SHADES OF GREY

CLAIR OBSCUR: EXPEDITION 33 is hamstrung by real-time additions to its combat system

- Justin Wagner

You know how comedy geniuses and chronic dieters will say their favorite brand of chips is 'dangerous', because once you rip open the bag it's a swift trip to the bottom? That's sort of me with JRPGs; these games demand you live in them for a while, slowly fostering a bunch of level one nobodies into god-killing besties, and I'm susceptible enough to that demand I go into JRPGs prepared to get lost in them, love them and succumb to them.

Games like Kingdom Hearts and Xenoblade Chronicles etched lifelong preferences into my brain with their showy visuals, wild worlds, and massive casts. Clair Obscur's offbeat take on Belle Époque France promised blockbuster action, a cast of brooding sorcerers to mold into an apocalypse prevention squad, and a battle system that cleaves to genre standards while infusing them with twitchy QTEs and a dang gun I can fire in real time.

Even more tantalizing was its premise, which is so convoluted it's hard to explain concisely. Every year, a mysterious figure called the Paintress marks a giant tower with an increasingly low number, and everyone who's that age dies. Fantasy France has been sending expeditions to her base to figure out what's going on beneath the shadow of a magically warped Eiffel Tower, but none of them have returned. The latest of these squads, my squad, are mostly 33, and in the apparent final year of their lives. It's superlatively French, and I've never played anything quite like it. It's a somber, swashbuckling tale of loss with lots of surprises along the way, and the strong performances throughout bolster a plot which thrives on novelty—though too slight and short to amount to much more.