If any of you are gamers, you may be aware that a game called “Clair Obscur: Expedition 33” has taken the world by storm this last month. It came out of nowhere from an indie studio, Sandfall, employing only 30 or so developers, to drop AAA studio quality graphics, gameplay and story.
So obviously, not wanting to miss “the moment,” I had to play it. Here are my brief, off-the-cuff thoughts:
My opinion only, but I've got to go against the weight of public sentiment here. Clair Obscur is a unique, original story and world with gorgeous art and music...that is ultimately too clever by half.
The big story twist pulls the rug out from under all the emotional investment of the first 3/4 of the game, and the ending that arguably rewards that emotional investment is cast as the "bad" ending. Also, the combat gets very repetitive, but that's largely the nature of JRPGs and a small quibble against the story issues.
I LOVE that a small studio could craft such a beautiful, complex game with many interesting features and mechanics. All the props to Sandfall, and the AAA studios can learn a lot from them. But after engaging me for many hours, the story left me feeling empty and a touch annoyed.
