I can’t quit Clair Obscur; Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive). I keep saying I’m going to quit in, and then I think, “Hm. Maybe I’ll do a bit more.” And then I do a chunk more. By the way, I’ve apparently played 18.3 hours according to Xbox Game Pass. This can’t be right. I’m pretty sure that’s what it said several hours ago, and it said I last played two hours ago. I played later than that–wait. Maybe not? Huh. I’m not sure. But I’m pretty sure I’ve played more than 18 hours.
Or maybe not. It certainly feels like I have. In both good ways and bad ways.
I asked in the RKG Discord (in the appropriate channel) how far I was into the second act. I feel like I just got in it, but I’ve done a ton, too. Someone told me that I was 3/4th of the way through the main story (or rather, would be after beating the boss I struggled with), which is wild to me.
I also read a forum thread about the boss I beat tonight (a really tough big, both literally and figuratively, mainline story boss), and they were saying they were level 50 or higher by the time they got there?? They haughtily said they did all the side content before that point. Well, so have I. I have rinsed the side content as much as I can (there are some world bosses that are clearly for later), and I’m level 35 or so. Well, I was when I met the boss I talked about last night.
Someone in the Discord said she did the same thing I did, then went and did the dungeon proper. Said it was much easier on the second try because of doing the dungeon. I knew it would be that way, but honestly, I did not want to do the whole dungeon. I am tired of the combat, even with the new and varied enemies. I will give the game credit for that–the enemies are different for each area and fitting of the area.
In yesterday’s post, I was talking about how weary I am of two-phase bosses or bosses that are just straight up back-to-back boss fights. I blame this on FromSoft, quite frankly. They do it all the time now, and I’m tired of it in their games, too.
I read in an article that you should do the other dungeon first (there are two that you hav eto do for story reasons). They made it seem like it would help with the fight I did yesterday, though now I don’t think that’s true. I did not like the other dungeon, either, to be honest. I’m pretty much done with the biomes. I still think they look gorgeous, but I dread them because I know it means more of the combat I hate.
This boss was an interesting one, I will say. But also really frustrating. She was a bonkers fight as she had minions throwing every kind of status at you (much like the boss I fought last night). During my first attempt, I just could not get a handle on her. Oh, and there are two other bosses in the area (one optional and one mandatory). If you choose to spare the one, it’ll buff the main boss during the main fight.
By this point, I was looking things up quite liberally. I had spent twenty minutes on the first fight with this boss, and I was not willing to fumble my way through another attempt. I fiddled with my party, and then I did something I rarely do–I turned off the video I had going on my other monitor. I could barely hear the audio cues with the video going. I was contemplating turning off the boss music, but I did not want to do that. The music is incredible in this game, and this boss music was no exception.
That was all it took. I did the boss on my second try, and it was a fairly easy victory. I said many bad words as I finished her off and held my breath in case there was a second phase. The victory screen came up, and I sighed in relief.
Then, I got sent back to camp and was able to have an intimate moment with two of the characters.
…
….
…..
What?!? Where the HELL did that come from? I am not against bonking in games, but I felt that came out of left field. Nothing indicated that either character felt that way about each other. I mean, if it’s just a warm body to pass the cold night with, I’m down with that. I just need to know that’s the reason.
After being beaten by the boss yesterday, I did the dungeon proper. Except I missed one path, apparently. Yes, I found that out by Googling the area. I cleaned that up and then thought about tackling the boss again. But, I just could not. First of all, the first episode of RKG Elden Ring Retry is dropping in half an hour, and I have GOT to get some sleep. If I stay up until the episode drops, I’m going to be tempted to watch it. Which would be fine except I have a Zoom Taiji class at noon. And I’m expecting the episode to be at least an hour-and-a-half, if not longer. The trailer the boys put out was brilliant. They keep topping themselves, and they set a very high bar with the very first trailer they released for the series.
Back to the game. I really want to quit it, but I just can’t. Why? I’m not even sure any longer. I’ts not the story as I got jarred out of it at the beginning of the second act, and it just keeps getting more ridiculous.
I will say that I appreciate that Sandfall Interactive had a clear vision of what they wanted to do with this game, and they did it. They fucking did it when everything is multiplayer, live service bullshit. They did it at forty dollars rather than twice that. And I’m playing it for free! (Well, on Game Pass).
Honestly, I want to buy it on Steam just to give them money for it because it’s really impressive. No matter my personal feelings about it, it’s a stunning achievement. And it’s a better game than Lies of P (Round8 Studio/NEOWIZ) in every way. Yeah, I said it. I gave that game a 6.5 for many reasons I’m not going to reiterate now. I gave Ghost of Tsushima (Sucker Punch Productions) a 7.5. Also not going to go into the reasons why.
I don’t know what I would give this game because I love so much about it–except the fucking combat. At this point, I do everything I can to avoid it, which is surely not the purpose of the game. In the last two boss fights, they were throwing so many statuses at me, I didn’t understand what the fuck was going on.
That’s all for now. More tomorrow.