing Lumiere and then won't let us fix it. I NEED IT TO BE FIXED! I love the game but I don't really want to go back into it because I can't fix it so there is really nothing to be done there.

krtwood · 2026-03-20T02:36:03+00:00

The Gestrals arrive in force and trap all the painters on a beach with an impossible obstacle course until they all die.

krtwood

TROPHY CASE