Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

[Aragorn]

I have fierce, fierce opinions on the right thing in that ending.

[NateDog]

I have fierce, fierce opinions on the right thing in that ending.

Talk to me.

Spoiler:

I went with Verso. Especially after "the boy" said he wanted to stop painting, my heart bled for him. It had to happen and that cycle had to end. I was quite surprised to see a lot felt the same way.

[Aragorn]

I have fierce, fierce opinions on the right thing in that ending.

Talk to me.

Spoiler:

I went with Verso. Especially after "the boy" said he wanted to stop painting, my heart bled for him. It had to happen and that cycle had to end. I was quite surprised to see a lot felt the same way.

For once, I agree.

Spoiler:

The game wraps you in an incredible meta fiction through that ending dilemma. We as players have grown incredibly attached to this fiction, this canvas, the people it inhabits - in a manner incredibly similar to the Dessendre family; and we are forced to confront our selfish desire vs the greater, but harsh good. Verso is ultimately right that the Dessendres incapability of dealing with their grief cannot be changed as long as the canvas remains, and the grieving 16 year old is not someone i'd trust with responsible use of the canvas. Layer it with painted Verso's pain, and real Verso's pain and the cyclic torture being forced upon him due to him being forced to paint to keep the world alive (even though painting was never his passion), there is no good choice but Verso's. Now imagine my surprise when I saw that the majority of the discourse is people thinking Maelle is the right choice. Fucking insanity. My boy Verso is ride and die.

I'm writing an article to iron out my feelings on this game since while there is the obvious first and second layers to the story, I kept thinking about it through the lens of art theory & author intent and there is a very interesting discussion to be had on how it comments on textual intentionalism vs reader interpretation.

[NateDog]

I have fierce, fierce opinions on the right thing in that ending.

Talk to me.

Spoiler:

I went with Verso. Especially after "the boy" said he wanted to stop painting, my heart bled for him. It had to happen and that cycle had to end. I was quite surprised to see a lot felt the same way.

For once, I agree.

Spoiler:

The game wraps you in an incredible meta fiction through that ending dilemma. We as players have grown incredibly attached to this fiction, this canvas, the people it inhabits - in a manner incredibly similar to the Dessendre family; and we are forced to confront our selfish desire vs the greater, but harsh good. Verso is ultimately right that the Dessendres incapability of dealing with their grief cannot be changed as long as the canvas remains, and the grieving 16 year old is not someone i'd trust with responsible use of the canvas. Layer it with painted Verso's pain, and real Verso's pain and the cyclic torture being forced upon him due to him being forced to paint to keep the world alive (even though painting was never his passion), there is no good choice but Verso's. Now imagine my surprise when I saw that the majority of the discourse is people thinking Maelle is the right choice. Fucking insanity. My boy Verso is ride and die.

I'm writing an article to iron out my feelings on this game since while there is the obvious first and second layers to the story, I kept thinking about it through the lens of art theory & author intent and there is a very interesting discussion to be had on how it comments on textual intentionalism vs reader interpretation.

Spoiler:

I honestly expected most would side with Maelle on this, Verso's decision is such a difficult one. Especially leaning into what you've mentioned regarding author intent, we've inhabited this world and loved those in it and grieved for those that have been lost either in front of us or in the past through the sacrifices they've made for the future. Deciding to destroy that entire world and everyone and everything in it is such a hard thing to do, especially from Verso's point of view because he has used Maelle and the others for this pursuit, and he is destroying himself after many years of wanting it. Wanting to be free of immortality and then finally reaching that point where it is achievable and going through with it to condemn Alicia to have to confront her guilt and the reality that Verso is finally completely gone.

I haven't watched Maelle's ending yet but I could guess what it would be like and what it would mean and from what I've read that was right. Living a "life" like that, tricking yourself into believing you will willingly leave it in time, I could never do it. I felt a lot for Sciel and Lune, but even with Sciel I felt as if she understood it. She seemed to get Verso better than the others (excepting Monoco and Esquie, but even they knew what he intended and accepted it).

[BigBrother]

Finishing Act 1 (I think)

Spoiler:

So...uh Gustave? Is this the best mid-game protagonist death since THAT one - yes, I'm referencing the original FF7. Metaphor did something similiar-ish with a character, but damn....FUCK.

[Suede]

New patch is out, it's got some pretty big changes.

Spoiler:

Simon Rematch

Players can now rematch Simon after defeating him!

Story Mode Balancing.

Story mode is our easiest difficulty setting.

Parry and dodge windows increased by 40%

Incoming damage reduced by 10% to 50%

Challenge Modifiers (Act III onward)
At flag checkpoints, players can now:

Limit max player damage to 99,999 or 999,999

Multiply enemy HP by x2, x5, x10, x20, x50, or x100

Bug Fixes (297 total, notable examples below)

Verso now gains Perfection correctly when in reserve

Simoso weapon will no longer cause lag due to memory leaks

General polish across collisions, terrain, and scripting

Cutscenes scale properly on ultrawide and non-standard resolutions

Fixed a bug where loading a save after resting at a different location would spawn the player at coordinate zero

Placeholder textures removed near Chromatic Boucheclier and his battlearena

Fixed performance drops from repeated resting on certain levels

Crash after dialogue sequences resolved

Fixed stability issues after extended play sessions

French voiceover now plays correctly when selected

System & Settings

Audio can now be muted or unmuted when the game is running in the background

Mouse and joystick sensitivity improvements

Manual save file renaming is now supported (EXPEDITION_XX format required. XX must be a value between 00 and 09.)

Localization

Rolling credits updated (added creature VO, refined IOI section)

Font size adjustments for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean

New strings added and minor text corrections implemented



Thank you all for your continued support. We hope you enjoy today's changes. If you have any new issues or want to report a bug, please continue using this form for us.


We continue!

~ The Expedition 33 Team

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/...?l=english

[BigBrother]

If anyone's looking for a giggle at my own incompetence.

Spoiler:

So. Act III. Just figured out now how Pictos and Lumina work. Was trying to figure out how the hell to share the limit breaker over my party, because having Maelle as the only character who can break 9,999 was making grinding to prepare for the final showdown....complicated and a fucking draaaaaaag.

For further incompetence, in my panic at thinking that we maybe shouldn't kill the Paintress after she cast protective magic on my party before we took her down, I googled to see if there were choices you could make. AI overview immediately showed Maelle's final choice. Fml.

[NateDog]

If anyone's looking for a giggle at my own incompetence.

Spoiler:

So. Act III. Just figured out now how Pictos and Lumina work. Was trying to figure out how the hell to share the limit breaker over my party, because having Maelle as the only character who can break 9,999 was making grinding to prepare for the final showdown....complicated and a fucking draaaaaaag.

For further incompetence, in my panic at thinking that we maybe shouldn't kill the Paintress after she cast protective magic on my party before we took her down, I googled to see if there were choices you could make. AI overview immediately showed Maelle's final choice. Fml.

That's rough. I've been there before many times with other games, I distinctly remember making a balls of the FFX sphere grid system and taking like 10-12 hours before I had any idea how much I had messed that up. Fucking Google AI though.

[Aragorn]

New patch is out, it's got some pretty big changes.

Spoiler:

Simon Rematch

Players can now rematch Simon after defeating him!

Story Mode Balancing.

Story mode is our easiest difficulty setting.

Parry and dodge windows increased by 40%

Incoming damage reduced by 10% to 50%

Challenge Modifiers (Act III onward)
At flag checkpoints, players can now:

Limit max player damage to 99,999 or 999,999

Multiply enemy HP by x2, x5, x10, x20, x50, or x100

Bug Fixes (297 total, notable examples below)

Verso now gains Perfection correctly when in reserve

Simoso weapon will no longer cause lag due to memory leaks

General polish across collisions, terrain, and scripting

Cutscenes scale properly on ultrawide and non-standard resolutions

Fixed a bug where loading a save after resting at a different location would spawn the player at coordinate zero

Placeholder textures removed near Chromatic Boucheclier and his battlearena

Fixed performance drops from repeated resting on certain levels

Crash after dialogue sequences resolved

Fixed stability issues after extended play sessions

French voiceover now plays correctly when selected

System & Settings

Audio can now be muted or unmuted when the game is running in the background

Mouse and joystick sensitivity improvements

Manual save file renaming is now supported (EXPEDITION_XX format required. XX must be a value between 00 and 09.)

Localization

Rolling credits updated (added creature VO, refined IOI section)

Font size adjustments for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean

New strings added and minor text corrections implemented



Thank you all for your continued support. We hope you enjoy today's changes. If you have any new issues or want to report a bug, please continue using this form for us.


We continue!

~ The Expedition 33 Team

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/...?l=english

I beat him legit, no cheese, no one shot builds, just good old fashioned pattern recognition. Immensely bullshit fight but also my favorite in the entire game. The high of beating him is insurmountable.

[BigBrother]

Just finished (story end anyway).

Spoiler:

I went with Maelle. It was an impossible decision, my heart was bleeding for Verso, I just sat there cycling through for a good five minutes. What swung it for me was the fact that your party had all fought so hard to live. I ultimately decided to give everyone, not just Maelle/Alicia, a chance to exist.

I didn't fully take into consideration the fact that Verso would be forced to paint for the rest of eternity.

I'm also pretty certain that I chose the wrong ending, because Alicia brining Verso back after he repeatedly said 'I don't want to live this life' is a monstrous thing to do. I've not replayed to see the Verso ending yet, might do tonight, we'll see. I've also still got side content/story stuff to do - I only got to level 70ish, I need to do the Clea stuff as I didn't find her, so I'm not fully finished.