Clair Obscur Expedition 33 Review, Gameplay Impressions, Videos and Top Features

Clair Obscur Expedition 33 from developer Sandfall Interactive is one of the outright boldest efforts to sweep the video game landscape in years. 

Expedition 33 is Sandfall Interactive’s debut effort, but one wouldn’t know the studio formed in 2020 from smaller indie teams wasn’t a seasoned veteran attempting to infuse new life into tried-and-true genres. 

A turn-based RPG with some refreshing modern shakeups, Expedition 33 brings along perhaps the best visuals seen in a game to date and a wildly unique tale, too, setting the stage for a potential Game of the Year contender. 

Something this new and refreshing doesn’t come around often, although Expedition 33’s execution of the gameplay and surrounding elements will ultimately decide if it's just a good-looker with good ideas or something much more. 

Graphics and Gameplay

Anything said about Expedition 33’s presentation is going to border on cliche. 

This is perhaps the best-looking game of all time to date, to the point one might be left wondering how they even pulled it off. Characters are distinctive, realistic and emotive, which isn’t all that uncommon these days given the horsepower behind consoles and PCs. 

But the game takes a very JRPG approach to its variety, mysticism and scale of locations, then slaps shocking production values across all of it. It’s the attention to detail, physics, lighting, reflections, shadows, all of it. 

Describing Expedition 33 as akin to a painting in motion is about as cliche as it, but there it is. Back when technology couldn’t achieve this for JRPG lovers, this was pretty much the apex of graphics and immersion that a player’s mind’s eye could envision.

It’s a similar story for the sound design, where an engrossing soundtrack backs up the happenings on screen, fitting ambient and combat sounds provide immersion and the voice-acting nails the emotions of the story. 

General exploration of this gorgeous world isn’t shocking, meaning grapple points, some nice verticality, little secrets to find, that sort of thing. It’s not open-world, for those who care, but it can sure feel immense while immersed just the same.

Combat is basic, in a sense. Each character has a close and ranged attack, with the former building up AP to spend on the latter and other skills. 

It does loop in quick-time events (QTEs) and other timing-based inputs, but not in a way that used to be demonized in the video game space. On attack, landing meters within the golden areas improves them. Eventually, players unlock plenty of super-like Gradient Attacks. 

This writeup is light on offense and big on defense because it happens to be the star of the show. In a refreshing twist, when defending, every attack can be dodged or countered. 

Ideally, players use the dodge mechanic to learn enemy attack patterns, then graduate to actual parries against those enemies, which rewards 1 AP. It’s not necessarily Soulslike in difficulty, but it’s certainly a fun evolution for turn-based games that prevents a player from turning their brains off before they get to go on offense again. 

This opens up some interesting possibilities, too. In a typical game, running to an area where enemies are much stronger could result in players getting one-shot and needing to go elsewhere. But here—enemies actually have to hit the player for that to happen. 

It’s not just attacks and defense, of course. Players can find and equip up to three Pictos for stat boosts (or status effect bonuses, etc.) and Lumina abilities to any of the characters. Gear, including weapons, also include standard-fare RPG things, including elemental affinities. 

It all makes for an extremely engaging blend of turn-based action in real-time. There’s a strong sense of continued skill improvement as the game progresses and players get the better of tougher and tougher enemies. 

And frankly, it doesn’t get boring. Being on the defensive in a smart manner is incentivized and enables going on the offensive, too. A deep mixture of skills, gear and overall party construction is here, too, meaning player choice is at a high in the best way, too. 

Story and More

Gustave, Maelle and the other protagonists are the latest attempting to stop the Paintress, who annually paints a number—all people of that age perish. 

Given that this is Expedition 33, one can see where this is going.

It doesn’t take long for the characters to endear themselves to the player, either. They don’t always get along, nor do they agree on how to go about things. But they bond over a horrific situation and the game greatly benefits for it over a lengthy runtime. 

The mystery around the Paintress herself does some serious heavy lifting for the narrative. But it’s a brilliant marriage of story intrigue and gameplay that makes it really, really hard to put down. 

Oftentimes, JRPGs and RPGs hit on serious subject matter that is, frankly, hard to take seriously because of art style, voice-acting or something else. Not here. This game is raw, mature and not afraid to lean into the setting.

Story delivery isn’t just cutscenes, either. Beyond general in-game chatter, players can make camp. There, interacting with party members is more than just forging relationships and getting nice story beats, too, as the effort put in during downtime can reward things like new Gradient Attacks.

Expedition 33’s world itself has some things to say, too. Beyond environmental detail that says much, there are also lots of fun things to collect, such as music that is playable in camp and even lore that greatly fleshes out the world.

Noteworthy, too, is side content discoverable through simple exploration. This includes combat challenges and otherwise. Some will bemoan how easy it might be to find things, sometimes in linear fashion, but the allure is the immersion within the world and any little extra detail it wants to breadcrumb along the way.

Equippable gear is one form of progression and provides much in the way of depth. This runs some standard, expected stuff, like stat bonuses, including damage modifiers that scale based on percentages. 

Those mentioned Pictos are another—mastering them permits permanently earning the boosts, at a cost. 

Another is a standard leveling-up process, where players can spend points to improve characters and the overall party. While it requires an item, players can reset these. This is similar throughout the progression, as the game encourages experimentation and in some cases can even demand changes through difficulty. 

Beyond an informative UI and standard set of options, Expedition 33 does well on the accessibility front with lots of little things to tweak. Actual game performance varies, with more intensive areas slowing things down at times, but usually not enough to take the player out of the experience. 

Conclusion

Expedition 33 is just one of those games. 

It’s one of those games that is oh-so rare and refreshing in its execution. The story is heartfelt, characters memorable and happenings unforgettable, yes. 

But the always-on combat, complete with risk-reward fun and backed by classical JRPG systems, is a fantastic blend that other games will attempt to emulate for years to come. 

Expedition 33 needs just a few minutes to make a lasting impression across the board. But it’s a few minutes that produce a smile because the player knows pretty quickly that it just stole them for dozens of hours. 

There will be heavyweights in Game of the Year discussions in 2025, no doubt. But Expedition 33 has locked in a spot and won’t be moved.