Clair Obscur accelerated to the top of my personal charts so quickly and then proceeded to seduce me more with every hour spent in its inspiring world. This genuine masterpiece easily belongs in the JRPG pantheon, expertly matching and often surpassing the various elements that make games like Persona 5 or Chrono Trigger so powerful. In fact, I'd recommend Clair Obscur over the latter two classics to basically anyone.

This game has done its homework. Its gameplay draws inspiration from countless other superb games. Notably, there’s the eye-catching visual flair, courtesy of Persona, combined with active battle commands that add a level of satisfying execution to attacking and defending. Battles start out intuitive and grow in complexity at an engaging pace, accompanied by a continuous stream of new ways to tweak your strategy. Even the RPGs with the best strategic diversity can funnel you into an optimal procedure and stagnate despite fresh material being handed out. With Clair Obscur, I constantly found myself swapping in and out new tactics as I encountered new options/obstacles from the start of the game to the very end, both because it was advantageous to do so and because it was so much fun to experiment. Looking around online after completing the game, the number of distinct and powerful strategies that people have invented speaks to the quality of these systems. There’s disagreement on what the best loadouts and skills are, which is a super healthy sign for a long game with this many options.

Speaking of impressive variety, the amount of music in Clair Obscur also goes above and beyond. For example, almost every new area you visit has a unique battle and regional theme, which feels so extra for a genre that usually slides by with one or two themes to accompany combat. Leitmotifs play a significant role throughout the soundtrack, giving a memorable flavor to each scene that the music accompanies. The OST is so good in general that I started listening to it frequently long before I was finished with the game.

Without giving anything away, the narrative’s strong hook immediately gets you invested. The story is a constant source of intrigue as you progress through the game. The elaborate world they've built here is something spectacular and the characters that populate it are equally as captivating. The lore goes deep and the environment design goes hard.

It’s difficult to find elements of Clair Obscur that I disagree with that aren’t in place to better some other part of the game. For instance, secrets can be tricky to find and backtracking can be rather time consuming. However, I don't think a minimap would be a good idea as those are usually quite distracting and the UI would be totally out of place. Although I will say that the commands for attacking could have been more complex. A single button and a handful of rhythms for timing attack bonuses gets a tad predictable after a while. Maybe the idea gets too close to QTEs, but an optional system that uses multiple buttons/directions in order to better match the complexity found in your later defensive options would've spiced up combat even more.

We don’t get too many grand narrative adventures of this caliber that are worth every single hour you spend in them. If you are remotely fond of RPGs, it’s more than likely that you will enjoy this game. If you think turn-based games are too slow, you'll enjoy how active battle commands add an accelerated level of participation and skill-based reactivity to combat. Clair Obscur is a game that made me happy that I was alive to experience it. And to think the French were behind it all.

Into the Radius' intense commitment to realism, especially in a medium as finicky as VR, initially seemed dangerously counter-productive, but somehow the elaborate bullet-counting, gun-cleaning, backpack-stuffing, wasteland-exploring gameplay works to create a staggeringly immersive system where each expedition into the radius is a painstaking hike into the unknown.

Admittedly, the whole game is pretty janky. Your hands’ physics get in the way of simple world interactions. No doors can be opened. The on-body inventory system is difficult to get used to. Yet, it wouldn't be the same if you replaced all your equipment with something like a radial menu. Everything in Into the Radius is diegetic. You’ve got a backpack full of miscellaneous items that take up physical space. Essential tools can be stored in various slots on your body. Your map and missions are notes on a clipboard. Menus are on rustic computers. Almost everything degrades. The game is doing everything it can to make you a part of this world and it works.

Your time in the radius is spent in a focused state of observation, looking and listening for threats and resources. Enemies and anomalies produce distinct auditory queues. Foes are often obscured by the game’s perpetual darkness. Producing light heightens your perception but jeopardizes stealth. Given that combat can quickly go south if you approach an encounter unprepared, the game incentivizes good preparation, constant alertness, and patient tactics.

This is probably the first game I’ve played to make me care about empty magazines. Instead of throwing them on the ground, I’m quickly tucking them back into my pockets, even under stress, because they cost money and are reusable. Whenever I feel safe, I try to quietly and quickly load spare bullets into them. When I misjudge my safety, then I find myself with a backpack out, occupied hands, and an unloaded gun. This sort of spontaneous anxiety in situations that call for complete situational awareness, on-the-fly decisions, and split-second reactions in a game that spends so much time being slow and foreboding produces a special kind of penetrating horror.

The options to make the experience particularly grueling are absolutely there, but I found that even on a less aggressive difficulty the core atmosphere and malicious nature of the world weren't diminished by a slower hunger meter. I also recommend getting a few small, easy-to-install mods that fix stuff like the helmet viewmodel and the viability of stealth.

Even with the graphical and physics jank, I still found Into the Radius to be vastly more consuming than I expected. It’s a different sort of horror game that gives you the perfect amount of control. I loved the cycle of prepping for half an hour at the base only to have my confidence shattered in seconds by a dark, unfamiliar building full of whispering monsters. The vistas in this grey, cosmically-twisted no-man's-land are staggering in VR. It’s an immersive experience that’s as rewarding as it is meticulous.