Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

[hollow ruin]

i think i may be actually at the end of act 2 now

i said so twice already, but like, third time's the charm?

act 2 ||monolith peak|| ||oh. maelle is alicia.||

||man. so like... each member of this family has a painted counterpart, no? Real Verso is dead, painted Verso is our guy; real Renoir is the curator, painted Renoir is dead (now, thankfully). But then, does that make Maelle real Alicia, or painted Alicia?||

||the examples of Verso and Renoir suggest she's the painted one, since the real ones are messed up in some manner or another... 🤔 ||

man. the VA for ||the paintress|| sounds super familiar but I have no idea who it is, anyone recognize them by name?

[hollow ruin]

act 2 ||monolith peak|| ||the area is named correctly, this is peak ||

||Since the giant version of the Paintress is visible from Lumiere, I wonder if they're seeing this fight too 🤔 ||

[obtuse pond]

I feel like everyone I’m seeing go through this game is putting pieces together much faster than I am.
I think in general I think the logic portion of my brain has a tendency to turn off when I’m seeing something really pretty.

Almost wish I went through the game slower and took more breaks so I had some time to think about things, but that would’ve required a level of restraint I do not have.

[exotic ember]

Definitely valid, but not applicable to everyone!

[reef iron]

right, just like going to see the ending before doing the rest of the game wouldn't be applicable to everyone

[hollow ruin]

place yet bets folks, will i complete this fight within the next hour and a half i have for playing today?

(I am now on attempt number 5)

[exotic ember]

As someone yet to beat it, I disagree. I think the final boss is challenging at least. That said, my build very much dependent on parrying everything, and getting hit = death. Learning the parry window timings and getting them consistent is a challenge. Particularly (Act 3 final boss) || phase 2. I get through phase 1 pretty consistently now. But I went straight to Lumiere after the end of the Act 2 fight ||

No idea what you were doing that made it easy, but it's definitely not what I'm doing lol

[reef iron]

I mean, you already know you have a build specifically meant to need perfection in order to win fights

anyone doing almost literally anything but what you're doing I think will be fine

[exotic ember]

Yeah lol very fair. I do have some stuff that helps mitigate it a bit now

[reef iron]

yeah I don't think this is anything special I'm doing to make it easy but maybe something special you're doing to make it harder

[exotic ember]

Lmfao yeah very fair

[hollow ruin]

attempt number 8, give it up for attempt number 8....

act 2 ||monolith peak|| ||i can't even reliably reach her second phase....||

[hollow ruin]

act 2 ||monolith peak|| ||what do you mean there's phase 3 ||

||oooh... it's one of those that are supposed to make me sad...||

8, turns out, is my lucky number, at least when it come to attempting a boss...

[obtuse pond]

🍿

[hollow ruin]

act 2 ||end of act 2?|| ||We just got back to Lumiere and I am waiting for the other shoe to drop like there's absolutely no shot act 3 is like the happy adventures of everyone exploring the continent or whatever||

||I'm not sure what exactly's the cause of the anxiety Maelle and Verso are obviously feeling right now but I am feeling it too||

||okay, so that answers which alicia is real and which is the painted one... which, the paintress is messed up for making painted alicia so... messed up ||

||then again, this whole family seems to be made of nothing but unresolved trauma and PTSD||

[obtuse pond]

Part of me sorta wishes this story had been a weekly manga series or something so I would’ve been forced to go through it slowly.

[hollow ruin]

act 2 end???? ||OH NO ||

||well the other shoe dropped||

||this is so much worse than i expected ||

||...well... Monoco, I guess it's time for you to finish this game solo||

act 2 ||epilogue?|| ||well this is fascinating actually||

||going by the... non-tilted version of the Eiffel Tower outside, we sure do appear to be in the real Paris right now||

||also, if by "monolith year 49" they mean the number on the monolith is 49, then that means we're 16 years in the past... which is definitely not coincidentally the same age that Maelle/real Alicia happens to be right now...||

[obtuse pond]

Definitely make sure to ||explore the manor a bit.||

[hollow ruin]

i do plan to

act 2 ||epilogue|| ||the mysterious Clea finally makes her appearance... at least vocally||

||also, can't help but notice that the Verso in the family portrait looks less like the Verso we know and more like some weird mix of him and Gustave 🤔 Not sure if that's on purpose||

||okay, Alicia just straight up says we're in Paris, duly noted||

||okay, that's cute. so Monoco, irl, is the dog that belongs to one of the developers. And now the Monoco in the... real life in the game... is also a dog||

||same breed as the real real Monoco, I do believe||

act 2 ||epilogue|| ||Clea being literally a head taller than Alicia is lowkey funny, she looks like she was made to different scale than everyone else||

well, this is gonna be a lot to dig into tomorrow 🍿

[analog tiger]

act 2 ||epilogue|| ||I LOVE HER||

act 2 ||epilogue|| ||but I also hate her she is so mean to Alicia who is just a child 😭 ||

[hollow ruin]

same ||she seems very cool at first blush, but i haven't properly spoken to her yet 🤔 I left that the point where i screenshot. But if the situation is as suspect, I can kinda excuse her being kinda... not sure what the English word is. Spiky.||

act 2 ||epilogue|| speculation||It sure looks like Renoir and the mother (Alina? I dont' think we actually got her name yet) have been merrily living their days away in the painting (the Canvas? Paintress called them that at one point) doing their little Gommage tug of war, which would leave Clea as the only one running the place 🤔 ||

[obtuse pond]

Okay this might be the weirdest comparison to draw, but parts of this game make me think of Severance
End of Act 2/Start of Act 3 spoilers and Severance general spoilers ||Just this whole idea of functionally creating a person/people as a way of escapism and dealing with grief. Morally it’s super messed up and shouldn’t have been done in the first place, but now that it has happened you can’t just hit the undo button on it without killing people.||

[nova temple]

I am amused by Rasarr's neverending "will act 2 ever end" adventures

[hollow ruin]

i think i'm actually near the end but it just keeps going?

[dawn spindle]

sounds like you're not near the end... for the 3rd time? xD

[nova temple]

act 2 (ver. 33)

[hollow ruin]

fifth, actually 😌

(act 2, spoilers for everything after ||reaching the monolith||: ||first paintress "battle", Renoir battle, real Paintress battle, retun to Lumiere, and now the epilogue||)

act 2 keeps ending and yet it does not end

[reef iron]

where you are ||I think with "epilogue", you are now finished act 2||

||title card in action||

[hollow ruin]

same tag ||right, but I don't really wanna label is as "epilogue" in the open cause that feels like a massive spoiler, so i'll keep treating it as act 2 until the game tells me i'm in act 3||

[nova temple]

ok, fiiine, I'll leave work a little early and go play, you can stop twisting my arm about it, sheesh!

Act 2 ||Frozen Heart|| ||right, I remember where I stopped last night...||

[dawn spindle]

I'm procrastinating from work instead of doing my work so then I can actually be... but ofc one does not procrastinate by having fun so I'm just wasting my time instead.

[shell minnow]

No more nuke: https://x.com/expedition33/status/1920387317002293303?t=4QAiom5xXg081LxWhU7zdQ&s=19

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (@expedition33) on X

Expeditioners, a quick note on Stendhal and balance changes:

We hadn’t planned to make any balance changes this early—just bug fixes, unless something clearly stood out.

Well, Stendhal did.

It was underwhelming for most of development, so in our final pre-release balance

X · May 8, 2025, 7:56 AM

[reef iron]

WAIT I HAVEN'T USED IT YET

Whhhh

[fallow geode]

Literally the next thing I planned to unlock

[shell minnow]

You've got until tomorrow

[nova temple]

Great, I don't have or know anything about this, 10/10, perfect patch, no impact

[reef iron]

time to use my second recoat

[fallow geode]

If you're keeping up with #books-archive , I have a book that I need to finish ASAP 😔

[shell minnow]

Ah I just skim for the names of books I have read, so I had not opened anything in there in days oops

Nobody's talking about Daevabad or Folk of the Air or Murderbot anymore

[fallow geode]

I've been listening to murder bot recently.
I'm sorry to say that its fine.
Also way too short

[shell minnow]

There's longer ones later!

[analog tiger]

wait what's stendhal?

I'm good with where I stopped in daevabad

[nova temple]

Act 2 ||Frozen Heart|| ||that was a looot of health to chunk through||

there's a chromatic boss down there, don't let me forget that, but I need to go somewhere else now 😅

[nova temple]

Act 2 ||Visages|| ||Cool, man, yeah, that's fine||

Act 2 ||Visages|| ||Yeah, man, cool, cool, everything is so fine, nothing's ever been finer, this is great||

[main olive]

Gang does anyone know if my old beat up gtx 1060 6gb can pull this game

at like bare minimum graphics

how good is the optimization on pc

[obtuse pond]

https://www.tumblr.com/ptitsa-poh/782831480100519936/just-started-to-play-and-built-a-camp-for-the?source=share

[nova temple]

Hmm, problem: I am too overleveled for the "campaign", and I don't get to see the enemies' attacks 😅

[analog tiger]

mmm I don't know tbh

[obtuse pond]

You could use a recoat to effectively bring you down a few levels. And then if you overdo it you can add the points back without even needing to use recoat.

[analog tiger]

maybe? it just barely sneaks into the minimum specs

I don't know how well optimized the game is but I think it should run

[nova temple]

Act 2 ||Visage | Manor|| Hmm...

[reef iron]

oh stendhal i'm gonna miss YOU

[merry lance]

Act 2 ||Camp after Old Lumiere|| ||I think I need a clip of Esquie's "I have a big brain"||

[nova temple]

Meta's got my number

[halcyon elbow]

They probably literally do also have your phone number(s)

[nova temple]

Yeah, that's also probably true

[reef iron]

stendhal i'm going to miss you SO SO SO MUCH

||nvm even more - i'm level 67 babyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy this rules||

||NEVER MIND AGAIN. god what a swansong. what a way for stendhal to go out. 🫡 ||

act 3 ||okay so i totally wrapped dark gestral arena, no issues. helps to be confident in countering now! absolutely, NONSENSICALLY easy||

[analog tiger]

holyyyyyy

act 3 ||kinda made me want to reinstall just to try Stendhal ngl||

[reef iron]

you got until the patch tomorrow!

god i'm so sad

stendhal is SOOOOO so good

i guess it's not "FUN" to one shot kill all these things 😔

(but it is a bit)

[scarlet trout]

Nah I tried it yesterday at level 80 def fun!

It is just nice to shorten some of the fights lol

[reef iron]

act 3 ||i finished The Reacher and this dark gestral arena and sprong with it, but not the haaaardest stuff that i hear||

[scarlet trout]

|| not the hardest, but not easy easy ||

[analog tiger]

lmao nice nice

[exotic ember]

Oh huh guess I’ll never try out current Stendhal. Never would have been drawn to try it out lol. I’m much more interested in trying out Act 3 || Burning Canvas ||

Can’t wait to play more this weekend though. Will need to decide whether to continue on the PS5 save after beating final boss or switching to PC and really focusing on that platform more for now

Once again really wishing I had cross platform saves. I want to enjoy the nice new PC with the 1440p ultrawide monitor

[reef iron]

................. i just realized you can add pictos to favourites

[exotic ember]

Oh yeah it’s great

[reef iron]

i am 50 hours in 😭

and i finally went through allllllllll my pictos to get the skills learned ||i had SUCH a backlog built up of pictos i was getting but needed my current pictos for the setup in the zones i got them ha||

||so spring meadows it is||

[ionic kite]

????
Why would I want First Offensive when I already have Augmented First Strike
First Offensive is just AFS but worse

[reef iron]

aaaaaaaaaand now time to go faceplant against some bosses now that i've just redone everyone's pictos and luminas

act 3 spoilers, i'm into act 3 ||this is funny as hell||

[nova temple]

I realized, far too late, that your equipped pictos give you stats 😅

[nova temple]

I imagine they stack

[ionic kite]

I was gonna say earlier (Act 2) ||"Wow Verso has such bad HP, he has less than Maelle who only has 1 in her HP stat" but then I realized it was cuz of my Pictos||

[potent tapir]

i don't want to get into a whole discussion about it, but (ENDING SPOILERS) ||as a Gamer who put 30+ hours into it, there is a natural part of me that doesn't like that there isn't a "perfect" ending. but from a narritive point of view what a fantastic choice. My gut told me to chose Maelle's ending, but after having seen both im conflicted. I'm not so worried about which is the "morally correct" ending, but both left me with a "this works, but.." sort of feeling and I like that i gotta sit in that.||

[exotic ember]

Going to try to finish off the final boss after work today and then either dip my toes into some endgame or finish up act 1 on PC and do some of the side content there before moving on to act 2

Really pumped to dive into endgame content. Would be nice to do some before Doom comes out in a few days. Will definitely be jumping back to this game right after finishing the new Doom though

[main olive]

Start game
Immediately get blasted by the best game music I've heard in years

French sorcery

Persona 5 UI jumpscare

[main olive]

I changed the graphic settings and this happened
[prologue]

||Y'know what they say sometimes love makes you lose your head.||

|| 🥁 ||

[merry lance]

||Should'nt've messed around with the skulls slider||

[fallow geode]

I ran into an issue the other day where some torches were making the background flicker
Act 2 ||It was on the Volleyball Beach, and the torches were making the mountains across the water flicker ||

[shell minnow]

Yaaaay! Someone else who is behind me whose messages I can read, thank you for your service, Nick

I think the most interesting graphical glitch I ran into was (Act 1) ||In combat, where Lune's legs just fully broke and were folded up into her thighs and hips, flapping around madly when she did animations. Extremely unpleasant to watch!||

[fallow geode]

||Unpleasant to Watch, hilarious to read about||

[shell minnow]

It was also pretty funny, yeah

[main olive]

Prologue
||When Sophie said Gustave was strong and to show this girl and combat started I thought Gustave was about to beat her up ||

Well, good news is that the game runs at a good framerate so far, bad news is that it does look bad because my power can't render the good details as it's old and beat up

It's me and my nearly ten years old 1060 against the world

[shell minnow]

Aww, poor 1060 doin its best

[main olive]

Prologue
||What's this Gommage exactly? I think I'll get my answers soon but it's popping up all over||

||I love Sophie.||

||SOPHIE?||

[fallow geode]

Prologue ||Did you discover what the Gommage is?||

[main olive]

||Yes||

[fallow geode]

Out of interest Nick, did you watch the trailers at all?

or engage with it at all outside of the entire world going "this is good actually"?

[main olive]

None

nothing

Things I know about this game
-It's a turn based RPG
-Aggresively french
-Expedition 33
-The furry creature that's cool

Something like mococo or momoco

something like that

other than that this is maybe the most unspoilered I've been into a game

[merry lance]

||Fun fact, une gomme is French for an eraser||

[main olive]

Prologue
||Maelle is beating my ass, I need to learn how to parry and dodge because holy hell||

[shell minnow]

General ||don't worry they're nerfing her today||

[merry lance]

Clair Obscur general ||It's kinda funny, reading some of the names with a half recollection of gradeschool French. Like there's the Gommage (I'd poorly translate to "The Erasure"), Maelle ("My girl"), Lumière (light), Lune (moon), and probably lots more. (Sciel doesn't count, because Google thinks that's Corsican)||

[shell minnow]

||Ciel means sky!||

[merry lance]

||Yeah, but it isn't 1:1, so it doesn't count and she's secretly Corsican instead of French proper||

[main olive]

Prologue ||Speaking of this character, I just met her||

||Sciel 👀 ||

[hollow ruin]

i have preserved the evidence for posterity

[main olive]

Act 1 opening
||IS EVERYONE DEAD?!?!?!?!||

||WHAT WAS THAT||

[fallow geode]

Act 1 (once you get to gameplay) ||point of order, Gustave isn't dead||

Sorry, I'll stop doing that

[main olive]

But why would you stop

it's fun

act 1
||I beat a giant metal thing, I do need to learn how to parry and dodge because face tanking everything isn't going to be sustainable||

||Why is there a lamp post in the middle of nowhere, fascinating.||

[split canyon]

its okay the game kinda forces you to learn it over time

its constant with every battle and you do end up picking up the timings

then as soon as you get good they add a new enemy type and its a whole new set of timings

[main olive]

Act 1
||Holy hell this got depressing extremely fast.||

[split canyon]

YEP!

🍿

[nova temple]

yesssssssssss

[main olive]

It's been so long since I played a game with skill trees

I feel nostalgic

so many builds I could make

[shell minnow]

Builds are big

[main olive]

Act 1
||I saw a skill on Lune's tree that says "Deal EXTREME randomized damage" and now I want to build her like a final fantasy black mage, pure magic damage||

[nova temple]

That was my build for her until like yesterday

Might still go back to it

[fallow geode]

That's my build for her now
Early Act 2 ||between Lune and Verso, poor Maelle is getting left behind||

[main olive]

||What do you mean a mime.||

Act 1
||This guy just built an invisible wall, what||

[nova temple]

|| it's a mime, surely you didn't expect it to build a real wall||

[fallow geode]

Fun fact ||there's one of those in the prologue||

[nova temple]

I found out about that from the achievements 😅

[reef iron]

act 2 ||damn that's crazy maelle is the most powerful person in my party at all times||

[fallow geode]

||I'm getting more frequent 9999's out of Verso than her||

[reef iron]

||she's the only person i do single-person arena battles with||

[fallow geode]

Oh FYI, acts are long enough that we settled on "Act 1 ||zone name||" for the tag fornat

[reef iron]

||now verso.... HE absolutely feels less and less powerful when in a party with maelle||

[fallow geode]

Act 2 mechanics ||I suspect I need to revisit her build, especially her pictos and skills||

[nova temple]

Act 2 ||I think my setup is, Verso does the most damage overall because I generate a stupid amount of AP with him, Lune has the biggest hits but they are rare, and Maelle is somewhere in the middle||

[fallow geode]

||Lune is just edging out Maelle for me, since I pretty much always have 7 AP on her turn, and mayhem tends to hit some weakness||

[analog tiger]

Act 2 ||I think my Lune outpaced my Maelle for quite a bit because Percee maxes at 9999 and Sword Ballet costs all the AP so I couldn't really do set ups with it, meanwhile I could reliably set up Lune to do 25k damage in a turn with Mayhem||

[fallow geode]

||meanwhile verso is using the phys buffs light and vice versa sword, and the "take a second turn (physical)" skill, so he gets good buffs all the time||

||now if I can figure out how to make sword ballet do 9999 consistently, then she's laughing||

[analog tiger]

Act 3 ||and then when I got Painted Power I think Maelle went back to being top of the charts in DPS because one marked Percee does like 80k damage||

Act 3 ||though Lune's Mayhem also does a lot||

Act 3 ||I was doing like 80k on Percee, 50k+ with Mayhem and like 26k on each Burn tick||

[nova temple]

oh, whoops, these shifted to being act 3

Good thing I saw a zone I didn't recognize and noped out immediately!

[merry lance]

Act 2 ||Verso is just stupid consistent. Lune gets weird utility with high power that I haven't gotten around to refining, and Sciel feels strong, so I'm not really using Maelle because hitting 1 target once feels bad when armor exists||

[nova temple]

||Just break shields first!||

[analog tiger]

Act 2 ||oh I love her "remove shields and gain AP for each removed shield" skill||

[nova temple]

||I actually love Maelle's shield breaker ability (even if it does eat your turn)||

[reef iron]

act 2 and act 3 general ||yeah the cap of 9,999 does change the conversation - but ap generation is like, a matter of luminas for the most part (a little room for weapon choice choice to change things) but yeah, maelle was the one consistently hitting this cap for me||

[fallow geode]

Act 2 ||my only problem with that skill is that fate conspires to make her the last of my party to play after the shields go up||

[merry lance]

||hitting a single time for damage cap also feels kinda bad, because it means there was wasted potential||

[analog tiger]

Act 2 ||I wish it was easier to set up defenseless on shielded enemies so she can eat their shields and gain an extra turn||

[reef iron]

act 3 ||and then when cap is gone.... god maelle's damage numbers leave them in the dustttt||

||and monoco came out as my STRONG number two. get creation void as soon as you can in act 3 and then back out of lumiere to go back into the world with it. life changing||

[reef iron]

I think this is probably going to be about the speed stat then

[nova temple]

Look at Grey here, being a Mechanics Understander

[reef iron]

act 2 ||and maelle does have a little aoe accessible on her tree. but yeah in act 2, building her fire skills up was the way. very little is immune||

[analog tiger]

act 3 ||technically end of act 2 but eh late enough it might as well be just act 3|| ||I've been listening to Une Vie à T'Aimer since the bossfight it plays on 😭 ||

||such a banger||

||and the lyrics 😭 ||

[reef iron]

haha probably not THAT much

I'd probably have better luck getting certain characters to work for me if that were the case

[analog tiger]

Act 3 ||"En noir, ses yeux tristes / À travers l’or, son rire persiste / Dans chaque couleur, une part de lui / L’aimer toujours, même s'il n'est plus ici" ||

[reef iron]

act 2 ||I just know something I hit on early was letting maelle get the best ap generation in my team, heaviest hitter, and she has MULTIPLE options in the mid game based on burn, which is a very good setup at this time||

act 2 all to be safe ||monoco is just, versatility defined, grab a bunch of his skills early and he can do anything that the others can do and is also: very strong. sciel was incredible in the mid game but now I'm floundering with her, her skills aren't hitting as hard by comparison. and verso.... despite getting better at building his perfection ranks, I just am not finding his damage numbers very exciting||

||lune is great if I can find enemies with weakness to earth...||

[granite sage]

Well I haven’t been active in here really but just finished act 2, fun

[main olive]

I'm a wee lad I'm grinding the early level enemies because it makes the game less scary

[granite sage]

Mechanics ||it really got better for me when I realized how big a component of defense came from pictos||

[main olive]

Act 1/Mechanic
||I'm not sure how the builds work or what's the level cap or what but I have a plan.||

[nova temple]

Act 2 exploration ||sometimes I forget how huge the Paintress is||

[main olive]

act 1 spring meadows
||Holly hell how many people died in this place, I thought it was just that cavern full of bodies but they're everywhere||

[nova temple]

Act 2 ||Monolith|| ||This sure is candle central, huh?||

[main olive]

I'm going into this game basically blind, you have no idea the self control I'm exerting to not click things

I didn't even see any trailers or anything, zero

[nova temple]

I think that's dope

And also a good way to train your will 😛

[main olive]

I saw exactly 1 clip before playing this game, the creature

His name is something like mononoke

[nova temple]

Monoco

[main olive]

That guy

[nova temple]

Act 2 ||Inside the Monolith|| ||You know, when I saw that "Inside the Monolith" was an area, I thought it was meant to be a much bigger deal than "we kinda just walked in immediately"||

[nova temple]

Act 2 ||Inside the Monolith|| ||Okay, I defeated the Chromatic Bourgeon without it ever taking a turn (other than to free itself of being stunned). That was a little silly||

[shell minnow]

I realize I haven't checked in for a bit: Act 2 ||Post-Old Lumière|| ||I'm off to beat two big baddies to turn their souls into a drill that can pierce the heavens, and we learned about Verso's family life (bad) and I failed to not think about Dier/Renholm parallels between Verso/Renoir, like a normal person.||

Maybe will get some playing in tonight

[nova temple]

Act 2 ||Inside the Monolith|| ||I am enjoying this victory lap, revisiting all the zones but tainted. Also, damn, all those expeditions really made it here, huh?||

[reef iron]

sobbing, crying, gnashing my teeth

[main olive]

https://tenor.com/view/victrola-record-player-playing-records-gif-8912174

All we need in the camp, really

[nova temple]

Act 2 ||Inside the Monolith|| ||Hmm, it is interesting that I am fighting nevrons - because Monoco is getting feet - but they look a lot like sakapatates, which are... not nevrons. I sense shenanigans!||

[wild jackal]

Unless they also have a line about changing how it interacts with damage buffs, that nerf isn't nearly large enough.

[reef iron]

i don't see how the * would be necessary

[main olive]

I have automatic updates turned off

I learned my lesson in Elden Ring

they patched all the fun stuff and I play 100% offline anyways

[reef iron]

i still want those cheevos 😔

[fallow geode]

Level 20 of her best sword was accidently buffing all damage +200%, instead of just burn damage

[exotic ember]

Act 3 final boss || Just jumped on and finally beat Renoir after a few more tries. I considered actually dying because it didn't quite feel earned as I still hadn't successfully parried the full string of attacks from two of his attack sequences in phase 2 ||

[nova temple]

Wait, this is bad 😅

On average, you just take 25% more damage!

[main olive]

Reminds me of that ring in Dark souls that makes you take twice the damage
No buffs, just twice the damage

that gives the enemy a second crit multiplier

[exotic ember]

Simple, just don't get hit

(This is in fact not simple)

[nova temple]

I mean, sure, but none of the pictos have ever been unhelpful

like, if there's a kiss/curse, the kiss has always been stronger

[fallow geode]

maybe it's not 50/50?

[nova temple]

Well, it says randomly, so I assume it's a smooth probability curve

[main olive]

I've been getting hit by night everything

[nova temple]

git gud

[main olive]

It's like a rhythm game! I suck at those

The window is so small

[shell minnow]

It is like a rhythm game, you are correct

[nova temple]

indeed, indeed

it's very satisfying when you get the rhythm down though

[fallow geode]

dodging has a larger (easier) window than parrying

[main olive]

I don even try to parry

[exotic ember]

So satisfying that it's disappointing when you beat a fight without first getting the rhythm down

[main olive]

I know it changes nothing but I walk towards the enemies blasting them with the gun

Better safe than sorry

[shell minnow]

blasting lets you go first!

[nova temple]

it does change something though

^

[shell minnow]

sneak attack

[main olive]

Loudest sneak attack ever

[nova temple]

I guess the walking doesn't, it just makes you look cool

[fallow geode]

blasting them in the face is the sneak attack
You then get a surprise round

[main olive]

Get styled on, punks

[shell minnow]

Also hey, I feel like giving everyone in here psychic damage so

[obtuse pond]

Might have a niche use case if you’re dealing with an enemy whose attacks deal 100% of your health or something.

[shell minnow]

"Pictos" is singular and plural

one pictos

a singular pictos

[fallow geode]

oh

[nova temple]

ah, the good ol' fish

[fallow geode]

feather you're loosing your edge

[main olive]

I find the cursing in french quite charming

One thing I do often is curse in various languages so I've used these words more than once irl

[shell minnow]

language warning ||putain||

[main olive]

Act 1 The Manor
||Where's my child! I demand answers!||

[nova temple]

Act 2 ||Inside the Monolith|| ||1 turn in, and we are 80% to killing this thing 😔 ||

[reef iron]

I didn't even try parrying for close to 40 hours

[shell minnow]

parrying is one of those things when you start feeling confident and you're getting the perfects, don't gotta worry until then

(or if you decide you want to be cocky about it because the boss has made it personal)

[exotic ember]

Ending || In the fight against Maelle currently. I'm bad at parrying, so Maelle's voice lines are going to get etched into my brain lol. Seems I likely will only have to make it through 2 of her attacks too lmfao ||

Or if you're a masochist

[nova temple]

I didn't even think to practice with dodging first

[main olive]

Act 1 The Manor
||I got my child back, now since this makes it a three person team I gotta start learning what everyone does best and organize accordingly.||

[nova temple]

(and was subsequently humbled a little bit and had to work on my dodges for a couple of hours)

[exotic ember]

Ngl I wish the game had a boss rush mode or something so you could really master each boss fight afterwards. Since afaik the only way to re-fight a boss is to do NG+ or play on another platform lol

[nova temple]

strong agree

[main olive]

Give it a month for a mod that turns every enemy into a boss

like those Elden Ring mods

[nova temple]

I think perfecting a boss can feel very gratifying

and there's a lot of bosses

[exotic ember]

It really is yeah

[fallow geode]

Act 2 ||Dualliste is very satisfying||

[exotic ember]

I kind of want to force myself to use no revives when I jump back over to PC. And possibly no shielding skills

But idk, I do like retaining some sanity

[wild jackal]

Act 3||Endless Tower in act 3 has the bosses again.||

[analog tiger]

I parried a few fights when I was confident in my dodging

[exotic ember]

Act 3 || Oh sweet! Thanks for the info! ||

[main olive]

I went looking to see what mods have popped up because the game is really fresh and half are dodge/parry mods and the other half is having everyone butt naked.

Never change, internet.

[nova temple]

Still Act 2, but a little later ||I really really loved the Chromatic... Danseuse? Getting her rhythm down was hard, because it's fast attacls at an irregular rhythm, but now whenever I see a Danseuse in the enemy comp, I leave her for last because I just farm AP with parries ||

Video games are but mere vehicles for naked mods

nodnod

[main olive]

I have seen at least three different bunny girl mods for the same character

[exotic ember]

I really hope that mod is named after (super super minor spoiler for one of the expedition logs) || the nudist expedition ||

[main olive]

One removes the tattoos and scars from that one girl, that's weak, the person that made it is weak and their bloodline will not survive the winter

ok this one's funny

[nova temple]

Nick

go back to the game

stop looking at mods

[main olive]

Yes captain

[nova temple]

good man

[exotic ember]

I'm so bad at this game lol

[granite sage]

I’m just curious, is the perfect dodge timing the same as the parry timing or are they different?

[fallow geode]

AFAIK It's the same

[granite sage]

I know general dodge timing is wider

[nova temple]

they feel the same

[shell minnow]

Yeah, perfect dodge = parry

if you're hitting perfects on dodges, you can parry

[exotic ember]

Ending || I

[main olive]

you

[exotic ember]

Lmfao

Ending || I feel like I've been spending more time listening to Verso and Maelle talk than actually fighting. Finally won the fight against Maelle though. Idk why I struggled to get those parry timings down so much ||

[reef iron]

ending ||picking to fight verso as maelle was definitely more like. this fight is just a formality lol||

[exotic ember]

Ending || I'm also just really bad at this game lol. But yeah I would imagine Maelle would decimate Verso pretty quickly ||

[nova temple]

Act 2 ||Inside the Monolith||

https://tenor.com/view/thats-it-yes-thats-it-that-right-there-omg-that-thats-what-i-mean-gif-17579879

[exotic ember]

Credits are rolling! I've done it! I've finally beaten an RPG not named Pokemon!

And... I'm already ready to do it again on PC, this time doing all the side content and the endgame content

I cannot express how much I love this game

The fact that it lived up to the astronomical hype I had built up for it in my mind and ended up exceeding my expectations is absolutely wild

[potent tapir]

the "main" side content i really enjoyed

[nova temple]

Act 2 ||Inside the Monolith|| ||I also can't help but notice that this version Lumiere looks a lot more like the Lumiere of the prologue than the Old Lumiere I was running around earlier...||

Act 2 ||Inside the Monolith|| ||Damn, the track for the Renoir fight goes hard||

Hmm

Shenanigans are afoot

[dawn spindle]

I was like saying [language] ||merde|| mid english sentence sounds totally normal

I do this all the time but in spanish

which is nearly identical

I also say the f word mid spanish sentence here and there

at some point each language swear word gets its own head canon nuance and I can't swap one for another 😔

[nova temple]

Act 2 ||Monolith Peak|| ||Is... Renoir not Verso's real father? Is Verso the son of the Curator and the... other, female Curator? Alina? Is Maelle somehow their daughter, and sister to the (real?) Paintress? I sense a twist, and I know I haven't put the pieces together correctly, but I know that the game hasn't been straight with me||

[exotic ember]

🍿

[hollow ruin]

oh gods, you've almost caught up to me

[main olive]

Don't worry I just started so you're still ahead of someone

[hollow ruin]

yay

[main olive]

Act 1
||There's someone following us||

||I just saw someone on a cinematic, like the shoulders and back of the head, looking at us.||

||They're not wearing Expedition uniforms||

[nova temple]

Man, these people are pathologically incapable of speaking non-cryptically

[fallow geode]

It's a contractual obligation of being a JRPG character

[nova temple]

Act 2 ||Monolith Peak|| ||Oh, I like putting the... execution of the Paintress in the hands of the player. There's... weight... to you having to press the buttons||

[main olive]

But this isn't a Japanese game
It's french
thus it's actually a Je'RPG

[analog tiger]

LMAO

[granite sage]

Is it made by French people or just French themed?

(Looks like the first, cool)

[main olive]

It be both

[obtuse pond]

It is made by French people.
Specifically a bunch of Ubisoft devs who fled because they didn’t like all the red tape of AAA development and how you couldn’t really get any of your own ideas into the games unless you had been with the company for a very long time.

[fallow geode]

*3 ubisoft devs

[obtuse pond]

Oh, well the main guy/founder is a Ubisoft dev

[nova temple]

Huh

Act 2 ||Obviously "Maelle reminds you of Alicia" wasn't going to be true, but this ending sure went places and did things, huh? ||

Act 2 ||I won? And then I lost? Good thing I am now onto the epilogue, and all this Act 3 has been one elaborate lie manufactured by all of you!||

Act 2 ||I think things are clicking into places, and I think this could've been one banger of an act ending, but 90% of my brain is dedicated to furiously fitting the pieces of this puzzle together, and unfortunately emotions are gonnd need to chill for a minute||

Act 2 ||I am pleased I correctly guessed that the Paintress is not the one causing the Gommage though. I like me a good "the villain was never really the villain" twist||

Act 2 ||The line "your mother painted life as your father painted death" is also ||

[main olive]

Act 1 coral region
||Vaguely humanoid shaped gigantanormous enemy ahead, I'm terrified.||

[nova temple]

Hmm

Hmmmm

Act 2 ||It's astonishing how many answers I got, and still don't understand the details of the big picture. I imagine this flashback is going to help, but I want to process for a bit||

[main olive]

I did my first perfect parry 2 consecutive times by total accident

[nova temple]

Relish the seratonin

[main olive]

It was with ||Maelle|| so it felt really fitting

Act 1 coral region
||I'm fighting this abosolute unit called Goblu and I can't believe the theme is some techno bop||

[shell minnow]

Act 2 ||Sirene|| ||I am smurfing this area, OOPS. They're all floaty and I can kill them in one turn so Dead Energy procs and refills all my shots again to kill the next ones, my badddd||

||It is pretty tho, I am enjoying e33 Plays Journey, the level||

[nova temple]

100%

[main olive]

Well, enough expedition for the day

Good game

[granite sage]

Act 3 intro ||so, just trying to make sure I have this straight, I get that the Renoir who we’ve been chasing is more of a construction while the Curator is the ‘real’ one, so was the constructed one made by the Paintress alongside constructs of the rest of her family? The Alicia we’ve seen so far was another similar construct, alongside the PC Verso, while Maelle is the “real” Alicia, who has been sort of reincarnated and lived a real life in this world as a baby, but could presumably return to her world as the injured Alicia, I get why she wouldn’t want to go back. I wouldn’t either||

[obtuse pond]

||Yeah you got it.||
||Sidenote but there is one particular nasty line from Painted Renoir’s second boss fight where he says that when Aline painted him she made him “inherit” the grief of losing the real Verso, as punishment for real Renoir being away or something when real Verso died.||

[analog tiger]

Act 3 ||oh wow this family sucks||

[main olive]

How far away am I from the end of act 1
||I saved Maelle, fought the big guy with the flowers and escape the coral zone, I saw a nightmare with a guy fighting someone from our group (Maybe it's the guy that's been stalking us) and Maelle screaming at Paintress||

[merry lance]

I wanna say maybe half way if you straight line it, but there's exploring to be done.

[nova temple]

That sounds right

Maybe a little less? The final zone of each chapter seems to be a bit bigger than the others

[merry lance]

Act 2 ||Post-Old Lumiere|| ||Does anyone know off-hand if/when enemies start absorbing/being immune to Dark? I just won a fight I don't think I was supposed to be able to win yet, and got a level 17 Sciel weapon that can convert all her damage to Dark...||

[nova temple]

||I don't remember very well but I don't think there's a lot of dark-immune enemies after Old Lumiere. I'd say give it a shot, don't invest too much into it, and see how it goes for you? It's the weapon I was running for hey, but she isn't in my main party often||

[merry lance]

||Unfortunately, I just stumbled on an enemy type I'd forgotten about that's immune. Saplings.||

||That being said, I'm still thinking hard about it. The weapon that caps applied foretellings continues to be extremely tempting though...||

[analog tiger]

pretty far

you are 30% of the way to the end of act 1 more or less

[exotic ember]

Going back to PC I’m having to relearn my parry window timing due to the faster refresh rate and lower latency compared to the PS5 lol

[nova temple]

Act 2 ||Epilogue|| ||Hmm, if this is "Monolith Year 59", why are these paintings here 🤔 ||

[nova temple]

Act 3 baby

And also, delicious delicious answers

[main olive]

I never stopped to think that if I progress I will get answers to my questions

Thanks for the reminder

[nova temple]

hey, this game?

it slaps

[exotic ember]

So much

Act 2 Side content || This ambush side boss was really cool ||

Also Argent you weren’t kidding about Elemental Genesis. That damage is absurd

Also Act 2 side content || Chromatic Jar || || I also beat this enemy and I think the game expected you to beat him later because behind him was the chroma catalyst that levels to 19 and I haven’t gotten any of those yet on this playthrough lol ||

The side content in this game is pretty sick

[nova temple]

100%

to all that

[hollow ruin]

alright, it's time for me to finally start act 3, argent managed to start the game and get to the end of act 2 in the time it took me to get through act 2's final dungeon and now this plot scene cavalcade

[nova temple]

I found the next hour to be Good Stuff ™️

[hollow ruin]

act 2 ||epilogue|| ||Clea just doesn't give a single ounce of a damn, does she? Also, her calling painted Renoir useless is a bit considering he kicked my ass harder than the Paintress||

||so we're just straight up in an urban fantasy setting, aren't we. Painters who can paint worlds in canvas, and Writers who... can presumably write worlds as books? And they're fighting each other for ??? reasons||

||damn Clea, guilt trip your sister more, I'm sure that'll help ||

||I don't think I like Clea||

||I do like Clea's sass, though, even if I don't like that it's aimed at her sister||

||I wonder what the time scale here is. Cause like... If Alicia enters the canvas in Monolith Year 47, that means that Alina has been in the canvas for 53 years at that point. But obviously, she has not; Clea and Alicia aren't nearly old enough for Verso's death to have happened 53 years ago. So how much time has actually passed irl? (also, how old was Alicia when she entered the canvas? She's a bit taller than Maelle)||

chat

i did it

i reached act 3

act 3 opening ||oh, i like white-haired maelle. and i hope we get to keep alicia's outfit as her own, it's neat||

[exotic ember]

Act 2 || Forgotten Battlefield || || I know everyone loves Lune but I find her to be so callous and insensitive ||

[analog tiger]

Act 3 ||she's so awful to Alicia 😭 ||

[hollow ruin]

same ||yeah, like she complains about the way her mother grieves but she's not doing so great herself, just channeling all her grief for Verso into hating Alicia||

act 3 opening ||honestly, Alina is awful to Alicia too. First the painted daughter she makes still has the fire damage and can't speak, and then she erases her real daughter's memories to suck her into the canvas||

||this whole family is a disfunction junction||

[nova temple]

||My impression - or maybe assumption - was that the latter is not Alina's fault, just something that... naturally happens (unless you can personally prevent it)||

[hollow ruin]

||hm, i thought she actively sent out her chroma to attack, but maybe 🤔 ||

||I can still blame her for giving Painted Alicia fire damage tho||

act 3 opening ||Man, Verso's just having a hell of a time, no? Like he was created with all those emotions and feelings about these people, but they're not actually his family and he's not actually their brother/son and that's just so weird and messed up||

[reef iron]

||I don't think I see this at all....||

[hollow ruin]

act 3 opening ||"I know it seems absurd to offer oblivion as recompense" hits really funny given the timing of Oblivion remaster rerelease||

[analog tiger]

act 3 intro ||I don't even think Clea hates Alicia tbh||

[nova temple]

Naru (and others, I suppose), can you be more clear about whether your act 3 comments are safe for me and Rasarr (who just started A3) / whether they are informed by the full game?

Act 3 early camp, presented without further commentary

Man, the writing of this game is so... sneaky

it doesn't smash you to pieces with big strong reveals, or themes, or motifs, or anything like that, but it does have these little precision cuts just all the time, and they add up

Act 3 ||First (?) camp|| ||Like, Monoco is named after Verso's dog (I mean, I guess he could've been a family dog, but I think the relationship we see in the Canvas suggests a close relationship outside it too), but this turns the human/dog relationship, where it is the dog whose life is the short one, on its head. And it was IRL Monoco who outlived Verso there. And none of this is groundbreaking writing, or anything like that, but it's just... precise||

[exotic ember]

General Mechanics || Wait, Our sacrifice is cracked! It doesn’t actually kill your team. Just puts everyone at 1 HP! That’s amazing for everything that cares about low hp ||

[fallow geode]

Act 2 general

[hollow ruin]

act 3 world map ||the fact that I could finish the game right now if I wanted to is genuinely so wild.||

||I won't, I have sightseeing to do, but I could||

[nova temple]

I have to imagine there's a twist

it cannot... just work

[exotic ember]

Same tags || I think it’s just little moments like when Maelle was having the panic attack and Lune was just grilling her despite everyone else being like hey chill she’s going through it. And then when Maelle asks to bury Gustave Lune is like BuT pRoToCoL. Like she doesn’t seem to get that there’s a time and place for that stuff and Maelle is a child ||

[hollow ruin]

act 3 world map ||Man, there's like... so many places to go, i genuinely don't know what to start with||

[nova temple]

haha, yeah, I am battling that feeling too

[hollow ruin]

||north to south, i guess? need to find some low-level mobs to farm the Painter Power picto into a Lumina...||

[reef iron]

||I mean, she's 16, not 10. and lune was correct that it's better fresh||

[exotic ember]

|| Definitely very fair points! I understand the reasoning, even if it doesn’t quite sit well with me ||

[hollow ruin]

act 3 mechanics ||162,000 damage on Standhal with just a mark applied is nice ||

||granted, one of my friends said they've managed to reach a Standhal hit worth 11 million damage, but we'll get there||

[nova temple]

Act 3 is being a little... humbling 😅

[reef iron]

yeah that's how I felt

[exotic ember]

Act 2 || Forgotten Battlefield boss || || Likely about to get humbled again. Let’s see if I remember these attack patterns ||

Really looking forward to getting into all the side content in act 3 and the endgame stuff

[exotic ember]

Same tags || Andddd party wipe on first attack lol ||

Act 2 || Forgotten Battlefield Boss || || Well that was much easier than before ||

[hollow ruin]

act 3 ||monolith peak|| ||huh. i went back to take some screenshot of the paintress battle arena, and there's a boss waiting there ||

||not the paintress just some... other nevron moved in||

[nova temple]

I see you have chosen to do story instead of roaming aimlessly

[hollow ruin]

i have not

i have chosen to explore the world map from north to south and ||monolith peak|| is as north I can go

(if you haven't clicked on the spoiler tags, it's not a new area, you've been there already if you're in act 3)

[exotic ember]

The game somehow dropped my settings down to low at some point and wow it looks so much better jumping back over to epic settings lmfao

Act 3 || It’s so interesting during the replay how Verso specifically mentions Renoir erasing people and how the context of that has changed with the new knowledge we have. Cool detail ||

[hollow ruin]

i don't think i should be fighting this boss at this level, but gods i want to beat it 😤

[nova temple]

Man, everywhere I go I get my ass kicked 😅

[hollow ruin]

[reef iron]

yes

act 3 safe for you ||that's why I ended up going and just doing the last quest because it felt like it was actually meant for me, at my level 😩 ||

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||The Fountain|| (this one might be unsafe for you, Rasarr, if you haven't been here, it revealed something I am not sure was covered earlier) ||Huh, so the Nevrons were painted by Clea?? (except for the ones on the Axon islands) And their job is to keep chroma away from Alina and Renoir, so their conflict can end. And all the friendly nevrons I've been running into (and helping) are Clea's mistakes. That's not a resolution I thought I wanted, but I like it? Thanks, game??||

[merry lance]

Y'know, now that I'm thinking about it, I feel like parries do an insane amount of lifting for making this system really work. It means even a cycle rezzing a body can still be a net damage round, and gaining AP back for even partial parry sets is huge.

[hollow ruin]

meanwhile, i haven't used parry since... act 1?

my reflexes just aren't good enough to hit the timing

[merry lance]

It's timing, no reflexes required

[hollow ruin]

act 3 mechanics ||man, standhal is doing so much heavy lifting for this team; I just got a hit for 350 thousand damage, whereas Verso and Monoco are lucky enough to hit 50K||

gods, i think the boss i'm fighting is bugged 🤔 sometimes it doesn't do audio cues for its attacks, and that's killing me

[reef iron]

I do feel like I'm playing a different game now I'm comfortable with parrying

[hollow ruin]

(yes, i am still trying to kill the boss i said was far above my level)

[hollow ruin]

it very much is a matter of reflexes. i understand the timing, i see the signs (except when the game bugs out and refuses to give me the audio cue), but i just don't hit the button at the right moment

act 3 ||monolith peak|| ||et voila||

||but good heavens, i got three levels out of this fight||

[exotic ember]

Act 2 side content || Tried fighting Grosse Tete. Easiest enemy to parry. But I can’t do any damage to it. Even the 9999 hits do nothing. Sooooooo… this’ll be a later fight lol ||

[hollow ruin]

same tags, i you want a solution (SpookySpren) ||you can't deal damage to it. you just have to parry/dodge it enough times until it explodes||

act 3 ||the crows|| ||must say, not a huge fan of the ambiance the ominous whispering and all||

||oh, but the boss theme is swinging ||

||very witcher by the way of france||

[shell minnow]

Act 2, but general character stuff ||To me, Lune fits into a character archetype that I'm very fond of (and write frequently) so I'm very drawn to empathizing why she acts the way she does. I think she's never really been allowed to deal with her own emotions and is just so in the habit of squashing any kind of feeling in herself and using "what needs to be accomplished, what is the mission, what is the rule for what we're supposed to do" as her guidance instead, in a way to avoid processing her own feelings.||

||I think about her and Sciel talking about when they'd shared a moment of "comfort" back in Lumiere a long time ago, and Lune immediately cut off contact and threw herself back into her work, or being raised by mission-driven parents who saw her, even as a toddler, as a research assistant rather than like, a family member. ||

||Lune's got a lot that she isn't processing because she's learned how to function without ever needing to genuinely process those emotions, and it makes her very effective in a crisis: she's a decision maker, she's always looking for the path forward, no matter how bad it gets, she's this stable, indefatigable strategist who isn't going to stop until she's dead. But because of that, she has this flaw of struggling to process other people's emotional needs in a way that comes across as insensitive.||

||When Maelle has just had a terrifying vision, Lune wants fresh information, she wants to get all the details, they'll never get a better chance to accurately capture what Maelle saw than immediately after it happened. It's mission critical, that they get all the intel they can if they want to survive and understand what's going on around them. But it's insensitve to pressure Maelle when she's already in distress, but Lune naturally picks the mission priority over an emotional consideration, because that's how she handles her entire life.||

||I love her, I think she's badass, and I often write characters that have flaws like hers, and feel compelled by seeing them learn how to be vulnerable or get in touch with what they themselves are feeling. It's a character arc I really enjoy, personally.||

...........oh no

that was like. two paragraphs when i was writing it. i swear.

and then i hit enter and the screen disappeared.

help.

[exotic ember]

Same tags || Oh dang, seems like it requires a ton of turns to explode. Felt like I was at it for ages and then I just decided to let it kill me and move on lol ||

[merry lance]

Side content general ||Turns out Feather's a Mime, she's started out by building a wall||

Is it Act 2 full, or some degree of partial?

[shell minnow]

partial!

i'm only up to Act 2 ||defeating the Axons||

[nova temple]

Ah, see, I went there in the middle of Act 2 😅

[shell minnow]

(But it's genuinely not about plot at all, I think all the "events" I reference are camp scenes between characters)

[merry lance]

Hmm, I should probably play a little longer before I read then, that's the next big thing on my checklist (once I finish up getting distracted by side content)

[shell minnow]

Yeah, you may not have gotten the scenes where characters talk about things that have happened to them in the past yet that I'm referencing

[hollow ruin]

man, i desperately need a picto that will let me hit enemies that can dodge

a chromatic version of a flying enemy may well be the most annoying thing in all of existence

[exotic ember]

Same tags || That’s really very fair! Makes a ton of sense given everything I know of the character. Very much appreciate the insight! ||

[merry lance]

Act 2 side content ||Hmm, how about 3 of them?||

[hollow ruin]

it's lucky it has good boss music

i think i'm gonna leave it for... later

act 3 ||the isle of eyes|| ||is anyone able to tell me what the hell i'm supposed to do here? i figured i have to shoot the eyes of the two dead contortionists, but doing so doesn't... do anything 🤔 ||

also, general post-act 1 question ||can anyone tell me how to unlock diving with esquie?||

[wild jackal]

||There's a third eye to shoot in order to fix the bridge. As for diving, you get it when you max out his relationship.||

[hollow ruin]

(also, nice new pfp 👀 )

[reef iron]

you're immediately talking about areas I haven't tried yet

haha

wow it's big

[nova temple]

thank god, I think I found what's just, like... a normal zone

[hollow ruin]

i've started keeping a notepad file with all the areas i need to go back to 😅

[nova temple]

it's been weird level after a boss battle after a weird level after a boss battle

[exotic ember]

Wow, 43% of steam players have reached Act 2 || The end of Monoco's Station || That seems like a killer retention rate to me?

Welp, just finished Act 2 || Monoco's station || on PC. Next up I'm going to check out Act 2 || Frozen Hearts || before Act 2 || Old Lumiere ||. Feels like steady progress catching up on the PC save

Going to play more tonight after the Caps game

[hollow ruin]

funnily, i never did end up doing ||Frozen Hearts|| in act 2

that's gonna be a nice break from all teh dead ends and unbeatable bosses i'm running into

[exotic ember]

Likewise. I didn't touch any side content really

So it has been a ton of fun hitting it all now as I come across it on this run

Don't think I've ever beaten a game and immediately just jumped back in like this lol

[nova temple]

I went there pretty underleveled for it, and boy was it a strugglebus

consequently, I left it overleveled for the rest of Act 2 😅

[exotic ember]

Granted it's a bit of a weird case with the switching of platforms

I'm so curious to see what it holds

[merry lance]

Act 1 ||Yellow Harvest|| ||I didn't notice the climbing wall to the rest of the map on my first visit, so I'm discovering this Act 1 zone at firm mid Act 2 levels||

[exotic ember]

Also fun fact. This thread has more messages in 16 days than MH:Wild and Final Fantasy XIV combined

[merry lance]

||I'm going to try out some of the fun Pictos I've found here and see if it speeds up my one-round-fights (death bomb and auto death)||

||Oh boy does it, the fight doesn't even really fully load in||

||And it's no damage, too!||

[exotic ember]

Same tags || Oh big same. Walked in there today and spent a few minutes looking around like, “huh, guess I have to come in the other way?” Since I had come in from the exit on the PS5. Pretty much the only side content level I touched there lol ||

[reef iron]

speaking on qol stuff, I kind of wish you could see a suggested level on each zone, cause it kind of sucks going back to a zone that was too tough and then steam rolling it

it's a little less fun

[exotic ember]

Yeah I definitely agree with that

There are certainly some QoL things they could add

Another small one imo is being able to sort your pictos by ones that you have luminas for and ones you don’t

And I still would love to have build slots

[wild jackal]

A recommendation for the people just starting act 3:||Go back to the sea north of Stone Wave Cliffs and kill Sprong if you didn't already do so. He has a picto that will make buildcrafting a lot more interesting.||

[hollow ruin]

same tags ||tho ngl, casually "kill sprong" is killing me a little given how swiftly that thing wiped me out before ||

||sure, standhal can do it||

||(standhal is carrying me so hard right now)||

[dawn spindle]

the game is certainly missing a few QoL stuff

not the end of the world but a few things would be nice

[hollow ruin]

yep

[shell minnow]

well, not the end of our world at least

[dawn spindle]

well I'd be dead inside the game's world anyway

so i'd not care

[hollow ruin]

speaking of QOL, give me quicksave, game...

(this message brought to you by "forgot to force an autosave before a boss and now have to fly across a quarter of the world map to get back to it")

[analog tiger]

Act 3 all ||what picto does Sprong drop?||

[wild jackal]

||The one that lets you act twice a turn.||

[nova temple]

jk, it turned into a boss

[exotic ember]

Yeah there are a handful of QoL things I’d like but don’t prevent the game from being an 11/10 for me nonetheless

[hollow ruin]

Nazzaya has sent me on a mission to kill ||Sprong|| and by gods, it will be done, but good grief, i am awful at dodging it

[nova temple]

that's a disgusting pictos

I feel dirty for having acquired it

[reef iron]

haha

[merry lance]

Act 2 ||The Crows|| ||All right, I'm starting to get a feel for the timing, hopefully I'll pull it all together soon||

[hollow ruin]

well what do you know

the very next time i attempted it, i defeated it

oh boy that's a nice picto 👀

okay, either i have missed something obvious or the game has

the game keepts talking about upgrading pictos

but i can't find any way to level up pictos?

am i blind, or is that not an option

[fallow geode]

I think I've spotted them upgrading after battles sometimes
same way as weapons

[merry lance]

Yeah, I don't know if you can force an upgrade, but sometimes they upgrade as a drop

[reef iron]

basically just find them again/get them again as a drop, and they'll be higher level

[hollow ruin]

so the whole talk characters sometimes have in camp about upgrading pictos is just fluff?

[analog tiger]

Act 3 all ||does that work with extra turn granting stuff?||

[wild jackal]

||Not as far as I'm aware. Dualiso still only gives you two turns instead of four for example.||

[analog tiger]

act 3 all ||pepehands||

act 3 all ||still, Maelle with that might go crazy 👀 ||

[nova temple]

Okay, I need to take a break, I've been at this for like 6 hours 😅

I feel like I need to figure out my stats, and builds, and weapons, and stuff, but boy does that prospect not excite me

Now that I am in Act 3, I actually welcome build ideas (mostly for Maelle, I feel like she is in a weird spot right now)

[merry lance]

Act 2 ||The Crows|| ||Ooh, if I don't shoot the hats out of the sky, I can parry the ??? inter-turn attack...||

||I think I do a couple more tries because that's a pretty easy parry, but after that it's on to maybe actually the story content this time||

[hollow ruin]

act 3 ||camp|| ||"Verso reveals he keeps secret swimsuits in Monoco's bag" WHAT||

||You mean I have to platform my way up the nonsense platforming challenges of the gestrals, and he just gets to pull swimsuits out of a bag?????||

[shell minnow]

Are you fighting overworld mobs? They're the ones that drop pictos upgrades for me

[hollow ruin]

nope, i'm just travelling from point of interest to point of interest 😅

[shell minnow]

Yeah I try to fight all the enemies on the overworld map because they do weapon and pictos upgrades for you

Doesn't even have to be the big bosses on the map, just the little guys will do it

[hollow ruin]

i'm not sue if i have the patience for it, tbh

[fallow geode]

you're probably leveled enough that they'll all die from a couple of AOEs

[merry lance]

Fine, I'll take the fact that I die to any missed parry as a sign that I shouldn't fight this fight yet...

[nova temple]

heh

[rancid vessel]

No, because it's a reverse calendar

She's 17

Or 16

I'm bad at math

[hollow ruin]

no, no, i do know the calendar is reverse, that's why i'm wondering

[rancid vessel]

Oh, never mind misunderstood

Act 3 ||my impression is that time is MUCH faster in the canvas than out||

[hollow ruin]

act 3 ||right, because even like... Esquie mentions that Clea left the painting "centuries" ago, but surely, that family is not that old||

||so like, how much time has passed outside? like is Clea back from whatever she's been doing?||

[rancid vessel]

Act 3 ||it seems to be one of those things the characters just already know so, they just don't bother to explain||

[exotic ember]

Gah, you tease

Can’t wait to catch up. I know I could just continue on the PS5 but I really want to experience all the late/postgame on the new desktop

[rancid vessel]

Anyway act 3 ||at this point you can end the game whenever you want by going to Lumiere. Just be aware once you go there that is the ending. ||

[hollow ruin]

act 3 ||oooh, there's an area called Renoir's Drafts||

||that's bound to be interesting||

act 3 ||renoir's drafts|| ||man, every time I feel like I'm used to how pretty this game is, they throw stuff like this at me||

...oh gods, it's 1 AM

time to stop

[wild jackal]

Act 3 General ||You can continue to explore the map after the ending if you reload the save after watching the credits, NG+ won't start until you choose that option from the flag menu. I would honestly recommend doing Lumiere around like level 50 or so. It was very anticlimactic to have Verso kill him in two basic attacks and not even give Maelle a turn.||

[hollow ruin]

same tag ||...well, i am rather past the point of no return then with my levelling, I've sailed past 50 already 😅 but tbh, anticlimactic or not, i can't imagine myself coming back to the game after i finish it, just not that kind of player, so i'll have to deal with the disappointment||

||bit surprised they don't scale the final boss to the player level after letting the player run around the whole map for who knows how many levels 🤔 ||

[obtuse pond]

Same tags ||You can just use a recoat to take yourself down a few levels and take off some of the more busted pictos.||

[obtuse pond]

||Honestly it would even kinda fit in-universe since the whole reason they justify Renoir not coming after you to begin with is that he is tired from his battle with Aline and needs to recover his strength. It’d make perfect sense that the protags doing side quests would also give Renoir more time to regain his power.||

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||Flying Manor|| ||This place is just hell, man, massive sprawling dungeon, all sorts of high level baddies... I can make some progress into it, but clearing it is going to be a grind||

Act 3 ||camp, Monoco max relationship|| ||is this what you want chat? is this it??||

[reef iron]

YES

they know what we like

[main olive]

Time for more expeditions

[exotic ember]

Same tags || Yeah I’m glad I took on Renoir in the mid 40s. Was a tough fight. Though still not as tough as the paintress fight ||

[analog tiger]

Act 3 ||monoco max relationship|| ||oh, I should really have maxed that relationship||

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||The Canvas|| ||The Canvas, huh?||

[nova temple]

||?????????????||

Well, I think this is fine

[obtuse pond]

Expedition 33 is so cool, I wish France was real

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||Painting Workshops|| ||Okay, that's another boss we'll table for later... It's actually not that difficult, but I am not doing enough damage to it, which means I have to play perfectly for a very very long time to kill it, and I'd rather just come back in 10 levels or w/e ||

[halcyon elbow]

I hear that France is a European take on Louisiana?

[main olive]

I'm getting my ass beate bruh

[merry lance]

You can do it!

[main olive]

I feel like I'm too underlevel for this one because I'm barely doing damage to the boss

[nova temple]

I never noticed that this outfit has a stylized Paintress on its back, that's a neat design

[main olive]

Outfits 👀

Ah right I have one from the intro

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||camp, Lune max relationship scene|| ||love my queen sassing this playboy up||

[main olive]

I got hit so hard Gustave's legs have curled up into his torso

you alright buddy?

[ionic kite]

Act 2 ||"Well, turns out this Nevron wasn't that strong"
VERSO SHUT THE HELL UP LMAO THAT WAS THE HARDEST FIGHT YET||

[main olive]

It's too early to stard respeccing my stats

What's health? we don't need that

[ionic kite]

Here's a quick tip that I didn't know for a long time

Your weapon damage scales from your Might, but it also scales from the two other stats with the sword icon

So for her, her weapon damage scales from Agility and Defense

[main olive]

I know that but I don't have weapons that scale off those stats unless I respec or find a weapon that does, so far I haven't looked at guides on where to find new stuff but I do tend to roam around looking for stuff

this is a very souls like weapons system

I don't want to respec now because I don't know how often I'll find the item that does it

[merry lance]

Act 2 ||Post-Visages|| ||Poor Monoco, the Mask Keeper couldn't find a mask that fit him, he looked so dejected...||

[nova temple]

I went heavily into Might & Luck for everyone, and was pretty okay throughout the first two acts

But I rely on parries a lot

[merry lance]

Act 2 ||Post Visages|| ||Also, dammit Verso, calling the Mask Keeper Verso? Are you allergic to the concept of honesty?||

Parries Stronk

[main olive]

Act 1 (I don't remember the name of the area but it's the red forest)
||I'm getting my ass beaten by the second invincible giant wood mech, fire deals a lot of damage to it but even with everything dealing fire damage it's still a damage sponge.||

[nova temple]

Problem is, non-bosses in act 3 are one-shotting some of my party with regular attacks 😅

Woo I need to beef up a little

[main olive]

Hit the gym

[nova temple]

||To be fair, he called out both Verso? and Renoir? so I don't know what's up with that||

[merry lance]

Eventually I too will reach act 3, but for now I'm of the opinion that Might is by far the most important stat, though I'm sure a decent chunk of that is me not knowing exactly how Defense impacts damage taken...

[nova temple]

I assume it's flat damage reduction

By value

[ionic kite]

It's very hard to find all the optional stuff
Since nothing but locations are marked
So I have to remember where things are, remember what I need to do there

[nova temple]

Yeeeah

[merry lance]

All right, I've been pondering enough rampant speculation now to sit down and commit some of it to digital paper...

Act 2 ||Post Visages||

||I suspect that the Paintress is an Axon, and she painted all of the games' humans into reality, and that this isn't the first time she's done it. This is largely based on Verso saying there are 3 Axon they could hunt, but only 2 of them are really valid targets, and the Gestrals and Esquie referencing things on a centuries-long time scale. This is also why the Paintress has the ability to do The Gommage, she isn't disintegrating old humans, she's reclaiming power from old creations.||

||I think Verso, Alicia, and Renoir specifically are her painting Avatars of herself and the other local Axon into reality, and that's why they're all immortal. That's also why Verso calls the Mask Keeper Verso or Renoir. Maelle, I think, is probably either supposed to be either a new Avatar for Alicia, since the old one was damaged in a fire, a memorial for the dead Axon in Old lumiere, or the Avatar for a new, as-of-yet unknown child Axon. Maybe the newer Mistress that isn't the Paintress some of the unpainted Nevroms reference...||

[nova temple]

Look at me, I am the 🍿 now

[exotic ember]

Act 2 || Frozen Hearts || || This area says danger. What have you done 👀 ||

[exotic ember]

It’s a great feeling ngl haha

[nova temple]

||Muscle through it!||

[exotic ember]

|| At this point I have to! Just now starting on it ||

Streaming Act 2 side content || Frozen Hearts || here on discord if people want to see what I expect to be a struggle lmfao

Argent what have you done

[nova temple]

You can come back later 😛

[exotic ember]

That’s quitter speak

I should

But alas

[nova temple]

Heh

[exotic ember]

The first fight took 7 minutes. So you know what. Maybe I will come back later. We’ll see how the next few go.

I didn’t take a single hit either, and I parried every attack. And it still took 7 minutes

[nova temple]

Yeeeah, that might be a bit on the long side

I didn't think to check how long mine were taking, but they weren't quick

[exotic ember]

Yeahhhh. This is a test of patience more than anything right now lol

[obtuse pond]

Start of Act 3/End of Act 2 ||Oh my God, I just realized Monoco’s theme starts with “Bow wow wow wow” and he’s based off of a dog.||

|| https://youtu.be/TcEdif_2PNY?si=shSGkVD29kkNGnqP ||

[nova temple]

Hm, can I reallocate my lumina points?

[reef iron]

hmmmm

like you mean between characters

[nova temple]

Yeah, like, if I decide that I don't care to play with someone, can I take their points and give them to someone else

[reef iron]

I don't know.... I haven't seen such an option

[nova temple]

Yeah, I couldn't remember seeing one either

[granite sage]

Yeah I don’t think you can reduce a characters lumina points, I’m not sure if there’s a limit to the amount out there or not

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||The Reacher | Manor|| ||I just think it's neat...||

[hollow ruin]

(psst, the image isn't spoilered)

[analog tiger]

it is here

this is why I try to be super vague about my spoilers, discord likes messing up tags too much

[hollow ruin]

huh, it was unspoilered on mobile for me 🤔

weird

apologies for slander then, Argent

[nova temple]

😤

[dawn spindle]

😒

Act 1 ||before gestralt village|| ||i just killed this thing and it slammed into me and killed me 😠 ||

That was low

[merry lance]

||It just wanted to celebrate your victory! With fireworks!||

[dawn spindle]

Ok, got it

[merry lance]

Act 2 ||I'm hunting for the blue root thingies to destroy in dungeons|| ||I remembered the one in SWC, but searching dungeons isn't a particularly fast process, does anyone remember seeing them in other early dungeons?||

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||Maelle, max relationship|| ||oh my god, that wasn't just a bit, they actually did it ||

[hollow ruin]

act 3 ||renoir's drafts|| ||okay, when my 140K hit does a sliver of a regular mob enemy's damage, i think that's as clear as sign as i'll get that I shouldn't be here yet...||

[nova temple]

How have I not found this area

[hollow ruin]

if you want to know where it is, ||near Sirene's island (south-west of it) there is a ring in the water, with bubbling in the centre. If you have Esquie's diving ability unlocked, land in the circle and you'll get a prompt to enter||

act 3 ||sunless cliffs|| ||excuse me.||

||well. that's nightmarish.||

i think that's going on my "for later" list too...

the list is growing exponentially

[nova temple]

this zone doesn't sound familiar either!

[hollow ruin]

to find it, ||if you look at the world map, there's a gestral beach near the northeast. above and to the left of it, there's a mountain pass with a cloud of purple smoke in it, that's the entrance||

[nova temple]

I think I'll save those hints for later

self-ping so I can find this easily @nova temple

Meanwhile

Oh, there's full two huge swaths of the world I haven't even been to

[hollow ruin]

oh, i haven't done that yet, i'm still missing one part

act 3 ||gestral beach|| ||ah yes, let's make a minigame based on a mechanic that keeps bugging out on me, i'm sure i'll have a great time with it ||

||huh. i actually nailed it third try. 50 climbing ledges and not one bugged out on me||

||also tf you mean expeiditon 60 wasn't wearing any clothes||

[nova temple]

I was worried about this one too, but it worked surprisingly well

[nova temple]

that is, this thing

[nova temple]

I wasn't worried about this

[hollow ruin]

act 3 ||the reacher/maelle's quest|| ||I love that you can see Esquie fluttering behind the exit ||

omg finally a dungeon where party members not named Maelle don't feel like they're tickling the enemy with their attacks

act 3 ||the reacher|| ||i love the guy with the frying pan on its head, it's so funny. i love those little guys are working on the tower in the overworld, like hammering away it at ||

[merry lance]

Act 2 ||The Crows|| ||Now that I've cleared The Crows, I can safely say: Oops, I wasn't supposed to be clearing The Crows yet (level 20+ drops when the most I've seen in story progress is 14)||

[reef iron]

it is so funny that Rasarr and Argent immediately went to the two dungeons I was saving for last

[nova temple]

[nova temple]

||Going there at level 70 is also not the optimal experience 😅 ||

[reef iron]

act 3 dungeon name ||I'd just seen Renoir's Drafts referred to as the most difficult dungeon in the game and I said to myself gotcha level 90 it is||

[nova temple]

That does not bode well for how I felt in some of the other dungeons I found

[hollow ruin]

that does match my brief experience with it

[nova temple]

I just spent 600k chroma on a vendor and didn't even buy out their entire stock

I need to... farm money...

[hollow ruin]

nothing like a 145K stendhal barely tickling a regular enemy

oh man

[rancid vessel]

Wow, clearly there is a lot of content I didn't explore lmao

[hollow ruin]

builds-wise, post-act 2 ||Verso's Steeled Strike is a potent combo with Cheater, cause the Beeg Damage of Steeled Strike happens on Veros's next turn, but Cheater means you take next turn right away, so it's basically taking away the move's sole weakness||

||but also, Cheater costing 40 to equip as a lumina, ouch. gonna have to really farm those colors of lumina||

[nova temple]

Have you been to The Fountain?

[exotic ember]

Dang, concurrent player numbers on steamdb are showing the game is still hitting 100k+ players with a 125k 24-hour peak and about 115k currently

Oblivion remastered for comparison has dropped to an 80k 24-hour peak with 75k concurrent players right now

Absolutely love to see the game thriving

[reef iron]

ooh what vendor just wanna make sure I didn't miss it

[nova temple]

I don't think it's anything too unique, just prices scaling with level

[reef iron]

but whereee

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||Endless Night Sanctuary||

[reef iron]

ooh ok

[hollow ruin]

not yet

ugh, why is time limited why is it a sunday

why can't i stay playing for like six more hours

[nova temple]

(whoops, keep forgetting to tag images) Act 3 ||Dealing 2M damage in a minute - one round, really - feels illegal. I am not built for Stendhal, but Lune's Elemental Genesis - which she can cast reliably in a single (double) turn, assuming no immunities on the enemy team, is like an AoE Stendhal, it's insane||

[obtuse pond]

Act 3 ||Renoir’s drafts|| ||My party are all currently in the level 84-86 range and I’m still getting warned about Renoir’s Drafts being dangerous when I go to enter.||

[reef iron]

wow looking at levels I think argent's ahead of me now

by like 8-10

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||Manor? I feel like this is an act 1 manor area, but I am just now discovering it|| ||What am I looking at here? A... birthday party?||

aww

[exotic ember]

Act 2 || This verso free aim and attack focused build seems like it’s going to be getting interesting with some of these new pictos ||

Same tags || Just picked up double mark and energising attack. And I have stuff like the pictos that gains AP on hitting a marked target too. That skill that is boosted for every free aim attack seems like it could go WILD down the road ||

[nova temple]

It's what I am still running

And it's not optimized optimized

[exotic ember]

Oh nice haha. I did something completely different on the previous playthrough

[nova temple]

Act 3 exploration ||Oh, no...||

[exotic ember]

Dang, already at Act 2 || Sirene boss fight || on this playthrough

I think my team is already almost at the level they were at when I finished the first playthrough lol

[main olive]

Act 1 early
||Went back to the white jar guy and gave him a resin, lit him up but it faded and now I have the option to attack him, I don't think I should because he's done nothing wront but I found another faded nevros too with a bomb in the undersea area, what do these guys need, and what happens if I fight them?||

[nova temple]

Huh

[nova temple]

||When you walk in, it sounds like someone just reads... a poem in French to you? Google Translate didn't do a great job at it, but it sure did catch a lot of repeated "lumiere s'eteint"s, or "light goes out" allegedly. I would want to find someone do a proper translation of it||

[reef iron]

explicit answer ||more fights if you fight them, reward if you help them and leave them alone||

I recommend deepl.com for French

[exotic ember]

Act 2 || Sirene boss fight || || Can we just appreciate how incredibly beautiful the cutscenes are surrounding this boss fight? Some of the most beautiful cutscenes in the game imo ||

[nova temple]

||Huh, is that the extent of this zone? I found Aline's music track, and see the manor from Old Lumiere, but no way to get to it||

[nova temple]

's good stuff

Act 3 ||Sunless Cliffs|| ||Alright, dude, talk abuot a shot||

[reef iron]

:0

general act 3 ||also it always weirds me out to see maelle with long hair, I put the "short" haircut on her and it suited her so much, that's just what maelle looks like to me. and there's white hair versions of her other haircuts available and the moment I found "short white" I was crowing||

[main olive]

I beat the boss that was beating my ass yesterday

turns out I just have to get good

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||Sunless Cliffs|| ||Yeah, man, the granddaddy of all mimes||

Act 3 ||Sunless Cliffs|| ||but y tho||

[nova temple]

||Oh, because it gives 108% crit chance Insane. ||

[wild jackal]

||Does doing it with Lune give you a cosmetic, or is Verso the only one?||

[main olive]

Act 1 ||Gestral village|| ||When do I find more crew members? I feeling rather limited||

[nova temple]

^ ||you get the bald look for each character you defeat the mime with. Maybe there's something if you do all 5, but I don't feel like I have good damage builds for Sciel and Monoco, so I'll kick that for later||

Act 3 ||Renoir's Drafts|| ||There we go. Sneaky.||

Alright, time to lock in

[main olive]

https://tenor.com/view/lock-in-parasyte-hold-up-gif-6616384397279042321

I've realized I'm running really low on money

Act 1 ||Gestral village|| ||Golgra 👀 ||

[exotic ember]

@scarlet trout Oh wait, you can definitely get more than 11 AP in one turn if you are facing multiple enemies and can kill them with free aim shots

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||Renoir's Drafts|| ||Oh, good lor, it's the puppy from his fight, but worse. ||

Extremely alarmed that this fight has its own track

[reef iron]

||use monoco!!!||

[exotic ember]

Same || Meanwhile it weirds me out to see her with anything but her default hairstyle lol ||

[reef iron]

||you want this puppy's foot!!!||

[scarlet trout]

Oooo good point

[main olive]

Act 1 ||Gestral village|| ||SCIEL! MY BELOVED SCIEL! YOU'RE ALIVE! and seems like she's been doing fine, she defeated a sakapotato all on her own, very strong, champion of the arena!||

[nova temple]

uuuuuuuuuuuuugh

[main olive]

||I don't understand Sciel's gameplay at all, very fun!||

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||Renoir's Drafts|| ||Good shout, Grey, but I would not have thought to do this, which makes me wonder what other unique feet I've missed on||

[main olive]

Why does this tutorial music goes so hard

Electric guitars and all

[reef iron]

there are one or two that are a bit missable... world map ||grosse tete is the only one I know of that might only have one instance in the game||

[nova temple]

Well, definitely missed that one 😅

[wild jackal]

Act 3 ||There's another tete in the Flying Manor, but I think Argent did that already.||

[nova temple]

Nick, some of the music just goes hard, occasionally for no good reason!

[nova temple]

Hmm, no, I went there, but I don't think I cleared that. I did just a few fights and walked out, and don't remember doing that one

[hollow ruin]

man, i respect you for doing this fight i gave up on this area after seeing how awful my damage against them is

what level are you at the moment, out of curiosity?

[exotic ember]

Because this game doesn’t know how to do anything except go hard

[main olive]

I was like ||Sciel's|| gameplay tutorial, let's go
The music for no reason:

[nova temple]

80-ish

a couple a little below, a couple a little above

[main olive]

So the game has a 3 people party limit huh

[exotic ember]

I might actually beat the game for the second time tonight. Though unfortunately I’ll have to wait until after Doom The Dark Ages to do endgame content

[nova temple]

P2 of that fight is rough, takes so long to get there, which means practicing it is just a time sink😅

[hollow ruin]

okay, that explains things, you are like 20-odd levels above me

[nova temple]

^ ||I think just eyeballing it, it looks like a 20M health enemy||

I got it down to like 30% but whoof

Totally doable, I just want to go do other things first

[main olive]

Debating if I want to do this or not

the option is very tempting

aight bad idea

||She one shot me||

I'm gonna be honest I was very distracted

Act 1 ||Gestral village|| ||These guys are hilarious.||

[nova temple]

Shannon.

||I didn't need to put Monoco in my party against the chromatic Creation, I could get the foot from the regular ones, which is infinitely easier!||

[main olive]

Character mechanics Act 1
||Now that I got Sciel I have no idea how to build her, any tips on what to focus?||

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||Renoir's Drafts|| ||Is that... a draft of "Alina's" Axon, or one of her minibosses?||

[nova temple]

I still haven't beaten that one 😅

I think near the end of the game you may be able to muscle through it, but until then it's all, just... you have to play perfectly

[main olive]

Makes sense

I have one other question about that fight
||Did they really need to make her extremely attractive||

[nova temple]

heh

yes

Act 3 ||Renoir's Drafts|| ||this merchant is loaded (unlike me)||

[main olive]

Act 1 ||Post Gestral Village|| ||What was THAT? Who the hell is this white haired man, Alicia? What's going on, so many questions, so many questionsss||

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||I am sorry, the Abyss??||

[main olive]

I'm still holding back on cliking this, It's never easy

[obtuse pond]

🍿

[main olive]

Act 1 ||Esquie's nest|| ||Okay I think this guy is hilarious but I just got jumpscared by this.||

[nova temple]

Always a good sign when the game's life "maybe we should turn back"

Act 3 ||the Abyss|| ||this is fine, this is so fine, it's the finest fine to ever fine||

[reef iron]

ahaha

when you get real-named in the chat, complete with period

[hollow ruin]

ngl, i did not click on the image, but i did click on the message it was attached to, and i am both amused and a little scared 😅

[nova temple]

I am just gonna go back to the easy bosses, like the one in Act 3's ||Renoir's Drafts||

(though the image itself is not much of a spoiler, it's mostly an environment shot)

[main olive]

Act 1 ||Maelle's nigthmare||
||What was... that was a lot, who's this long haired guy? was that the girl Alicia? Expedition zero? (or 100?) there's a lot of dead people, why is this long haired guy always shown killing this woman, why is Maelle always there? she looks remarkably like that other girl whoI think is Alicia before... things happened to her||

This game got me rambling like a madman

that's a sign of quality

[nova temple]

indeed

[main olive]

I feel like when the answers roll I'm gonna fall off my chair, I know it

[nova temple]

On top of everything else it's got going on for it, it also has a fun mystery, and one that ends up clicking nicely

I appreciate how consistent the writing of this game is

[fallow geode]

||my favourite Moooon Aaaaamie||

[nova temple]

Characters don't say things just to say cool (or mysterious) one-liners, it makes sense that they would say the things they do, given who they are

[main olive]

||You're a big guy.||

[obtuse pond]

Well, a lot of the lines early on don’t make complete sense at the time.
Going back through the game is fun because you get to go “Oh, so that is what that line meant.”

[nova temple]

Right, that's what I am saying - on a replay, it's all consistent

[hollow ruin]

man, i feel like (act 3 dungeon) ||the lower parts of The Reacher|| may have my favourite combat theme in the whole game

I'm not even playing right now and it's still running through my head

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||Flying Manor|| ||I don't know, man, Stendhal still holds up||

[reef iron]

hell yeah

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||Flying Manor|| ||I am not sure I was supposed to kill this Grosse Tete, but I did 😅 ||

Act 3 ||Flying Manor|| ||get freaking Gommage'd for 4M damage, nerd||

[main olive]

I went really deep into a cave and now I found an enemy that looks very scary

Act 1 ||The rocky shore place I forgot the name of||

[main olive]

I have decided to strip down my characters

of their builds and stats and rebuild them to be more solid

[reef iron]

well i guess i'll find time tonight to play

i just have some work to do

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||Flying Manor|| ||the game asked me three times if I am sure I want to go fight the boss, wtf is on the other side of this door, god!?||

^ ||(I mean, I suspect the answer, it's probably some form of Clea, but still, that's a lot of warnings, game)||

fun fight

I got utterly obliterated

[main olive]

Mechanics ||I discovered that if you allow these guys to keep on stacking shields the fights become very, very hard to finish.||

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||Flying Manor|| ||final dungeon boss, there's a little story, so double spoiler warning|| ||First of all, get freaking Gommage'd for 4M damage too, nerd. Second, that pictos tho?? But third, I love the idea of Clea seeing the version of her Alina painted into this Canvas, and going "I am going to Paint over this version of me, because it sucks; and the paintover starts doing her bidding, painting nevrons in order to keep chroma away from the parents||

[obtuse pond]

I know it’s kind of a meme to call something “The dark souls of [whatever genre]” because of how often that gets said.
But
“The Dark Souls of turn based JRPGs” does kinda fit for E33.

It definitely has a lot of FromSoft influences.

[nova temple]

Oh, this game 100% is French Souls

[nova temple]

bonus thoughts, ||feat. Maelle's relationship quests|| ||this game hates Verso, between Maelle erasing Alicia and Clea killing herself here, he's now lost both of his sisters, in addition to his mother, and is on his way to "killing" his father (booting him out of the Canvas, but a loss is a loss); just, the saddest little 100-years old boy||

[main olive]

Clair obscur: Expedition 33 is the Persona Dark Souls of Je'RPG french role playing games

am I ready to be considered a game journalist?

[fallow geode]

It's the Final Persona Dark Souls of Je'RPG french role playing games

[analog tiger]

Act 2 ||epilogue|| ||Clea is the best ever 🙏 ||

Act 2 ||epilogue|| ||I just wish that she wasn't so awful to Alicia 😔 ||

[nova temple]

All, as in, including the ending of the main story? I haven't done that yet

[analog tiger]

not that

fixed the tags

[nova temple]

yeah

[nova temple]

Act 3 || ||

[reef iron]

oh MY GOD

neeeeeeeeeeeeeeed

[main olive]

There's another boss beting my ass now but this time it's hella creepy

[rancid vessel]

Holy

[nova temple]

I am gonna stream for like 30 minutes while I grind out a few pictos, just mostly in Act 3 open world

[shell minnow]

https://tenor.com/view/manatee-aquarium-smush-burmgahp-funny-gif-22067632

I am suspecting even the open world of act 3 is spoilery

[reef iron]

mmmm kinda maybe

it's safe except for one general thing ||esquie's movement abilities||

[shell minnow]

is that... a thing i am supposed to open?

[reef iron]

it depends on how spoiler averse you are

i think it's general but if you don't want to even see that, then no strim

[shell minnow]

i'll be good

i might play myself soon

[reef iron]

same

just grabbing supper now

[shell minnow]

I have made mexican rice bowls and a strawberry cucumber margarita

[main olive]

I need some of that
(I say as I eat my own dinner)

[halcyon elbow]

https://youtu.be/0W-G2oGTQ-I

Only the first hour is the interview, and it is fully non-spoiler

Some fun takeaways

1. The "composer from soundcloud" story is wilder than reported: Lorien Testard went to an obscure French gaming forum he'd never been to before and posted a cover of Austin Wintory's Journey album he'd done. Broche visited the forum randomly the next day, also never having visited it before, and thought the sound was spot on and within eight hours they had an agreement
2. They took the VA budget in part from their marketing budget. However, Jennifer English and Ben Starr both auditioned in, and were chosen blind (he joked that Ben Starr only got the role at all because he is a Final Fantasy 8 Enjoyer)
3. Broche is an amateur Sekiro speedrunner, which I suppose should not be a surprise given the active parry mechanic. He loves parry mechanics

(He didn't say it outright but I think the marketing budget they appropriated for VA mostly went to Charlie Cox)

[main olive]

I just saw that Andy Serkis is in this

aw hell

[reef iron]

argent, have you been to act 3 ||the canvas?||

[nova temple]

mhm

[main olive]

Act 1 ||Rocky waves whatever||
||HELL NAW NOT AGAIN||

[reef iron]

act 3 ||oh mannnnnn i discovered the spot for the chromatic petank||

[main olive]

Act 1 ||NOOOOOOOOOOOOO||

||Aight who's this piece of man.||

[exotic ember]

Loved the look of this on the first playthrough and just still can't get over how beautiful it is Act 2 || Inside the Monolith ||

[main olive]

So I just finished Act 1 it seems

holy hell

on god

[nova temple]

Mhm

Indeed

Some game

[reef iron]

my act 3 party drip, there are actual spoilers here so don't click even tho it's just outfits mmk thank you

[nova temple]

I was running a lot of these for a while

2 and 4 especially

[main olive]

Mechanics ||This GAME HAS A FRIENDSHIP SYSTEM ON GOD IT'S JUST LIKE PERSONA||

[obtuse pond]

I finally managed to get the achievement for ||completing Monoco’s feet collection||
Act 2 spoilers
||Kinda rough that some of these feet are boss feet, but I think there is a way to rematch most of them in one way or another.||
||Also kinda rough how it’s hard to figure out which feet you are missing.||
If anyone is struggling with this achievement I might be able to help.

[main olive]

Act 2 early ||Devil may cry ass style system.||

[nova temple]

I am missing one 😔

[main olive]

this minigame sucks

I can't stop playing it

[reef iron]

real

[main olive]

If I could finish the Chocobo minigame in FFX then I can do this

https://tenor.com/view/ffx-final-fantasy-x-auron-overkill-final-fantasy-gif-14835952884016512801

[main olive]

This is an experience

I give up (for now)

[reef iron]

okay this boss sucks, i'll come back later

[nova temple]

A true E33 experience

How does beating the game work with going back and finishing collectibles and stuff? Does the game drop you back into the world so you can wrap things up, or do you need to load an old save?

[wild jackal]

You can just continue your save from the main menu and it will take you back to the map after the end. NG+ won't start until you choose that option from the flag menu.

[nova temple]

Cool, sounds seamless

[reef iron]

act 3 general ||my man: dapper||

[nova temple]

Now that is a fit

[main olive]

Act 2 minigame ||I love you Sciel but I'm not spending another minute with this volleyball minigame.||

[nova temple]

||the volleyball is just the worst||

[reef iron]

ok someone tell me where i can level from 70-80

[obtuse pond]

[Act 3] Finally cleared ||The Endless Tower.||
||Like the Clea characterization we got at the end there.||
Now all that’s left for me to do besides finding collectibles is go to ||The Abyss|| and ||defeat Simon||

[obtuse pond]

The two good areas IMO would be ||The Flying Manor|| and ||The Endless Tower||

[reef iron]

act 3 ||i guess i'll have to find this manor||

[obtuse pond]

It is easy to miss, it was literally the last area I found.

Also I realized I never ||defeated the Mime in Lumiere|| back during the prologue and I need to do that in order to 100% the game.
So either do that in New Game+ or a second save file.
Idk if I can have two save files.

[reef iron]

off i vibe

you can have a few separate files