I was wrong about Clair Obscur, it is really a once-in-a-decade game

[Blackened Halo]

Clair Obscur does not make a good first impression. Big headed characters are weird, the combat system feels annoying when you try it for the first time, the population in the streets of Lumiere consists of a few NPC copied all over the place making same movements at the same time which totally destroys the illusion of a realistic environment and overally the story feels too rushed. Characters talk about people, events and places you had no reason to know because you just started the game; the game immediatelly tries to drain you emotionally out too much witthout any reason and you just dont feel anything because you see the characters for the first time.

However, the game gets better, much better. When you feel and see the world map for the first time, then you begin to notice, this is a beautiful game indeed. IMHO one of the best world maps in RPG genre period. The game starts to open and then it finally feels like a grand expedition, tho everything "optional" at that time are only just superbosses. Then some minigames appear to add a bit of variety to the gameplay, you notice that the mansion you "mandatorily" entered for the first time plays a bigger role in all of this and opening the "optional" doors . What is that empty frame in one of the halls? You begin to see Clair Obscur has much more to say than meets the eye.

Then you meet the big wine-spitting thingie which serves as a vehicle ..ehm upgreadable vehicle and the game finally opens with even more optional places, especially when the lazy dude learns to fly. At the end of Act II I realized I really enjoy the game, I finally understood why the game had acted like an unbearable emotionally pushing chore. And now that I can fly I fully fell in love with it.

Do I consider this game a masterpiece? From the story and music-side, YES, from the gameplay-side, NO. I still hate the combat system. It is annoying. I only enjoy the game because I play on Story difficulty, which is, as every easy difficulty, just for loosers. But this is the only way I can finally enjoy it. However there are many fantastic game which are now even considered classics but have a questionable combat system. For example, Planescape: Torment or Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. Fantastic games but their combat systems are their weakest points. I think, at least for me, Clair Obscur belongs to the very same category. Also I do not like the minigames here. They are average at best. You just cannot make a minigame focused on jumping when jumping in your game is so clunky.

It is a miracle that a team of 30 could create a game with such civil and grounded (realistic) conversations between the characters. They act normally, as if they were real. They act as normal people, not like video game characters. Also the cutscenes are so amazingly done, they can be cut into a movie without any doubt. The animations, the movement of the characters, the expression on their faces. Thats ridiculously too good. The guys are from Ubisoft right? How many talents like them Ubisoft still hides?

Yeah and the music. One of the best soundtracks of all time. PERIOD. I just cannot believe that they found a random guy on Soundcloud who composes music just for fun and that he was all of a sudden capable of composing such a grandiose score that you cannot get out of your head. It seems too perfect to be real. Or just the stars were aligned in the perfect position so everything just clicked together perfectly.

I felt in love with Clair Obscur because of it civility, humble emotions (even the game can push it too much at the times) and the music. Yeah, the game is a pure art, even if sometimes I really wanted it to be just a game that does not want to act as if every its cutscene HAVE TO be on par with Aerith' death scene whatever it costs.

Also I must thank the devs for not having any minimaps, compass and quest markers in the game!! Minimaps, quest markers and compasses - when they are not togglable - are basically a cancer of modern gaming. So Clair Obscur is finally a game that does not treat the players like idiots! However I wish the quest marker on the world map was togglable. Just one small nitpick.

[['w']]

what a pamphlet mark

[SALZHERZ]

He is HONEST about his opinnion about the game. Award by me.
Respect, Sir.

[Blackened Halo]

Originally posted by SALZHERZ:

He is HONEST about his opinnion about the game. Award by me.
Respect, Sir.

thank you!

[Some Rando]

Does flying make overworld traversal a lot faster? (I saw the review in that one guy's thread said it didn't really help enough.)

See I'm the opposite, I have a lot of fun during combat, but find running around collecting stuff too slow and trying to platinum the game is kind of killing my enjoyment in a way. (Which I probably should have figured out faster, there are a lot of games where that's the case.)

Also, big respect for not doubling down, and being open-minded.

[benj]

Good on you for sticking with it. It's not a perfect game by any means, but I'm thrilled with how it turned out.

[Some Rando]

Originally posted by benj:

Good on you for sticking with it. It's not a perfect game by any means, but I'm thrilled with how it turned out.

Eh what the heck, I wanted to save up for 100k points, but I'll give a point award to OP for this.

It's genuinely refreshing to see someone who can be both open-minded and humble enough to admit maybe he made a mistake. Also refreshing to see the community forgive. This is a nice community.

[Blackened Halo]

Originally posted by Some Rando:

Does flying make overworld traversal a lot faster? (I saw the review in that one guy's thread said it didn't really help enough.)

See I'm the opposite, I have a lot of fun during combat, but find running around collecting stuff too slow and trying to platinum the game is kind of killing my enjoyment in a way. (Which I probably should have figured out faster, there are a lot of games where that's the case.)

Also, big respect for not doubling down, and being open-minded.

Yeah, flying is pretty quick however understand that we are talking about the world map, only there you can fly.