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.
I have said many times that I am not a min-maxer, but it’s almost unavoidable in this game IF you want to get the millions of points of damage in one attack. I’m sure I can do it for the other characters, too (I’m getting a quarter of a mill for one and fifty-thousand on a shot (yes, there are ranged weapons in this game) for another), but so far, I have resisted actively buffing out my other characters. Why? I don’t know. Mostly because I can one-shot everything with Maelle.
But. As I said, if I want to do that damn mime for all the cosmetics, I have to do it three more times with the other characters. Bleah.
This is one issue I had with Elden Ring, which is my favorite game of all time. Too much filler. Just because you can put the kitchen in the game, it doesn’t mean you should. One of my main complaints about Elden Ring was the repeat bosses that were merely filler. By the time I saw the tenth Erdtree Avatar as a common enemy, for example, I was over it. And at a certain point, I just ran from enemies that were not worth killing for the millionth time.
In this game, it’s even worse. In some of these very high-level dungeons, the base enemies are chromatic* bosses–and more than one of them. And, yes, I know this is common, but it’s boring as fuck. And what is the prize for most of these dungeons? A picto. A bunch of upgrade material that I can get elsewhere. Some lore. The last is the most interesting, by the way.
I have Maelle so buffed out, that when I finally went back to tackle the serpent boss that decimated me earlier in the game, I was pretty confident that it wouldn’t be too hard. I read up on what it was about because I remembered some really nasty stuff it did. None af that mattered beacuse I one-shot it with Maelle. Buh-bye-bye, asshole!
This is both a blessing and a curse, by the way. Because I have Maelle so buffed out, I don’t have to engage in the combat for the most part. Which, as I have said several times, is something I want to avoid (the combat) as much as possible. I still don’t enjoy the combat, and I sigh impatiently every time I have to do it. So one-shotting everything with Maelle makes me happy. Until I face more than one enemy at a time. Or I have to use someone other than Maelle.
I’ve reached the point where I’m resentful of the extra content. This is mostly on me because I don’t have the self-discipline to quit playing. I mean, I will soon because FromSoft’s Nightreign is coming out in a week, but I want to walk away from this game now and not two seconds before Nightreign drops.
I keep thinking about how the sum is more than the parts with this game. I think the environments are stunning, but the level design takes away from that. And I find the level design horrid. Absolutely terrible. For me, I could not tell which way I was supposed to go. And I went backwards so many times. Yes, there is some kind of lighting on the main path…until there isn’t. And sometimes, there’s lighting on other paths, too. There was one time I kept going around in circles for like ten minutes before finally realizing that the way I thought was where I came from was actually where I needed to go. And this happened all the fucking time.
I was so impatient with it, and I started running by enemies instead of fighting them. They really felt randomly placed in the later areas, and more there just to be there than for any actual purpose.
That’s it for now. I will do one more post tomorrow.
*Chromatic bosses are very souped-up versions of the base ones, and pretty tedious.