Clair Obscur Expedition 33 | REVIEW | PC

''A NEW WAY TO RPG''

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Developed: Sandfall Interactive

Published: Kepler Interactive

Genre: RPG

Release Date: April 24th, 2025

Platforms: XBOX FAMILY/PC/PS5

Review copy provided by Sandfall Interactive and Green Man Gaming

Get a discount on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 from Green Man Gaming using this link!

https://greenmangaming.sjv.io/Expedition

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Expedition 33 is the latest R.P.G to hit the market in the already stacked R.P.G. line up of games and it is developed by Sandfall Interactive and published by Kepler Interactive. With indie titles becoming more and more mainstream with smaller budgets out-doing major Triple A studios nowadays, Sandfall decided, lets attempt something more bold to set the industry on fire. But do their efforts pay off? or were they just a little TOO overly ambitious for their own good? Only way one to find out, so lets go!

''SQUAD UP CREW, WE GOT WORK TO DO''

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GAMEPLAY:

A few months ago I got the chance to try out Expedition 33 early thanks to an opportunity that Sandfall Interactive gave me, and my early preview pretty much covered a demo worth of over two hours of solid gameplay that gave you an idea of the story, its characters, gameplay mechanics and its overall world and map. Needless to say I was extremely impressed with it upon my initial preview of it, from a graphics stand point, to its battle mechanics, its parrying, the music, it was all well done and its a title that you'd never thought would be made by around 30 or so people. That's how far indie's have come nowadays, which I've always said since day one of my content creation job when I got into this field, while everyone wants to hop into this field and focus on big name publishers, I instead for my first two and a half years focused on building relationships with indie developers and their P.R. departments because I always felt, and still believe, that the indie developers you see now or underestimate, eventually become Triple A juggernauts themselves. A case similar to the one we have now with Expedition 33 would be Kena Bridge Of Spirits, which was another indie developed title with the production value of a high end Triple A game, and it was simply fantastic. But hot on its trails we now have Expedition 33 flexing its muscles with a mixture of fantasy R.P.G. mixed with a little bit of sci-fi with a story that immediately makes you start asking questions about things, like what is going on? why do people only live to be a certain age and die, how can it be stopped? and it does a good job at explaining all this to you as time passes on through intense combat, high stake situations, and a really good sense of pacing that never feels slowed down to a snails crawl for exposition sake like a lot of games do, and it doesnt go too fast to the point where it ends up like Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth where everything just ends up going batshit in the last 30 minutes of the game to the point where you end up having a brain aneurism like you're a perverted old man from an anime. In this regard, its near perfection, but no brainer moment, I do end up having issues with several things going forward that I'll address, but for the top of this review, the experience is a relatively positive one overall. Now If I can just be more positive on finding out what I want to eat today, literally spending so much time deciding what I want to eat that by the time I do figure it out, I dont want to eat anymore and I'm not hungry anymore. I can hear my brain screaming at me ''WHAT DO YOU WANT? WHAT DO YOU WANT''.

In Expedition 33 The Paintress hovers over everything with a gigantic like colossus seemingly mocking all residents daily, similar to the monolith in Planet Of The Apes. Inscribed on this gigantic monument are seals of how long each member of the population will live to see the next day and how long they have to live for in general, making it so everyone knows the day in which they will die. There's really nothing scarier than knowing that fate in my opinion, closest thing I can personally think of is having to endure playing E.T. on Atari game, please no. However there are still people in the world that wish to defy this fate and vow to decode the mystery behind The Paintress, and so one after another, expeditions are sent on quests to uncover answers and none return, that is until the creation of Expedition 33. I'm not sure what to say about the story without being overly spoilery because there's just so much to unwrap with a game that blends sci-fi with horror to fantasy so much that you want to focus more on the storytelling aspect than what you're made to do in the first place, which is fight with the unique style of turned based combat, which we'll get to. I think what really gets me about the story in this game is the constant feeling of impending doom, with the numbers, in this case being 33, meaning that your lifespan will be till you're 33 years old and then you die, and then each proceeding year, the number drops again. It gives you a sense of anxiety as you explore the games world, knowing that pretty much no one in your party and expedition has plot armor to save them because should you fail, that's it you're dead, no do overs. YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS ARE DEAD. GAME OVER. While I love the story and its twists and turns, its drama and borderline heartbreaking scenes at times, for me, I was truly the most engaged during the games combat due to its dynamic structure. Rushing into an opponent and initiating your standard fight, but then learning, oh wait, there's a quick reaction parry and dodge system that if timed correctly, you'll be able to press the correct button, parry, then counter attack? ok that's pretty dang cool, and it feels amazing. During my preview and even during this full release, I decide to fight whatever I could, even not being strong enough because, screw it, not like I learned my lesson in previous games prior where I got my ass kicked. Each enemy you encounter has different patterns and abilities to memorize as you attempt to counter them and parry, which makes each fight, even against stronger foes, a challenge that you'd never expect it to be, since R.P.G's nowadays, mainly turned based, have become rather easy on the combat side. If you're confused by what I mean by the timing aspect of everything, then think of titles like Super Mario R.P.G., where all your attacks are based off an exact button input and timing where you exploit enemies weaknesses based off perfectly timed dodges or rhythm timed parrys to counter with a strong attack. It feels fast paced, unique, intense and I cant think of any other R.P.G. on the market like it.

On the graphics side of things, I'm in the middle of calling this game gorgeous and at the same time thinking it looks a little funky at times. I'm definitely somewhere in the middle because at times, this game looks absolutely stunning with its designs, environments and animations, but then other parts of the game you definitely remember ''this is made by an indie studio'' because after spending the last 8 years covering over 400 plus indie games, I begin to see a distinct pattern indie developers take with graphics and engine use and I see a lot of it here, mainly in the latter half of the game. However when the game is at its peak and best, you will not find another game by indie standards or even Triple A standards that looks better than it in regards to the R.P.G. market, I dare you to try to find one, and you cant pick Rebirth because that's more action R.P.G, not turned based. Exploring the map gives a very classic J.R.P.G. vibe of traversing old school R.P.G. overworld maps, which only modern day equivalent I can think of is the recent release of FANTASIAN that had a similar idea on map structure, but this games map sometimes lacks a ton of places to go, at least at first, and is pretty confined early on, which may turn people off early due to their lack of patience of whats to come, which could make novelty wear off pretty quick for people not ready for the slower grind, but remains great looking none the less majority of the time to go alongside catchy battle music and fantastic character voice acting and overall soundtrack. Its still no Blue Dragon music though, just saying.

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''YUP... WERE SO DEAD''

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OVERALL:

At the end of the day Expedition 33 ends up being a fantastic time that gives a breath of fresh air to the turned based R.P.G. market. But its not without its flaws with limited world map usage early on, difficulty spike that might come a little to fast if you havent stopped to grind a little bit, graphically going from gorgeous to just ''okay'' at random times giving a jarring kick to immersion, etc etc. But with addictive combat that flips the turned based R.P.G. genre on its head with parrying combo attacks, thrilling story that makes you feel anxiety, anger, sadness, banger soundtrack that will get stuck in your head, stellar voice acting, all of it adds up to one of the best R.P.G's of this generation, even with its flaws, and its a no brainer that if you're an old school turned based fan or even a new one, you have to check this out, even if its just on Game Pass, you wont regret it. So with all that having been said, my verdict is clear, GameNChick says BUY NOW.

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