I beat Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive). The end.
Ha! Of course that’s not the end; it’s just the beginning. I haven’t written about this game since I finished ACT 2, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been playing it. There will be spoilers, maybe, if I decide to get deep into the story. Which, ah, well, I’ll get to that in a bit.
I have been fucking around since the last post which was *checks* a week ago. In that post, I said I was going to write about the story, but I mostly did not do that. I am going to talk about the story in this post–probably.
In most of my posts about this game, I have talked about my very ambivalent feelings towards said game. Or rather, my wildly vacillating feelings about the game. I ended the last post after I finished the second act, and I did not want to go into the third. I knew what was waiting for me, and I was not about it. At all.
*MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD*
I fought the big baddie at the end of the second act before taking on the (arguably) bigger baddie. Strap in as I try to explain the story as simplified as possible. I have mentioned before that the story really became a hot mess in the second act, and it only got worse in the third act. “It’s a dream, but it’s not, really. But it is!” Maelle is Maelle, but she’s also Alicia who is the sister of Verso, but the Verso in the game isn’t the real Verso. He was created by the Paintress (the bigger? baddie) who was mourning the death of her son–the real Verso.
I’m not really being fair because it does make sense in the context of the game–if you accept the premise. Which I don’t. I mean, I accept that it was the premise, but to me, it wasn’t as brilliant as everyone else thought it was, apparently. I have heard so many people gush about it and how it’s a 10/10, no notes.
I, on the other hand, thought the prologue was strong (though the premise of the story was very thin), then disappeared for much of the first act, and then was strong at the end of the first act, but immediately crumbled upon a closer look.
I have said many times that the acting was so excellent, it papered over several problems with the story. I still think that’s true, even though Sciel’s character remained weak. I tried to warm up to her, and I know I said that she was an integral part of the party, but I wil say now that I have always thought she was the weakest member, character-wise. I never vibed with her story, even though it was a tear-jerker, and I was so surprised when she and Verso suddenly hooked up.
Someone in the Discord said he put off bonking Sciel because he wanted to get with Lune. I did not tell him that wasn’t possible, of course, but there was a point where I thought maybe it could have happened. Lune seems to show interest in Verso, but pulls back and says she’s glad Sciel found happiness. Hm. maybe if I didn’t hook up with Sciel, I could have gotten with Lune. I’ll have to see if the guy in the Discord gets a different option than I did.
If he is able to hook up with Lune, I’ll be really mad. She’s my favorite by far, and that never wavered. Even when I decided not to use her in the last act, it was because Sciel worked better with Maelle.
I did what I said I would do. I got the weapon for Maelle that was OP, even after the nerf. I was worried about it because you have to do a million points of damage to an NPC in order to get it while avoiding her very hard hits in return. The first time I tried to fight her, she wiped me out in one hit. That was in the first act, though. In the third act, I was more equipped to deal with her (including some truly wild pictos and luminas that allowed me to do exponential damage and not take damage). I did die to her once, but then I loaded up on my protections, and I got her with ease.
This weapon is sick. Yes, they nerfed it by 70%, but I can still do 7 million points of damage (with buffs). I can regularly do 2 million points of damage. At this point, that trivializes most fights. It’s a bit trickier if I’m not just fighting one boss in a boss fight, but I have another skill, Phantom Strike, that does massive damage to all the enemies in the battle.
My whole build is based on Maelle now. Is it boring? Kinda. Does it work perfectly? Yup! Did I one-shot the last boss? Well, kind of. The way the fight is set-up, he has to survive in order to prock his wife (the other baddie) to join the fight–against him.
Here’s the deal. This whole family is immortal. Or rather, they are painters and the game is one of their canvases. So none of them can actually die in this world–at least not permanently. Oh, and the Curator, the guy who levels you up in the first and second act is actually the father (which I sussed out soon after meeting him). He has a connection to Maelle that is obvious, and I knew she was his kid way before the big reveal.
The end of the third act was strong, but the story itself still wasn’t. And then after you defeat the father, you have to make a decision that I did not want to make. I put down the controller (carefully, because the backpedals can trigger things) and thought about it. I had a big reason to go for each of the two different choices, and I was torn. I really wanted to do one beacuse it meant I could see my favorite character again. But, I agreed with the other choice more. In my heart, I mean.
So I chose the sccond choice, and it was gut-wrenching. Someone in the Discord said she chose the first choice beacuse the other characters in the game had agency, too, even if they weren’t real–and they should be allowed to make their own choices. Which I could also see. On my side, though, I wanted to let the tortured soul go in peace and to allow the family to move on with their life in the real world.
I don’t think there is a right or wrong choice, but I’m pretty sure that the choice I didn’t make is the canon choice–or at least the one that–ok. I read up on it, and woof. I ‘m not sure it’s the canon ending or the good ending after reading it. I may watch it at some point, but I’m not sure I need that in my mind.
The Verso ending is gutting, but it felt right to me. Given the shitty story and how little I was expecting from the end of it, it was about as ‘good’ as it was going to get for me. I put good in quotes because it wasn’t good at all. But I thought going for possibly healing and moving on was better than living in a fantasy world for the rest of eternity.
I did not like having to make that choice, and I felt it was kind of futile to kill father if I was just going to be given a choice to do what he wanted to do in the first place. And it undermined having Verso in the party at all. Well, not exactly. Because he wanted to get rid of the world to start with, to free the real Verso, and that meant killing the mother. But going through the father first. Who was protecting the mother, even though they have been feuding to a standstill for several decades.
I’m done with this for now. More tomorrow.