Late To The Party: Clair Obscur-Expedition 33

I finished Clair Obscur recently-not long after it was announced as a game of the year. Pretty nice timing, for once!

Is it the game of the year? Not sure about that. It's quite good though. 

First, and most importantly, there is a great gameplay loop. Giving players something to stay engaged during turn-based combat seems like such a gimme idea I cannot believe I haven't seen it before. You can't just ignore what the enemy does, you have a chance to impact what happens! The rewards for dodging or parrying are immense and feel very good. 

Next; the game is realistic in it's gameplay scope. That is: I don't have to invest 100+ hours if I don't want to. I actually completed the game in a reasonable amount of time! Are there more quests to do? Yes, but I don't feel as though I missed something important by opting out of them. I could just play them-get this- for fun. 

There are some drawbacks though. For example: You can get lost. The dungeons aren't huge, but they do have an unfortunate lack of markers to help players find their way. It's not just knowing where the main path is-although the game doesn't tell you, it's the one lit by lamps-it's knowing which of the side paths you have taken without having going down it again, or knowing that you are headed back to the entrance instead of the exit. 

The next criticism I have is that the story mostly holds, but there are two points that don't make sense. Unfortunately they are spoiler related so I will try to keep it as vague as I can but: there are two points where specific characters are unaffected by the machinations of the boss and the game doesn't tell you why they are immune. 

Which is a pretty big deal. Especially since if they had explained it, then you'd have a pretty tight story all in all, in my opinion.

Finally, Clair Obscur doesn't do a great job informing you how it's systems work. I was about 2/3 of the way through the game when I realized I had to assign Luminos points, they didn't just get automatically allocated. Now, I may have been told this early on-before I even had Luminos points to assign-but the game didn't make a point of it when I DID have points to assign and so I didn't go through the act of assigning points. 

Well, in games you learn by doing. That's a pretty big oversight and one that allowed me to actually play the game better, once I implemented it.

That said, this game felt like a breath of fresh air, after playing Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. It is very enjoyable and worth your time.