It will be difficult for me to write thoughts for this game, as it affected me on such an emotional level. The one thing I need to put at the forefront, however is that I just played one of the best games of all time. It was such a beautiful, emotionally intelligent exploration of grief and all its complexities, complications, and forms. Clair Obscur knows what type of story and experience it wants to provide the player, and every facet of the game works together to achieve that vision, it’s a near-perfect game.
I hesitate to even talk about Clair Obscur’s story because of how eloquently it’s told and how thoughtfully written it is. For me to do some summary would completely discredit this piece of art. There’s no wasted time, no filler, no purposeless content just to pad things out; every second of the script is deftly woven to tell one of the best stories I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing. The game made me feel so deeply, it’s such a somber story, and I was brought to tears more than I can count. But not all those tears came from sadness, there’s so much beauty too, and it’s the balance of it all, which plays into the idea of Clair Obscur, that made the game so memorable. On the surface, it gives an almost overwhelming depressive tone, but it’s not all for naught, through that sadness, the game can gorgeously explore the game's cast of characters and themes. Yes, that somberness does remain, but you find so much beauty in the characters' outlook on the world and relationships they’ve forged under the circumstances. The game is centered around grief, and grief is the culmination of love. Everyone in Clair Obscur is grieving in one way or another, and seeing what these characters grieve and how they grieve also shows us how they loved and still do love.
So to avoid speaking in vaugeitiesI need to go a bit into the story so that I can really lay out some of my thoughts. In Clair Obscur, every year this Paintress paints a number upon a monolith and everyone that age dies in what's deemed the gommage. It's a horrific event that the people have had to build their lives and culture around. An expedition of volunteers go out into the world to try to kill the Paintress each year in hopes of stopping the cycle of death. But the world is fractured, confusing, distorted, and filled with dangerous monsters called Nevrons, which make getting to the Paintress almost impossible. The game follows Expedition 33 and their journey to the Monolith, but that’s just the setup, the plot evolves and is unraveled layer by layer until something infinitely more complex comes to light. I know that this is just me writing and reading this, but I'm about to go into heavy spoilers.
The world in the game isn’t real, it's a Canvas created by a family of painters in the real world who have the magical abilities to turn what they paint into living worlds. This family experienced the tragedy of losing their son Verso in a fire, and grief completely wrecked all of them. The world of Clair Obscur is the last painting of Verso; a piece of his soul still remains within it. The Mother Alen, not being able to cope, threw herself into the painting and created a painted version of her son Verso and the rest of her family. The father Renior followed after her and is trying to destroy the painting so Alen can accept her son's death and start the grieving process. There’s also a heavy toll on the body when in the painted world, meaning if Alen remains for too long, she’ll die. She would rather die in a fantasy than face the reality of what happened to her son which just breaks my fucking heart. Renior and Alen get locked into a stalemate, Alen, as the Paintress each year paints that number as a warning that her strength is weakening, and she can only protect all those under that age from Renior.
Back in the real world, the two remaining daughters, Alica and Clea, are also grieving the death of Verso in their own way. And see their parents slowly degrading while in the painting, so, in fear of losing them too, Alica goes into the canvas in hopes of saving both her parents and the canvas. The canvas was a place Verso, Alica, and Clea would play as kids, which explains all of the weird little creatures and places which have now been distorted, and Alica, much like her Mother, doesn’t want to see it destroyed. Although upon entering, Alica loses focus and ends up being reborn as Maelle with no memories and lives a full life in the canvas until she joins Expedition 33. She gets a new family, grows up and forges deep bonds, and is ultimately adopted by a man named Gustave who acts as both father and brother. To her, all this is just as real as the real world which is such a fucked thing. She not only had to lose a brother in the real world but also had to slowly watch everyone she loved in the canvas die, the most heart-wrenching being Gustave. On the expedition, Maelle and the rest encounter the painted version of Renior and Alicia who are both painted in her Mother’s image. That alone gives us a lot of insight into how the Alen in her grief has distorted and created versions of her family that she sees as perfect. It’s both beautiful and horrifying, particularly with Alicia, who is painted as her scared and muted self, like how she is in the real world. It shows that Alen doesn’t see her daughter as some monster after the fire, Alica, how she is, is perfect to Alen regardless of her scars. Which the real Alica can’t even accept because when she paints herself, it's how she looked before the fire, clearly she longs to be normal again. Renoir is painted to be a protector of Paintress and caregiver to Alica, he’s still himself but just aligned with Alen instead of against her. I love how much of a presence Renoir has each time he comes into play. he’s powerful, intelligent, and measured, just how the real version is, the only difference is his motivations. He’s trying to stop the Expedition, but he’s not some stereotypical evil force, I mean, there’s no villains in this story, but even when he’s positioned as such, it’s so eloquently done. There’s a kindness or perhaps even sadness for each person he kills, and he takes no revelry, he tries to warn them, after all, he’s trying to save the people of this Canvas. Protect the final creations of his “Son”, he was made by the Alen to prolong the memory of Verso and ensure that the real Renoir doesn’t rob her of her grieving process.
Then, there’s a painted version of Verso, which is different from the rest because a piece of the real Verso is still within the painting. This version of Verso knows what he is though, he knows that this world is, he understands everything and fuck me….there is such a deep sadness within him. He’s tired, he’s ready to die, he wants everything to be over and for his family to let him go, move on, and give him the rest he deserves. Every word he mutters is pained; he is so ashamed of what he is and what he knows needs to be done to save his family from themselves. The Canvas has to be destroyed, the family can’t lose themselves in this fantasy; reality needs to be faced. He’s ready to pay the price. Oblivion is his recompense, but it kills him to know everyone else created in the Canvas will pay the same price. It’s a fate none of them deserve but must come to be regardless. Verso lies to everyone the whole game, which I understand. How could he face Maelle and tell her this world that she’s lived in for the past 16 years, that she’s found family and loved in, is all just a lie and a facade that's being abused by her Mother to hide from the grief. Even when the curtain drops and Maelle remembers everything after they kill the Paintress and force Alen to wake up, he still lies. Maelle understandably wants to protect this Canvas and all the people in it, she wants to spend time with her brother, regardless of whether it's the painted version of him or not.
Maelle doesn't want to move on, she prefers the fake world that she’s come to know over the real world with a broken family and a disfigured body. Her Father, the real Renior, pleads for her to come back; if she stays, she will die, and then he’ll lose another child. Renior loves Maelle so deeply, seeing her in this pain tears him apart, and he wants her to have her time to grieve, but she’s becoming consumed by it just like her mother. When Maelle refuses, Renoir does what he originally tried and failed to do when he came after Alen: destroy the Canvas. It’s a harsh act, but one entirely rooted in love. Renoir just wants his family back and to fast-track their grieving process so he no longer has to grieve as well. I get this, on one hand, I think he’s wrong in his methods, and trying to tell someone how to grieve isn't okay, but Maelle and her mother are killing themselves. I don't think I could watch someone I love destroy themselves either, it's incredibly human for both Maelle and Renior to do what they; we are imperfect creatures, we falter and fall.
Verso is split in the middle of them; he wants the same thing as Renior, but frankly, doesn’t have the strength to do what needs to be done. I think a part of that is his empathy and cowardice; he, too, loves Maelle and would do anything for her, maybe even let her kill herself to remain with her and be happy in the fantasy. He goes along with Maelle to stop Renior because, unlike Renior, he doesn't have the strength to tell Maelle no, and he feels deeply for the people of this Canvas; seeing them wiped out is a horror he doesn't want. It’s not until he sees the real Maelle slowly dying in the real world and his mother distraught at the thought of losing another daughter that he finally fully stands up to Maelle and tries to stop the last piece of Verso’s soul from painting. There are two endings, one where Maelle wins and one where Verso wins. Maelle’s ending is horrifying. Verso begs and screams for it all to be over; it broke me. I know that feeling. A few years ago, I screamed and pleaded in the same way to my parents, and I felt that deep, deep pain and desire for something to be over. For Maelle to deny him that and force him to live with that suffering is so incredibly unsettling and fucked, I felt so connected to Verso in that moment. Then we have to see Maelle’s “perfect fantasy”, with all her loved ones in the Canvas resurrected and happy, but Verso sits pained, forced to play the role of a long-dead brother while Maelle ever so slowly dies. Even Maelle herself looks pained, like the facade is starting to set in, and the hollowness of what the canvas truly is shows its teeth. Verso’s ending is bittersweet. Maelle lies in Vero’s arms as he comforts her; both are heartbroken at the prospect of losing each other. Maelle pleads like a scared child who’s afraid to face something new, and Verso just reassures her that everything is going to get better after this moment of pure pain. The gentleness Verso displays as he watches the final vestiges of his sister leave the canvas was just so well done. He hates himself one last time for hurting Maelle like this, even if it's for the best. It’s after that when Verso has to face the choice he just made for this Canvas, he embraces Esquie and Monoco one final time before they fade, but then has to watch Sciel and Lune lose everything they know and fade into nothingness. That’s the part that sucks most, both of them deserve life just as much as Maelle and what Verso did is not fair to them. But Sciel seems to understand and accept that she’s not real, I think she respects the choice Verso makes and wouldn't want to live a lie of a life anyway. Lune, though, is just defeated. She’s smart enough to understand why Verso made the choice, and that there’s nothing to be done, but she fades away with resentment, and it was uncomfortable to watch. All that's left is for Verso to relieve the final piece of his soul from painting, he holds the hand of himself, and the final remnants of Verso perform the final Gommage. It all wraps up by seeing Maelle, or now Alcia, and the rest of her family put to rest Verso. They stand there together as a family, still broken but united in their grief, and the true healing process can now begin.
I’d be remiss to not talk about the rest of the party members. I've spent most of the time writing about the higher-level characters and plot, but neglected the core of the game. The people of the Canvas, who through them we get to explore this incredibly well-realized world and see different types of grief. The Dessendre family all were grieving very differently, but shared the same loss. the rest of the cast shows us ways grief can manifest differently. Grief is a constant force in the lives of Gustave, Sciel, Lune, and the rest. It comes around like clockwork, every relationship formed is done so with the knowledge that the time you have is limited, that much sooner than you’d like, you will lose that person to the Gommage. It completely changes the nature of relationships, families, and friends. Each moment is precious. I loved a conversation Lune and Sciel had about what it means to have kids. With the clock ever ticking down, the longer you wait to have a child, the shorter their life is and their time with their parents is lessened. Is it worth it to have children? To inflict the trauma of seeing your parents die when you are only a child, then more so to know that your child won’t even live to be your age. It's a dark world, and every character is carrying deep sorrow, but that is what makes them so memorable. Despite the horrifics, they've found reasons to live, love, and hope for a better tomorrow.
Gustave is our lynchpin and conduit into the world and characters that the game will ultimately explore so deeply. He’s a genuine, kind soul, a good man in every sense of the word, but not without his faults. He ran away from the women who loved him, kept her distant because she wouldn't bring kids into this world. He threw himself into his work of preparing the expeditions to kill the paintress, grooming the next generation to succeed if he’s to fail. All distractions that occupied his time, leaving no time to repair his relationship with the girl he loved so deeply, all until her Gommage. The game opens on that day, as we see Gustave both rekindle and lose his relationship with Sophie, it's tragic and immediately shows us what we are fighting to stop. Gustave is also a father figure and brother to Maelle; he took her in and is determined to do everything in his power to protect her on the Expedition. Gustave is a character who we don’t get to be with for a long time, but his impact and values ripple through each and every character the whole game.
Lune is a character with an analytical exterior; she’s always being the voice of reason and can keep a steady head when those around her begin to crack under the weight of it all. It's both her greatest strength and weakness in the story, but underneath all that is a child that longs for a love her parents never gave her. Lune was raised by people who expected greatness, and their definition of greatness was strict. They expected her to follow in their footsteps, to be the one who carries the family's legacy when they fall. Lune didn’t get to decide who she was going to be; she was told. That’s something in which she wrestles with, everything she is was determined by her parents, she's not sure if who she is is because of her or them. That creates a different sort of grief, yes, she loved her parents, but there’s also deeply rooted resentment. When she learns about their final moments, there’s less sadness and more anger, anger that they died thinking about her, but not in the way she wanted. her parent's final words were about how Lune will finish what they started. Lune just wants someone to love her for who she truly feels she is, not who her parents made her be. She’s an exploration of a very different and harsher grief, which I can understand.
Sciel is the free spirit of the group, the one who can muster a smile in the face of it all, no matter how bad the circumstances might be. That’s because if she doesn't smile, she’ll lose herself, drowning in her pain. More than any other character, she knows loss, and she knows how it can overcome a person, which is why she tries to be a cheerleader and unmovable beacon of support for those around her. Sciel doesn't want others to feel the way she did, to do the thing she attempted to do. I don’t think I need to spell out what she went through and the way she grieved. She's an exploration of what happens when you give in to the pain and how it will forever change you. I think she’s such a thoughtfully written character, one I didn't understand or appreciate until the her facade dropped just a little bit.
Monoco is in many ways a character of levity and brings some much-needed tonal diversity. He lets us see a different side of Verso, one not so drowned in pain. He’s Verso’s best friend and has been with him since the beginning. Monoco knows the truth and is someone who can be confined in. His character lets us get scenes that remind us that these characters are more than just conduits for the plot and themes, they are three-dimensional characters who can joke and just let their guard down, he brings out the human moments. That’s not to say Monoco is without depth himself, he gives us insight into what it means to be a gestreal and the cycle of life and death, which is a part of their life. When a Gestreal dies, they can be reborn, but they come back without their memories and lose much of who they are. It lets us see what we grieve is not the person themself but the moments we share and the bond we form. Monoco has to watch his child, who was once his mentor, be reborn with no memory of who is, the body and personality remains, but the mind is barren, nothing remains of the person they once were. I think this is a commentary on Alzheimer's, how watching someone lose their mind is just as traumatic as losing someone, full stop.
Then there’s Esque, who is just kindness and love incarnate. He, no matter what, will be your friend and be there for you to confide in. His outlook on life is so pure and loving, he balances out the darkness all the characters carry. Esque is a representation of Joy in world so devoid of it, and thats all I think I really want to say on his character.
I really could talk about this story and its character forever, but through writing all this out, I think I've gathered an understanding of why this game resonated so much with me, and I haven't even talked about the actual game yet.
Gameplay is just as perfect as the writing. It’s like if Final Fantasy, Dark Souls, and Persona had a child, birthing the perfect JRPG. Combat pulls heavily from Persona, keeping all the style and depth but swapping an anime style with a realistic art direction heavily inspired by Hidetaka Miyazaki's games. But Clair Obscur adds another layer of depth with blending real-time inputs like dodges, parries, counterattacks, and jumps into the turn-based formula. So you get all the thoughtful planning and strategy that comes from turn-based, but with added elements of skill and reflexes close to a souls-style game. At first, it's overwhelming and can seem like a high skill barrier, but the game encourages you to learn with auto saves right before each battle and no real death penalty besides time wasted. Failing is part of the process, and chances are you won’t beat a boss on your first go; you have to learn not only their weakness and attacks but also attack patterns so you can counter and prevent damage.
Each turn, you have the choice to either do a normal attack, which will net you AP, or use an ability that costs AP. Generally, perfect dodges and parries will get you AP alongside hitting the enemy with a base attack. You can also target weak points on enemies with ranged attacks that cost AP but won’t advance your turn. So let's say you have 8 AP, you can fire off two shots, then use an ability that costs 6 AP before your turn ends. When it's the enemy's turn, you stay active, which is both a good and bad thing. You have the chance to avoid all damage if you read their attacks right and do the corresponding counter at the right time. You can do damage to them with counterattacks from perfect parries, gradient counters, and jump counters, also netting you AP for when it's your turn again. When you do something perfectly or attack in the right way(there are many factors), you build up a special bar which will give access to very strong attacks that unlock through a social link system. These attacks can change the tide of battles and don’t use up a turn, so basically like an ultimate ability. Regular abilities can do all sorts of things, some will do elemental, physical, dark, or light damage, buff allies, debuff enemies, attack one target or multiple, and so so much more. These abilities are all perfectly designed and make combat endlessly interesting, and you can create crazy builds and strategies with everything on display. A character can lean into any role you want and do just about whatever you want, no matter the party composition. with smart thinking, you can create a deadly composition. Each party member has their unique skill tree alongside a class “gimmick” that further distinguishes their playstyle. So, for a brief overview, Lune builds up elemental charges to use on abilities to do extra damage or unlock an additional layer of the ability. Verso has a grading system; the more hits he lands, the higher the grade, and the more he takes, the lower the grade. Different abilities get an extra bonus depending on your grade, the lower AP abilities benefiting from lower grades and vice versa for high AP abilities. Maelle has a stance system, one lowers incoming damage and reduces outgoing, one is balanced with you doing slightly more damage with a good amount of protection, then one goes all in on damage but leaves you open. Different skills will switch you to different stances, and depending on the stance, certain abilities will work better than others. Sciel has a card system in which some abilities will apply cards, and others will consume cards to do a more advanced version of the ability. the cards you can stack, the more benefits you get when you spend them. Monoco is sort of like a blue mage from Final Fantasy, when you kill an enemy while he’s in the party, Monoco will steal their attacks and then, in combat turn into them to do their abilities. On top of that, he also has a combat wheel which spins, and whatever mark you get correlates to an ability and will boost its effects. Then, finally, Gustave operates on this charge system, which once full gives him access to a super-strong attack, but some of his abilities will take or give charges, requiring you to balance spending and saving.
I don’t want to get too lost in the sauce talking about the combat, but it is just that good. I think to save time, I'll skip talking about the leveling and weapons, albeit briefly mentioning that each character has a huge swath of weapons that have unique perks and visuals. What I really need to talk about though is the Pictos and Lumina system which is just a fancy way of saying perks, but fuck me is it good and the main reason why build crafting is so complex and deep in Clair Obscur. While exploring the world, defeating enemies, doing quests, and shopping, you'll come across Pictos, which are essentially perks. There are endless amounts of Pictos all changing your gameplay in big and small ways, I seriously can’t even begin to talk about all the things they do because I'd be writing forever, but you can make any sort of build imaginable with how many and well-designed they are. You can only have 3 Pictos equipped on a character at one time, though, so the kicker is once you win 4 battles with that Picto equipped, it becomes a Lumina, which is a passive perk. These passive perks can be equipped and shared on any party member, but they have a cost ranging from 1-40, depending on how powerful the perk is. At the start, you'll only have 10 or so points, so what passive perks you can have on is limited, but there's a way to get more points, and by the end of the game, each of my characters could hold 100’s of points. Meaning I was able to equip tons of completely game-changing perks and craft the perfect party members, the amount of fine-tuning it allows is insane. What Luminas you equip will transform everything from how the character plays, what weapons they do, and just the flow of battle. I can not sing this system's praises enough, it made exploring and build crafting addictive. Before I stop talking about combat, I need to praise enemies; on a visual level alone, they are immaculate. Clearly, many of them have Miyazaki's dark twisted, yet beautiful flair, but blended with Clair Obscur's French painting Aesthetic, I mean these enemy designs are gonna go down in the history books for their iconic looks. Furthermore, though, the actual combat design is superb with so much variety in attacks and reactions. I never once got tired of fighting enemies because they are constantly evolving and doing new interesting things. Encounters are all damn near perfect with how they challenge, teach, and ask you to use all the tools in your tool box. Then the bosses take all of that but give a visual and technical treat, truly some of best boss fighting in the genre, not sure who they pulled this shit off. The turn-based combat is just perfect in every sense.
Exploration is a love letter to Final Fantasy or other classic JRPGs with just a dash of Dark Souls thrown in for good measure. It's all connected by the overworld, a feature largely left behind by modern RPGs in favor of open worlds. But Clair Obscur says fuck all that and brings the overworld into the modern 3D era of JRPGs with such grace. When you enter the overworld, the camera perspective switches to a wide 3rd person angle with some clever effects to make it seem kinda top-down 2D while still preserving the 3D characters and map itself. You get to run around it with big versions of your character and eventually control Esque, who serves the role of car, boat, and airship. Esque really blows open the overworld, letting you fly anywhere and explore; it's such a callback to the tradition of the Airship in Final Fantasy. They start you off by having to navigate the traditional way, and only towards the end of the game are you awarded the ability of flight to let you see the world in a whole new way and really explore the nooks. I loved it! The overworld does what you'd expect and showcases the entire content truncated down, yes, it does look silly, but that kind of charm. Plus, they are able to show all these beautiful biomes and landmarks off outside of the dungeons and give a sense of the actual flow of the world and the distance that your characters are traveling. And let me tell you, this content is absolutely beautiful, it's easily one of the most interesting worlds I've ever seen, with so much passion and creativity gone into the art direction. If they just showed off the world in the wide linear levels, sure, it would have been beautiful, but how it all fit together would be hard to understand. This overworld lets the full vision be put on display, allowing the player to really grasp the chaotic beauty of Clair Obscur’s world. The overworld itself is composed of multiple big and small land masses separated by ocean, and above are a bunch of floating islands to explore once you can fly. There's a ton of “dungeons” (which is what I am just going to call the levels in the game from here on out) that you can enter. Dungeons are really reminiscent of traditional Final Fantasy levels, going for a linear to wide linear approach, but never giving you massive zones to explore. It's a lot like FF 13 or even FF 16, but executed a whole lot better. There’s a checkpoint system with flags that restore your health, but respawn enemies, which is why I said it's a bit like a souls game. Most of the time, you follow a main path, but tucked away there are side areas, secrets, and side quests aplenty to find, which always have great rewards. You have a grapple mechanic alongside a few other traversal tools to keep the level design interesting. I do think the level design is the weakest part of the game, but that's really not saying much with how great this game is, like it's still very good. There’s a fuck load of environmental diveristy and that alone makes dungeons interesting to explore and they use all the traversal tools and side activities in unique ways as to keep things interesting. Despite me saying the level design is the weakest part of the game, I still think these are the best dungeons I've played in a JRPG. A lot of these dungeons, the main path will take you to but equally so a lot of them are entirely optional, with optional ones being just as good if not better than the main dungeons, housing some of the best level design and boss fights in the game. It's doubly true for the optional endgame dungeons which have some crazy bosses and challenges to overcome while also really expanding upon the narrative. A lot of the main dungeons are focused on keeping you moving from beat to beat narratively, as to keep the pacing enjoyable but the optional dungeons really let loose and get creative with the gameplay. The story is the focus on the main path and they don’t bog you down with a ton of padding or optional encounters but all the side content is largely focused on the gameplay experience since the main path is so tight with its narrative. Back to the overworld, you can find all manner of secrets and collectibles. There’s small side locations that might have a audio log or collectible but really are just there to give you an up close look at a part of the continent when there’s not a full dungeon to show it off. Secret bosses are strewn throughout for you to tackle, little upgrades and gear is hidden behind things only Esque can access, secret shops, a town, there’s fun mini games that give silly gameplay objectives with silly rewards, and then all of that optional endgame content which is incredibly interesting and detailed. While in the overworld you can camp anywhere, this is the location where most of the character bonding and social systems take place. You can talk to your companions and really connect with them, progress social links, there’s miss able cutscenes that make the characters and tone more 3 dimensional, you can listen to music found in the world, upgrade all your shit, write in a journal, remember your objective, and just take a break. Its the quintessential RPG camp mechanic that so many great RPGs have and Clair Obscur of course had to include their own fantastic version of it. “
I'm sure I could keep writing about this game forever but I think I'm nearing the end, except I have to discuss the music. No words can express the impact this soundtrack has had on me, as I write this I'm listening to it. It is the most beautiful composition I've ever heard, each piece of music is amazing and works in harmony with the game. There’s no doubt that the game made me emotional countless times, not only because of the writing and performances but also from the music accompanying it. I don’t really know how to talk about music in a deep manner so what I say here means nothing but nonetheless ... .The main themes are haunting and tragic, yet have a grace and beauty that capture the core of the game. Every character has their own theme which is eloquently composed to encompass who they are as characters and emotions they explore throughout the game. Then all the ambient tracks just effortlessly capture the artistic direction of the game and made me want to cry while exploring. It creates such a strong throughline with every part of the game, the composer must have deeply understood what this game was and its expertly echoed throughout the score. The world and themes of Clair Obscur are so deeply intertwined with the music, I don’t think this game would have resonated as hard as it did without the music, in many ways I think it’s the best part of this perfect game and certainly my favorite soundtrack ever.
In fact Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 just might be my favorite game ever. Fuck, thats wild.
