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 platforming are not good…the Gestral Beach was just not fun because of it

-The traversal 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.

-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.

[OneLastSpartan]

I think it is because a new generation has just discovered fire. This is a JPRG with a coat of paint that normies can be like this is cool. It has elements of a ton of JRPGS mixed in. It is not a 10/10 game but for someone who never really played these games it must be crazy.

It's a solid game. It is package nice, and it is a good price. It is a win.

[Impaler]

Originally posted by WolfEisberg:

Originally posted by SlickDrickle:

never trust someone who has their entire profile basically hidden.

Want a good reason why people hide their profile?

Because we get people who decide to attack a profile instead of actually addressing the point that was being made, which people do that because they have no valid rebuttals so they attack the profile instead.

Here is a good example of someone attacking the profile because they have no valid rebuttals to what was actually said.

Originally posted by SlickDrickle:

Looking at your profile, you buy games but dont actually play them.

It's actually comical though

Originally posted by WolfEisberg:

Originally posted by SlickDrickle:

never trust someone who has their entire profile basically hidden.

Want a good reason why people hide their profile?

Because we get people who decide to attack a profile instead of actually addressing the point that was being made, which people do that because they have no valid rebuttals so they attack the profile instead.

Here is a good example of someone attacking the profile because they have no valid rebuttals to what was actually said.

Originally posted by SlickDrickle:

Looking at your profile, you buy games but dont actually play them.

In my experience people hide their profile because they are embarrassed to show what they play, or how little they play games, but want to troll and tell everyone else what a good game is lol

[Kurt Thomas]

Originally posted by Spiderwick:

If you base your review based on the platforming for a side optional activity for fun when it doesn't matter at all for the games core mechanics then I don't know what to tell you.


FYI the platforming is easy, you have insane air control and acceleration, you can perfectly control your character. The characters auto snap to ledges even if you miss. Couldn't be easier.

If your interpretation of my post was that I don’t like the game because of only one of several points I listed, you are mistaken. And to reiterate, again, this wasn’t a review and I don’t think it’s a bad game.

I’m glad platforming was easy for you. That wasn’t my experience.

[WolfEisberg]

Originally posted by Impaler:

Originally posted by WolfEisberg:

Want a good reason why people hide their profile?

Because we get people who decide to attack a profile instead of actually addressing the point that was being made, which people do that because they have no valid rebuttals so they attack the profile instead.

Here is a good example of someone attacking the profile because they have no valid rebuttals to what was actually said.

It's actually comical though

Originally posted by WolfEisberg:

Want a good reason why people hide their profile?

Because we get people who decide to attack a profile instead of actually addressing the point that was being made, which people do that because they have no valid rebuttals so they attack the profile instead.

Here is a good example of someone attacking the profile because they have no valid rebuttals to what was actually said.

In my experience people hide their profile because they are embarrassed to show what they play, or how little they play games, but want to troll and tell everyone else what a good game is lol

I hid my profile because people kept on using my profile to attack me instead of addressing what I said.

"You didn't even earn (insert some rare achievement name here) where the conversation wasn't even about the achievement or anything about achievements at all.

"You only play games for 5 hours in the last 2 weeks, therefore your opinion is invalid" nevermimd the fact that most of my game playing time, and others attacked with the same thing happens outside of Steam.

Every single time someone uses a profile as a reply, it's always about something completely irrelevant to the conversation and the person never addresses what was actually said. Those people are the actual trolls because they have zero valid rebuttals to give so they do the intelligent and immature thing of attacking a profile instead.

[StackzGaming]

Originally posted by Kurt Thomas:

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

To paraphrase John Cena:

The people (gamers, in this case) have been tricked into accepting mediocrity because of aesthetics, not substance.

But we say that having played Lost Odyssey, and seeing that, outside of songs and graphics, LO was simply a vastly superior game overall in almost every way imaginable. And that was stuck on an Xbox console from almost 20 years ago now.

If a competent developer remastered that game (fortunately there was nothing worth censoring), it would expose Clair Obscur as truly a valiant effort, but lacking in comparison.

[Blackened Halo]

The hype kills everything. I am trying to get into the game but to be honest I HATE the arstyle. IMHO its not pretty, I hate how the characters look. They are super ugly. Everyone. None of them has my sympathy.

In addition, I dont like the feel of a 3D budget games trying to create big worlds with a great amount of people. When I play Clair Obscur, I feel the same feelings when I was playing Edge of Eternity.

[Freakshow6661]

It is the best turn based combat game I've played since Final Fantasy X in my opinion. Been craving this format since the Persona Games slightly scratched the itch. The originality of the story is also such a draw that nothing else I've played in years comes close, yes graphically there is room for improvement. My 7800X3D+7900GRE struggles with anything higher than medium settings even with upscaling enabled, and the pre rendered cutscenes truly leave so much to be desired. Why can my cutscenes not look like the trailer ffs. All games seem to be this way nowadays. Cutscenes just look like dirt compared to actual gameplay. Real shame. But I would 100% invest in a sequel at this point I'm hooked.

[Cypherous]

Originally posted by Rubyeyed:

Because you don't need much nowadays to be called a GOTY.

Overall though, combat is more engaging than the usual flipping through menus. Visuals are great and story is decent so far from what I have seen.

Comparing this game to everyone's last JRPG "masterpiece" Metaphor, Clair Obscur is way better.

Eh, i don't think it is though, neither of the games really have a plot that makes all that much sense and both have their downsides, i'm not a fan of the souls inspired dodging so i wouldn't really rate this over metaphor personally

[Cypherous]

Originally posted by Freakshow6661:

It is the best turn based combat game I've played since Final Fantasy X in my opinion. Been craving this format since the Persona Games slightly scratched the itch. The originality of the story is also such a draw that nothing else I've played in years comes close, yes graphically there is room for improvement. My 7800X3D+7900GRE struggles with anything higher than medium settings even with upscaling enabled, and the pre rendered cutscenes truly leave so much to be desired. Why can my cutscenes not look like the trailer ffs. All games seem to be this way nowadays. Cutscenes just look like dirt compared to actual gameplay. Real shame. But I would 100% invest in a sequel at this point I'm hooked.

Odd, are you playing at above 1080p? because i have the exact same system and the game ran pretty much perfectly for me with everything at epic

[Houdini]

I agree.

I am not far in and I am thinking the same sorts of things. Is it fun, sure! Is it the hype game that people told me it was? Not really. The "rails" are stifling, the "guesswork" combat is tiresome. I don't need 30 cuts cenes for 10 action sequences.. in fact I HATE that. Feels very JRPG in that regard and why I stopped playing JRPGs decades ago. I want a game, not 75% movie and 25% playing. If someone were allowed to mod this game, they'd implement all the changes OP suggested and we'd love them. If the game were made his way from teh start, we'd all be thrilled at a real gem of a title..yet here a bunch of us are.

Now we watch as gamers get upset at people with differing opinions.

[Meewec]

noticed it before it blew up and the uniqueness of it's look caught my eye and grabbing attention in a market flooded with games that look similar to each other is a good thing. since playing i've experienced the soundtrack which is great, the combat which while on the simpler side is decent and not a cakewalk(at least for me) and the story which so far has been pretty interesting. then you toss it into a beautiful, strange world that draws me in like folklore did back on the ps3

[dgresevfan]

Locked 30 fps? Is that cutscenes only?

[SpookyFairy]

There is nee for QoL improvements sure, but if you look at the full cup, this game needs to be praised. The love put into this game is shown in every aspect of the game. I just wished facial expressions were better, that was one of the most disappointed thing for me because the voicelines are amazing, I liked the story (usually I skip, here I watched every single second).

[Conquest]

BOOMER UNITE

[Revan]

Originally posted by Kurt Thomas:

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

Personally I just think they nailed story, voice acting, soundtrack, graphics and gameplay.

I enjoyed the game and caught myself thinking about what happened during my playthrough even when the game was turned off hours ago. I can not remember a lot of games, shows or movies that made me think so much about their story.

Then there is the voice acting, which I found great overall. The soundtrack is terrible, terrible in a way that it gave me multiple earworms that stole my sleep from me, which is why I am a bit exhausted today :D No seriousy, it's a beautiful soundtrack the game is having in my opinion.

The graphics I found odd at first, due to the games art style, but I quickly realized that there is probably a reason for this very specific art style and then the game gave me two reasons for it after which the art style made sense to me too.

And regarding the gameplay: I'm not good with Sciel and there were a hand full of enemies that I was unable to parry, bot other than that I enjoyed the gameplay and I found it felt really rewarding to learn attack patterns and countering enemies effectively after watching them for a few times.

I admit, the gameplay is nothing too special but it's a narrative-driven game and I believe that this game will stay in peoples memory for a long time due to it's story. And that's what makes it a masterpiece in my personal opinion. This game is a piece or art that many people will probably remember 10 years from now fondly, I am sure of it.