Not surprisingly, I have more to say about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive). In yesterday’s post, I was mentioning a few things that I didn’t like about the overworld. I was Googling something related to the game (spoiling myself about some of the bosses in the meanwhile, unfortunately, but this is always a risk when Googling), and I came across people who were not happy about the lack of markers on the map.
That was something I mentioned yesterday, and I was gratified that some people echoed what I had said in my last post. One was that it was hard to find optional bosses that they had left for later because they were not marked on the map. I have been reduced to keeping a map of the game open with the NPC/boss I’m trying to find marked on said map. One guy said he was keeping a journal of all the NPCs.
I’ve thought about doing the same, but I don’t take good notes. I’ve tried and tried, but I just don’t. Partly because I have awful handwriting, but mostly beacuse everything is important to me. I tried to take notes when I first played Elden Ring (before they patched in where the NPCs were), and they were awful. I read them back, and I had no idea what the hell they actually said.
I beat that boss yesterday, and I wanted to clean some stuff up. I found one of the charismatic bosses (waay fucking harder than the area and pretty fucking annoying)–or rather, I went back to fight him. I had fought him earlier, and he destroyed me. That was several hours earlier, and I was much stronger now! And he destroyed me yet again. And I got sent waaaaaaaay back to the last place I camped. So I had to travel waaaaaaay across the map to get back to him–and I could not find him.
My god. I was frustrated. I looked it up and kept the map up so I wouldn’t get lost again. I found him, camped (so that would be my save point) and rejiggered my party. And I utterly destroyed him. This happened with the other three or so chormatic bosses I fought as well. I struggled the first time, mixed things up, and then destroyed them. Part of that mixing was looking the boss up to see what they were weak to and then making my party fit that.
I don’t like these bosses. I understand why they’re in the game, but they’re just tiring. And boring. Endless combos with erratic rhythm–actually, this is one of my problems with the bosses in general in this game. I know that it’s on purpose, but my god. Long and erratic combos are not fun (for me, obviously).
I will say that the boss I beat last night, I did like that doing the whole dungeon (the three different paths) severely curtailed the second boss in the two-boss fight. Not only did it cut out the ridiculous extra shit that made the fight horrible (he had something like a zillion shields by the end of the fight), it also cut some of the combos short (because no buffs). That’s the way to make it hard for people who want it hard and easier for those of us who don’t without having to switch modes. Which I haven’t done yet. I know it’s not much to brag about because I’m on the middle mode (normal) and not hardcore permadeath I got ovaries bigger than the moon I don’t need to level up past two.
But these charismatic bosses are just annoying AF. Yes, in part because you pretty much have to parry the shit out of them six or seven times in a row. Yes, you read that right. There’s one of them that was just ridiculous in his self-buffs and when he got down to a quarter health, he swung at one of my characters seven times in a row. Left, right, pause. Left, right, pause. Left, right, pause. Slow, long forward thrust. The good thing was that it was the only attack this boss did for the last quarter of the fight (if I remember correctly), so I could practice. The bad thing is that if I missed more than one of the parries, the boss would kill me. Oh, and I had to parry because of the huge amounts of health the boss had and how little my attacks did (one of the hallmarks of this fight).
Oh, and this asshole got up to three attacks in a row. And if the whole party got wiped out, he got to start the next round (against my ‘last defense’, the other two characters). I was so mad because I would get it down to a quarter of its health and then lose in one round.
I could have given up and come back later, but I was stuck in at that point. I was so furious at this unfair boss, I had to kill it. I get that way, sometimes. That’s why I try not to do a boss before going to bed.
I fiddled with the party members, and it’s really amazing how putting in one different party member will make such a difference. I mean, it’s not amazing in the sense that this is how these kinds of games work, but it’s amazing to me because I don’t play party-based games. Also, it’s funny how my allegiances change. Maelle is the best damage-disher-outer (though she’s been nerfed, apparently), and I like having her in the party because she has a move that destroys all shields. There’s someone in the RKG Discord who never has her in his party. I was the same for the first act, but quickly came around in the second act.
Then, when I started fighting these chromatic bosses, I put the fifth party member in the main party because he had some skills that would be helpful like one that ignores shields. Also, I have a picto equipped on him (that I should do it for the other members) that let’s him strike first and three times in a row. Or at least two. That was so helpful with the chromatic asshole who took two to three turns in a row.
There was another one who gave herself like six shields at the start of every turn. In one of my fights with her, I did not have any ability to break or ignore shields. And I got stuck in a terrible loop of her giving herself six shields at the start of every turn, and me just breaking each one by one or at the most two by two. I finally gave up and let her kill me so I could put on the skill breaking/ignoring skills and start over again. With those two skills equipped, I got her in two or three minutes.
I’m of two minds about that. I mean, I’m assuming that’s part of the genre (you can tell that I know jackshit about JRPGs), but it shouldn’t be THAT big of a difference. I’ll have to think about it some more.
Oh, and one thing that has made a big difference is turning off the video I’m watching on my other monitor so I can hear at least some of the audio cues. And watching the weapon of the enemy like a hawk, not the enemy itself. And then learning when to press RB (which animation). And then swearing like crazy when I fuck it up.
That’s all for today.