re: Clair Obscur Expedition 33 Thread;No Spoilers 92% metascore

It looks interesting. I don’t think they could’ve made the main character look more like Robert Pattinson if they tried

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Yup. And Witcher 3 was its death blow, which in a weird turn W3 like 6-7 years later would again come out with the best 3rd person RPG camera function with its ps5 update.

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I think we just need to redefine the genre a bit.

"RPG" just turned into "any game with a leveling mechanism" and lost sight of what that meant. Admittedly, original RPGs were just that - they had a deeper story than platformer and shooters, but you didn't really control the direction of the story. Freedom to explore parts of the world, sure, but no real control.

Funny enough, text-based adventure games, like Adventure and Zork, did have choices. It was easier to script things like that when there's no graphics to animate, just dialog.

These days things like Baldur's Gate 3 are one of the few games that actually give the players a significant measure of agency in their choices, beyond just how the game ends. Those are very rare because they take a lot more both technical work (animation, scripting, etc.) as well as creative work (defining narrative paths, writing dialogue, and when voice acted having your actors record more than just one set of dialog options). The Dragon Age series is a good example of a "choices matter" set of games - though I have not yet played the most recent one.

I mean, Tell Tale Games are closer to actual RPGs than, say, a lot of games that hold the label "RPG".

Going back to the Witcher 3, while you have only so much control on how Geralt's story ends... you do get to see how your choices affect a lot of other people, so I wouldn't consider it a non-RPG RPG.

Trying to hurry and finish Metaphor ReFantazio before this drops. Going to be a day 1 for me

I preordered the first day I could. The fact it’s only 50$ is really impressive. About 5 weeks out. Also some JRPG focused YouTubers have previewed the game and said it’s fantastic.

One of the biggest FF and JRPG only focused YouTubers who played what I presume is a 6 hour vertical slice said they’ve created the best turn based combat system ever made. We will see but I’m extremely hyped.

YouTuber channel name is Night Sky Prince if you want to watch it.

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Looks amazing. Unfortunately, the trend towards Perfect Parry and dodge combat is leaving us old time gamers behind. Sadly the reflexes ain't what they used to be. You guys enjoy.

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This kind of thing has no place in a turn-based RPG

Another example of soulslike mechanics being shoehorned into a game.

The animations look like they take way too long to play out, and any developer who supports "time-based button presses" in turn-based combat doesn't really get turn-based combat I find. I don't see how being forced to press a button in a specific sequence enhances the game in any way whatsoever. It just makes fighting all the more tedious.

At some point, just give the game a real time combat system if you're going to force so many reaction-based mechanics on the player.

Looks fine for boss fights, but I wonder if regular battles will end up being a slog. I hope for a demo or gamepass to try for myself.

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New info they put out today. The video shows up the camp system. The tweet gives more info on what you can do there, the 5 attributes of the game (vitally, might, agility, defense, and luck) and how every level up you’ll get 3 points to distribute amongst them as you see fit. A bit like Metaphor

It also gives the same manner of description for the skill system, where you’ll get 1 point per level up to basically unlock a new skill.

Looks like the demo they all played won’t be public. Basically all impressions were the same. The game is very very good and beautiful with the music being exceptional. Extremely in depth skill treewith no passives with what they could see. I’ll go over the basics of how the game should play and feel below but for those most interested in the story here’s a quote one if the 133 players had on it

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Years ago, a mentor told me that the most important part of any story is surprise. A few years later, a writer I deeply respect wrote that perhaps the difference between good and great writing is technique, though even that was probably not as important as conviction. But what keeps us invested in a story is curiosity, the gap between what we know and what we want to know, the questions that drive us. Combine all three, and you tend to create something special. Each and every one of us has played a game that grabbed us from the jump, that connected with us in some unexpected way. A game that surprised us. Whose belief in itself was obvious from the first frame. That made us want to explore. I have played a lot of video games, friends, and that feeling is increasingly rare for me, especially in the AAA space. So when I tell you that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 grabbed me by the throat from the jump and didn’t let go for a single second of the three-and-a-half-hour demo I played, twice, believe me when I tell you that’s some powerful magic

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There is a world map and exploration and optional stuff (no random fights on the world map part but there are fights you can choose to interact with) but from I gather most areas you port into from the world map and they become their own sort of corridor style dungeon. So I’d expect a ton of more or less individualized zones separated via the open one that you zone into from it. The demo they all played wasn’t actually a vertically slice it was simply the first 4ish hours of the game flat that included two dungeons and very barely getting your 3rd member so who knows how true this is.

Combat is going to make or break this game for everyone I think. All this said, there are 3 difficulty options. It’s been said to me by one who played it if you like BG3 and Elden Ring you’ll love it. Apparently the parry dodge and jump stuff can be extremely helpful and if on hard or even normal nearly necessary for bosses. In combat you can amass a resource called RP via attacking, dodging, parrying. Etc then this can be carried out to use free aim attacks like in the trailer where we see the guy shoot the gun which can target enemy weak points. I’m sure they’ll be more use for this resource too.

There wasn’t too much clarification on this part, but if apparently used a dark souls healing system of a sort like estrus, or maybe that’s just your revived or something and you find potions a bit like stellar blade. Dunno much about it only one person I saw mentioned it. The enemy zones definitely respawn like fromsoft games and stellar blade etc

No one mentioned if there were or would be separate or specific sliders pertaining to only the real time stuff for the turn based only peeps. But I imagine if you’re drawn by its beauty music and extremely captivating premiss you could roll on easy mode

Last thing I want to touch on is something they lifted a bit from ff9 I think, if it works how I understand it. There are items, like supposedly 1000s, that allow a character to do a certain skill spell move whatever and if you equip one of them with one of these they can use it it,but like in ff9 if you leave it equipped long enough or meet some other condition they can learn it permanently

Damn that demo review has me pumped

I haven’t felt that way about a game since Horizon Zero Dawn and that’s been about 3-4 years ago

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I have been told the review embargo lifts 72 hours prior to release so there are definitely content creators right now who likely have beaten it already. I just dont know any of them because the full game was given to a much much smaller pool

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Mortismal gaming has 100% it already. So you can expect his review around launch.