Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Gravel said:

Yeah, I've been trying to figure it out too. I don't know if maybe this is a story game or something? I've never really been into those though.

I can't really figure out what the appeal is. I don't think it looks bad though. There's been tons of games where it's seemed obvious to me, like Diablo 4 or Starfield where everyone was sucking each other's dicks about it, I said it looked like shit, and there was massive backlash until 6 months later and they're all "oh yeah, this actually was shit."

This one looks like it's actually probably a really good game, but it also seems niche. And so the widespread acclaim for it by everyone is confusing, unless I'm just wrong about the niche and it actually does have wider appeal?

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Yeah this is just the way I have largely felt about the online gaming community since the PS4/One gen. Seems like for about the past decade the type of games that often get heavily praised and hyped by gamers and journalists are rather niche for having such widespread acclaim. I think this really just shows off how loud some spaces are and the type of bubbles they can attract.

It seems like more than ever there's this bandwagon that just goes from latest new hyped/praised game to the next one as soon as that releases. That and a lot of these games seem to be for the type of people who enjoy "deep" games, like gaming experiences heavy on story based content. That and action/RPG's in general seem like they have been highly popular for a long time now among the AAA online gaming community.

I guess my problem is I have felt largely burned out on the type of games that seem to get all the attention lately when it comes to the AAA scene. I think this is why I have gotten so interested in the AA/indie scene, the type of games they make just feel like a breath of fresh air compared to what all the AAA studios seem to make.

I have noticed a big divide between the two communities as well. Both seem to be rather large and loud in their own spaces, but they definitely have their own spaces on the internet. Like the type of people who are into today's AAA usually hang out on the big gaming sites and popular forums, while the people who are into indie/AA stuff are often on Steam, Youtube, and social media platforms with word of mouth being a big driving force behind popularity there.

IMO this is just gaming today. Either you're with the big AAA media and developments or you're going against it. In the AAA space I am usually seeing a lot of gatekeeping and pretentious attitudes, while the AA and indie scene seems to be far more relaxed where people simply focus on what they personally have fun with. I guess the AAA scene just no longer has any pull with me.

Chimney said:

I think my only gripe is that I wish there was some better form of tracking on the map for completions sake.

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Agree. Only thing I've noticed is that getting everything from an area will label it as a POI on your map rather than just being an icon.

Tasty The Treat said:

This is one of those new games where it's like the gaming community is trying to hype it up but I just can't give a shit. Nothing about it looks like the sort of thing I'd be into, and there has just been so many games like this in recent years as well. I mean hey if you're into it and you like it enjoy, don't let me stop you lol, but this has been the only thing people seem to be talking about right now besides Switch 2 pre-ordering. That just makes me realize how quickly everyone has moved on from all the other games all the sites and journalists have been trying to hype up lately. It really feels like we're just getting the same sort of games with a push for the "consume latest product, get excited about next product" mentality.

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Video games are being released at a rate of 50+ a day on average with a few dozen "big" ones on the radar every year so of course the game news cycle/influencer shit is going to constantly barrage you with one after the other and doubly so for big name studios/triple A. Like all news you spend time looking into it with trusted sources and ignore the rest.

If you're a variety gaming chad and not a one genre andy or autist who is still putting in hundreds/thousands of hours into old shit with no updates then it's easy to see the appeal of this game and know it actually deserves the hype even if it's not something that sparks interest to you personally.

"Niche"?

Have you fuckers never played a JRPG? Holy shit. Has it really just been that long since one was enjoyable that we forgot they exist? People are in here acting like this game is some mind-bending mystery they've never seen before and can't figure out.

Chimney said:

Video games are being released at a rate of 50+ a day on average with a few dozen "big" ones on the radar every year so of course the game news cycle/influencer shit is going to constantly barrage you with one after the other and doubly so for big name studios/triple A. Like all news you spend time looking into it with trusted sources and ignore the rest.

If you're a variety gaming chad and not a one genre andy or autist who is still putting in hundreds/thousands of hours into old shit with no updates then it's easy to see the appeal of this game and know it actually deserves the hype even if it's not something that sparks interest to you personally.

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50+ a day? You must be throwing mobile phone gaming and shit like Switch shovelware into the mix. Pretty big difference between that and the type of indie/AA games that get attention. Also feels ironic to call this something that appeals to a "variety chad" when AAA seems to be focused on the same few genres all the time. Pretty sure most people who actually enjoy variety are over the critically acclaimed AAA slop by this point. Going for every big AAA release to the next one as soon as it releases comes off as some type of "one genre Andy/autist" behavior after seeing the type of games that scene always seems to be promoting.

But hey, if that sort of thing appeals to you and you genuinely have fun consuming latest AAA product and getting excited for next AAA product, well more power to ya I guess. I just can't see the point in going from latest game to latest games anymore, especially when most latest games seem to be incomplete and needing months of updating to feel finished. That said I am sure this game is deserving of praise, not going to attack it for that, I just can't understand this mindset of only being interested in the latest AAA hype.

Kirun said:

"Niche"?

Have you fuckers never played a JRPG? Holy shit. Has it really just been that long since one was enjoyable that we forgot they exist? People are in here acting like this game is some mind-bending mystery they've never seen before and can't figure out.

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I guess not. I went and looked at the JRPG category in Steam, and the only ones that I've played were Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, and those were a good 25 years ago. That kind of weeb shit just doesn't appeal to me, and I would 100% call it niche.

I'm not counting mobile at all. This is just via steam release independent of any other which was around ~20k games last year and it's only growing. If we include all platforms/devices everywhere it's probably way higher. Even if most of the games won't see the inside of someones harddrive they are being made and released in numbers greater than ever and as accessibility becomes easier/cheaper it's going to continue to grow. So obviously we're going to see more games being hyped in general this include indie titles which I see talked up plenty as well or I'd never find half of them due to again the abundance of releases per year.

I variety game around 30-50 games a year (41 on my steam replay for 2024 + whatever else I played on Gamepass). All genres, indie or big name it doesn't matter. I don't get caught up in any of the simping for studios or politics etc. My only care is that the game entertains me, everything else is just noise, but even then it's easy to see when games are subjectively good/bad/inbetween even if I don't care for them.

Also this game is made by an indie studio man so why are you still ranting about triple A in it. Read a book or something God bless.

Tasty The Treat said:

50+ a day? You must be throwing mobile phone gaming and shit like Switch shovelware into the mix. Pretty big difference between that and the type of indie/AA games that get attention. Also feels ironic to call this something that appeals to a "variety chad" when AAA seems to be focused on the same few genres all the time. Pretty sure most people who actually enjoy variety are over the critically acclaimed AAA slop by this point. Going for every big AAA release to the next one as soon as it releases comes off as some type of "one genre Andy/autist" behavior after seeing the type of games that scene always seems to be promoting.

But hey, if that sort of thing appeals to you and you genuinely have fun consuming latest AAA product and getting excited for next AAA product, well more power to ya I guess. I just can't see the point in going from latest game to latest games anymore, especially when most latest games seem to be incomplete and needing months of updating to feel finished. That said I am sure this game is deserving of praise, not going to attack it for that, I just can't understand this mindset of only being interested in the latest AAA hype.

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Chimney said:

I'm not counting mobile at all. This is just via steam release independent of any other which was around ~20k games last year and it's only growing. If we include all platforms/devices everywhere it's probably way higher. Even if most of the games won't see the inside of someones harddrive they are being made and released in numbers greater than ever and as accessibility becomes easier/cheaper it's going to continue to grow. So obviously we're going to see more games being hyped in general this include indie titles which I see talked up plenty as well or I'd never find half of them due to again the abundance of releases per year.

I variety game around 30-50 games a year (41 on my steam replay for 2024 + whatever else I played on Gamepass). All genres, indie or big name it doesn't matter. I don't get caught up in any of the simping for studios or politics etc. My only care is that the game entertains me, everything else is just noise, but even then it's easy to see when games are subjectively good/bad/inbetween even if I don't care for them.

Also this game is made by an indie studio man so why are you still ranting about triple A in it. Read a book or something God bless.

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I wouldn't be calling this an indie project when it had a miltimillion dollar budget with a 30+ dev team and backed by a publisher with a co-ownerwhip model with well over a hundred million invested from a major Chinese shareholder.

I mean is this some massive AAAA budget massive team development like we see from publishers like Ubisoft and EA? Clearly not, but it's also far from being some small indie development as well. Hard to even call this AA, it's basically entry level AAA so I think it's honest to have it tied in with all that, especially given the publishers pull with gaming journalism and ties to first party companies to generate hype. Heck it's a day one Gamepass release. Clearly it's got a lot of industry support.

Lenas said:

Agree. Only thing I've noticed is that getting everything from an area will label it as a POI on your map rather than just being an icon.

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Should just have to enter the zone to have get named on the world map. There were several zones with "Danger" on them when I went to zone.. but noped out before going in and they never got named until after I actually entered the zone, got my ass kicked and left til later.

Rather than trying to label the game as a "jrpg", I think it would be better to just describe it as a turn based rpg, kinda like bg3(?).

disregard

Gravel said:

I guess not. I went and looked at the JRPG category in Steam, and the only ones that I've played were Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, and those were a good 25 years ago. That kind of weeb shit just doesn't appeal to me, and I would 100% call it niche.

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Sure, I guess you could call them "niche" now. But by that metric so are RTS games, MMOs, etc.

During the height of the PS1 and PS2 days, I feel like JRPGs were everywhere.

I'm around 22 hours and nearing what almost certainly is going to be a point of no return so I'm gonna do all the extra battles I skipped now.

Storyline weapon you get toward the end of act 2 is busted.