Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

[shadow cedar]

||Alright chat trying new setup telling yall how it goes||

So I one shot it.

new setup works

With the amount of buffs and debuffs there is a real chance I rolled low on roulette

[signal ginkgo]

welcome to act 3, where if it bleeds it dies in one hit

[shadow cedar]

I decided "you know what applying burn is too fucking annoying fuck it we get ourselves to near death at 1 hp"

the thing is I don't know if I low rolled or high rolled against a boss

I need to see

wait @signal ginkgo

if I am hitting an enemy thats marked

would momentum strike be better

[signal ginkgo]

i dont think so? im pretty sure stendhal is still better

[shadow cedar]

why didn't I crit??

[signal ginkgo]

do you have 100% crite rate? if you do then i dont know why you didnt crit

[shadow cedar]

only 88% with the setup active nbow that I am looking at it

[signal ginkgo]

that'd explain it

[shadow cedar]

fixed it

Does ||verso|| have no way to apply defenseless?

wait I could just defenceless with maelle

YES

AND THIS
IS TO GO EVEN FURTHER BEYOND

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Greater Defenceless Double damage Roulette Powerful Solidifying Glass Canon At Death's Door Marked Augment First Strike Critical Moment First Offensive Inverted Affinity Painter power shield Affinity Stendhal

[quick stag]

Did you get greater powerful as well?

[shadow cedar]

...

where is that

[quick stag]

||Merchant in Sirene||

[shadow cedar]

||Whats sirene again I forgot||

[signal ginkgo]

||axon in the coliseum looking area||

[quick stag]

||One of the axon places. The dancing one

Auto powerful, floating cemetery. Help the nevron and agree to end him||

[shadow cedar]

||I missed a merchant? where||

[quick stag]

I would’ve loved to hit those numbers against ||NG+ Simon||.

[shadow cedar]

I will do that after I finish this maelle story up, go do the ice area and finally head to ||lumiere||

[quick stag]

||In Sirene do you recall fighting a weird cloth snake enemy? I think there’s a flag right before it so you could fast travel. There’s 2 paths from there: one behind it and one to left that you climb down. The climbing path should lead to a Petank and the merchant. ||

[shadow cedar]

I will go back there

Dear chat

why does ||verso with first strike with the highest speed stat in the team|| go after maelle with first strike and 2nd highest speed

help please

[quick stag]

||Do you have any rush effects activating at the start?||

[shadow cedar]

I don't think so?

[signal ginkgo]

are you entering the battle by hitting them in the field, or just running into them?

because i had the same issue with ||monoco|| going first, despite ||first strike being on maelle all of the time||

[shadow cedar]

In both that happens

[signal ginkgo]

weird

speed tuning in this game is so odd

[quick stag]

||The order in which characters are added to the party seem to affect the first turn order of player characters and ignores the speed stat, however this effect is still debated and not yet fully confirmed.||

Also not sure how true this is

[shadow cedar]

sometimes it works perfeectly

sometimes it doesn;'t

I think it might be order characters are added

I did that and it just works now

[shadow cedar]

oh maelle just went from "oh my god precious" to "you should have been the one to ||die in the fire|| you dumb idiot" in one endgame sidequest

||WHY DIDN'T YOU LET VERSO SAY BYE YOU DUMB IDIOT||

[tender marten]

||wild thing to say considering what happened||

[shadow cedar]

||LET HIM SAY GOODBYE TO HIS SISTER BEFORE KILLING HER. I KNOW ITS WHAT SHE WANTED BUT LET HIM SAY GOODBYE TO HIS ONLY LIVING FAMILY MEMBER||

😭

Rare ||clea|| W??

||Got painted verso to keep an eye on maelle and keep her safe?||

god damn this maelle story line is making both these character nosedive down the tierlist @tender marten

||She killed his sister without letting him say goodbye, he literally killed gustave by deciding to wait||

[tender marten]

||both of them are flawed people, making selfish decisions for what they think is right, just keeps that cycle of grief going that verso mentioned||

[shadow cedar]

yeah

anyways if anyone you are ever interested in romantically played this game and picked lie

red flag

crimson red

give up

stop right now

only psychopaths pick that atp

anyways @tender marten I am guessing end end end end game maelle goes for burning canvas

since that can potentially outscale?

[tender marten]

nope, still stendhal, ||tho if you want funny big numbers, her tier 3 gradient attack is stronger than stendhal||

[quick stag]

I would like to know your loadout for your silly 1bil damage @tender marten

[tender marten]

(spoilers in pics)
||fight setup is against the creation+other mob near the golden tree flag in renoir's drafts, the speed-tuning is currently for testing if sciel's 2x dmg buff stacks (it doesn't), you can just use it like this tho, only difference to my original build is that maelle has 8 shields instead of 9 here||
||monoco and verso go first, monoco just does some free aim hits, base attack, free aim hits to build gradient charge, then drinks a healing potion to kill himself to fill enemies break gauges||
||then verso goes, first free aim hit breaks the creation and applies greater defenseless, burn, and mark, the rest of his turns is free aim hits at 2nd enemy, base attack, more free aim hits til gradient charge is lvl3, then he kills himself with a potion||
||send in backup squad, if your speed tuning is right, sciel should have 3 turns, then lune, then maelle, all before the enemies recover from stun||
||sciel does her buffing, twice if you want, then kills herself, then lune just kills herself immediately without doing anything else, and then you hit the creation with gommage||

[quick stag]

||Using the entire squad for Giga damage is not something I thought about||

[tender marten]

||well, almost the entire squad, lune's only contribution is giving maelle +3 shields when she kills herself, for higher shield affinity bonus ||

oh I just realized my speed tuning has maelle with less than 100% crit rate, you can throw in that burning critical or whatever it was called, get her back to 100% with that, or just use different pictos

[jaunty wedge]

I killed Sprong, whatever is next won't know what hit them

[signal ginkgo]

i really wanna refight sprong

i wish we had a way to refight bosses, there are some i'd really like to go back and fight again, mostly sprong, i really like sprong

[jaunty wedge]

It would be cool yeah

[quick stag]

||I wish Endless Tower had boss refights, that'd make the most sense. They've also got just other unused picture frames in that area they could repurpose. Have one where you can add modifiers and whatnot for damage testing or NG scaling||

[signal ginkgo]

that'd definitely make the most sense, they could also do what hollow knight does with its godseeker mode- have a new option on the main menu that leads to a save with every picto and lumina, and give the player the ability to pick who they want to fight

[shadow cedar]

The What

[signal ginkgo]

it took me an embarrisingly long time to realise that the enemy from persona was called the beastial wheel, and thats what the joke is

ive played the persona games i should know this

[shadow cedar]

chat I need help

so lets say I am level 70

Could I get some mechanical engineers here to make it so my maelle is NOT broken for the final boss

[jaunty wedge]

Put the damage cap back on maybe

[shadow cedar]

no but then it goes into torture territory

I need to help nerfing my maelle build

not too much not too little

Maelle pictos and luminas

||In my setup Verso set ups powerful and sciel buffs, but I think I could just force myself to only use verso powerful and not use sciel to buff but instead do like mark and other stuff||

||Get rid of inverted affinitiy and I should maybe not do too much?||

[signal ginkgo]

honestly just take off most of your damage modifiers, the moment i removed the damage cap i learned that i was doing 300k per counter- you're already hitting for a lot, and will continue to hit for a lot even with the modifiers removed

*also for clarification, i was running very few damage modifiers before the cap was removed, if it had a drawback i wasnt using it

[tender marten]

use a weaker weapon

[shadow cedar]

can I get a health range

for the final boss

[signal ginkgo]

iirc the final boss has around ||400-500k hp|| i think?

[shadow cedar]

oh god.

Alright doing final boss

anymore stalling and it would be too far gone

35 hours.

[quick stag]

Final boss was always going to be easier than ||Simon||

I was at about 41 1/2 hours for the 100%

[signal ginkgo]

i dont know what time i was at because steam and the game both display different times

steam says i put in 80 hours, the home menu claims its been 65 hours

[blazing valve]

if i had to guess, the game reloads your last autosave when you die right? it might also reload the previous playtime at that point

[quick stag]

Generally yeah

[shadow cedar]

holy shit

Expedition 60

absolute fucking chads?

||so renoir was trapped under the monolith?||

oh my fucking god

||is the silent boy verso's (real verso's) spirit||

[signal ginkgo]

that sounds like it could be right, i spent 4 hours dying on two different bosses while trying to parry them down, so it'd explain where the time went

[shadow cedar]

FUCK.

FUCK.

FUCK.

@signal ginkgo @tender marten

....

||Verso is right. While maelle lives a life here, she is killing herself outside. she is not just a husk that exists in the world. she has people who care for her. You can't live in a painted world while ignoring the outside||

[tender marten]

||do what you think is right||

[shadow cedar]

not me having to pull up the fight on youtube cause I missed dialouge due to killing too fast

😭

😭

[signal ginkgo]

ooooooooooooooooo he's at that point

[shadow cedar]

my fucking ||verso|| aint even the main broken dps

I nerfed maelle down a lot for this

[signal ginkgo]

lmao

[shadow cedar]

fuck sorry my bad

I forgot to take stuff off ||verso||

[signal ginkgo]

i had both set up to be complete nukes

moreso maelle, its harder to make ||verso|| a nuke, he was just doing a decently high bit of damage

[shadow cedar]

I'm guessing that RT made the same choice as me

[signal ginkgo]

if you picked ||verso||, then yes

[shadow cedar]

the point of this game is to break the cycles.

and in order to ||break the cycle of grief||

||you need to learn to let go. renoir was truly right all along.||

[shadow cedar]

I KNEW IT

[quick stag]

||I beat the shit outta verso. Mostly cause I saw RT do the ending and wanted to see the other outcome. ||

[tender marten]

||seems everyone makes that choice, which is good, everyone gets the message of the game, even if both choices technically have their pros and cons||
||personally i do think the maelle ending is kinda disturbing tho||

[signal ginkgo]

||i kinda weirdly like the maelle ending, not from a "its the correct decision standpoint", but more from a literary one, its the one ive thought about more since seeing it||

[shadow cedar]

Game of the fucking yea-

OF THE CENTURY

[signal ginkgo]

the game

just the game, of ever

absolute cinema

[shadow cedar]

I can guess what ||maelles ending is||

||she brings back everyone, including gustave. Clea Aline and Renoir mourn alicia not leaving the painting, dying while she enjoys her life with gustave sciel and lune, verso knowing that she will eventually die||

[quick stag]

Pretty much

The morale is the French sure know how to make depressing media

[shadow cedar]

its not my favorite game of all time

p3r still has that

but its the best game I have ever played

[signal ginkgo]

its been competing heavily with p3r for me

i love p3r but this game is so good its hard to pick a favorite

[shadow cedar]

hey question

if you pick one side

and lose

do you get the other ending

[signal ginkgo]

no idea, havnt tested it- i cant really make a good assumption either, could be a special case where you dont get the death screen

[blazing valve]

(spoilers for ||the maelle ending||) ||pretty much that, except they don't beat around the bush with the Maelle dies bit and they just show it directly||

[signal ginkgo]

||on the subject of the maelle ending i'd definitely recommend reloading the save to play it out, or watching it on youtube, its the ending that stuck with me more even if its not the one i agree with||

[blazing valve]

you might want to spoiler all of that just in case

[shadow cedar]

wait

wait

I can continue playing on my save after the ending right?

it will jsut put me back right before

right

[signal ginkgo]

no, it'll put you after

you need to reload an old save to redo the ending

[shadow cedar]

Or to continue playing doing side content

[blazing valve]

you can continue all of that yeah

[signal ginkgo]

you can continue doing side content

[shadow cedar]

I will be doing all of that

[blazing valve]

||There is a NG+ but it has to be triggered at the expedition flags||

[signal ginkgo]

the game just decides to zap ||renoir|| out of existance, to fight him again you do need to reload

[shadow cedar]

Ohhhhhh

so like I still have the save

just the final boss is done

and we are in limbo side content mode?

[signal ginkgo]

you have it, for now tm

its in the auto save thing, it'll eventually be overwritten

[shadow cedar]

...
Are we going to get ||writers|| dlc or is there something in NG+

[signal ginkgo]

yup! you can now go back to nuking everything with maelle

[shadow cedar]

if they do DLC they could 100% explore ||the writers||

||Clea DLC that requires you to beat the game exploring her journey to avenge verso against the writers, dealing with the themes of revenge instead of grief||

[blazing valve]

||they've said so little about the writers and the whole outside world that i think that's territory that would be for a future "Clair Obscur" title over a DLC, although perhaps they could tease some additional lore of Real Paris and the painters/writers as part of a DLC still inside the canvas yeah||

[shadow cedar]

awwwwwwww

THATS WHY HE IS CALLED

SANDFALL YOU CLEVER

[signal ginkgo]

i feel like if they were to do dlc it'd probably be a side story focused on ||expedition 0, or the fracture, or maybe they take the route than nintendo seems to take with all of their dlcs and just dump in a rougelike mode somewhere||

[shadow cedar]

||A clea dlc could very well work. have a DLC that unlocks like for expedition 33 and the main course be a new 10-15 hour story about clea||

[quick stag]

||I’d be down for that if the party comp was like Verso, Renoir, Simon, etc ||

[shadow cedar]

||was like "verso"||

||DUDE HE IS DEAD???||

[signal ginkgo]

||for an expedition 0 dlc, he'd be very much alive (in the cavas) at that point in time (the real him is very much dead)||

||a dlc focused on the actual events of the fracture could be interesting to see the parallels of the real and canvas worlds both breaking down after verso's death (granted, the real world is heavily confined to the manor, but you get the idea)||

[shadow cedar]

Alright I am goign to watch the other ending now

Oh my god this is a horror story

holy shit

[signal ginkgo]

||the verso ending is objectively better because it doesnt jumpscare you||

[shadow cedar]

wtf

I am looking at rt

I broke the game way faster than RT

also of course it became the same party as me in the end 😭

[signal ginkgo]

i feel like everyone runs a very similar party in the end, lune stays on the bench, and then you just chose between ||sciel or monoco||

and the other two are completely unchanging

[shadow cedar]

oh my fucking god

Moments before disaster

[shadow cedar]

Worst thing about ||versos choice to not save gustave||

||if verso saved gustave, realistically I think there wouldn't be the final conflict between maelle and verso. Gustave cares the world for maelle. if he knew that maelle would literally die due to being in this world, he would quite literally side with verso and tell maelle to go home. Verso's in order to fufill his ideals, was fufilling his ideals.||

[upbeat goblet]

the sum of the lengths of the "une vie" songs is 33 minutes exactly

[signal ginkgo]

it is and i love it, especially since une vie a t'aimer is my favorite song in the soundtrack, so whenever i yap about it i get to throw that in as a little fun fact

[blazing valve]

une vie a t'aimer has so many amazing little details in it too

yesterday i noticed ||there's some ambiance at the start and the end that's the slight crackling of a fire...||

[signal ginkgo]

oh my god you're right, i didnt even pick up on that

[upbeat goblet]

also sandfall dropped a new music video for maelle's song which is pretty sick, it's maelle's mocap actor dancing i believe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ4DHDX-pQk

[shadow cedar]

Do you think I am right?

[upbeat goblet]

||I don't know if Gustave would necessarily agree with sending her home and so possibly erasing the canvas, but even if yes I wouldn't be certain Maelle would listen. she is very obsessed with her life in the canvas and all the people in it, and is pretty unwavering with her stance||

[shadow cedar]

||Gustave telling her to go home MIGHT be enough to influence her||

what do the une vie songs mean btw-

WAIT IS TAIMER ||RENOIR AND ALINE FIGHTING EACHOTHER??||

I don't know french but I can recognize ||Aline and Renoir being said by the member of the opposite gender at the start||

[austere raptor]

YEP

ITS SO SICK

[shadow cedar]

THATS SO FIRE

AND THATS WHY IT PLAYS FOR BOTH OF THEIR BATTLES

OH MY GOD

[austere raptor]

The genius page has a lot of context (as in a translation lol)

[shadow cedar]

What about the other 2 une vie songs

I didn't recognize them

taimer just left an impression on me ingame and I remember it

[austere raptor]

I need to relisten to them

[shadow cedar]

does one of them play in ||the end||

if so which one

taimer is the best one by far though

everytime that shit played my ass got so fucking hyped for the coming fight

[upbeat goblet]

think taimer is the most popular but i think i like rever most because of how gorgeous it is, and also probably im not as into the rock

[shadow cedar]

what are other popular songs btw

[signal ginkgo]

i need to listen to the other two more to comment on them, but the moment i finished the fight where the version of taimer with lyrics played i immediately just looked it up on youtube to listen to it

[shadow cedar]

I dropped in Monoco and Une vei taimer into my playlist

also lumiere

[signal ginkgo]

monoco is such a funny song because it just comes out of nowhere

[shadow cedar]

also in lumieres name is good

[shadow cedar]

• plays twice
• best mini boss theme in the game

hey chat guess which one is monoco

on the upload of the ost on spotify

take a guess

[signal ginkgo]

without checking, would be my assumption

[shadow cedar]

true

[upbeat goblet]

beneath the blue tree is pretty good, it's a dies irae song

[signal ginkgo]

its one of the less daunting favorites to add to a playlist because the vie songs are eleven minutes

[shadow cedar]

wait

wait is we lost a spoiler

for side content

that I have not done yet

[upbeat goblet]

yes

[shadow cedar]

I got semi spoiled on it due to skimming through rt's highlights

will probably do it tomorrow alongside ||clea bossfight thingy||

I should boot up the game to fix my maelle build so I don't forget

[upbeat goblet]

even though the songs are 11 minutes what i think is done well is that the songs dont get boring or repetitive

which is quite impressive

[signal ginkgo]

completely agree, but it was very intimidating to search it up on spotify and be hit with "11:00" as the song length

[upbeat goblet]

like its so much skill to structure and create variety in the song to last that long and 1) not feel repetitive, but 2) not feel like it’s made of different songs stitched together

[blazing valve]

if i understand it correctly:
Une vie a t'aimer: ||Renoir fights in Act 2||
Une vie a peindre: ||Renoir Final Boss (and i think some of Lumiere when you're running through?)||
Une vie a rever: ||Credits theme? Not entirely sure but if it's the one i'm thinking of i'm fairly confident it is||

[blazing valve]

did a double check and yep i got all of them - although it's worth saying that they all play in parts in-game, the soundtrack releases are like a special composition with added bits

[upbeat goblet]

start of rever also plays ||when maelle is born!||

[blazing valve]

ohh! that's why it did feel familiar, i thought i was just confusing it for something similar sounding
and yeah it makes perfect sense why it plays there

[upbeat goblet]

it's so beautiful

[shadow cedar]

this is the most complex video game ending I have ever seen

||Maelle's ending will either end with Clea Aline and Renoir all jumping into the canvas to force her out and destroy it, seeing she has no self control, or her dying due to the canvas||

[full canyon]

I don’t recall that happening and I also chose the ||maelle|| ending on my first clear

There’s only ||two endings|| as far as I know

That’s what YouTube says

[signal ginkgo]

i think it was meant more as the ending can branch in two different ways as opposed to saying that that specifically happens, ||although the actual maelle ending already shows maelle losing herself to the canvas, going against the "clea, aline and renoir jumping into the canvas to force her out" thing||

[shadow cedar]

||the fate of the world would either be what I said or just maelle dying||

Anyways NUMBERS GO BOOM

BTW There is a secret room behind here

Full of photos of ||monoco, the irl dog||

[stable pine]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpBG0TA76TQ

[shadow cedar]

Now he needs to do Une vie a t'aimer

[full canyon]

Definitely. Man will go hard with that one

I can see it

Or in this case hear it

[shadow cedar]

||Chat should I nerf myself down so the super boss doesn't get obliterated? I can do like 137 mill with my setup||

[signal ginkgo]

yes so you can experience it, but most people end up nuking it anyways- i'd say to nerf yourself and if you end up getting annoyed just hit him with the maelle nuke

[shadow cedar]

how much do I need to nerf myself to

[signal ginkgo]

less than ||8 million damage|| if you want to experience the fight without nuking a chunk of it, otherwise anywhere below ||50 million damage|| wont kill him in one hit

[shadow cedar]

||gonna be hard to do that but I would just need to remove some damage pictos||

[signal ginkgo]

that'll probably work, yeah

[shadow cedar]

what weapon do yall recommend for ||verso||

[quick stag]

||Outside of Simoso, the one I use is the one that S ranks on break, Contorso I think?||

||Lets you spam phantom stars if you generate 5 AP every turn||

[mossy ridge]

Gustave and Maelle!!!
(This is apparently Charlie and Jennifer's first time meeting!)

[upbeat goblet]

yeah i think most of the voice actors did recording without seeing others?

[mossy ridge]

Based on the interviews, most of the other VAs didn't get to meet Charlie, I believe? I think they had him do the voice first because he has a thing with Daredevil.

(edit: also you are correct haha!)

[shadow cedar]

god damn this ||clea fight||

I could one shot it but like I don't want to...

oh my god

😭

so like the attack I was using to NOT one shot

is multi hit

it high rolled roulette on my first turn to one shot

Maybe RT had a more interesti- ok yeah no he just one shot her

[upbeat goblet]

the game balancing does feel like a weaker spot

making number big is fun, but it strips away a lot of the battle, and even self-balancing your damage makes the battles lose some of its meaning

[shadow cedar]

yeah they should have had certain bosses scale

"We need to prepare before the final boss"

goes and prepares doing all side content

does 1000 times the max hp of the final boss

💀

[tender marten]

i think it's fine they way they handled it tbh, you can always choose not to become overpowered, they give us the dmg cap removal picto at just the right time imo

game's balanced just right up to that point and you follow the intended difficulty curve, and after that you can go wild and have fun if you so choose

engaging with and learning the boss movesets and puzzling together oneshot builds are both valid ways to deal with the endgame

now if they gave us a way to refight bosses that'd be perfect, because then you can do both options in one playthrough

[upbeat goblet]

my point is that you shouldnt have to choose to be weaker, and having to do that makes the fights lose some of its impact

i just think that more of the gameplay value comes from learning the fight than choosing the correct pictos: one shot builds make enemies all pretty arbitrary and indifferent, whereas learning combat give the enemies much more personality. heck, even dialogue can be skipped because of one shot builds

and i feel like you can have strategy with pictos without one shotting major bosses

[shadow cedar]

the thing is

End game secret bosses are impossible with the damage cap

like literally

they heal too much to be beatable with the damage cap

but without it

you need to go out of your way to make sure your build is strong enough to do damage

but not too strong to one shot

its a fuck ton of work...

[tender marten]

mhm, fair point

[shadow cedar]

like I fucking nerfed myself

I was struggling

then I got lucky with roulette

and one shot on accident

😭

[shadow cedar]

multiply by 4 and thats my highest damage

207.6 mill damage max

I'm guessing this is the secret boss

Alright I didn't nerf maelle enough

ahem take 2

had to fucking alt f4 out of the fight

[blazing valve]

how much damage did you deal

[shadow cedar]

11mill

I had already nerfed her

I'll remove roullete

than my damage would be a fixed 6 mill

that would be good right?

[blazing valve]

also i've been replaying Deltarune in preparation for... Deltarune and suddenly this happened and i feel it is relevant to share here

[blazing valve]

🙂

don't Alt+F4 next time...

[signal ginkgo]

oh my god ive also been replaying deltarune and i didnt even think of wee woo wee woo

[shadow cedar]

oinky I have done 200 secret bosses

of course ||there is a phase 2|| I knew that

I just want to see ||phase 1||

[blazing valve]

oooh okay

[signal ginkgo]

thats fair

||phase 1|| is actually pretty fun imo, my build wasnt good enough to nuke everything so i actually had time to learn it- definitely the most learnable attacks the boss has, fun to parry

[shadow cedar]

this was without sciel buff too

or powerful

jesus

do I just not use stendhal

for the fight

and call it a day

I am coming to realise that stendhal MIGHT be broken

on its own

[signal ginkgo]

just nerf your build down to the level of mine and you'll be fine (without sciel buff and with a roulette high roll i still didnt one hit)

i think i was just missing a lot of damage augmenting pictos, because the highest i got to was 60 million on a roulette high roll

[shadow cedar]

more damage pictos begone?

what do I remove next

[signal ginkgo]

if you dont want to do much damage just remove the ones with a downside, like the one that makes you inverted on battle start- the ones that prevent healing

you'll still probably hit like a truck, but it'll be like a truck with very nice padding on the front

[shadow cedar]

Oh no this speech

I'm so cooked aren't i

What the fuck

DID HE JUST

WHAT THE FUCK

[signal ginkgo]

dont you just love when they do that?

[shadow cedar]

Alright so uhhh

[signal ginkgo]

isnt it so fun and cool

[shadow cedar]

maybe actually I need a bit MORE damage

[signal ginkgo]

maybe, maybe

[shadow cedar]

also everyone needs the ||clea|| picto

holy shit

what the fuck

the punch line is RT just one shot it

[tender marten]

most people do

[shadow cedar]

I could end it right now

Fortune Fury into Intervention guranteed kills

All that HP was from one attack TBH

[upbeat goblet]

yeah thats why i think the one shot meta kinda makes much of the game trivial lmao

all the gimmicks in the fights dont matter

[shadow cedar]

yeah again I am debating with myself

I can end the fight, but should i

why am I debating with myself if I should end the fight or not

😭

it fucking feels rude to poor ||simon||

[blazing valve]

you might see something funny if you don't end the fight yet (assuming you haven't already)

[signal ginkgo]

you should prolong the fight for the funny

[shadow cedar]

I haven't seen something funny

I will just buff into intervention no fury

WHAT

WHAT

I SHOULD OF JUST KILLED HIM

FUCK THIS MF

I THINK I KNOW WHAT THE "FUNNY" IS

ALRIGHT UNDERLEVLED ||LUNE AND MONOCO|| YOU ARE UP

[signal ginkgo]

oh hey he saw the funny

[quick stag]

||Ah, the phase 3 transition of evict the current party members ||

[shadow cedar]

Yeah I am not dealing with that

and seeing how I was basically able to win I just choose not to

Fuck it we nuke

I am NOT doing that shit

AND he got a ||3rd sword|| too I just realised

Maelle Hollow Stendhal

FUCK I LOW ROLLED ROULETTE-

[signal ginkgo]

image backfired, you died instead

[shadow cedar]

Ahem, RUN IT BACK

MAELLE HOLLOW STENDHAL

...Why am I only doing 50 mill does he have natural damage reduction

[quick stag]

Maybe

[shadow cedar]

SO

SO SO SO SO

||He fell in love with painted clea||
||Real Clea repainted him (she is refered to as "that paintress") to give him more strength to defeat Aline||
||Aline repainted him OVER Clea to defeat renoir||
||Renoir said fuck that I am not dealing with this bullshit left and locked simon in there while slowly corrupting him||?

So basically he got gigabuffed by the entire fucking family?

[tender marten]

the main takeaway from all the postgame content really is that ||the real clea is a problem||

[shadow cedar]

Anyways

@tender marten

white sands has to be the writers right??

like what the fuck is up with white sands

[tender marten]

my assumption is ||there's nothing in particularly to it and it's just like one of those fixed camera music locations, except here they wanted you to walk towards the item for long enough that the poetry in the BGM can start, if it was the same as other music-only locations you could run in, grab it, and run out without ever hearing the poetry||

[shadow cedar]

skynor

why was the fucking manor there

[tender marten]

no idea

[shadow cedar]

Btw

apparently the ost

was supposed to play during the prolouge scene

you know the one

but it got switched last minute

Like the white sands ost

[tender marten]

...with the poem?

[shadow cedar]

Yeah

[tender marten]

huh, well, i'd say it was a good change then tbh

[edgy glen]

Can I just say that Expedition 33 is one of the best games I've ever played in my entire life?

[signal ginkgo]

completely agree

[shadow cedar]

Yeah

[tender marten]

it's definitely up there

[shadow cedar]

I forgot how it feels to not have a ||super boss against me||

"oh boy this ||lamp master|| fella looks strong, probably secret boss level due to how long it took to get to him, come on unbuffed stendhal lets do thi-"

dies to a 14 mill

[shadow cedar]

Is this ||verso||

[shadow cedar]

||Is the person verso wants maelle to bring back in the sciel dialouge simon?||

[tender marten]

||i don't remember who voices that one but from the content i would assume renoir, the whole reach for the sky part sounds similar to the theme of alicia's axon||

[edgy glen]

Remember how Gustave and Malle threw rocks? ||It's ironic, because the Paintress literally pelts you with giant rocks in her boss fight.||

[upbeat goblet]

btw there are 10 bonus tracks on the sandfall interactive yt channel, which arent on spotify, and theyre some of the tracks that only come up once or twice in game

eg the “fight for the win” gestral, maelle getting a hug from esquie, one of the ending cutscenes

theyre kinda hidden in between the other tracks on the channel but theyre labelled by “bonus track”

[edgy glen]

Doesn't seem so bad

[quick stag]

Doable

[tender marten]

just listen to the sound cue of compressed ionized air to get the timing down

[stable pine]

4.5GB update just dropped

YOU CAN NOW REMATCH || SIMON ||

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1903340/view/499449376025873686?l=english

[tender marten]

oh sweet

i like the challenge modifiers too, really nice addition

[signal ginkgo]

yeah, the challenge modifiers look really nice

cant wait to fight everything with x100 health

[edgy glen]

||Simon|| gave me PTSD

[signal ginkgo]

and now you can reexperience that with ×100 health!

[shadow cedar]

WHAT

OH THANK GOD

For like the first one

Having to fuck around with your build to make sure it’s JUST overpowered enough to be good but not too OP to one shot was so annoying

[tender marten]

I think the best way to experience the final boss now is to limit dmg to 99,999 and set at least 10x hp multiplier
||his base hp is only 780k iirc so I think maelle and verso can still shred through that with multi hit attacks if only the 99k cap is enabled, setting it to at least 7.8mil should be more fair||

[stable pine]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W5hYL61JL8

For some reason the in-game version of Une Vie A T'Aimer has better mixing and mastering than the one on the OST download

[upbeat goblet]

it seems many of the tracks on the osts arent mastered right, for some reason

at least the ones available out of the game

[blazing valve]

yeah if you listen to the OSTs and then how they sound ingame you can hear a difference in audio quality sometimes, some tracks ingame even have more stuff you don't usually hear on the OST i'm pretty sure

Une vie a t'aimer and Paintress are the two where you can notice differences the most

[tender marten]

https://x.com/TylorHepnerArt/status/1933600937056100466

Tylor Hepner (@TylorHepnerArt)

Renoir✨ Commissioned by @andyserkis himself #Expedition33

X · Jun 13, 2025, 7:02 PM

[jaunty wedge]

After not playing for a while, i thought i may have trouble fighting, but i went to do (Act 2) ||Visage|| regardless
...I just one turned ||Both phases||

I may be a little overpowered

[upbeat goblet]

i wonder what the significance of the eclipse is in the game

[fiery jetty]

Berserk be like

[full canyon]

It’s the Clair obscur 100% trust me bro

[upbeat goblet]

wtf is that maelle picture

[signal ginkgo]

that's the face of the Maelle whose friends with Gustave expedition

[stable pine]

I only believe in scams if they come from Noco

[velvet kiln]

lightobscur33 needs 33 expeditionillion chroma

[upbeat goblet]

when someone falls over we move on

[fiery jetty]

Loving the game so far. Hope nothing bad happens to anyone. 😄

(Wasn't spoiled, just predicting things are gonna go poorly for people)

[tender marten]

oh you started? nice, enjoy the ride

[upbeat goblet]

hope you thoroughly enjoy :)

[fiery jetty]

Started a bit ago, then took a break. Then started up again.

[upbeat goblet]

i beat the secret boss ||simon||

||and i did it “legitimately” too, learned the parries and everything. 8mil damage was a very high roll on maelle’s gradient Gommage but the rest of my strongest attacks barely even did 2-3mil, so this took me ages to learn😭||

||since i know rt just one shot it lmfao but i felt this was more in spirit of the game||

[signal ginkgo]

oh wow, congrats! ||i just beat it in the same way rt did, just slower- since i didnt go into the fight with a one-hit build and had to make one partway through, so i saw a decent chunk of the fight- its really difficult, legitimately beating it is crazy, congrats!!||

[upbeat goblet]

||honestly the mechanic of just adding more swords into the same attack patterns is so cool. it’s still so hard because the timing is completely different but i love the idea||

[stable pine]

Seems the devs have reuploaded some of the songs on Bandcamp and Spotify to fix the mastering problems, and they sound so much better as a result

Case in point with Une Vie à T'aimer:
Old version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEtmFgonY3E
New version: https://lacedrecords.bandcamp.com/track/une-vie-taimer

[signal ginkgo]

i listened to Une Vie à T'aimer again recently and thought it sounded a bit better but wasnt sure if it was just because i hadnt listened to it in a while, nice to know that i was right and that they're uploading some songs to fix the mastering problems

[upbeat goblet]

yoooo lets go!!

oh yeah it sounds a lot better yippee

also i finally 100% the game after 100 hours :)

[signal ginkgo]

congrats!

[blazing valve]

the change is also on Youtube but specifically on the auto-uploaded version (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kMbTzomh94)
and Woah it does sound a lot better now

[tender marten]

oh yea that is way better

actually sounds like the ingame version now

[stable pine]

Consider: Goostave

[velvet kiln]

To those who honk before

[upbeat goblet]

thats incredible

they even got the design of the 33 logo accurately

i cant tell if its left wing is different

[fiery jetty]

Can someone grab a good non-spoiler image of Gustave, please? I want to show this to some friends that haven't played, but don't want to get spoiled myself.

Also, what's the name of the song that is like "de de dum da da de de dum, clair obscur..." That plays in the beginning

[signal ginkgo]

an image of gustave, and the song you're looking for: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmvsw2ILX5k

[fiery jetty]

Thanks

[velvet kiln]

uh that’s one way of describing a song 😭

[fiery jetty]

They literally say "de de dum", I am not saying mere notes

[velvet kiln]

yeah I know

at least you didn’t transcribe the sheet music 😭

[upbeat goblet]

tbf i think absolutely everyone would know which song was being referred to

[stable pine]

Pre-orders for physical editions of the OST (CDs and vinyl) are up! Estimated shipping in early 2026
https://www.lacedrecords.co/collections/clair-obscur

[stable pine]

Expedition 33 will be performing a live concert as part of the Z-Event which is France's biggest charity event

Unfortunately that's also the same day I travel to Germany for a long weekend

Utter pain and suffering

[full canyon]

Dam I wish I could go.

[upbeat goblet]

damn. i was wondering if i would ever get to hear live clair obscur

[novel saddle]

Well I've actually started doing builds now I'm at act 3

I went from struggling at every fight to getting 2.5 million damage in one turn simply by relying on luck

I've got the useless sponge gambit, literally every piece of luck reliant damage possible for a single turn Virtuose hope, and then everyone's favourite sword man in case I need to play past turn one

It's great

[signal ginkgo]

new update is live and oh my god

i personally wanted this so bad during my playthrough

[novel saddle]

My god that's so useful

I love that after completing ||Sastro's quest where he says he loves being an absent father, you get a pictos that lets you run away instantly||

[upbeat goblet]

damn thats amazing

solves the issue of having to force autosave before a hard battle

[fiery jetty]

That part where they land and then see ||an old man and say "you're old" with such horror and confusion would be so funny out of context||

[upbeat goblet]

idea for rt's next greenscreen edits

someone should do that

[fiery jetty]

||he uses his Drift King powers to murder most of them||

[stable pine]

I did actually make a cheeky edit for Dan for that back when he played

[signal ginkgo]

oh my god, the return of my favorite character, stupid chatter

[fiery jetty]

Perfect

[upbeat goblet]

live recording of rt banning a stupid chatter

[novel saddle]

I saw that as like my first introduction to the game on a random stream and was incredibly confused

[fiery jetty]

Lol

[upbeat goblet]

man, i watched andersonjph (who rt raided into last stream) play e33, and he's a critic so it hurts a bit watching the criticism as he plays (even if the criticism is fair), but it is embarrassing how stubborn people are defending the game to the death

in particular, ||he attempted frozen hearts early in act 2, despite being underlevelled, though he was clearly surviving. However there was a fight in there which was tediously long, against the chromatic veilleur, because its attacks are very slow and repetitive, and it also has an insane amount of health. But he literally won first try, it just took ages to kill and felt almost boring. the chatters essentially blamed him for entering a "danger" area, when clearly the devs intended the area to be accessible for players who dare to||

||i think the criticism is that, if the devs intentionally allow the player access into a high level area, it should be difficult to beat, instead of tedious to beat||

[novel saddle]

I think ||It's a fair criticism but comes as an unwanted consequence of ensuring progression. By Act 2, a lot of the world is opened up and players will also probably be beginning to hit the damage cap of 9999. To make sure that challenges remain for once said cap can be overcome, dangerous areas will need to have enemies with a lot more health as well as more damage. But if a skilled player who's hitting that cap can consistently avoid the high damage, they'll simply be stuck in a sort of limbo of constantly chipping slowly away at an enemy that isn't actually posing much threat. I remember I was taking on a mime one time in story mode but had no break abilities on my team. I was never going to die to the attacks but was barely doing anything and just spent ages before killing it. I think it could benefit from greater difficulty customisation available from the outset to ensure the progression in the middle runs smoothly for all skill levels||

[upbeat goblet]

||right, but by design, frozen hearts was meant to be accessible by the player at act 2, so while it is balanced for early act 3, thats not how some players will interact with it. the simple (but boring) solution would be to make the area inaccesible until act 3 like most other areas, but the fact that it is not means it should probably be designed/balanced accordingly, so that it is fun even as a very hard challenge. personally i also did early frozen hearts and did have a lot of fun doing it, but i can also understand the tedium of some slower battles.||

[upbeat goblet]

||as for the mime, obv not having break was your problem (ignoring that the break mechanic is not completely obvious in the game, from how ive seen people play), and theoretically you could restart the fight with break quite easily. but i get the point that some points are just easy but long. grosse tete even plays into that concept, by having insane health and incredibly long attacks, but for players that dont last long enough for the gimmick, they might just give up because of how dumb the fight seems to be.||

||andersonjph proposed (on a whim) for example, that as you parry flawlessly, your damage increases gradually so that if youre skilled enough to parry, you can win hard battles without spending an hour on it. obviously its not a perfect plan (what about damage cap?) but i find the concept interesting||

[novel saddle]

||I mean if you parry flawlessly you get the counters for extra high damage, and verso for example has more and more damage with each parry/hit||

[upbeat goblet]

||i meant in a way that scales meaningfully for fights even which you are underlevelled for, eg for each consecutive successful parry theres an accumulative increase||

[novel saddle]

Just finished

Not ok at all

I do not know how to feel about the choice I made

This better win GOTY

[upbeat goblet]

i dont really understand why it’s become a widespread joke to “hate the french”

like idk that much tbh, maybe theres some historical stuff, but i feel like the ‘joke’ is usually stripped of any background anyway

is that just me?

[velvet kiln]

mortal enemy of the english, whose language most of us speak

[upbeat goblet]

dunno, just feels unnecessarily mean to me

given how people usually say it

[velvet kiln]

well yeah, i don't really see any basis in it other than an echoed joke

[full canyon]

I agree. This some racist shit going on. The French are great. Especially the food they make. Hell most of the food we eat on a daily basis was invented in France

[fiery jetty]

Nah, French food is pretty bad from all I have had of it. Tends to be bland and is overly praised for being "fancy"

[full canyon]

Everyone has different tastes. But it’s a known fact that most recipes (that isn’t from Asia) were made in France

[fiery jetty]

Mexican food

Italian food

Like, you are just, wrong about that

[full canyon]

I did say “most” not “all”

[fiery jetty]

I wouldn't even say most

I would say some

French food also just, is boring and bland. It thrives on having as little flavour as it possibly can. 😔

[full canyon]

Maybe the ones you’ve had but not all could be like that

We all got different taste

Some of my favourites are French origin

[fiery jetty]

I also have a vendetta against French Cuisine due to how much of it, like Foie Gras and Ortolan, are based around torturing an animal as much as is humanly possible.

Like, not even "the conditions are bad" like, no, the torture is done intentionally as part of the "process"

I don't get how people can defend Foie Gras

But at least a lot of French people do oppose it.

The French Government just really wants to keep it.

[novel saddle]

I bet it's propaganda to try and stop the English from doing a French Revolution or actually standing for anything in a meaningful way

It is admirable how prepared large swathes of the population are to protest and strike

[velvet kiln]

something something colonialism 💀

I will say French cuisine can often be very eccentric and pretentious

like monsieur/madam, just feed me raw meat at this point

[stable pine]

Alright folks I'm gonna have to ask for this whole discussion to be nipped in the bud if you please. It's getting off topic from the original threads's purpose at hand

[stable pine]

https://vxtwitter.com/geoffkeighley/status/1953471201738698949

Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley)

Experience the hauntingly beautiful music of Clair Obscur: @Expedition33 LIVE at @gamescom Opening Night Live — featuring composer Lorien Testard and Alice Duport-Percier.

🎵 Don’t miss the performance streaming live everywhere on Tuesday, August 19 — only on #OpeningNightLive https://t.co/La8CgzTCvl

vxTwitter / fixvx · Aug 7, 2025, 3:00 PM

[upbeat goblet]

hype!!!! gonna remember this

[full canyon]

Sweet. I was gonna be watching opening night but this is a bonus

[stable pine]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcWlGugeu-c

[upbeat goblet]

it's so so cool to hear the variations she does in the songs, i was already a big fan of the variations in une vie a rever, there's a little bit of that in here and a little bit of paintress too?? alice is awesome bro

and shes an expressive performer too

[stable pine]

https://vxtwitter.com/pax/status/1951025080085127415

PAX (@pax)

The expedition is making a stop in the Main Theatre on August 30th! Hear from the voice actors and motion capture performers behind the Indie French phenomenon Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 only at #PAXWest 2025.

Tomorrow comes soon, start planning your adventure today: https://t.co/B0kWSI4xww
---
@The_Ben_Starr
@maxence_cazorla

vxTwitter / fixvx · Jul 31, 2025, 9:00 PM

[shadow cedar]

Has charlie cox been in ANY of these

I know E33 VO was just another day for him

but like. he had the best performance in the fucking game, said that he "feels like a fraud for not playing it", and hasn't mentioned it since

[obsidian compass]

I’ve cried too many times cause this YOUTUBE game

[upbeat goblet]

charlie cox got to talk about it somewhat recently i think

it doesnt actually seem that he remembers much of it at all

[shadow cedar]

Thats... extremely disappointing and also reasonable

I hope he actually plays the game

[upbeat goblet]

theres like two shorts on youtube of him mentioning it

[shadow cedar]

I'm actually kinda disappointed he almost completely wrote off his role before release probably because it was just a video game

Like AT THE TIME

before release

[upbeat goblet]

it sounded like he was significantly less involved in the process than the other voice actors, maybe

[obsidian compass]

I have finished my first play through and now I’m sad

[upbeat goblet]

ggs!!!

do you feel existential

[obsidian compass]

Dread. Yes

Only took me 21 hours to beat

[full canyon]

Bruh you speed run it. Average playtime is between 30-40 hours

[obsidian compass]

I didn’t fight a lot of the neverons because I was bad at the combat at first so I just did as little as possible

[stable pine]

Reminder that E33 will be doing a live concert as part of the ZEvent french charity stream tomorrow

[stable pine]

Here's the replay of the Expedition 33 excerpt from the ZEvent

https://youtu.be/VYwD00kZamU

It's in French but the main timestamps are all there

[upbeat goblet]

man i gotta watch them perform live one day

[stable pine]

Expedition 33 live concerts have been announced. 25th-31st October
https://www.instagram.com/p/DOVsBrNDOjR/

bleucitrontournees

🇬🇧 We are pleased to announce the first four official dates of the French concert tour for « Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 - A Painted Symphony »:

— 𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗜𝗦 : @sallepleyel → October 28 & 29, 2025
— 𝗟𝗬𝗢𝗡 : @lamphitheatre3000 → October 25, 2025
— 𝗠𝗢𝗡𝗧𝗣𝗘𝗟𝗟𝗜𝗘𝗥 : Le Corum ...

Likes

30197

Instagram

More countries to be announced next year

[signal ginkgo]

AWWWWW SHERMA AND ESQUIE

adorable art

[obsidian compass]

If Francois got along with a silksong character who would it be and why. Personally I think he would really enjoy the bell beast

This question is in regards to the tweet picture above I’m actually not derailing the thread for no reason this time 🤣

[junior thorn]

Pavo, gotta be Pavo

[obsidian compass]

||Imagine if during the phase where the paintress just goes on healing your party that if you went into that phase with verso dead she just revived him instantly||

[obsidian compass]

Also so sorry I should have asked if the spoilers were an all time thing or only for a certain amount of time. My bad

[raven bough]

um ok

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198041600572/recommended/1903340/

[velvet kiln]

least francophobic anglophone

[stable pine]

https://bsky.app/profile/expedition33.bsky.social/post/3m2osgmh5ok2p

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (@expedition33.bsky.social)

In April we released Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

5 months later, we’ve sold 5 million copies worldwide!

Since then, your artwork, your stories, your cosplays and your endless creativity has been loved and appreciated by all of us.

And for that we cannot thank you enough.

Bluesky · Oct 8, 2025, 1:59 PM

[tender marten]

and more importantly, https://x.com/expedition33/status/1975909183578058930

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (@expedition33)

THANK YOU, from @SandfallGames!
We've been working on bringing you a few updates, some of the highlights being:

🌳 New playable environment
⚔️ New late-game boss battles
👕 New costumes

➡️ Read more: https://t.co/2grDsMSrOR

X · Oct 8, 2025, 1:00 PM

[shadow cedar]

BENN STAR IS BACK IN THE STUDIO FOR THE NEW CONTENT

[upbeat goblet]

holyy, new content!!

[full canyon]

He must be trolling this can’t be real

[fiery jetty]

Made it to Act 2

[shadow cedar]

https://x.com/GermanStrands/status/1977791923290026003 The fuck do you mean

GermanStrands (@GermanStrands)

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 still has a few undiscovered secrets, says director.

https://t.co/ZETjpfYUKF

X · Oct 13, 2025, 5:41 PM

[austere raptor]

Gonna replay this game again coz its that good

[obsidian compass]

The One Piece of gaming

[shadow cedar]

I keep learning new things about this game all the time

did YOU know that (ACT 3 SPOILERS) ||if you go back to the top of a monolith there is a Chromatic version of Clair Obscur boss||?

[upbeat goblet]

https://www.expedition33.com/post/a-painted-symphony-is-officially-kicking-off-in-2026-with-a-european-tour

european tour next year <3333

im wondering how much it will be

[fiery jetty]

Act 2 Spoilers
||Okay. Dulliste is just genuinely bullshit. "Let's give you a hard boss, and when you beat him. He reveals Phase 2 and you have to continue without a heal. And also now he has like 6 new attacks and one of them is a 9 hit combo"||

[pale sable]

Idk if this is a hot take but imo the combat system of E33 gets really tiring as it is literally mostly just one button. And the way some bosses are designed you need to parry 9 super fast consecutive attacks or else your whole party dies. I really didnt like that part of the game tbh. And also the parrying is unintuitive, its hard to tell where the timing actually is.

[pale sable]

Ngl I just overleveled myself for him lol

But yeah I can see why thats a pain

[idle badge]

My proudest moment so far in my blind playthrough

[upbeat goblet]

yooo early frozen hearts is huge!!!

[pale sable]

Wtf I did that too

I also had to kill it with just Maelle lol

its pretty easy to parry heh

[idle badge]

And now... time to play the Only Up minigame

[pale sable]

Ah yes...

the least infuriating beach game tbh

I was so confused when I saw that obstacle course

because I had literally guessed "What if they made an only up section" a few hours before lol

[idle badge]

OMG I DID IR

*IT

That was so stressful

[idle badge]

Bro, I nearly beat Sprong

With just Lune and Sciel

[pale sable]

I hate that boss so much

[idle badge]

You wanna know what I am really enjoying about the combat in this game? How difficulty affects it.

I tried the expert difficulty when I saw RT turned his up to expert when he got as strong as I did, just to test it.

Turns out, the enemies don't take less damage. They just deal more and the parry timing is harder. I am someone who was already dying to bosses, and who struggles sometimes even with the expeditioner level parry for certain attacks.

I like that the challenge doesn't affect the damage you do, just how unforgiving you want the game to be

[idle badge]

SPRONG BEATEN!

[pale sable]

Yeah thats a good difficulty system

[upbeat goblet]

i like the music

[pale sable]

damn

Personally the soundtracks are bit too abstract and long for me to listen to daily

[upbeat goblet]

i do a lot of studying

[upbeat goblet]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDOA3JZ1_no this is so insane

[pale sable]

yooo Marco is there

[stable pine]

[idle badge]

Definitely the hardest fight I've had so far

For context, I was using the double health challenge option

[fiery jetty]

Excuse me how much damage

[idle badge]

[idle badge]

I've basically committed to playing the game on 2x enemy health at this point

[pale sable]

why do you do this to yourself 😭

I could never do that lowkey

[idle badge]

Honestly? Because I am doing a lot of damage

[upbeat goblet]

i mean thats the whole reason they added challenge options lmao, people wanted them

[idle badge]

I finally beat the entire game. And most of the endgame content I did on 2x HP for enemies. I can now feel comfortable watching Dan's playthrough

[upbeat goblet]

congrats!!!!

[pale sable]

ggs

[mossy ridge]

Obligatory E33 doodle because hey, 9 awards out of 12 from the Game Awards! Hurray!

[shadow cedar]

and the award goes to

clair obscur expedition 33

WAIT

WAIT THEY GOT PAULINE VA FOR THE FUCKING ORCHESTRA?

LMAO\

[upbeat goblet]

i love sandfall and the team

[signal ginkgo]

https://youtu.be/C_Gp_ZHwaUQ

all i heard them say during the game awards was "new quests" wasnt expecting an entirely new area alongside that

AWARD WINNING COMPOSER

ACTUALLY AWESOME

[pale sable]

Chat is this valid or not

I decided to do a little critiqueing of E33

Since I rarely see anyone talk about that

[stable pine]

For n°3 I assume you didn't check out the Gestral Beach minigames

[pale sable]

I did

Those dont really count

Its just side minigames not really the actual levels

And I wouldnt call the Gestral beach minigames all that good either

its literally like Roblox obby stuff ngl

[upbeat goblet]

i didnt play normal mode but id assume it would be more forgiving with enemy damage

i dont think theres inherently an issue with a lot of parrying, frustration probably comes from when the parrying doesnt feel satisfying, maybe because the parries dont feel fair? from the critique it sounds like you didnt get much parrying down, but id say parrying is probably the most important mechanic in the game, over the actual attacks. so if you didnt like it the gameplay isnt gonna be that fun

also idk if it counts as a critique if its just your preferences instead of what you think the game could do better

your preferences are valid ofc

[tender marten]

https://x.com/SirTobi28/status/1999389049430376459 warhorse and sandfall hanging out

Sir Tobi ⚔🛡 (@SirTobi28)

Fortune favours those who come after! ⚔️🥖

X · Dec 12, 2025, 8:01 AM

[stable pine]

|| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ifda9gZuGg ||

[shadow cedar]

Today I found out that sega jp are the publishers/distributors of expedition 33 in japan

Might be why they hyped up the game awards

[pale sable]

so SEGA won over Nintendo

[pale sable]

Why did they post a second "for real" version, was the first trailer just a joke or something

[upbeat goblet]

ryuji be like

[fiery jetty]

Act 2 ||Beat Dulliste!||

[shadow cedar]

https://x.com/GenePark/status/2001061930547503396 ...

Gene Park (@GenePark)

Expedition 33 team freely admitted using AI and just won the most awards ever in The Game Awards history.

X · Dec 16, 2025, 10:48 PM

Ending it all fym they used gen ai in E33

[signal ginkgo]

man...

theres obviously no taking away how much fun i had playing the game, but thats a bit dissapointing to learn- obviously we dont know the extent to which they used AI, but its a bit upsetting to know that it was used

[shadow cedar]

SANDFAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALL

[pale sable]

Top 10 Anime betrayals

[stable pine]

To touch on the topic, this is old news and an attempt at stirring up old clout and misinformation .
Approximately 10 months ago people did found out that some very very minor textures and models in the 1.0 version of the game, without the day 1 patch, had some markings of AI-generation. These were patched out of all copies of the game on launch

While the whole debate did of course cause discussion back then, it feels like we're in the stage of people grasping at straws to try and find a valid reason to "cancel" E33 or the studio

[tidal ermine]

^

[shadow cedar]

I see

sorry for misinformation

[tribal patio]

going be real currently there is a lot misinformation so it not you fault and best we can do is look at the news site and source of the infomation

[edgy glen]

The internet is a reliable place for information /s

[austere raptor]

I think it was brought back up because of the swen vinckle interview (which worries me A LOT)

When good games/studios basically admit to using genAI, it'll obviously worry most if not all of us

[tidal ermine]

People need to realize attitudes for ai were not the same 5 years ago as they are now

Also if unreal engine has ai tools in it... What exactly are they supposed to do? Find a different engine? Make their own?

For me it's like
This was probably early on in development, back when people were making those dall-e images all the time and they were unaware of the harms of it

They also removed it

There were no traces in the final product

[austere raptor]

I agree

[tidal ermine]

So while I think some worry is warranted, it's important to think critically and not panic at the mention of ai

[austere raptor]

The problem is more of using it during development for concept art/ideas.
This (to me at least) makes the entire process untrustworthy. How much of the idea is human written and how much is an ai prompt?

Ai isnt all bad and Im not stupid enough to think that we're just gonna ignore this technology just because. I do think that over use of it is dangerous in creative spaces and does more harm than good.

Then again, from what we know the only ai coe33 had was placeholder art/models and its all been removed.
So idk

[tidal ermine]

Again, back then, people were using dall-e like it was candy and generating all kinds of images

[austere raptor]

Exactly

[tidal ermine]

I remember there were posts in this server where someone would give someone their name and they'd go to dall-e and generate an avatar of them, it was fun
But then when people realized
Woah hey, this shit is bad, it stopped

[austere raptor]

Maybe I was accidentally venting about my worries with larian lol

[tidal ermine]

Yeaaah
Larian is more concerning imo because divinity isn't out yet

And people's attitudes on ai are very firm

[austere raptor]

If e33 wasnt released yet and people found out about it now, there would be an uproar

[tidal ermine]

I guess?

[pale sable]

https://youtube.com/shorts/xFcrJBY-WaI?si=AtoERankeLv-GOoD based if true

[tribal patio]

is odd that i am now just waiting for sandfall to say there side of there story about all news with Gen ai?

as right now is feel like a loop and i just leaving it there i know i had thought on topic in video game chat but it just feel like it same thought both side

[tidal ermine]

They already said they used it at one point but removed all the assets and I swore someone linked an interview in here saying they had no plans to use it

[tribal patio]

I know and i know it been remove it just i have odd feeling about somthing but that is a topic about unreal tools/ machine learning tools they have as i have little understanding in that area

as well it don't help that i think sandfall is on break so they can't say anything until next month

[stable pine]

Will just bump this for anyone who hasn't seen it yet

[tribal patio]

is okay to say that i feel bit unsure of how all of this is being brought up now

[stable pine]

GenAI will always be a touchy topic no matter how it's approached

[tidal ermine]

Yeaaah

[tribal patio]

genai i get but i also feel people don't understand there are different tools that is also "AI" (machine learning) that could also be brought up. also i not forgetting that placeholder but i wonder there more to that placeholder

[tidal ermine]

Well
Unreal engine probably has had some ai tool for awhile but I'm not sure, I'm not a game developer

I also kinda think that all game engines will have some AI tool at some point if they don't already

Making it really hard to avoid

[stable pine]

Remember when AI used to refer to CPU opponents and all that jazz

This is the irrevocable damage the whole bubble has done

[tidal ermine]

Yeaaah

[tribal patio]

yeah i feel like AI first thing people think is gen ai

[tidal ermine]

^

And that's a huge problem

[tribal patio]

also i really want to say somthing but this whole topic just make me bit not mad but i wish people source where they getting infomation from better

[stable pine]

Sandfall have broken silence

Good statement honestly, the whole drama trying to be stirred up is a nothingburger

I am strongly anti-AI but placeholder textures is one use case I find acceptable with the full intention of having it replaced down the line

[tribal patio]

Thanks for posting this and timing does make sense.

Like i going put this as we didn't have all information we have now about ai

[tidal ermine]

Very good statement tbh

Also even in 2022 people's attitudes about AI were a bit more favourable then they are now

[tribal patio]

yeah like still why but this understandble and it make sense how it happen and i am happy they saw the issue and move away from it

[pale sable]

Is it true the Indie game awards disqualified E33 over the AI allegations?

I just saw an article from insider gaming abt that

[tribal patio]

yup but read the picture clearwater posted as it does seem to be a one thing they did in 2022 for placeholder

[edgy glen]

I was terrified that Gustave's moustache was AI generated.

[pale sable]

Yeah ive heard of that placeholder debacle

[tribal patio]

That about it with gen ai they used tool as it was new didn't know about the issue around it at the time but immediately stop using it and missed that one ai placeholder doing there qa checks

So yeah i giving them the benefit of the doubt as it genuinely feel like they made a mistake

[fiery jetty]

Yeah, they disqualified them and explicitly said they don't care that it wasn't actually used for development and was just a few employees making placeholders that got replaced. Because they said they knew that was the case, but just didn't care.

[pale sable]

Yeah they're extra strict I suppose

[pastel valley]

Im gonna be playing the game once I finish Metaphor ReFantazio, and yeah... I think to me its a case of "do I wish they didn't? Yes, but also i see the idea of doing it early especially to just test a neat new tool before the negatives all known to test stuff, like testing lighting on something akin to what is wanted while its being produced, then swapping it out to the right stuff when lighting is mostly done, then its minor tweaks to make it fit the true stuff perfect, instead of having to start from scratch, already have most the work done theoretically, as a concept. Though temp assets man-made id say would have been better, I dont see this as a cardinal sin, it wasn't replacing the main artistry or saying "hey chatgpt generate fantasy france"

[stable pine]

Act 1 ending spoilers
|| https://x.com/middinette/status/2003214899565240727 ||

𝒥odie𐙚 🦢 (@middinette)

VERSO’S FRENCH VOICE ACTOR HAS THIS PFP ON INSTAGRAM LMAOANDICKDOSLSNX GO TO JAILLLLLLLLLLL 😭

X · Dec 22, 2025, 9:23 PM

[glad gyro]

Incredible

[jade elk]

Is there a way to like significantly ramp out health and defense or something for the party? Because damage isn’t a huge issue now without cap but I don’t think it would stop the things that one shot me before from doing it again right

[glad gyro]

The gestral minigamws are so hilariously awful

[pale sable]

Lol true

[fiery jetty]

Monoco is fun

[fiery jetty]

Act 2 ||how the actual fuck are you supposed to beat Renoir? Like, halfway through the fight he summons indescribable "petals" that can heal him almost to max||

[fiery jetty]

Managed to beat him

Before he healed

[signal ginkgo]

bro clair obscur really is winning everything now wdym it got 1st place in the umamusume event

[pale sable]

Insane

[pale sable]

Lowkey
Expedition 33 to me doesn't feel as Unique to me as other games
Unreal engine 5, turn based rpg, filled with cutscenes yada-yada
Its still a fantastic game
but Its not as memorable to me

[signal ginkgo]

ive kinda had time to sit on my thoughts with E33, and whilst i think it is an incredible game and arguably a masterpiece, i dont think i view it as this incredible, fantasic, uncontestably perfect rpg i did when i first played it

still my personal goty for 2025, this isnt going to turn into some dramatic revelation about how i didnt actually enjoy the game- i adored it- but i think the time gap from when i played it up until now has made me form a more thought out opinon of it

i will say some of my current takes are definitely fueled out of a bit of bitterness about the game awards lmao, whilst i was rooting for e33 i think it won some things i dont particularly agree with, (like best art direction, when its just kinda unreal engine? like it looks very pretty but i dont know if i'd exactly say its what i wouldve picked to win)

[pale sable]

It had some incredible hype moments undoubtedly

when I first experience those hype moments I was like "omg game of the decade"

[blazing valve]

i think the story and atmosphere really help towards the feeling because you can feel so captivated and invested in the moment that you're just wowed by everything

[pale sable]

I literally made a post on bsky or something asying that

but then I kinda pulled back on it after finishing the game

Sirene is the best and most unique area to me, that was the highlight

I really like the abstract painting feel of the game but the way the areas are made feels so disconnected

doesnt feel as satisfying to explore yk

Ig they did it that way to help with performance maybe?

[signal ginkgo]

i think my, (relatively) spoiler free thoughts on e33 is that its a game with a pretty unique take on the turn based combat system that i really enjoy, i think the game looks beautiful despite my former complaint about best art direction (the point said then still stands, it looks great but it really is just unreal engine), i think its biggest draw is the story- its incredibly written, captivating and genuinely left me thinking about it for a good while- which is really impressive because my memory is shit! you wrote a story that can stay in my brain with me fondly thinking of it and trying to dissect the ending? thats awesome, its genuinely written and conveyed so well and i love it- i think overworld exploration is a bit ehhhh?

i dont know how to phrase my thoughts on the exploration thing, but its like i had a joint excitement and lack of care for finding new areas off of the beaten path, they didnt engage me as much as the stuff tied to the story did

it appeased the must do everything before progressing part of my brain, but didnt give me as much enjoyment as i got from just progressing- unless i was doing shit like beating sprong with just parry with the 9,999 damage cap

i think in that regard the bulk of my complaint kinda goes towards act 3 lmao, i think it has some peaks in it but generally i thought act 2 was better

i find it really hard to eloquently write my thoughts so theres a chance i missed points that i was trying to make- but the tl;dr is that i think e33 has an incredible story with okay exploration outside of the story

[pale sable]

E33 is like the first turn based game ive ever played outside of one Roblox game I only played for 2 hours

so I couldnt really compare it to anythin else

I played Bug Fables after it though

lowkey kinda like Bug Fables more

[signal ginkgo]

i play a lot! rpgs are one of my favorite genres, and i think e33 definitely sets itself apart from the rest really well, i think its deserving of a lot of the praise it gets- i just think in retrospect its more like "one of the best rpgs ive played" and not "THE best rpg ive played"

[pale sable]

Yeah like

I dont really feel like E33 is that good of an RPG

I feel its more like a narrative on-rails game

idk what the words are

[signal ginkgo]

tbf, thats what a lot of modern rpgs seemingly end up being lmao

[pale sable]

tru...

[signal ginkgo]

cutscene comp, text dump, movie

[pale sable]

I normally prefer less cutscenes too

[signal ginkgo]

i think, if i could change any one thing- i'd put more act 3 content in act 1 and 2

[pale sable]

I'd get rid of Act 3 entirely lowkey

[signal ginkgo]

because act 1 and 2 are super narrative focused, keep directing you where to go, and then act 3 just unleashes EVERYTHING on you and its a bit much- the areas are generally enjoyable, some of them are actually really good! but its such a drastic change to go from being directed everywhere to being given this entirely world to explore as you see fit

[pale sable]

Act 3 be like

find a boss, get one shot, move on

find another, get one shot, move on,

and repeat

[signal ginkgo]

i think i'd keep "act 3", i like 3 act structure and i think it being its own distinct thing gives it a certain impact

but i'd space the content out in the other acts better

[pale sable]

Ok this might just be me

but I fucking despise when turn based games are like

Oh you wanna do damage? too bad you do 0.0001% of the bosses hp

[signal ginkgo]

i dont like that the majority of the interesting boss fights and areas are forced into the final act

[pale sable]

and you get one shot

fuck off game!!!

Honkai Star Rail fell into that slog and I hated it

[signal ginkgo]

i dont really feel like e33 does that? i think everything before the damage cap is removed is actually incredibly do-able, even sprong who has like 2 million hp

[pale sable]

yeah the parry mechanic does remedy it

because you can just not get hit

[signal ginkgo]

figuring out ways to bypass the damage cap with buffs and multihit moves was genuinely some of the most fun i had with the game, i loved feeling like i was breaking act 1 and 2 wide open

[pale sable]

But still I hate getting one shot in anything

I put on the picto that basically gave me one shot protection

[signal ginkgo]

ok but thats because hsr is a gacha game with some incredibly bad powercreep that has only gotten worse

[pale sable]

true

[pale sable]

This is why I do kinda prefer Bug Fables

nothing one shots you

[blazing valve]

the fun thing is that within RPGs there's a lot of variations on how people do it and the kind of gameplay vibe they have

[pale sable]

Im on the side of non-turn based is superior ngl

I just prefer it

[signal ginkgo]

i dont really think either is superior, they're quite different

i think i prefer turn based, but non-turn based is also really fun

[signal ginkgo]

im sorry you're WHO???

bro maelle broke out of e33 and escaped into acnh