Sincerely asking…why is everyone in love with this game?

[Kurt Thomas]

I’m not attempting to be a troll or farm responses with this. I’m genuinely curious. I’ve been playing the game for about 15 hours, and I’ve enjoyed it quite a bit….but I also have a few complaints that, for me at least, keeps it from this “masterpiece” everyone is saying it is.

-Traversal mechanics and animations are wonky…sprinting, turning, jumping, climbing and clambering are not great. They have this looseness to it that makes it feel like there’s no weight to the characters and they generally just feel awkward which makes platforming often frustrating…the Gestral Beach just not fun because of it

-The area level designs are okay and steadily growing on me more but they feel very limited. It reminds me of FFXIII. The aesthetics are appealing but the actual exploration is wanting in my opinion.

-The graphics are….good I guess? I think part of this is because of Nvidia driver problems but everything appears especially blurry despite turning off post-processing, using DLAA and messing around with the fix from GitHub. The fidelity underneath all the blur seems like it could be pretty good, but right now it seems only decent. I have a 5090 for reference so I shouldn’t have to compromise much if at all.

-The voice audio often doesn’t sync with the lips well in cutscenes. That could be related to the fact that they’re locked at 30fps, and I know there’s a fix for that I can try.

-Why is there no retry button for fights? Do I really need to keep traveling back to the place I died over and over?

-Why can’t I save manually?

-Could we have an option for transmog on unlocked weapons? It makes sense to use my best weapon but I’d rather use a sword rather than a wooden arm or something to that effect. I’m not knocking the art design or creativity, it’s just not my jam.

Again, I’ll reiterate in saying that I’m enjoying the game, but everyone saying it’s a masterpiece and already their GOTY….why?

If part of the rationalization to be presented is that this was made by a small team, then I’d preemptively say that’s not really valid. Sure, I’m not going to fault them for having less resources, but that doesn’t mean a game deserves higher praise for it. The whole claim that it was made by 30ish people seems a little insincere as well considering there are certainly more than 30ish names in the credits.

Edit 5/23/25:

Thanks to everyone who provided commentary without simply insulting me. I’m about 90 hours into the game now, nearing completion of the final act. My sentiment has shifted a bit, and I agree with a lot of what some of you had to say. I agree that this was a nice surprise considering the corporate push in the gaming industry where we often pay more for worse quality and in an incomplete package. And I agree that there is much more good than there is bad, but some if not all of my original complaints remain and have been added to. There are some QOL things I would definitely like to see post launch. And I still am not as gung-ho as everyone else about this being my immediate GOTY. But I do think it’s a great game and worthy of a lot of its praise.

[Kasamandl]

Ive played the game on gamepass. Its not a bad game, the story is interesting and it looks good. I am now at the act 2 boss, and i think i leave it there. It starting to drag itself now and its too much of the same. The game has this constant melancholy and there are no breaks from it. No real villages or cities like in TES or the witcher. It just keeps going and i am really exhausted at this point. I am not looking foward to play it anymore. I am aware that my opinion isnt very objective, but i really dont understand all the praise. Its good but its no masterpiece.

[Zyrconia]

Really? I think it has too much humor and lighthearted moments. It is the end of the world or something people and you only have a few months to live, focus!

But not in the main story... That is very gloomy and so far mysterious...

[Kurt Thomas]

Originally posted by Opodeldox:

Originally posted by Kurt Thomas:

I’m not attempting to be a troll or farm responses with this.

Then why dont you just read (user) reviews?

Because it’s easier to ask directly than sift through hundreds of pages that might not directly answer my question. But thanks for your insight.

[Genosse Kommissar]

I am here purely for the music, story, voice acting and art style.

From a technical point of view there are some things that I am not happy with but these are small complaints.

[Kurt Thomas]

Originally posted by 1sp33d:

Since you do genuinely seem to be sincere, I think you deserve an honest, thoughtful response, although firstly, I think I should address your points. Traversal is a skill/preference issue. Area design varies from extremely linear to somewhat more complex, you will probably like areas like the sky tower more. I turned off all of the post-processing effects at the beginning and that fixed the blurriness for me, ymmv. Devs're French the lips are probably synced to the French track. I have found myself occasionally wanting a restart button, but in the scheme of things, it's really not a big deal for me, as I usually spawn near the fight. As for saving and transmog I'm not sure why those decisions were done as they were but neither significantly impact my playthrough or opinion of the game. Although the lack of manual save is noteworthy, I think the autosave is fine and you can use it as a workaround if needs be.

I think this game is a masterpiece because it's the whole package. It's positively beautiful, with an original concept and excellent design chops aesthetically. The world they've built is interesting and brimming with possibilities that I look forward to exploring in future titles. The story and writing are great - just look at all the threads of people getting butthurt by the twist at the end of act I. The writers are skillful manipulators of their audience via narrative and it shows, and story-wise, the end of act I is just the beginning of the twists. I can't remember ever losing a character in the story sense, but getting an upgrade in the gameplay sense before, either. As far as said gameplay is concerned, I think it is well designed and balanced fine, I find it extremely engaging and fun although there are plenty of people that seem to consider themselves gameplay design experts that seem to think they could do better, lol. In fact, I would go as far as to say the fights are the most engaged I've ever been on the pure gameplay side of a JRPG-like game. Players are given plenty of tools to build around problems, so I don't know if gamers are just getting worse or bad players are more vocal or both, but getting through the game really is a skill issue, imho.

The real clincher for me though is the story. I'm a bit of a francophile, and it's just, so... French. That is to say, they really went all out on the emotional manipulation on this one, by exploring relationships and how they affect peoples emotional states and vice versa. This is a quintessential difference with how the French tend/like to make films/tell stories. In this instance it's not just the characters and the story, but our connection to them as players. This is one of the only games where I have cursed the writers (literally in my chair saying ♥♥♥♥ you) because of the plot, but understanding later that it did make sense in the overall scheme of things, as far as the artistic vision and major themes are concerned. I think the ending is fantastic as well (and obviously French af). It's not going to hit the same for everyone, but overall I think it's a great tale of adventure, joy, pain, suffering, loss and futility that can be encountered in life. It kinda makes me think of an allegory for the horrors of war, and yes, it is a sad story.

I hope this answer helps. I will be curious to see what you think once you've finished the game.

I appreciate your thorough response. I’m nearing the end of Act 2 now and I have around 50 hours in the game. My enjoyment has increased though my small gripes have grown a bit. Namely, parrying is broken in the sense it’s too powerful. It’s big damage with soooo many pictos/luminas attached to it…not to mention it makes dodging absolutely pointless. And the health pools on some bosses are ludicrous with the 9999 damage cap. I understand later the cap goes away but I kind of wonder why it was there in the first place.

[Genosse Kommissar]

Originally posted by Kurt Thomas:

And the health pools on some bosses are ludicrous with the 9999 damage cap. I understand later the cap goes away but I kind of wonder why it was there in the first place.

Probably for story telling purposes?
To show the difference in strenght later on.

[Apocalypse]

Simply, the enjoyment is much bigger, despite all the flaws than with all other games release this year so far for a lot of people.
it really is that simple. Make the best game that year, get called GOTY by the community. Just like Sven said.
If someone else thinks that Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 or Tempest Rising or whatever that's fine too. But Clair Obscur certainly feels very fresh, unique and endearing.

But who knows, it's only May, maybe Mario Kart World will be everyone's GOTY in the end.

[Divine.Iniquity]

Combat mechanics aside, it is a really polished game on release. Even the terrible idea of putting in real-time QTEs in turn-based combat was executed quite well and I can see what the developers were going for, even if I overall didn't like that design choice. How many other games have released recently that demonstrated this level of quality on release?

[Liberation]

Originally posted by Kurt Thomas:

I appreciate your thorough response. I’m nearing the end of Act 2 now and I have around 50 hours in the game. My enjoyment has increased though my small gripes have grown a bit. Namely, parrying is broken in the sense it’s too powerful. It’s big damage with soooo many pictos/luminas attached to it…not to mention it makes dodging absolutely pointless. And the health pools on some bosses are ludicrous with the 9999 damage cap. I understand later the cap goes away but I kind of wonder why it was there in the first place.

Some of the bosses might be worth coming back to later on :-)

[Johnathon Fortnite]

Aside from the gameplay requiring me to know how to play sekiro. It's a good game that isn't a piece of ♥♥♥♥ made by a company to eat up your wallet. It's pretty easy. I would've continued playing if the gameplay was actually turn based. Also it's completely yet again shown up the triple a market by being as popular as it is without even being that great.

[「 Boss 」]

xx90 nvidia user not understanding why non-AAA-tech-demos are people's GOTY.
Daring today, aren't we

[Tamatem77]

I will be the villain here (not for the sake of it though)... i think the reaction to this game is over the top tbh.

Hear me out...

Yes, I do recommend playing it for the following reasons: the artwork, the music, the drama/plot (mostly), some characters' powers/skills are cool, the addition of parrying and dodging to a JRPG which makes it more engaging (it does feel more like a JRPG then a western one a-la Baulder's Gate, Divinity...etc.).

Reasons I think I am not blown away by this game might fall within: I am not a JRPG fan...never been (although I love top-down RPGs and action RPGs), never liked games which mainly are about "here is an enemy per every 5 meter game area", the pacing between downtime vs combat is not working for me (unlike say God of War games... comparing to 2018 one for example), the parkour is horrible (not fluid, very clunky), exploration is not intriguing (comparing with exploration/intrigue in games likes Last of Us, GoW, Horizon Dawn)...need more mystery/scary stuff to engage with I guess, character dialogue advancement in many parts of the game, not all) with the famous JRPG "X" button click (PS5) is something I never liked.

I am liking the game, sure. Yet, it is not as mind blowing (to me) as so many critics and commentors are stating. I think it is a bit overrated.

If you are enjoying it, great! (who doesn't want to enjoy a game). Yet, for me it is only a nice game with a great price point, full stop.

[Carighan]

~everything?

The art, the story, the aural and visual design, the mario&luigi style turn based combat system, just about everything?

[greydawg]

I absolutely agree it's a fantastic game, but I'm just a little put-off by the reviews & dialog around it; I can't figure it out but I'm also compelled to believe I'm not alone. Most of the reviews absolutely gleam over the game as a whole but neglect to mention many crucial elements that seem paramount if it were any other title, & many of them actually spend more time bashing the industry than making a critique of either. It's not that I don't agree (I do, FWIW,) just that it's weird how it goes both ways. Ex., the big gaming corporations are greedy, yes, but they're also an inherent part of how this game & its team got green-lit, time, talent (including Academy-Award-winning voice acting) & funding just by nature. The dialog is world-class, but not mentioning that every line of dialog requires a button press is baffling for how often it interrupts the immersion (ex., when a character is "interrupted" by another, they are still waiting on you, the player, to press a button), some of the animations are arguably atrocious (ex., characters being followed, or "auto-switching" characters for many NPC dialogs), the subtitles are oddly littered with spelling/grammar/punctuation mistakes I haven't yet seen mentioned anywhere, the cutscenes are rendered but don't use the same settings a user may have set in the game which makes them feel a bit jarringly noticeable, it's absolutely at least a bit derivative by nature (doesn't make it bad, but worth mentioning for how many reviews cite it for the opposite) & not having a local map of any kind is more unique than good or bad; we can debate the merits of a local map helping or hindering exploration, I only mean it seems inescapably worth mentioning in a comprehensive, 20-minute review, of which there are seemingly dozens. Instead, a tremendous part of the responses are more about how "this is the middle finger to the industry we've been waiting for," know what I mean? There are a lot of things at the beginning in particular that absolutely must confuse or take immersion away from many players, notably after so many similar reviews & a historic meta-score, among other things, & in a way I'm not sure anyone would ignore even accidentally for any other game's review & follow-up responses like these review videos.
To be clear, I absolutely give the game an "A," it's fantastic in countless ways, vastly greater than the sum of its parts (albeit admittedly right up my alley for being a French-styled TBPRG) & its achievements far outweigh its flaws & mistakes, & I paid for it outright (twice, FWIW). I just can't shake how peculiar the way it's being responded to is all; it feels like we're all gleaming on a small team doing their best while our responses are just kinda mailing it in by comparison, & largely for the "eff you big game companies" response rather than putting in the same level of passion or attention to detail in our own reviews & responses themselves, if that makes more sense. It's remarkably similar to Baldur's Gate 3's release, albeit I'd suggest Expedition 33 is far more accessible with notably fewer faults.

I think to better answer your question, it feels personal to the people reviewing it & responding; it focuses on a younger generation, for example, & it makes them feel "seen" to the point of being biased enough in favor of it that many of us can't seem to escape for the game itself. It feels like if you were from Thailand but moved to a city in America & after years of eating Thai-fusion you finally found an "authentic" Thai restaurant you can't shut up about, so to speak.

[greydawg]

Originally posted by SageFreke:

A 10/10 is not a game with no issues, it's a game that has strong enough merits that the problems are completely overshadowed. Nothing raised in the OP is a major issue in the face of the excellent writing, music, combat design, and art. In fact, most of the "issues" are simply compromises made due to the size and budget, which are completely understandable and easily forgivable considering how much they did with what they had, when every day we get games with none of these problems but absolutely nothing to recommend them beyond polish and inoffensiveness.

Yes, but that doesn't mean they can't be even fairly critical in so many 20-minute-long reviews (& consequent 20-minute follow-up videos), that's what's so weird.

The Witcher 3, for example, was also heralded as a masterpiece, but even many of the same reviewers were critical enough to at least mention the most inescapable things they'd mention in a review for any other game, know what I mean? You can still rate a game 10/10 in spite of persistent broken animations and being forced to click through every line of dialogue (including interruptions, which is particularly jarring) or the lack of a missions tracker. Instead, I think what bugs is they just say it's perfect & spend so much of the rest of the time giving a proverbial middle finger to the "industry" in spite of that same industry being an inescapably paramount factor in the game's large budget & 5-year development window (rather than in spite of it outright as many have insisted, it seems).