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

I ended my post with saying I beat the by far most difficult challenge in the game that’s meant to take all 5 party members with just 2 of them across all three phases just for shits and giggles

It’s hard to imagine I wasn’t saying that the game cant be fully completed with any party component, especially on normal from my limited testing of it which is a significantly easier experience but idk how you ran your game.

I was merely speaking to what is just pretty universally accepted as the most optimal party comp

You also don’t reach the end “maxed out” you’re definitely meant to go directly to finish the main story which will have you somewhere around level 55 at absolute maximum if you’ve just done everything accessible in the game to that point without excessive grinding. You’re then put free into the entire open world with the entire sky opened up with a bunch of new areas and no direction at all to the intended challenge order unless you look it up.

If you don’t want to grind forever or randomly end up in a level 80 area at level 60 and get arse blasted completely it definitely helps to have the most efficient set up

I never grinded at all and felt like the exp distributions of the entire content package was pretty expertly executed to a degree that’s not ever really executed in any game.

I reached Simon after doing everything else since he is 100% meant to be the last thing you do at level 96. Id say that’s damn near hitting the target directly and I was very happy with that

It’s hard to get into why I say you’re directly meant to go to finish the main story without any type of spoilers in anyway that could possibly tip you off on to what’s coming.

The best way to say it is act 3 is a bit strange because it’s simply just the final main story area and set piece and the entire end game with a small very story heavy revealing interlude between act 2 and act 3. The most non spoiler thing I can say to justify why this is the case is that the story definitely justifies its urgency to the point where it feels weird and almost wrong to not go finish the main story, but you’re also in no way required to.

In act 2 though when you truly get the idea to break free into entire map outside the sky it is a good idea to basically go revisit the entire map, there are side dungeons, world mini bosses, etc you will have had access to before or they would’ve likely been way too difficult. Once you find 4 lost gestural you also unlock an ability to sort on unlock a bunch of locked off areas in earlier levels. Again it’s hard to get into what all that means without spoilers so you’ll just have to meander around if you want to find everything or just look it up that’s your choice

Clair Obscur becomes the most nominated game in the game awards history with 12 nominations.

I know these awards shows are kinda lame and gay and dont matter I still feel like this is a good thing and potentially indicates a more creative future could be on the horizon.

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This arena is kicking my arse. The last two guys have been pretty tough. I keep devoting my energy on parry just so I can get better.

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Maelle is a solo monster. Even though you don’t have a ton of skills at your disposal yet, Spark > Swift Stride > Percée will absolutely wreck enemies at this level.

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Yeah just wait

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I’m mostly just waiting to be able to uncap my damage. Takes all the fun out of starting inverted, first hit pictos, setting Mark with V and following up immediately with Percée

Eta: And yes, I know that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Just isn’t much incentive look forward to blowing up the iceberg yet when I don’t even know how much damage that does

Stay at 6

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It’s hard to get into why I say you’re directly meant to go to finish the main story without any type of spoilers in anyway that could possibly tip you off on to what’s coming.

The best way to say it is act 3 is a bit strange because it’s simply just the final main story area and set piece and the entire end game with a small very story heavy revealing interlude between act 2 and act 3. The most non spoiler thing I can say to justify why this is the case is that the story definitely justifies its urgency to the point where it feels weird and almost wrong to not go finish the main story, but you’re also in no way required to.

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I don’t really agree with this at all. The real reason to finish the main story is because if you wait, it very quickly becomes comically easy.

The end-game balance is actually the game’s biggest flaw IMO. It’s one of those things you just accept because the journey to that point is so incredible, but it would make the narrative better (again, IMO) if you could finish most of the side plots before closing out the final act. But if you do that, you’ll be way over leveled.

I’m gonna try to say this somewhat delicately to avoid spoilers..

You don’t necessarily have to rush toward the monolith. Though you’re right that the game pushes you forward, which is actually a pretty neat trick to keep you immersed in the mindset of the expedition. But yeah.. it’s certainly worth taking time to explore up to that point. You’ve mentioned uncapped damage so I suppose you know that’s coming - well, you won’t uncap your damage before going to the monolith, which keeps you from really trivializing that part of the game.

There will be an opportunity to explore further (including areas you can’t access up until then) after you go to the monolith. It will be pretty obvious when you reach this point. That’s when the late game balance issue really comes into play. It makes narrative sense to explore at that point because you can get a lot of story background that you wouldn’t have otherwise. But if you do, it trivializes things pretty quickly. There’s not a right or wrong way to do it, it’s just a tradeoff.

It’s really my only complaint about an otherwise fantastic game.