Hogan Reviews

“Super predictable review alert!”. Yes, the internet doesn’t need another glowing review of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, but I’ll undoubtedly be putting this on my Top 10 Games list at the end of the year and I always like to link back to reviews of things that make it on there as much as I can, so… Get ready for another long glowing review of Clair Obscur!

Background:

Taking aim at an enemy weakspot!

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was released on PS5, XBOX Series and PC on April 24^th 2025. It was created by essentially a bunch of Ubisoft workers in France who decided they’d had enough of the corporate machine and so quit to make a game they wanted to make, forming their own studio of roughly 30 people and creating this masterpiece in about five years. Not bad going! Happily despite the massive success of this game they’re refusing to increase the size of their team and studio to make sure their vision remains intact, which is extremely refreshing. Looking forward to what they do next.

Gameplay:

A lot to look at, but its all so pretty…

A lot of the gameplay wears its inspiration on its sleeve as it’s a turn-based RPG which smells sweetly of Persona 5, not only how the in-combat menu looks but the ability to attack enemies on the map with a specific action to get an early advantage in battle, you can freely fire a gun (or magic equivalent) during play and enemies have elemental weakness (though that’s obviously not a Persona exclusive thing, the ways its presented here invokes Persona in my mind) Of course it would be a disservice to say that that’s all it has going for it, combat wise as they have layered several new and fun mechanics and ideas into it, for example when you get attacked you can either dodge, which has a bigger window to avoid damage, or parry, which has a smaller window but results in you striking back (and then later you get to Jump and do a “Gradient Parry”, which are just slightly different versions of the other two but assigned to different buttons, just to make it a little more tricky) So basically it’s a risk/reward thing but also it’s the odd situation that there isn’t an enemy you can’t beat so long as you memorise their patterns, meaning you could technically beat some super bosses right at the start, though obviously it would take forever due to how little damage you’d do (it’s not until the final third of the game where you can do more than 9,999 damage, which is nothing compared to some of those bosses HP…), but you could still technically do it. It’s easy to compare it to the Souls series, choosing to dodge roll as you memorise attacks and then if you’re brave choosing to parry them instead.

Bet you’ve never travelled a world map like this before!

Attacking is oddly different for each of the six playable characters, taking the old job class system to the next level by applying different game mechanics entirely for each party member. Gustave can build up a charge with different elemental effects before unleashing a big attack, the element and power of which depends on how much you’ve charged it; Maelle has different sword stances that effect how much damage she does or defence she has but you can only switch between them by doing moves that leave her in a specific stance; Lune has elemental charges that she can burn to make her attacks more powerful but what charges you get depends of what move you do; Ciel can send cards into her opponents during her attacks that can make other attack more powerful if the person struck has a certain amount of cards in them (there are two types of  cards and it’s a bit more complicated than that, but I only have so much typing energy…); Verso has a Devil May Cry style rating system from C to S that goes up the more you attack and dodge, as well as by using certain attacks, with higher ranks gaining more power and allowing moves to cost less to use; and finally Monoco can use the moves of defeated enemies and each move has an assigned element with a random wheel that decides what type of attack will be more powerful each turn, meaning for example doing an agility move while the wheel is on “Agility” will make it do a lot more damage than normal. It was all somewhat overwhelming to begin with, but you soon get into the flow of things quite easily and the new characters are spaced apart enough that you don’t have to remember too much new information at once.

Yeah, the UI is just Persona 5’s, but you know… it’s so good!

There are other systems in play too, like all named attacks cost “AP”, which you can build up as you fight with the more powerful attacks costing more, you also get “Gradient Attacks” that are like Limit Breaks from Final Fantasy as they’re really powerful but you have to wait until a specific gauge fills, and status effects that can get applied during battle like adding extra damage when you/your opponent start a round, getting “marked” meaning you do/take extra damage to marked targets, reducing your overall HP and a counter that when it reaches zero you die, all those kinds of classic RPG stuff. You can also add buffs and additions to the characters via “Pictos” and once someone has been in battle with a Picto four times its then available to everyone to equip, though each character only has a certain amount of points to assign extra ones alongside three they’ve already got equipped. You get more points as you level up / collect things on your travels but the best ones cost 15 or 20 of the slot points, meaning you’ll either have to give one character more points than others or spread them out but only be able to put on certain ones each character. Sounds complicated but once again it doesn’t take long to get a hold of it and start tweaking things as you go along. You don’t get traditional items either, you have a set number of three potions to use during battle that allow health recover, AP recover and a revival for a downed character, with a fourth to use outside of battle to completely restore your party’s health. Once again you can collect items to increase how many you have, but not many and all potions restock when you rest at any of the many flags dotted around the world. At any point on the world map you can set up camp, where as well as talking to party members you can upgrade your stats with XP points (three per level up) and unlock new skills on a skill tree each time as well as upgrade your weapons to be stronger if you have the correct materials.

Overall it’s still very traditional turn-based JRPG-heavy but done so well and with enough new that it’s extremely fun and fresh to play. Despite having a large world map to travel there aren’t really much in the way of side quests either, you get one or two brief missions from sort-of-enemies and in Act III you can do a mission for each playable character to get a bit more story before the finale, but that’s it. There are a tonne, and I mean a TONNE of extra tough enemies and super bosses dotted around though, as well as locations you don’t visit during the linear story path but have extra items and bits of lore if you do pop in. A lot of these areas are blocked until you “upgrade your method of travel”, which is quite unlike any other mode of travel I’ve ever seen I’ll say that much. That’s it really, not that it’s not enough! Frankly after some of the other RPGs I’ve played in recent memory the fact I completed it at 33 hours (Ha! I just realised that while proof reading this! Honestly wasn’t intentional!) was refreshing, and there were plenty of extra enemies to try and beat if I wanted to continue, but I’m not really in the mood to spend ages retrying some of the crazier super bosses to get the timing/tricks down, your mileage may vary!

Graphics and Sound:

Pretty much every area in the game was stunning, so let’s just go with this one…

The graphics are great, really stunning environments and detailed character models that get more bloody and damaged the more they get hit (until you rest at a flag).

Sound-wise? Wow is all I can say. Voicework is top notch, the soundeffects are great and boy-oh-boy the fully orchestrated opera-inspired soundtrack is AMAZING. How such a studio got such talented actors/actresses and such a great orchestra I have no idea, but I’m happy they did!

Story:

Too early for spoilers, so he’s another lovely looking screenshot!

It’s certainly a story that evolves as it goes along, that’s for sure. To start with we see a man called Gustave in a world where a good chunk of Paris had been ejected into the sea as the landscape of “the continent” shifted to unrecognisable fantasy complete with a large monolith that displays a number in glowing letters at the top. The number corresponds to the age at which people will vanish in an event they call “the gommage”, and at the start it’s at 34 but about to tick down to 33. Gustave has to say goodbye to his lover at this gommage, someone he wanted to have a child with but she didn’t want to bring it into a world where it would barely get past its teens before being killed off (understandable…) The number is “repainted” by a large woman that’s only known as “The Paintress”, and in order to stop her every year an Expedition is sent to the continent to stop her, normally comprised of people who were in their final year of life so why not give it a go? Among Gustave’s Expedition is Luna, a scientist (which is really magic based around the idea of “painting Pictos” and using “lumina” to create moves and spells) whose parents were extremely strict on her education, Sciel, a musician who has a tragic background she hides behind a cheerful smile, and Maelle, a young girl who won’t be “gommage’d” for several years yet but a rough life and a friendship with Gustave has led her to volunteer for Expedition 33 anyway. Tragically as soon as they reach the mainland a mysterious old man with a cane arrives and soon all hell breaks loose and pretty much the entire Expedition is killed off.

Gustave wakes and follows a trail of bodies before deciding to just kill himself until Lune arrives and convinces him to carry on. Together they find Maelle and Sciel and meet the odd but jovial giant Esquie, slowly making it closer and closer to the Monolith, that is until the end of Act I happens…

*Spoilers from here until the next bolded sentence!*

As they’re about to depart the mysterious man with a cane arrives and straight up kills Gustave, but just as he’s about to deliver the final blow to Maelle a man called Verso arrives and sends the old man away. As Act II moves on we find out a bunch more information: the man with the cane is called Renoir, a mysterious masked woman who has visited Maelle in her dreams is her daughter and Verso is his son, and the three of them were part of the very first Expedition and were made immortal by the Paintress, something Verso now wishes to stop because he’s just plain tired, while Renoir wishes to keep things as they are, claiming taking out the Paintress will take away their power and thus he and his beloved daughter and son will die. Alica, the daughter, was scarred in a fire but saved by Verso, but lost her voice as a result. I’ll also mention that Maelle at one point meets a ghostly figure only known as The Curator, who then hangs out at the camp, and Verso recruits his old friend Monoco, who is a Gestral, a type of mythological creature that loves to fight. After defeating Renoir and taking down two colossal “Axons” the group make it to Renoir again and this time with the help of the Curator Gommage him despite his immortality. Then they make it to the Paintress, who turns out is a woman who looks similar to the Curator and the giant was something she controlled, but she claims that she just wishes to be “left alone to grieve in her own way” rather than show any anger. They defeat the Paintress and Verso reveals that she is his mother, but things aren’t as clearcut as that as we then find out the real truth about everything to kick off Act III…

When a boss fight nails the atmospheric intro…

SO, in the “real world” there is something of a war between two factions, “The Writers” and “The Painters”, with Renoir and his family the latter, able to paint canvases that literally come to life as visitable worlds, though prolonged time in the Canvases is detrimental to their health. Renoir and his wife Aline have three children in Verso, Alica and Clea but recently Alica was fooled by a Writer and left to burn in a house, saved by her brother Verso at the cost of his life. She was left burnt and unable to talk, but to make things worse her mother took the loss of Verso extremely badly, finding a Canvas that Verso had created when all her children were young that “still contained a piece of his soul” and entered it, created an immortal version of her family and refused to leave, having to consume the energy of the residents of the painting each in-Canvas-year to retain her power, in other words the Paintress was the real Aline. Renoir went into the Canvas to bring his wife back but was instead trapped in a ghostly form (The Curator) and forced to watch as Alica entered the Canvas to help and instead was “painted into it”, being reborn as Maelle. That’s why the Curator was so attached to her, that’s why she could be visited by the fake Painted Alica and Renoir, and that’s why Verso was so dedicated to looking after her. What Verso didn’t mention though was once the Paintress was destroyed, or in actuality once Aline was kicked out of the Canvas back to the real world, the real Renoir would then wipe the whole Canvas clean to stop his wife from ever entering it again, stressing the need to accept the fact Verso is dead and move on. Everyone is then “Gommage’d” apart from Verso and Maelle.

This whole incident though gives Maelle her memories of being Alica back, as well as her own Paintress powers, so she decides to fight back against the real Renoir as she doesn’t see the need to destroy the Painting when they could just hide it from her mother. Renoir rightfully points out that she’s making the same mistake her mother made and clearly can’t let go of the last part of her dead brother, causing them to clash. Maelle then resurrects Lune and Sciel and alongside Verso, Monoco and Esquie (the latter two being play friends the young Verso and Alica made when they were children) they begin to consume the “Chroma” of the dead Expeditioners in order to create an army to take on Renoir’s and stop him, which is exactly what they do. The final battle is pretty crazy and sees Aline dive back into the Canvas to assist Maelle despite further danger to her life and in the end Renoir admits defeat and says goodbye to his daughter in the vein hope she’ll come to her senses. This leads to the final scene as Verso spots an opening created by Renoir to get to the centre of the Canvas where the last remaining fragment of the real Verso is stuck eternally painting. Verso asks it if it wants to stop and it nods, but Maelle arrives and pushes them apart, asking what the painted Verso was doing.

This isn’t story specific, but just to break up the text: here’s another screenshot!

Basically he knew if he took his real fragment out with him the whole Canvas would be undone and Maelle would be ejected back into the reality and he agrees with Renoir, her staying here isn’t healthy and she needs to let him go, so he’s taking the choice out of the equation… only there is a choice, as the player can choose to play as Maelle and beat Verso, thus saving the Canvas and everyone in it, or play as Verso and defeat Maelle, wiping out everyone in the Canvas but sending Maelle back to the real world to live her normal life. The clear message of the game is how people deal with grief and how hard it is to move on from the death of the loved one, so I chose to play as Verso and give Maelle and her family some closure, even if it meant Lune, Sciel, Monoco and Esquie all vanish forever, which was hard to watch I’ll admit. It led to a scene in the real world where Renoir and Aline, reunited and hugging each other for comfort, along with Alica and Clea all at Verso’s grave, finally putting his death behind them (well, seemingly anyway…) which does feel like the correct message, you can’t live in a fantasy land where the bad thing didn’t happen forever, you eventually have to face reality, as harsh as it is. A quick look on YouTube shows me the other ending would be much happier for everyone who lives inside the Canvas as Maelle brings them all back, Gustave included, but the real Alica will no doubt wither the die in the real world…

*Spoilers End Here!*

*phew!* That was a lot of writing, and that was an extremely abridged version! Still, it was a great story, highly imaginative and full of plot twists and great acting all round. Bravo, and fingers crossed for more!

Thoughts Now:

Ending with an oh-so-satisfying counter.

Clair Obscur was one of those games that was so highly praised and so clearly sounded like something I’d enjoy that I knew going in I’d like it, but I waited until I was in the right mood. Once I did buy it and pop it into my PS5 all other games soon stopped and just couldn’t put it down until the credits rolled. Great combat, visuals, soundtrack, voice work… the lot. To the surprise of nobody the great game that everyone loves is actually a great game! Who’d have thought?