I’ve already done a couple of posts praising Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. One for the great first impressions it makes and one for its engaging end game. After finally finishing the game, seeing its story through and thinking on it for the last couple of days, though, I think I’ve finally formed my full and true opinion on it. To probably no one’s surprise, I still think the game is utterly fantastic, and I’m thinking it’s going to be my game of the year. However, the reasoning might surprise you.

This is going to be hard to explain without spoilers, but I’ll do my best because I want as many people as possible to experience Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (just Expedition 33 from now on) as freshly as possible. I’ll start with the combat, I suppose. As most who are even just passively familiar with the game are likely aware, Expedition 33 is modeled very closely after a turn-based JRPG. You get your turn, the enemy gets theirs, rinse and repeat until the battle ends. Here though, you can attempt to dodge and parry every attack. So far so simple.

Where it gets cool is in how each character has their own fighting style and unique mechanics, allowing you to try lots of different things over the course of pretty much the entire game. Combine this with Picto and Lumina abilities, and you can forge almost any playstyle you want for each character. The game naturally pushes you to try different things as your character progress. In my case, for example, I started Expedition 33 playing very conservatively, focusing on longevity and rewarding dodging more than parrying.

As I got more confident towards the middle, I swapped to a style that focused on parrying and building up action points quickly so that I could have as many options as possible as often as possible. And, towards the end, I transitioned to a fully glass cannon kind of set up, wherein I was trying to end every fight within the first turn. It wasn’t the only viable path, far from it, it’s just how I happened to move through the game.

The rest of the game’s elements I can’t touch on all that much here, so instead I’ll focus on the effect their combination had as I played. To put it bluntly, just about everything in this game contributes towards its emotional impact. Its world is mysterious and beautiful. Its main characters (and villains!) are all very human and relatable, and even the side characters are all kinds of endearing. It’s a beautiful experience and I often found myself feeling oddly moved even during normal play.

All this said, though, it’s Expedition 33’s story and music that transform it from a great game into an absolute home run. From the very beginning all the way to the very end, the tale Expedition 33 tells is absolutely brilliant! It’s unpredictable but at the same time entirely natural, and it’s all kinds of moving every step of the way. I can usually just take game stories as they go and basically just be the passive observer I’m supposed to be as the player. With Expedition 33, however, I found myself incredibly invested, to the point even that I often had to sit back and just process what just happened on screen.

Then there’s the music. My goodness the music of Expedition 33 is on a whole other level compared to just about everything else out there. And it’s used in an absolutely genius way. Not only does it perfectly accentuate what’s happening in the game, but it’s also, at all times, intimately tied to what’s happening the characters involved. It raises you up to incredible emotional heights at certain times and pulls you down to some utterly devastating lows at others.

What’s more, all the songs with lyrics serve as a whole other layer of storytelling, but only if you have the full context of the story. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a soundtrack with this much planning and depth to it before! Oh, and the music absolutely does haunt you after you finish playing. Even now, I’m still looking up people’s reactions to it all on YouTube!

It has been a very, very long time since I’ve encountered a game that’s just so well made. I mean, I’m sure Expedition 33 has its flaws and weaknesses, all games do. It’s just that, for me, they are so minor that they might as well not be there. This game was so much fun to play and so very moving at the same time, and I cannot for the life of me think of another one that’s managed something similar, at least nothing recent.

Like, Signalis was pretty darn moving too, but I wouldn’t exactly describe the gameplay as “fun” like I would for this game. I could go on forever, but I’ll cut it here. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is an absolutely phenomenal experience and I think every serious fan of video games owes it to themselves to experience it at least once. It is, in my opinion, one of those very special games that only comes along once in a console generation.

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Have you played Expedition 33? What are your thoughts on it? What’s another game that had a similar effect on you?

Image from the Steam page