Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: Sandfall Interactive

Comparing two disparate games, part three

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I’m back to muse more about Paradise Mascot Agency (Kaizen Game Works) and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive). In the last post, I was focused on the stories of each game and how I felt about them.

Oh, by the way, I bought a Pinky plushie. I was so enamored by her, I wanted to see if there was a plushie of her. I didn’t expect to find one, but much to my surprise, I saw this. I also bought the fun-in-the-sun accessory pack, so I can dress her up for the summer.

The story in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is almost universally critically acclaimed. I have heard people call it a masterpiece and gush about how evocative it is. I can understand why people thinkt it’s terrific, but it left me cold. By the end of the second act, I was privately calling it hot trash. The third act did nothing to change my mind. In fact, it made me just dislike the story even more.

It’s not something I talk about much because I don’t want to yuck other people’s yum, nor do I want to get into it. I’m comfortable with my opinion, but it’s not somethnig I feel the need to defend. If other people were moved by it, more power to them. It just felt very pompous and overblown to me, not to mention needlessly convoluted and not as smart as it thought it was.

I have been thinking why I am more forgiving of the story in Promise Mascot Agency, and it comes down to why I don’t like movies because they’re not realistic, and yet, I love musicals–which are anything but.

When Moulin Rouge came out, I loved the soundtrack. LOVED it. I saw the movie, and recommended it to my bestie, K. She just could not get over how I, someone who griped about the slightest  non-realistic thing in a movie could be so enthusiastic about musicals. I told her it was because they weren’t trying to be realistic so I didn’t have to pretend they were or try to make them realistic in my brain. Plus, the showtunes were always bangers.

The story in Promise Mascot Agency is charming and quirky. The characters are seriously flawed in a way they aren’t in Clair Obscur: Expediiton 33. In the latter, the characters in the party are all noble to a certain extent. Some have questionable motives, yes, but overall, they are definitely the Heroes of the story. And the villains are similarly drawn. The fact that all the voice actors are stellar really papered over the problems with the characters.


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Comparing two very different games–and the end of things, part two

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I finished Promise Mascot Agency (Kaizen Game Works) today–and 100%ed it. By the end of the game, I only had three achievements to get  (not that big of an accomplishment as most achievements had nearly half the players or more accomplishing them), so I decided to get them–naturally. One of them inluded the plane, and, ugh. Just ugh. Oh, I got the item I mentioned in yesterday’s post–the one that I had to fly waaaaaaay up to the top of a building to get. After fucking it up for an hour yesterday (probably more like a half hour, but it felt much longer than that), I had another go at it today. It took me maybe five minutes and seven to ten tries to get it. Which is nothing for me!

I was mistaken in thinking I was at the very end of the game yesterday. I was not, and the game went from being open world exploration to being very much not that. I don’t want to talk to much about that because I don’t want to spoil it, but I will say that I liked the ending in general. I do think it was a bit too sappy for my taste, but at least it was coherent, unlike Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive).

I’ve tried to bite my tongue when it comes to the story of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 because I do not want to yuck other people’s yum. It has meant so much to so many people on an emotional level, and I never want to take that away.

But.

But…

But……

The story is hot trash.

That is my honest-to-god opinion of the story. I thought it started out strong with the prologue, albeit very melodramatic, and then it just steadily went downhill from there. At the end of the first act, I was shocked and gutted by the twist just as everyone else was. But the more I thought about it, the emptier I felt. It was a shocking twist, yes, but it felt very manipulative at the end of the day.

By the way, I included the voice cast reveal trailer yesterday because I was goin to talk about a few notable names, and then I never got past the fact that the voice of Kazuma Kiryu (Yakuza series, Takaya Kuroda) was the voice of Michi, the playable character in this game. I’m going to include the Japanese version of the trailer today, and I’ll finally mention two other names that were specifically released.

One was Swery65, a well-known video game director who has a distinctive bonkers style. The other is Shuhei Yoshida, the fromer president of Sony. Both of them play NPCs whom I really liked, but I don’t want to spoil it here.

Back to the story of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 compared to the story of Promise Mascot Agency–and eveyrthing else in comparison.


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I want indie games to continue flying towards the sun

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In the last few months, I have played several indie games that have left a mark on me. For good and bad reasons in not-so-equal measures. I want to talk about two of them because they have thrilled and frustrated me while playing them, but I appreciate both of them for reaching for the sun. I will probably compare them as I did a bit in the last post because they both have pretty big things that annoy the fuck out of me.

They are, of course, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive) and Promise Mascot Agency (Kaizen Game Works). The reason I compare them is because they are both made by indie devs and the games weren’t expected to be hits. One was and one wasn’t. While I’m not going to delve into that very much, I do find it very interesting.

I wrote obsessively about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 as I played it because I could not stop playing it. I was not enjoying it as I played, but I could not stop. I hated the combat, and I found the story to be, to put it kindly, hot trash. It looked gorgeous, yes, but the levels were terrible as I constantly got lost, and I was often worn-out at the end of a session. In the beginning, I could only play an hour at a time before tapping out. That lengthened later on, but it took some time to get to that point.

I was the odd person out. Everyone else was gushing about how great the game was whereas I was definitely underwhelmed. I don’t know why I kept playing it, but I could not stop. I ended up finishing the game, and I gave it a solid 7, and I stand by that. You can go back and read the dozen posts I wrote about it if you really want to know how I feel about the game.

Suffice to say, it wasn’t going to be my game of the year. Still isn’t.

The other game, I’m still playing. It’s the Promise Mascot Agency, and today is the first day since I started playing it that I probably won’t play it. When I think of playing it, I have a small internal sigh.

I’m also playing Dark Souls Remastered in order to get Big Hat Logan’s big hat. I rarely get it because his quest is so involved and takes 180,000 souls (yes, I looked it up). You have to save him in Sen’s Fortress, then find him at Firelink Shrine. I think you may have to buy all his spells here in order to get him to move, or maybe it’s event-dependent. At any rate, at some point, he moves to The Duke’s Archives, and he’s locked up. You have to get captured by Seath, get thrown in jail, go down to get the key to get out, and then make it to the second The Duke Archive’s bonfire.

Then, you have to get the key to free BHL, and then go back to where he’s locked up. I hate The Duke’s Archives, and it’s been a while since I’ve done it. I also don’t have much health because I’m running an intelligence build, which means I’m very squishy. Then, you have to talk to BHL in The Duke’s Archives and buy all his spells. I am up to this point of his quest and thought I could just trigger the next step by buying all his spells, but, no. I have to beat Seath first.

Back to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Promise Mascot Agency. With both of them, the more I play, the more my interest wanes. It’s slow and barely noticeable with PMA, but it’s still there. It hit me in the face when the game introduced a new mechanic and instead of me being delighted by it, I felt weighted down and burdened.

This is my point. Finally. With both of these games, they throw so many things at you. Everything but the kitchen sink. Some of them work, and some of them don’t. In PMA in particular, I think they could have cut half the mini-games/side quests, and the game would not have suffered for it. In fact, I think it might have been better because then each mini-game/side quest would actually mean something. Now, as I mentioned in the last post, many of them feel very fetch-quest-y.

If it were up to me., I would cut out the crane game, much of the driving or at least make it decent from the beginning, and the goddamn fucking artificial timer. I must say, including the artificial time pressure slashes at least one whole point from the game, if not more. This is the one I can’t get over and the one that makkes me sigh when I think about booting up the game.

Honestly, it feels so shitty and ill-conceived. The game devs created a world I really wanted to explore, but just when I got into the groove of it–I had to go find an ATM and send money to keep my yakuza mother from being killed. If I don’t, she dies and I get kicked back to my previous save. The consequence of this is that I’m constantly saving, and I do micro-saves after picking up anything important or doing a bunch of chores.

In addition, if the screen is fairly dark red (the indication that mother is about to be killed), I abandoned the meticulous exploring I’m doing in order to find an ATM or a phone booth so I can fast-travel back to the hotel where there’s an ATM. I try to note the important things I’ve missed, but because of my horrendous lack of direction and the fact that the map doesn’t note the side quests I need to do, I can’t find them again.

I just thought of something I could do. I could mark the map where there’s a cluster of activity. I can place one waypoint on the map at a time, which feels very limited. I hate having to pass by a bunch of stuff, especially the ones that give me truck upgrades.

I honestly don’t understand why it’s there. As I said, I can imagine the devs wanted to give the game a sense of urgency, but that’s at odds with how much there is to explore. I think the game would be much better without it, and it’s the one big reason I’m not enjoying the game. It’s hard to get into the flow of things knowing that every five or ten minutes, I’ll have to stop and find an ATM. I absolutely hate it and wish there was a way to disable it. Hm. Nope. There’s no mod to disable having to send money. I didn’t think there would be, but I looked it up just in case.

I don’t normally like mods, but I hate this mechanic so much, I would seriously consider a mod if there was one. I cannot emphasize enough how much it hampers my enjoyment to have to stop every ten minutes to send money. The game is not immersive in the first place because it’s so wacky, but when I’m in the groove, I can feel like I’m flowing.

Until I have to send the damn money.

Here’s the thing, though. With both the games, if I had the choice between taking them as is and not having them at all, I would instantly choose the former. Both of them are quite frustrating to me for different reasons, but they are also both games I’m very glad I’ve played. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is more streamline and mainstream-friendly, whereas Promise Mascot Agency is much more niche and downright weird. It’s not for everyone, and that’s ok!

I have played a half-dozen indie games in the last few months, and while I did not get on with all of them, I appreciated each one for the fresh new take it had. They have all stood out in my mind for different reasons, and I am pleased by the state of indie games right now.

More on that tomorrow.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33–the actual review, part six

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This is definitely the last review post on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive). I am saying it with my tongue firmly in my cheek. Yesterday, I was talking about the level design–which I think is the worst element of the game. Easily.

By the way, Ian sent me an article about how parrying is the worst thing in any video game. I don’t agree with all the writer’s points, but I do appreciate that he is saying many of the things I feel about the parry. I don’t agree that it’s the worst thing in video games or that it should be abolished completely, but I fully agree that it’s limiting and having it as the main/only defense mechanism makes a game too constrained in scope.

Interestingly, he mentions that many people who have issue with the parry in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 like parries in general–just not how they are executed in this game.

I appreciated that he brought up the point because so many people just want to gush about how great parrying is in games and don’t think about the negatives of the parry. I really wish someone would point out that it’s ableist as well, but I don’t expect that, honestly, because people in games overwhelminly don’t care about those kind of things. Or any kind of diversity, really. In fact, many gamers are rabidly anti-diversity in their video games, which is not the point of this post.

I’m trying to wait it out because I know that sooner or later, the industry will move onto the next hot thing. In the meantime, though, I heave a huge sigh of annoyance when I read or hear the words, “parry mechanics”.

Back to level design. I’ve written about it ad nauseum because I hate it so much. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten lost because everything looks the same within an area. Yes, there are lanterns lighting the main path, but there are also lanterns lighting certain side paths, and sometimes, there are no lanterns at all. By the end of the game, I was cursing every time I had to go back and forth to find the right path. Which was plentiful.

I hated the level design, I’ll be honest with you. That hatred came very early, and all the ‘the level design is so clear’ chatter in the forums did nothing to sway me. I wasted so much time going down paths that looked all the same, only to end up back where I started. Plus, while each area was distinctive, the space within each dungeon started to blend together. Especially late in the game where the levels were littered with enemies in an artless way. Yes, you can farm them for good mats, but as I’ve said before, I didn’t need materials at that point of the game.

The level design was barely adequate in the beginning, and it only deteriorated the further I got into the game. By the time I reached the last dungeons, I was just gritting my teeth and plowing through. The enemy placement was so graceless, I was astonished. It hadn’t been good at any point in the game, but it was terrible at the end. I wonder if they ran out of time and just started tossing the enemies into the game–with their eyes closed.


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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33–the actual review, part five

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I’m back for the final part of my review of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive). Well, that’s my plan, but I’ve been known to milk a few extra posts out of a topic. In the last post, I listed what I liked about the game and part of the first big thing I didn’t like about it–the combat. I’ll pick up where I left off beacuse I have more to say about the combat.

Combat

The combat never gelled with me because it’s so heavily parry-based. Yes, you can dodge, but then the fight lasts twice as long because you forwent the damage the counter gave you–which was a lot. By the end of the game, I parried all the time except when I hit the really tough optional bosses that had a million attacks in a row. Then, I just needed to survive until I could have my one (Maelle) turn.

People insist that there are audio cues for every attack. That may be true, but I could not hear them half the time. In addition, the audio cues were a lie–what do I mean? They weren’t consistent as to when you should parry. This is probably one of my biggest complaints about the combat, if not the biggest. All the attacks are timed differently, and it’s frustrating as fuck. I have said that I had to turn off the video I had playing on the second monitor when I was in a boss fight because that along with the combat music made it impossible for me to hear the audio cues. Even when I turned off the combat music, I still couldn’t always hear the audio cue.

If I did hear it, I didn’t necessarily know what it meant. Or rather, when I was supposed to parry. I still didn’t know by the end of the game. My solution was to have many ways to heal party members/the party, to employ the revival mechanics as much as I could, and at the end, to one-shot the hardest optional bosses.

I also didn’t like the gazillion different attacks/skills/pictos/luminae that they added throughout the game. I didn’t appreciate only being able to have six skills in a fight. They should let you choose from the whole list you unlocked as long as you had the AP to use the skill.

I still haven’t seen any of the level 3 gradient attacks in combat. Hell, I haven’t see half of the level 2 gradient attacks. If you’re shit at defense the way I am, you won’t be able to obtain the AP you needed in order to get the higher leveled gradient attack. And when I made it so I one-shot bosses, well, that made the whole gradient attack system moot.

I’ve already written quite a bit about how I did not appreciate that on the defensive end as well. Adding pretty significant attacks for the enemies/bosses late in the second act/after the game ends, well, that doesn’t sit right with me.


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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33–the actual review (part four)

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I’m back, and I’m going to do an actual review of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive). This is the first day I’ve not played it since I started playing, and it’s with a sense of relief that I’ve put it down. I’m trying to decide what to play next because Nightreign (FromSoft) is dropping in three days. I have a feeling it’s not going to be for me, but of course I’m getting it. My only qualm is whether to get the Deluxe Edition or not. It includes DLC for sometime down the road. I’m going to get it at that point, sowhy not get it now?

By the way, FromSoft is one of the only developers I will pre-order unhesitantly anything they put out. Even if it’s not for me, I want to at least see it. If I can. Ahem.

Back to this game. In this post, I’m going to go over each aspect of the game and give it a rating. Then I’m going to give a number to the game overall. Why? Because I feel like I could muse about it forever, but I’m ready to move on. Oh, and there will be light spoilers in the post.

Let’s start with the good.

Art and music

I put these two together because they are linked in my mind. Plus, they both contribute to the mood and vibe of the game. Which, I have to say, is top-notch. Well, it would be except for a few things, which I’ll get to later. In general, though, the music and art do a lot of heavy lifting in this game in giving it a mood. The visuals are stunning. Each area has a distinct look and feel to it, but is still unified in theme.

The music, I’m a bit more fractured on. It’s all lovely and when I first heard several of the pieces, I was blown away. However, the more I heard, the less impressed I was. The pieces sound too much alike. It’s not just that they have a similar theme and feel to them–I literally cannot tell some of them apart. I can describe them as moody, lush, and redolent with cello (which is a good thing, the last. Cello is by far my favorite instrument). They’re all verging on/plunge into overwrought, and, in general, the OST is missing something to make it stand out in my mind.

I have included Lune’s theme song below. It’s the first time I have really listened to it. She’s my favorite character, but I’m a bit disappointed in her theme. It’s too ethereal for her. She’s pretty pragmatic. And, dare I say it? It’s pretty boring. I felt she deserved more than that, to be honest.Something more dynamic and fiery.

I will give the overall vibes (art and music) an 8.5.


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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33–the review, part three

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I have more to say about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive), apparently. I’ve done several posts with ‘quick looks’ at the game, plus two review posts. Here is the second one in which I was talking about how the sum is way more than the parts.

I did a bit more exploring today because I knew there was one over-world boss I had not seen yet. I had read a few of the spoilers (my bad), and I knew that this boss was the hardest in the whole game. I knew the name of the boss, but that was it. By the way, it’s not a name that comes up anywhere else–unless I missed it. Which is possible because you have to mash the A button at the end of every sentence of dialogue (of which there is a lot), and I sometimes jump the gun because I’m impatient to move on.

I could not find this boss, though I had  a hunch where they might be. I finally Googled it, and, yup, the boss is buried in another dungeon. I had guessed which one, but that’s not really a triumph on my part because there were only a few dungeons left. I went into the main dungeon and heaved a huge sigh when I saw the groups of three absolutely littering the area. Again, there was no grace to the design. It’s as if the developers said, “We’re just going to make it hard as fuck because.” I did not want to fight the enemies for materials I would never need. It would just be using Maelle to nuke everything and trying to survive in between her turns.

There’s a dungeon called Endless Tower. It’s not endless, but it has multiple levels (Guess how many. 33, of course), and each level has three stages. It’s a boss rush, essentially, with mostly chromatic bosses as the enemies in the third stage of each level. Which, *sigh*. I do not want to do it, so I stopped. Again, the rewards are upgrade materials I don’t want or need, and cosmetics. I want the latter, but not enough to suffer t hrough all those stages and levels.

Back to the hardest secret boss. I just read a list of the 7 hardest bosses, ranked. The mimes I mentioned in the last post are on the list, as are a few of the other bosses I have talked about. #2 is a boss I hadn’t heard much about, and I assume that boss would have been really hard if I didn’t use the Maelle nuke to one-shot said boss. Apparently, the mechanic of that boss is to heal themselves, at half-health, which is an infuriating mechanic. And summoning Nevrons (all the non-human enemies) to fight on their behalf.


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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33–the review, part two

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This is part two of my official review of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive). Here is part one where I mused over my feelings about the story in the game. My feelings are very different from the majority of people who played it, and I’m fine with that. It’s often the case; I’m comfortable in my minority opinion. There wil be spoilers in this post, most likely.

Before I get back to the story, I must say that doing the overworld stuff now that I’ve beaten the game feels pretty hollow. There are several dungeons that are just crammed with chromatic versions of hard bosses, which is pretty boring. I just Maelle them to death and go about my merry way.

I will say that I’m over-leveled now, and I’m just fine with that. When I get into a stituation where I can’t just Maelle everything to death, I get miffed. “What do you mean I have to actually fight the enemies? No! I will not be doing that, thank you very much.”

I can do 11,000,000+ damage with Maelle. Granted, I did it once, and I’m not sure what got me that number, but I’m gettting 2,000,000 easy with her. Plus, I have pictos/luminae equipped that means I can play her three times in a row or more.

I just went into a dungeon that is fighting the same mime fives times in a row, but with every different party member in order to get a cosmetic. The first time you fight him, you get a picto that gives you 100% crit chance, but only 1 health. Not really an exchange I’m willing to make. Oh, and you get the cosmetic for the expeditioner you use. I chose Maelle, of course. Then I tried it with Verso. I died once because I did not have him properly kitted out with revive and survival pictos, but then I got the mime on my second try. He does so much damage and I didn’t put anything into the vitality of some of my characters because–

See, it’s like this.

Each weapon has three stats that boost its strength. Two will have grades next to the sword which indicates how well that stat boosts the weapon. One has a sword with no grade, and while it also boosts the power, it’s not as much as the other two. In the beginning, I did what I usually do–spread my points fairly even across the stats. Late in the game, though, I read that you really should just dump all your points into the three sword stats and make up for the other stats with pictos and luminae. They buff everything from health to AP (action points, I think?) to how many times you can go in a row. They are very powerful, and it’s essential to have the right load-out for each character and each situation.


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I finally beat Clair Obscur: Expedition 33–the review

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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.

 

I truly think I’m done with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (part ten)

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I am so tired. I think I’m done with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive). For the first day since it came out, I did not play it as soon as I could in the morning (afternoon, really). I did dip in a bit before writing this, but I just felt empty as I did it. Here’s my post from yesterday in which I talk about my growing dissatisfaction with the game, especially the story.

*SPOILERS*

I’m going to be talking about the story a bit and other things that might be considered spoilers. After I finished the second act, I flew around the map (we unlocked the ability to fly on Esquie during the last boss fight of the second act) quite a bit. I love Esquie, but he says exactly three things as you fly (when you hit RT to accelerate): “flashing through the sky”; here we go”; and “hang on tight”. Along with some sounds. Because I am pumping RT all the time, that means he says these phrases every three seconds or so. Which, as you might guess, is annoying AF.

Here’s the thing. Getting the ability to fly was super-cool. But 90% of the things are for later. MUCH later. I am in the high fifties, level-wise, and I can get one-shot by some of these enemies. And doing chip damage.

Beating the last boss of the second act unlocked the dagame cap (it was 9,999 for the first two acts). I was so excited for it, but I’m not doing the millions of damage I’ve seen other people do (and that I need to do in order to kill many of the world bosses I can reach now). I just had a look-see, and the things I need to have these incredible builds are farther down the road. Except for a skill that I did not unlock, even though I could have quite some time ago. I may go ahead and respec Maelle to optimize her build.

Because, you see, if Im’ going to continue playing ,I want to be able to finish the combat as quickly as possible. I hate it so much. SO much. I know the third act is much shorter than the first two, but man. Something inside me rebels at doing it.

I also deepened the relationships between different characters. I’m of two minds with this mechanic (it gives you perks like unlocking gradient attacks–the deadliest of attacks). On the one hand, the chatting between the different party members is one of my favorite things about the game. Partly because the acting is so good even if the writing is shaky at times and partly because it means I don’t have to do the combat.

By the way, I am about to give up and min-max the hell out of my characters jsut to get through the combat more quickly. I have enough respec items to redo every character, and I just might do it. That’s how much I hate the combat. I don’t want to struggle, doing thirty-thousand damage when I could be doing millions. I want to one-shot bosses so I don’t have to grind out a win.

I did one of the chromatic bosses today, and it was really difficult with my puny damage. I managed to eke it out, but I died three or four times (which is way more than I’ve died to most other bosses). People in the Discord were saying it was disappointing to be too overleveled for the final boss, but I don’t care. I want to be that overleveled. Though I’m confused as to how one person got to level 100 before taking on the final boss. I’m almost level 60 with each member of my party, and I’ve done a hell of a lot of grinding.


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