Tag: burning out | A Banana Peeled

I have a hunch this might be my last post about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive). Why? Because I just fought a major boss early(?) in the second act, and I hated every loooooong minute of it.

I know this is a thing with JRPGs. Boss fights that take an hour, I mean, and don’t have checkpoints. I mentioned it in a previous post. Not in the last one, but in that one I mentioned how much I’m starting to dislike the story. I thought it was very mid from the start, but it was serviceable then. Now, however, it’s hot trash. I’m so mad about it because the acting is so fucking good.

I have had a love/hate relationship with the game since I first started playing it. The one thing that has always kept me in has been the acting. I was able to ignore how blah I found the story and how much I hate the combat because the acting and the exploration kept me going. I was able to grit my teeth and move on.

I could overlook many of the things I disliked about the game such as the confusing level design (I often times get lost and don’t know if I’m coming or going. That’s partly because I have a horrid sense of direction, yes, but it’s also because the level design is confusing.

I want to be very clear. The art direction is gorgeous. The environments are lush (or barren when need be), diverse, distinctive, and memorable. Though, to be fair, I can’t actually tell you which is which now that I’ve done them. I will give them top marks for atmosphere–environments and music, specifically. 10/10 in this category, no notes (not including the level design, I hasten to add).

Before I get to the boss fight I just attempted, I want to talk about a few more little things that annoy/irk me about the game. One, there’s no way of noting which areas you’ve completed and which you haven’t. Of the side areas, I mean. And there are a ton of them. It would be nice to have a checkmark next a cave/dungeon I’ve completed. Also, a marker on the map for each NPC would be nice as well. And if you’ve bought out all their inventory, please let me know that so I don’t make a special trip to see them again. I can’t remember which I’ve visited and which I haven’t. And there are some that will have more inventory when I find an expeditioner, so I will have to go back again.

I’m starting to feel that open world burnout. This is on me. I cannot do the storybeats for the life of me if there is a single scrap of side content that I can do instead. In Elden Ring, I did not make it to the first big boss until maybe twenty hours into the game. Which meant that I did not go to the Roundtable Hold until then (which was bad (not getting there for so long)). That’s where the baby pyro incantations were).

I have mentioned a few times that I have a love/hate relationship with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive). Now, I would switch that to a hate/love relationship. I know that sounds melodramatic, but it’s a matter of degrees. I have always been very divided about this game. I have said in all my prior posts that I like much about the game–except the combat. And, of course, that is the main thing about the game. I’ll get to thet in a minute.

I mentioned in the last post that I was reeling by the end of the first act. Now that I’m in the second act, I’m even less enamored with *gestures vaguely* everything. Well, not everything. The music is still lush and gorgeous, and the environments are beautiful. I often take a minute to just soak it all up.

I still love all the characters and am constantly amazed at how fucking good they are. The relationship thing I mentioned in the last post has an actual use–it gives you *sigh* OK.

*SPOILERS*

I mentioned there’s a new attack introduced in the second act. It’s called a gradient attack and you have to spend AP (action points, the things you use to do your skills) in order to fill up the bar. You can have 1 point, 2 points, or 3 points in the bar/meter. Or, at least you’re supposed to be able to. So far, I have gotten 1 point during any whole fight. There are pictos you can equip that will fill the bar, apparently. They are really cool when you pull them off (you get a whole mini-cutscene), but I don’t even bother checking because I never get the points.

I Googled it, and people confirmed that you didn’t get many points when you first get the attack. Which, I mean, why? Why make it that hard? Yes, it’s super-powerful, but what’s the point if I never get to use it? The new defense is the gradient counter. It’s on RT and the whole screen goes gray, and then you have to wait for the actual attack before pressing RT. I was able to get it the first few times, but now, like everything else, I miss more than I make.

It’s way too much. As I said before, I don’t have a full grasp on how the characters I’ve had the whole game work (except Lune. She’s the easiest to understand), let alone the new characters.

In addition, I mentioned a storybeat at the end of the first act that really shook me. The game earned it, but the further from it I got, the more I questioned the inclusion of it. I’m not going to say more about that because it really should be experienced. It’s still a powerful moment, but it’s starting to feel a bit hollow.

Why? Because there is so much shit coming at me in the second act. In the first act, the story beats were very sparse. In the beginning of the second act, it’s been boom boom boom boom. Also, there’s a character who is used to traverse the space (and he is to be protected at all costs), and he gets additional abilities at certain times. The first one he got was the ability to swim, which opened up the map a great deal. The second was the ability to crash through the coral in the waters. I’m assuming at some point, we’ll be able to fly. Oh, and I finally unlocked the ability to go to the overworld from any expedition flag (I think? At least the beginning/end ones), which is such a relief. I think it has to be any flag because you can do it from just outside a dungeon, anyway.

This is another thing that I don’t like about the game, though I understand why the devs decided to do it this way–you have to travel by foot throughout the overworld. I don’t think that’s changed, but it’s so fucking slow.

Tag Archives: burning out

I think I’m done with CLair Obscur: Expedition 33 (part three)

Hate/love relationship with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, part two