Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 – Looking Back at the New Standard a Year Later

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a year in the rearview mirror now, and with it comes so many thoughts. It’s a game near and dear to my heart, effectively reviving the love I had for JRPGs growing up in the ’90s and delivering an experience that I genuinely will never forget. It also raised several questions about what is going on in the state of the industry.

How did a studio this small produce something so big, and with Hollywood level talent behind it no less? How did a JRPG obliterate the Game of the Year awards? And where will the JRPG genre go from here, considering Clair Obscur managed to show how to fuse the past and the present in a way that no other game has?

We’re going to see if we can answer some of those questions in this Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 retrospective.

A Tribute to the Greats

The Legends of the Past, Dreams of the Future

It’s no secret that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is inspired by the classics of the genre. Specifically, it’s Final Fantasy coded, with everything from the narrative being a bit of a spin on Final Fantasy 10 to the Final Fantasy 8-inspired Expedition uniforms. Even Verso’s outfit is inspired by Squall Leonhart’s iconic garb.

But in that tribute comes something so incredibly original. This incredible world, with so many oddities and particular quirks, is something inspired by nothing but the developers at Sandfall. They didn’t copy someone else’s homework, they reimagined it, spiced it up, and spliced the DNA of so many different games into something to create a medley that managed to capture the minds of so many.

But it’s not just the world, it’s the gameplay that inspires that feeling of old. It’s like the first time you played a Final Fantasy, or maybe a JRPG in general. That feeling of adventure is apparent from the opening minutes of the game and sends you on a nostalgia trip if you remember the golden age of the genre, and if you’re new to it, has likely set the standard for you going forward.

Its Mark on the Moment

A Breakout Star

When Clair Obscur released, JRPGs were occupying an interesting space. While there were modern mega successes like Metaphor: ReFantazio and well-received titles like Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth and Tales of Arise, there was still nothing that felt like that old school JRPG being brought to modern times. Rebirth went full-on action with its combat, Tales of Arise did the same, while Metaphor basically gave us medieval Persona; great for some, but the social elements of the game felt wildly unnecessary and hurt the experience for others.

We were missing that Square Enix feeling. While JRPGs were always rooted in anime-inspired ideas, they never really looked that way once the 3D games started coming. Look at Final Fantasy 8 and Final Fantasy 10. Those were games that looked realistic, and that was the aesthetic. Anime JRPGs are their own thing, but it’s never been what’s defined the genre for me.

The best part of JRPGs has always been when the games felt like a melting pot of ideas. Movie quality visuals with stories that only the East could tell. This was my kind of JRPG. The one that felt like an event again. The one that everyone was talking about. The one that did something special. That moment had been dormant since Final Fantasy 10 first released, and thankfully, through a two decade journey and from an unlikely location, it finally returned.

But Was It Fun?

How to Make the Old New

I think the biggest question about Clair Obscur wouldn’t be its story, or its graphics, because both were clearly something fascinating before the game even released, but rather its gameplay. What would it feel like to play? Was this just a corridor-based game with a cool story that would feel brief but nothing more than a blip in terms of its overall quality? The gameplay had to answer the call, and thankfully, it did. The combat was fantastic, mixing turn-based gameplay with real-time dodging and parrying mechanics.

It managed to satisfy the Soulslike crowd in a big way, with absolutely pulse-pounding affairs like Dualiste and, for the true sadists out there, the optional super boss Simon. To back it all up, there were incredibly deep and interesting mechanics for each character, along with the ability to build them in any way you choose. You could have Maelle as an absolute nuke during one playthrough and have Sciel as the star of the show during another, all based on what your preference is.

Clair Obscur allowed so many different builds to come about and tons of strategies along with an impressive move list that puts every JRPG I’ve ever played to shame, which all went into creating a combat loop that just didn’t let up throughout the entirety of the game.

Aside from the combat, there was so much to do, from exploring the beautiful open world, to finding secret areas, uncovering lore, competing in arena tournaments, completing side quests, and finding some awesome weaponry. Clair Obscur wasn’t just a story game or a combat-focused game. It was the complete package from all standpoints.

But about that story…

A Narrative Masterwork

A Story for The Books

Storytelling in games has long been a debate. Are games better with a heavy focus on story, or are they better off being novelties instead of true art? Clair Obscur ended that debate with a story so compelling and rich, and with characters so brilliantly written that carry the action the whole way through. It has simply changed the game in the RPG genre as a whole. The bar has finally been raised after so many years of stories that don’t quite hit the mark or lost steam toward the finish line.

Clair Obscur navigates this perfectly by building the intrigue as you go. The initial pull is The Paintress, but quickly moves onto the mystery of Renoir, who Verso and Maelle really are, to finally, what the world really is. It’s this constant upping of the stakes that grips you every step of the way, and while some twists and reveals might be more predictable than others, it’s how it’s delivered, with incredible voice acting, animation, and set pieces that sell the moment of the story in ways other games often fail to.

And then comes the two endings. Each one depends on your point of view of the story and really, nothing else. There is no good ending, and there is no bad ending. There are endings that reflect the world you just experienced. It’s caused a veritable war on Reddit and for good reason. This game drove up a passion in people that I haven’t seen in a very long time. These characters felt alive and real. There weren’t over-the top anime-isms or terrible MCU quips. This dialogue finally felt like real people again in a genre that left that feeling behind so very long ago.

The endings mattered because these characters mattered, and no matter what you chose, you were sacrificing something. You were sacrificing someone’s freedom or forcing a destroyed person to confront a certain reality. Terrible, powerful, excellent.

For Those Who Come After

Where Do We Go Now?

So, where does Clair Obscur leave the genre? It’s an interesting question and one that I think is already being answered by one of the most important developers in the space. Square Enix seems to have more or less taken Sandfall studios under their wing as mentors and collaborators, as they were genuinely thrilled with Clair Obscur’s success, and that admiration could possibly reshape what the future of their cash cow, Final Fantasy, will be.

But in the next year or so, we’re already seeing some JRPG-styled games that are looking to fuse real-time and turn-based combat while also using an artsy aesthetic, such as one of my most anticipated titles, Lost Hellden. With a mega power like Square Enix buying into what Sandfall is selling, it wouldn’t be too shocking to see other JRPG studios start shifting their approach as well.

Perhaps we’ll see JRPGs that are less anime-focused and more of that worldly hybrid style we used to have with games like Chrono Cross, Legend of Dragoon, Legend of Legaia, and Vagrant Story. Maybe we’ll see fewer “Teenage boy saves the world” types and more JRPGs that are about adults and have the tone and dialogue to match.

If the genre is going to stay anime-focused, maybe we can see it shift to more Seinen and less Shōnen. Something a bit more for everyone and not just the young crowd. Just look at what Attack on Titan did. Can we get a JRPG with that kind of tone, perhaps? A Tales game with that kind of maturity? A Persona game not set in high school? I can dream, right?

Time will tell, but one thing is for sure: Clair Obscur has planted a flag. It’s a flag that has put a genre that was in the midst of a renaissance firmly into the mainstream. It’s a flag that gathered more game of the year awards than any game before. And it’s a flag that tells us the future is bright for this genre, as we now have another company capable of delivering legendary titles.