Anybody here like popcorn? I like popcorn. I couldn’t really tell you why. I don’t actually like the taste of it – none of us do, that’s why we cover it in salt or sugar or caramel. Uncooked kernels can catch you unawares, rough fragments get stuck between your teeth, it’s not particularly filling, and it’s only actually enjoyable in the specific circumstance of being at the movies. In a way, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is my popcorn game.
I like Clair Obscur. Not sure I could tell you why. The upcoming JRPG (which it calls itself despite being French, and let’s not do this again) is the sort of game I want to be excited about, but as I search my soul, I’m not sure if I am. There’s something stopping me from fully connecting with it, and while I expected the Xbox Developer Direct to quiet that doubt, it has instead let it fester.
Clair Obscur Hasn’t Convinced Me, But I Want It To
To continue the popcorn metaphor, there’s the plain popcorn element of it. I like turn-based JRPGs, but again, do I, or do I like the salt or sugar or caramel? This is a huge genre and there are massive swathes of them I would never touch, either because of an aversion to the particular flavour of JRPG, or the fact it is entirely flavourless to begin with. Clair Obscur is not flavourless – there are, at the very least, a lot of ideas in there. The only question is whether this is salt or sugar.
Then there are those uncooked kernels and rough fragments. An uncomfortable sharp pang every now and then just as the going gets good, which makes you wary of each impending mouthful. This arrives in the form of Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn. An ambitious game with an art style clearly designed to mimic realism while being less graphically intensive and cheaper to produce, it had some good ideas but was stuffed with so many of them with seemingly no rhyme or reason that it fell apart in a chaotic mess all too quickly. Unfortunately, every time I look at Clair Obscur, I am reminded of Flintlock.
Firstly, they look very similar, and are likely each playing the same subtle trick. They also both share a publisher – Kepler Interactive – which may imply a shared design philosophy. Clair Obscur mixing turn-based battles with action combat and quicktime events seems cool on paper, but trailers thus far have failed to make it look adequately entertaining or explain its value or function. Many features in Flintlock, like its novel reloading system, could be described in the same way.
Can Clair Obscur Stand Next To Classic JRPGs?
Then we come to the big question – is it filling? When I first wrote about Clair Obscur, I wrote in praise of its unique storyline, wherein a magical painter chooses a number and all people of that age die (this time: 33), for the way it sidestepped a lot of JRPG tropes that suggest a lack of invention. Clair Obscur, if nothing else, is trying.
But the banter between party members in the recent trailer feels flat. I don’t like to say it sounds ‘like a video game’ in a derogatory sense, especially when what I want to say is that it seems way below the bar set by last year’s triple header of JRPGs in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Metaphor: ReFantazio, and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, but… it sounds like a video game. Tropey bickering, melodramatic stakes, and grasping at being cool instead of being real. Like popcorn, it will keep me busy for a while, but it will take more than that to satiate.
Its biggest redeeming factor might be whether or not I get to eat it at the movies. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is launching April 24, and will be free day one on Game Pass (as well as being available on PS5). Thus far, there is no other title in April that I have my eye on, and (though other games will join the party in the coming weeks as more release dates drop), the only clash I see is Doom: The Dark Ages, which offers decent breathing room with its May 15 release date. Clair Obscur is therefore a free game I’m curious about in a genre I like at a time when I expect to be available. If that’s not the perfect environment to play a video game, I don’t know what is.
- Released
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April 24, 2025
- Developer(s)
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Sandfall Interactive
- Publisher(s)
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Kepler Interactive