Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

[reef iron]

that's what i did for that

[nova temple]

There's a file selection at the start, so I imagine, yeah

[reef iron]

got it

act 3 ||flying manor|| ||i figured after a second of thought it'd probably be above old lumiere. unfortunately it's still REDDDDDD for danger||

[granite sage]

Main story ending (Act 3) ||Well just got through that one, I wound up siding with Maelle, because A) I think she's right to want to protect this world she grew up (again) in and her friends here, and her ability to live and not just exist and B) because she'd kick painted Verso's butt any day quite easily, so she should win. Still, definitely an eerie ending. It does sound like it goes the way Renoir feared but sometimes parents just have to let their kids make the wrong choice, and admit that they don't control everything. I don't know if I like the game's portrayal of the choice as sort of "enslaving" the original creator's soul, at a certain point Maelle is really the one doing the painting, just picking up where Verso left off. It's her world now, is the way I'd see it||

[nova temple]

||How many stages are there? I am on 5 (on the first canvas? not sure if the other colorful ones activate later)||

[nova temple]

||Give it a shot, I think I was able to progress some while it was still red||

[wild jackal]

||33 floors. I would recommend not doing 11-3 until after the last boss of the story, though.||

[nova temple]

Not endless, but solid

It'll give me something to do so I am not just hunting for collectibles

[reef iron]

mmmmm yeah ok i'm not playing anymore tonight i think

justttt don't feel like this

not sure there's a good zone for where i am

[nova temple]

Act 3 ^ ||there's a few regular-ish zones too, they can give you a boost||

[reef iron]

act 3 ||flying manor|| ||just one bourgeon and i'm like mmmmmmmmmmm no... thank you....||

[nova temple]

Heh

We can look at your map or something tomorrow, see if we can identify potential gaps

[reef iron]

act 3 ||internet is saying dark shores and i'm like ughhhhhh yeah i don't feel like expending that much..... effort rn||

[nova temple]

That was the first dungeon I went to in 3

[reef iron]

i went in once

[nova temple]

I think I was 60-ish

[reef iron]

and turned around

[halcyon elbow]

In the interview above I posted Broche said if they'd had more time he'd have loved to have put in more "horrible minigames". People coming at him on reddit over them gives him life, apparently

[obtuse pond]

Act 3 ||There are 11 stages.||

[obtuse pond]

Oh yeah ||Dark Shores|| is good.
Also ||gives you material for weapon upgrades||

Forgot that area existed.

[nova temple]

I went there early in Act 2, and it... didn't go well 😅

[obtuse pond]

Man, seeing the Expedition 33 director list of favorite games kinda explains everything.
DMC, Persona 3, Demon Souls, FF8

[scarlet trout]

End game lol just fought ||Simon|| and uh || lol I literally don’t think that my controller can input fast enough to parry those attacks in p2||

[obtuse pond]

Ending + general side content in Act 3 ||Playing more of the side content just solidifies my feeling of Verso’s ending being the right one.||
||Verso really goes through it in the Act 3 side content so him wanting this all to be over is more understandable and Clea having an actually nice interaction with Maelle does a lot to make the idea of her returning home seem less miserable IMO.||

[halcyon elbow]

FF8, 9, and 10 more specifically, and Sekiro

The man loves a parry

[exotic ember]

I am back in Act 3

Ended up fighting Act 3 || Nightmare Hands enemy and then just flew around the world a bit. Done for tonight though ||

Steam is telling me I have 42 hours in the game on that platform alone, so I’ve definitely put at least 75 hours into this game so far

[exotic ember]

I’m a convert after this

[pure forge]

What's up with everyone saying Brosnan should play Renoir when he looks like Ian McShane with a beard?

[main olive]

Act 1 ending
||I know Gustave will be back solely because his skill tree was full of locked options that were invisible.||

[halcyon elbow]

By the way

Can confirm E33 works on Steam Deck

It looks like a paint smear but it does work

It is playable

[main olive]

That's how it looks for me

My 1060 giving it their all

[nova temple]

Appropriate, for the game's aesthetic

[main olive]

Act 2 mechanics
||Great, a new type of parry, now I can suck at 4 different types of reaction based mechanics! (dodge parry jump and this new parry)||

[nova temple]

||The good news is that this happen that often. The bad news is that its timing is unlike that of anything else 😅 ||

[merry lance]

||The biggest window ever, except when it's not||

[exotic ember]

|| This is a great summarization lol ||

[obtuse pond]

Potential sequel speculation with ending + ||Flying Manor|| boss spoilers:
||Okay now that I’ve met Clea and they’ve discussed her unique ability to paint over other people’s creations, I definitely want Clea to be a bigger focus in a sequel game.||
||Doesn’t necessarily have to be the MC or even a core party member, but the idea of painting over other people’s creations just sounds really interesting but it barely got explored in this game.||

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||Lumiere|| ||Ah, the exhibitionist expedition, yes...||

Act 3 ||Lumiere|| ||Aww, that's the thing from the prologue! 🥺 ||

[shell minnow]

That feel when I accidentally click spoilers out of habit and have to quickly change channels to cover them up again to keep from reading anything

[nova temple]

mood

[shell minnow]

Also discord randomly not covering images is super fun

[main olive]

I've been doing that a few times when I slip

mastering the technique

This game I know basically nothing about other than the one playable character I have yet to find so I have a pretty good record of not getting spoilers

[nova temple]

Gotta respect a boss who goes "this boss arena doesn't look cool enough, let's redecorate"

[halcyon elbow]

Final Fantasy 14 has entered the chat

[nova temple]

Hm.

[nova temple]

I think the game set up to make people feel things, and things were felt

[obtuse pond]

Ending ||I’ve never before wished I wasn’t being asked to make a choice in a video game like this.||

[nova temple]

Full game, ending, epilogue, all the spoilers, etc. etc. ||I think I was expecting a happy ending, so this - both endings - was a bit of a kick. I didn't dislike it, both were good from an artistic and emotional perspective, but they are not what I expected, and my brain is adjusting. It's... melancholy, you know? I want to sit with that feeling for a bit, but I also want to go back and just do some mindless fighting/collecting, so I can distance myself from it. It's odd.||

Ending ||I think I like A Life to Love better. I feel like that might be intended too. A Life to Paint just has that jumpscare near the end that feels like A Bad Ending (not to mention that its message also feels bad). Both feel bad in the moment, but I think Paint ending is "short term happiness for long terms suck" and Love is "short term suck for long term happiness"||

[obtuse pond]

Ending ||To me the roughest part is just that we have very limited information about a lot of stuff.||
||Like one of the big ones that I don’t think we ever really got a clear answer on (unless it’s in a journal somewhere that I missed) is how long it’s been since real Verso’s death. If Verso’s death is still very fresh, like it happened two weeks ago or something in real world time, then the idea of the Dessandre family healing and getting over this tragedy in A Live to Love feels a lot more likely and paints them all in a much more flattering light than if it’s been half a year since Verso died at this point and they’re all still this dysfunctional.||

[analog tiger]

Ending ||I think a lot of what dictates which ending is "better" is how much you think the people of Lumiere are alive/sentient, because like - if they are fully people like the game implies, then the Life to Love ending just killed all of them for the (maybe) benefit of this family||

Ending ||and like, yeah for the Life to Paint one there is a living deity who may alter things to their whim which has its own implications but also that deity won't be a problem for long and then Lumiere will be free||

[nova temple]

Ending ||I definitely think it's been a while, honestly maybe years. Alicia doesn't look freshly burned in the flashback. Renoir days he's been trapped for 67 years, but that's Canvas years...||

[nova temple]

Ending ||Yeah, that's one of the things I struggle with. I absolutely think the people of the Canvas are real people (in all the ways that matter). But I love Maelle, and I didn't enjoy seeing her lose herself to her power, like her parents did (both physically and mentally). There's no good ending, I think, just... shades of bad. Maybe even that is too reductive.||

[potent tapir]

||Ive said it before, but i enjoy that i kinda have to sit on both endings and figure out how i feel about them||

[analog tiger]

Ending ||I think that A Life to Paint is a 'less worse' ending because it's less final. In A Life to Live, those people are dead and gone, no way about it. In A Life to Paint, things could still get better for everyone involved||

||it's probably unlikely that they will but the possibility is there||

[obtuse pond]

We do hear in ||Flying Manor|| that apparently ||Verso believes the people in the Canvas are sentient while Clea doesn’t.||
||So even in universe it doesn’t seem like there is a definitive answer to whether the creations within a canvas are sentient.||

[nova temple]

||I mean, theoretically, sure, but I don't think Maelle is getting out. I think the message of that ending is that she dies in the Canvas (or lives forever in it, w/e)||

[analog tiger]

Ending ||I also like that both endings are almost good, it's the people involved that make them bad. If Renoir wasn't so set on destroying the canvas and Maelle wasn't so heavy on getting her lifetime with Verso, both endings would be not as grim||

[potent tapir]

Ending ||So, weirdly, we don't actually see the painting get destroyed (unless i missed it) in A Life to Love. I don't expect any future content/sequels to tell us. but if it makes you feel better about the ending then maybe they just got un-made and can be re-made by someone down the road using the Chroma.||

[analog tiger]

Ending ||we see the people getting deleted||

[potent tapir]

Ending || yeah but that happened before and Sciel and Luna were re-made. again this isn't very likely but more of a technical distinction.||

[nova temple]

Ending ||Maaaybe, but I think that's a step removed from the clone-like situation we have going on here. These were the denizens of Verso's Canvas, the one where he Painted Esquie, and Monoco, and the Gestrals. Sure, you could copy them into a new Canvas, maybe, theoretically (I feel like Maelle might not be that talented), just like Alicia was a version of, uh... Maelle that Alina Painted, before Maelle was ever a thing in the Canvas... but I think a big chunk of the narrative is a cautionary tale against Painting copies of people in order to deal with grief||

[potent tapir]

Ending ||Yeah agreed on all fronts. was more just thinking through possibilites and implications||

[analog tiger]

Ending ||fair yeah 🤔 actually since they were brought back once, maybe Alicia could bring them back again in her own Canvas or something, but even then that'd be just the party members and who knows if they'd be the same with being 'sourced' from different Chroma||

[main olive]

Massive walls of black boxes make me really excited

I feel like this story is going places

[nova temple]

It certainly goes towards an ending

[main olive]

But is it
good?

You're making me doubt

[nova temple]

That will be for you to decide

[main olive]

I have some theories from the ending of act 1

if anyone wants to hear them

Act 1 end theorizing
||I feel like Maelle is very relevant to the plot for a reason, my main theories is that she is sorta kinda like a time traveller, because Verso said "She will never paint again." after Maelle gets traumatized from Gustave dying in front of her, and every time we see the other girl with the mask the scene is in black and white because if we saw her hair and eye color it would give it away||
||My theory is that she was from Expedition Zero, and somehow got either split in two and one was sent back or she is some sort of painting clone of the real Maelle/Alicia because Verso says something like "She's not your family, but she is" while pointing to Alicia.||
||and that "She will never paint again." maybe means she's the Paintress? or something, very connected to her I feel.||

This game's got me rambling like a madman

Just react with popcorn if I said anything interesting

[nova temple]

Some new ideas, some ones I've already seen

[main olive]

I feel like the dialogues say enough you can discover things on your own and others that will fully click eventually

time to play some more

I need more power

[reef iron]

act 3 general ||oh dark shores isn't red for me anymore so that's nice||

[main olive]

Act 2 open world
||Berserk reference!||

||or Unlimited Blade Works who knows.||

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||Endless Tower|| ||These are starting to get a little spicy at levels 9+. I am still doing good damage, but I can no longer cruise on by ignoring mechanics||

Act 3 general ||we got the important achivement though, so all is good with the world||

[shell minnow]

Act 2, further than Nick ||Old Lumiere|| ||and all its glowy swords reminds me of: https://i.makeagif.com/media/9-18-2021/dazMaq.gif ||

[reef iron]

it reminds me of ||kingdom hearts birth by sleep||

[shell minnow]

||someone threw too many paladin combos||

[reef iron]

well of course i can't find a gif

https://youtu.be/35yH1e0YdEc?si=SHdc6MyzyYFI2p9m&t=50 the trailer in question

[main olive]

Act 2 mechanics
||It's incredible how many pictos I have and learned how to use only two of them so far.||

[nova temple]

It gets so much worse than that 😅

[main olive]

I will learn how to build characters

I think I should start playing this like a shin megami tensei and chock everything full of buffs and debuffs

[main olive]

Act 2 ||The quarry|| ||Just HOW MANY PEOPLE DIED HERE?||

[fallow geode]

||I know right??||

[obtuse pond]

Act 3 ||The Abyss|| ||I wonder how much of the destruction of Old Lumiere was just Simon.||

Possible DLC idea ||I’ve heard a lot of people speculate about an Expedition 00 DLC and that definitely sounds interesting.||

[nova temple]

||I assume most, if not all. I am not sure why, but I assume all those huge swords are either his doing, or the Axon's. Either way, they are from their battle||

[halcyon elbow]

I had a pretty good idea that I might vibe with this game but I still considered buying it something of a $50 risk. I did not expect to vibe with it this thoroughly this quickly

[nova temple]

yesss

[reef iron]

👀

[nova temple]

the vibes, as they say, are immaculate

I was in a similar boat

I thought I'd like it, I didn't think I'd like it this much

[analog tiger]

I thought I was going to hate this game

glad to be wrong 😌

[main olive]

I knew nothing about this game, I remember seeing like 30 seconds of a trailer when a zone showed up that I had seen before, because I remember thinking the title was long and cumbersome and it didn't look like anything interesting

I was so wrong

[exotic ember]

As it gets us all. It’s a natural side effect of Clair Obscuring. Please consult a doctor if it lasts for more than 4 hours months?

[shell minnow]

I need to find more time to play or I'm gonna get passed again 😔

[exotic ember]

One of us! Welcome to the cult

[exotic ember]

Meanwhile my hype was astronomical - I expected it to be GOTY - and yet it still somehow exceeded all my expectations

[shell minnow]

I will say, as the soundtrack is keeping me company again (I'm not listening to anything further than act 2 doing worry) I notice how many different songs on the soundtrack feel like they'd fit well with other games

Like, there's a ton that sounds like Nier, but also some of the piano in (Act 2) ||Old Lumière|| sounds like Debussy. And as I was listening to some of the Act 1 ||gestral songs, like "I'd Rather Play Pétanque!"|| really remind me of the battle themes from OFF!

Like, I wonder if they're references to other French games/music specifically

[merry lance]

Oh Feather, it might be again again, I started act 3 last night

[shell minnow]

😩

[merry lance]

The good news is now I can read your wall of text!

Act 2 ||Where Feather Is|| ||Lune is absolutely best girl, and I think it's a combination of what you said, and how she approaches everything with this look of wonder on her face. Also she floats in the air, it's hard to beat that.||

[nova temple]

^ ||I love how everyone prepares for battle by drawing their weapons, and Lune just kind of crosses her arms mysteriously. It's a little goofy, but I love her||

[potent tapir]

||Lune's like, "hold up, gotta gather my aura"||

[exotic ember]

I also am now on Act 3 on my second playthrough

Also I just saw the best comment on a video where some guy was just talking for a few minutes about how this may be the best game he has ever played and how deeply moving it was for him.

I guess kind of Act 2 dialogue spoiler between two party characters for this one

Same tags || Esquie is a national treasure ||

[nova temple]

it's all led to this to conversation

[exotic ember]

This game has some of the funniest dialogue at times I swear. Just moments of pure gold

They do such a great job at weaving it in without undermining the emotional weight of the story too

[exotic ember]

Glad you’re enjoying it!

[halcyon elbow]

I've listened to all of it and I feel like the guiding star was, Camille Saint-Saens could have written nearly all of it, especially if he'd been alive in 2025

[shell minnow]

FRANCE

https://tenor.com/view/fire-gif-10341555270454130792

[nova temple]

-# (don't mind me, I am just marking where I am in my read of the entire channel)

[halcyon elbow]

||Not only can you, it is how you get the third festival ticket so you can buy from all three vendors||

[nova temple]

Kon, are you playing and reading the channel history in parallel?

[halcyon elbow]

I just zoomed up because you'd posted the prologue bit

I've done the prologue and the first... the first blue area? so prologue spoilers should be safe

[nova temple]

ah, okay

[halcyon elbow]

I'm sitting at a meeting in Arizona that I don't want to be at being death by powerpointed

Literally a better use of my time

[nova temple]

I thought you were engaging in some insane behavior

[halcyon elbow]

[fallow geode]

hey Feather, we have someone else it's safe to read for a couple of days

[halcyon elbow]

It me. I haven't dodged anything, only parried, and I feel like trying to learn to dodge at this point would already just mess me up

[fallow geode]

perfect dodge timing is the same as parry anyway

[nova temple]

no dodge, only parry is The Way

and when that doesn't work, you suffer, like god intended

[merry lance]

The parry button is conveniently on a twitch button, while dodge is on the "don't" button. I think the message is clear.

[halcyon elbow]

In the Dropped Frames interview with the CEO I posted the other day they asked him "dodge or parry?" and his response was "pshaw, next question"

[nova temple]

Oh, I do need to watch that still

[shell minnow]

In rhythm game lingo, dodge window is a "good" and perfect dodge and parry are a "perfect"

[hollow ruin]

oh! for the folks doing NG+, a trivia I've been informed of: (prologue) ||if you carry at least one of the festival tokens over to NG+ (i.e. not spend them on the festival), you can purchase... special weapons before the festival starts||

[nova temple]

^ ||like, don't spend all your tokens in your first playthrough, and some over into NG+?||

[hollow ruin]

yep

(same topic) ||I don't know if it's one token per one character's weapon or if you get all weapons with just one token, though||

||i assume if you're doing NG+, you can find the vendor that sells them even if you don't have any tokens on you, if you want to check||

[nova temple]

I am not, but I assume similarly

[nova temple]

I appreciate that e33's twitter has been reposting all sorts of art and memes

but also some hard facts, like https://x.com/Jenbox360/status/1922012217030881525

Jen⛧ (@Jenbox360) on X

I feel seen

X · May 12, 2025, 7:33 PM

Act 2 ||https://x.com/Xbox/status/1921969698356285587 ||

Xbox (@Xbox) on X

@expedition33 Blurring them won't protect you from Monoco.

X · May 12, 2025, 4:44 PM

[main olive]

Me when act 1 ended

[nova temple]

https://x.com/hyp3rli/status/1920775094600691733 haters will say it's fake

Li ˚｡⋆ 🫧 #1 verso enjoyer (@hyp3rli) on X

@expedition33 man I’m TRYING

X · May 9, 2025, 9:37 AM

https://x.com/deuxdrone/status/1920772714022772862

Garri (@deuxdrone) on X

@expedition33

X · May 9, 2025, 9:27 AM

[main olive]

I need to see the crew with the gigachad filter on

Yesterday

[granite sage]

[worldbuilding/act 2] ||someone will paint it into the game, rather than just turning the difficulty down to get the same effect||

[nova temple]

heh

oh no, I looked at my playtime, and I've put just about 80 hours in just about 2 weeks of this game

that's a full time job

[shell minnow]

We've all misunderstood, they're trying to ask us to Paris the attacks, but they're saying it in French

[nova temple]

freaking translation issues, man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGE5hQSGxlk

[nova temple]

oh-oh

[reef iron]

oh noooo

[exotic ember]

Now that’s dedication

My reluctance to put Clair Obscur down for a few days to play Doom The Dark Ages is so real. But I spent an extra $30 to get access to the game a few days early so… learning to parry endgame bosses will have to wait for now while I learn to parry demons

Still very amusing to me that I’ve historically avoided parrying in games. And then Clair Obscur and Doom The Dark Ages come back to back to change that

[main olive]

I loved Sekiro too but this game seems to go even harder into the parry mechanics

[exotic ember]

See I never would have considered Sekiro before but now it’s very much on my radar

[main olive]

In Sekiro when you start parrying and hear the sound of metal doing that KLANG KLANG KLANG sound as the blades hit, it alters your brain chemistry

https://tenor.com/view/game-combat-sekiro-from-software-gif-12490160

[analog tiger]

YOU WANT THIS POWER? THEN COME TRY AND TAKE IT

[main olive]

https://youtu.be/7A0hj5IdF4A

Now if only parrying in this game was as easy as it is in sekiro

I struggle really hard, some attacks are very long winded

[halcyon elbow]

Broche said as soon as they put parries in the game they knew they had to make it so you could play it hitless

[main olive]

No hit runs eventually

[halcyon elbow]

Mhmm

Hitless any% speedruns

That he was a Sekiro speedrunner is thoroughly unsurprising

He was doing that in the early parts of the game's development and that's how E33 ended up The Way That It Is

[main olive]

We really are the expedition 33

[exotic ember]

I am really curious to see what speedruns of this game end up looking like

[halcyon elbow]

The UI seems like you can really pound out a lot of these fights real quick when you've gotten comfortable with the system

[exotic ember]

It’s so responsive. Feels great

[halcyon elbow]

(They have a single solitary UI guy)

[exotic ember]

Oh yeah I’m aware haha. Their team really is cracked. I did watch the dropped frames cast you linked and it was neat, particularly hearing him just basically be like “yeah we just kind of lucked into everything”

[halcyon elbow]

Broche said they want to make several popularly requested UI changes but he can't make promises because they have highly limited manpower

[exotic ember]

With the speedruns I’m particularly curious to see what the evolution of builds look like

[exotic ember]

Yeah I’m really excited about that. Really hope they do manage to slide in saving and loading of lumina builds

I was kind of surprised that auto advancing dialogue was a big one people wanted tbh. Makes sense though I guess

[halcyon elbow]

Yeah, I appreciated that he didn't want to get sucked in to the anti-AAA grandstanding some people are doing

Also the idea that he'd know Swen Vincke is, well I see where it came from but also why would they have met

[halcyon elbow]

It makes sense for the voiced passages

I think the UI for that is very JRPG but doesn't fly for audiences only used to western games

[exotic ember]

For sure. Never bothered me but I’m sure it’s nice to have

[obtuse pond]

Act 3 ||The Abyss|| ||Oh Simon isn’t that hard, maybe I over prepared for this-||
||gets curbstomped by phase 2||

||Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a second phase of a boss fight that was so far beyond the power of the first phase. Not unless you count like, Midra in Erdtree.||

[scarlet trout]

|| I had literally the same reaction! Like idk how I would even be able to dodge or parry the attacks||

Same tags || like in just speed alone he started getting 3-4 turns between my turns||

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||Endless Tower|| ||Stage 11 sure is spicy, huh||

[analog tiger]

post act 2

[nova temple]

I'm rooting for ya

Act 3 ||Endless Tower, all|| || das some damage||

Oh, images are just broken, ok

[analog tiger]

yeah 😔

I wonder if it's exclusively spoilered images

[hollow ruin]

was about to ask, did anyone else's discord have issues with images

[analog tiger]

nope all images

[hollow ruin]

it's not just the spoilered ones, by the by

[nova temple]

yeah, it's all

[hollow ruin]

whee

[fallow geode]

fine I'll play more video game

Act 2 ||Monoco's Station|| ||Monoco's boss theme is dope||

||Even better than Gross Tete's||

[nova temple]

kinda feel good about only having missed 2 of the regular expedition journals (37 & 70)

[reef iron]

act 3 ||flying manor|| ||oh eff off||

[nova temple]

Enjoy!

Act 3 ||Okay, I think I'll save the Abyss for another day||

[fallow geode]

Act 2 ||Monoco|| ||argh, I fought all those friendly nevrons too soon||

[shell minnow]

ok i have an hour and a half before raid. (act 2) ||monolith time||

[nova temple]

Same!

[fallow geode]

Act 2 ||Maelle Camp, post Monoco|| ||uhhhhhh||

[reef iron]

oh right raid

[fallow geode]

Act 2 Mechanics ||Monoco|| ||Monoco has too many skills ||

[fallow geode]

Act 2 ||Log 47|| ||When did the Scottish get here ||

Mechanics ||I just noticed that Energising Start gets triggered when a Bougeon spits out a character||

[nova temple]

Welcome to the (mini)game

[reef iron]

lol after closing clair obscur to go raid, my computer went full black screen, wouldn't respond to anything on the keyboard OR power button, so i had to use my emergency restart button that is used only for when literally all other inputs fail

and then windows started updating

[fallow geode]

[halcyon elbow]

What is it with R&R and tech difficulties lately

[fallow geode]

Act 2 ||Old Lumiere|| ||Is there anything I should get done before doing this zone? It feels fairly end-of-act-y||

||Which is surprising considering I only just got Monoco||

[reef iron]

nah go for it

[fallow geode]

||dammit Monoco||

||scratch that, aww Monoco ||

||nevermind. Dammit Monoco I haven't built or played sciel since I got verso ||

[nova temple]

I can't think of any areas that become perma-locked once you leave them

not ones with stuff, at least

[fallow geode]

Act 2 ||Old Lumiere|| ||what is that||

[nova temple]

||I'm gonna go with "a door"||

[fallow geode]

||The thing behind it ||

Act 2 ||Old Lumiere|| ||Any one got tips on the timing for the Ceramic Chevaliers?||

[fallow geode]

Just saving my current build (Act 2?)

[halcyon elbow]

I have seen that the very initial prologue area is functionally the only missable content in the game

[nova temple]

oh yeah, that's a thing

[halcyon elbow]

And there is stuff there

[nova temple]

unfortunately 😔

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||Manor|| ||I wonder if some of the Nevron art we see throughout the manor is real concept art for those Nevrons... kinda feels like it||

[obtuse pond]

Oh so btw, comparison I thought of between Warbreaker and the end of Act 1:
||Gustave saying he promises that the second he sees the white haired man he’s running away as fast as he possibly can only to stand and fight against Renoir reminded me of Lightsong telling everyone not to rely on him for things because he’s not the type to heroically sacrifice himself for the greater good only to do exactly that.||

[nova temple]

Mm, fair

[obtuse pond]

||Gustave only mentions it once and it’s played mostly as a joke so I didn’t catch it as setup, unlike Lightsong who constantly said he wouldn’t give his life and made me go “Oh you’re totally sacrificing yourself.”||

[analog tiger]

end of Act 1 ||when he said that I knew he wasn't going to be running away ||

[wild jackal]

Turns out burning isn't capped at 999 like I thought it would be.

[nova temple]

I was going to ask what could possibly can survive that, but I think I know

[halcyon elbow]

Huh

There has apparently been some consternation about the lyrics of Lumiere and translating them into English, since it isn't all French exactly

As it turns out about half of it is in an old halvsie language between French and Latin called Occitan, spoken in southern France which is where Sandfall is based

[nova temple]

huh

everything about this game is fake, man

it's all made up

someone made a pact with an eldritch entity

[halcyon elbow]

Very similar language to Catalan as it turns out, and apparently they were considered dialects of each other for a long time

[nova temple]

Goodnight, sweet chat
https://www.tumblr.com/jean-dieu/767269590712614912/excited-for-clair-obscur-expedition-33?source=share

[halcyon elbow]

Alan's got a point

[analog tiger]

huh

did not expect it to be occitan ngl

[exotic ember]

Doom: The Dark Ages just makes me appreciate Clair Obscur even more. What an absolute gem of a game. Can’t wait to get back to it in a few days haha

[nova temple]

Fixed

[main olive]

I've been sick for a couple of days unable to play, but today I'm feeling better
I should cook something French and keep grinding

What would an expeditioner eat

[hollow ruin]

cheese

[main olive]

Cheese and wine

[hollow ruin]

yes

man, launching the game in the middle of a dungeon after not playing for two days feels like

https://tenor.com/view/gandalf-i-have-no-memory-of-this-place-idk-dont-know-gif-9228837

[main olive]

I always run all the way back to the overworld and into camp before closing the game

[hollow ruin]

i was really far into the dungeon so i didn't wanna lose that

...man. it's a quintessential me experience with this game to get back into play and then somehow immediately march into a boss fight

guess we're relearning how to dodge hard way

act 3 ||the reacher|| ||lmaoo after I dodged both of Alicia's attacks I literally killed her with a single Standhal||

||that move may be just a touch overtuned still||

[halcyon elbow]

Well Alan likes bread so

[nova temple]

🥖

[nova temple]

||Yeeeah, I tried taking it slowly with her, and she just died to a single free aim + burn. I wanted to see the fight!||

[hollow ruin]

||yeah, it was a bit disappointing in the end||

act 3 ||the reacher|| ||man. poor Verso. dude's just... his family isn't actually his, his painted father hates him, his painted sister just decided to gommage herself from existence right in front of him...||

[analog tiger]

https://tenor.com/view/omelette-dexter-laboratory-whisper-gif-15038986

[nova temple]

^ ||Yeah, I commented somewhere, but dude just can't catch a break, just the saddest boy||

[hollow ruin]

yep

(same tags) ||and like, he is perfectly in the right to be pissed off at Maelle here||

[nova temple]

100%

[hollow ruin]

act 3 ||maelle relationship 7|| ||Oh man... well, that's something||

||i legit don't know which option to pick here||

[nova temple]

hehehe

[analog tiger]

Act 3 ||maelle relationship 7|| ||she did ask for the truth||

[hollow ruin]

same ||I did end up telling her the truth||

||she took it a lot better than i expected||

[scarlet trout]

|| took that info a lot better than I did I was mad at verso||

[hollow ruin]

act 3 ||maelle relationship 7|| ||i'm conflicted at verso but i think i'm too sad at him to be mad at him||

||especially since i had this convo right on the heels of maelle gommaging his sister||

hm, i wonder...

[main olive]

Can someone remind me what did Expedition 60 do, what was their gimmick
I'm trying to understand a meme

[hollow ruin]

(lore stuff) ||they decided that human body is the superior tool so they did the entire expedition naked and unarmed||

||made it further than most actually equipped expeditions, too||

(act 3 general stuff) || @nova temple I saw you had Alicia's outfit on in your screenshots, where did you get it?||

[main olive]

This makes sense now

[nova temple]

though you don't actually fully understand it 😉

[hollow ruin]

right, there is more expedition 60 lore

[main olive]

I need more power context

I could do an onion soup with a baguette before playing today...

[nova temple]

||Uuuh, there's a couple of them, I am not sure which one you saw. If you can hunt down a screenshot, I can probably find out for you fairly easily||

[hollow ruin]

well... (more lore, spoiler-freeish) ||they discovered plot reveals that e33 discovers much later and sent one of their guys to Lumiere to let everyone else know. the dude was swimming manually back to lumiere, but his last year ran out before he could get there, and he gommaged halfway through his sea crossing||

[nova temple]

mmm

[main olive]

||Insane flex||

[hollow ruin]

this one

[nova temple]

Hmm

Let's say act 3... overworld ||Have you been to the Canvas yet?||

[hollow ruin]

||the area with the family painting? yeah, but i only got the painting there||

[nova temple]

^ ||Did you do anything with said painting?||

[hollow ruin]

nope

[nova temple]

Well, that's your answer 😛

If you want specific instructions, however: (Act 3) ||Canvas|| ||you can hang that painting in the Manor, which opens a room, and you get the outfit there. Or, you get a costume, and I believe it's this one||

[hollow ruin]

i would not have figured that out on my own, so thank you 😅

[shell minnow]

kwa-soh
-# n

[dawn spindle]

Im finally done with Act 1 ||gestralt village||

Yes I'm going at snail pace

[fallow geode]

I'm just glad someone is going shower than me 😌

[dawn spindle]

I do shower fairly often

[hollow ruin]

act 3 stuff ||gestral village|| ||you know, with the reveal that Monoco and Noco are based on dogs in-universe (and thus, presumably, all gestrals are), the visual gag of the gestral sitting in the fire and saying "this is fine" gains an additional layer to it ||

[hollow ruin]

act 3 ||painting workshop boss|| ||oh boy, the lampmaster again||

||oh boy, my 400K Virtuose stance Standhal deals like... 1/9th of its health bar in damage||

||oh boy, I'm gonna be here a while||

[reef iron]

general (i'm watching euro brady and just having thoughts and feelings) ||i'm just thinking about my parents and the way like.... all these "old" people of lumiere have to be themselves longing for older adults. their own parents and mentors and friends and just that kind of companionship and even leadership they don't have anymore..... when they were kids they probably knew some people in their 50s... an adolescence knowing people in their 40s... and then becoming adults when it was just their peers...... their adopted "parents" of people only a few years older than themselves. godddddddddddddd||

and if i can flip from general to ALL ||i feel kind of a bit sad, a bit bummed, in how little the people of lumiere matter by the end of the game :(||

[nova temple]

mhm mhm

[hollow ruin]

act 3 ||painting workshop boss|| ||man, the sword of light attack is really screwing me over i just fail to get the dodge timing right all the damn time||

[nova temple]

full game ||I think one of the reasons the Maelle ending feels as bad as it does (to me) is because it focuses so much on her, and this is not a good ending for her, even though she got what she wanted. It's certainly not a good ending for Verso. But it is a good ending for Lumiere, and we don't really focus on that. And similarly, the Verso ending focuses on the real world, and the idea of healing, but it chooses to glance over the death of everyone in Lumiere (granted, they were already dead because Renoir erased them, but that's potentially a different conversation...)||

[nova temple]

I found it tricky too, yeah

[hollow ruin]

the bloody delay on this thing keeps making me press dodge just a bit too early

and of course it one shots my entire party

this being said, this is giving me the opportunity to see how big my Standhal can get

943K is my current record

[shell minnow]

I was seeing there apparently an input delay with mkb that causes problems with dodging and that's part of why there was such a strong recommendation for controller

[nova temple]

It does feels inconsistent sometimes

but it's hard to tell, with millisecond timings

[nova temple]

Just prevent it from happening 🙃

[analog tiger]

the entire fgc is goign to blow up your mentions 😔

[obtuse pond]

Full game ||It’s a weird and complicated ending, and I’m honestly having a bit of a hard time deciding if it’s weird and complicated in a way I like or dislike.||
||It definitely makes me feel something though, and I’ll take potentially questionable execution of an idea that provokes a response over good execution of a bland idea any day.||

[nova temple]

mhm mhm

[analog tiger]

Full game ||it does veer a bit into 'real art is angsty' territory which mmm.||

[hollow ruin]

okay you know what

i do not actually have to fight this boss right now

i do not have to tolerate this nonsense

i can leave

i can absolutely leave this boss be and come back once i have levelled up my weapons and characters and can deal big damage with more than one character

i can

but

[nova temple]

them's not fighting words

[hollow ruin]

ye no

(i tried one more time and) i'm actually leaving

this has crossed the line from challenging to unfun

screw this boss and the horse it rode in on, one day i'm gonna dig up some info on a build that can one-shot the bastard and come back to cheese it

[nova temple]

Act... 1? 2? non-spoiler

[hollow ruin]

act 3 ||chosen path|| ||man, i should've really checked who the last enemy to fight is before leaving Sciel for last cause she is not doing great against this bastard||

[nova temple]

act 3 ||chosen path|| ||you can probably reset / load back. I think I lucked out with sending everyone to a fight they could win, but my Lune build is almost completely countered by several enemies, and I got lucky that I didn't send her against those||

[hollow ruin]

same ||you know, i feel like having a bunch of abilities on sciel that were increasing damage taken wasn't helping me any 🤔 ||

||still need to learn timing on that gradient hit tho||

and voila

[reef iron]

act 3 question ||should i do endless tower before renoir's drafts?||

[nova temple]

Ah, the @shell minnow special ™️ (this one is safe for you to read, Alyx)

[nova temple]

||I think most of ET is easier than RD||

[hollow ruin]

act 3 ||chosen path|| ||oh, the shell on turn start picto feels like it's gonna be real nice against the lampmaster bastard||

[shell minnow]

You give me spoilers only for them to be a roast 😔

[nova temple]

I gave you solidarity!

[hollow ruin]

rest assured, i was roasting myself

(sciel mechanics) ||"why isn't my Harvest healing me" she asks while having Confident equipped||

[reef iron]

sometimes i don't look at what the pictos i've equipped actually do........ yeah

[merry lance]

Act let's-call-it-3 builds ||I've had a breakthrough in the funny build||

[nova temple]

There's no way that's effective

[reef iron]

i've done that one!

[merry lance]

||Effective? I'll leave that to the historians. Procs all the on-death Luminas? Absolutely.||

||Y'know, there are so many buffs on death/rez... Maybe I'll actually legitimately try to make a yo-yo build on someone...||

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||Abyss|| ||So, I mostly obliterated Simon, and then he hit P2, and wiped my entire party out before I could even get a turn.||

[main olive]

Well it's time to play

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||Abyss|| ||Jesus Christ, I can hardly practice this boss, because he takes like 8 turns, and each one of them is super deadly, and resurrecting is not an option||

[main olive]

Act 2 ||The quarry|| ||I beat this boss first try somehow, didn't expect the full on anime finisher but that was hella cool.||

||Sciel built for damage hits like a speeding truck.||

[shell minnow]

Act 2 build stuff ||Yeah I've been much more effective at getting damage out of Sciel than Verso tbh||

[main olive]

Act 2 builds ||I've made peace with me not being able to dodge or parry everything so my verso is built to facetank things, do the "deals more damage at low hp" thing and then heal||
||Sciel is "Stack cards against boss and then hit with High damage attacks" and she so far has been my highest damage, takes a bit to set up but the payoff is really good.||

||Lune is doing her best, she's there as a sub-dps||

[reef iron]

act 3 mechanics and builds ||in this act i feel like i can't really squeeze more damage out of sciel and she feels like much more a support character - lots of stuff to build OTHER people up||

[nova temple]

You know, I'll take this route

I'll just do that

I don't need this Elden Ring nonsense in my life right now

[main olive]

That's Guts Berserk

or Artorias Dark Souls

[nova temple]

don't need that either

[main olive]

https://tenor.com/view/artorias-dark-souls-dark-souls-sword-gif-8576502

[nova temple]

they can go back to their games

[main olive]

Act 2 ||After The Quarry||
||Why is it that Maelle's friendship levels up automatically as a story thing instead of being an interaction like the rest, if Persona 5 has taught me anything is that this mechanic is very plot relevant.||
||Also I like the nickname Maelle gives the crew, the "Disaster Expedition."||

is there any spot I can go grind some levels

[nova temple]

I think this is just a one-off thing, it doesn't actually matter; I think it's meant to introduce you to the mechanic, if you haven't seen it before on your own

[main olive]

I need to stop using Persona logic for this game but it's hard

[obtuse pond]

All sword characters in anime/RPGs are either Guts or Vergil

[main olive]

You know I'm not debating this because you're absolutely right

[obtuse pond]

Yeah I also called it quits on this boss.
It genuinely hits the point of being so difficult I consider it badly designed, which I don’t think I’ve ever done before outside of Hollow Knight with the Pantheon of Hallownest and Absolute Radiance.
Maybe if it wasn’t for ||his third phase||

[nova temple]

||there's a third phase?!||

[wild jackal]

||A third phase, but not a third health bar. It starts around 30% of his second health bar.||

[nova temple]

Ah, okay, that's... a little better

[wild jackal]

||he only has like 65 million health all together.||

[obtuse pond]

||When you get his second phase down to 1/3rd health, he just instantly kills your whole party. So you either have to burst him down past that point before he can react, or win with your reserve team.||

[nova temple]

Never mind, that's not a little better

||I feel like it's... kind of doable. The double attack in P2 threw me off at first, but I got the hang of it. The big aoe speed of light of combo he does is the big thing that wipes me now - that, and just attrition; you make one mistake, and you are down a party member. Maybe I'll need to put one of my big damage dealers in the backup team. We'll see how much patience I have for this once I've put in another 3-4 hours...||

[obtuse pond]

I’m gonna give it a shot on easy, wider parry windows might do me a lot of good

[nova temple]

I did that in my last attempt, and... it doesn't help that much 😅

I am definitely feeling it, I was dodging more, but dodging 20 attacks instead of 10 doesn't matter if you've got 30 coming your way

or w/e

[wild jackal]

||Once you start to hit p3 reliably, I would switch to just 2 party members at the start and leave the other 3 to bring the last 30% home. I would also recommend using gradients early and often, you get so much ap to spend from all the parries that you can get 2 or 3 3 cost gradients off||

[obtuse pond]

I might just cheese it, builds for that exist, but that feels wrong.

[nova temple]

||Yeah, I did notice that I was getting a lot of gradient charges||

[main olive]

Act 2 overworld
||I was just walking around and somehow ended up walking up into the air, what the hell, is this a glitch or like a hidden invisible path||

[nova temple]

You've actually unlocked a shortcut, there's a bridge there, but sometimes it (visually) disappears

[main olive]

I can see the little switch at the end but I can't seem to reach it

I think I've gone in reverse

[nova temple]

Hmm

Maybe

[main olive]

The switch is right there but my path seems blocked

This is really funny

the any% glitch runs of this game are gonna go so hard

[wild jackal]

That bridge is bugged I think, I had the same problem where I got stuck on the bridge before activating it and had to reload to get off.

[fallow geode]

LMAO yeah you went backwards there

[analog tiger]

I disagree with calling what is supposed to be the pinnacle challenge of a game badly designed because it's too difficult tbh

that is the whole point of the thing

[scarlet trout]

Nah that boss is whack

[main olive]

Act 2 ||Monoco's station|| ||I love this guy, he has that rizz||
||also his boss theme is a bop, wasn't expecting that||

[analog tiger]

back in my day we just accepted that ||Sephiroth was too hard to beat|| in KH1 😔

[scarlet trout]

More seriously though I know there are things I can do build wise to problem solve for that boss. It’s just I’m like 98% through the game and I just don’t want to lol

[fallow geode]

build loadouts when?

[shell minnow]

je pense que... c'est le temps

[scarlet trout]

searches brain for any remnants of high school French

Oui

[shell minnow]

je joue...

[halcyon elbow]

That is a priority thing they want to add

Emphasis on want

Sandfall has one (1) UI employee

[main olive]

It's funny that the only thing I can say in french is to ask someone if they speak french

after that it's just a managerie of random words

[reef iron]

here: je ne parle pas français

for your future use

[main olive]

Hilarious addition to my collection

[analog tiger]

I can't speak french to save my life

but I can understand it okay

[main olive]

It's the common root

like spanish, italian, but french is a bit more quirky

Act 2 ||I got the funny character||

||"We're going to Old Lumiere." "Okay bye." "There's gonna be a lot of fighting." "Count me in."||

I need some help with the build tho

how do I build ||Monoco||

[fallow geode]

Act 2 || 🦶time ||

[analog tiger]

Act 2 ||post monoco station|| ||depends tbh. Pretty versatile character to build||

[main olive]

I need a healer

I feel like it's wasted potential on him but someone has to do this job

[main olive]

should I go back to some early game places to hunt for feets

[nova temple]

Act 2 ||I don't know what to do with Monoco either. He feels weird to me because he doesn't feel like he has his own synergies, you just kind of... pick whatever you like. The rest of my party just works, so I don't need Monoco to fill in any gaps, and I don't need him for his own strength, so the only thing I can do with him is build him for support||

[potent tapir]

Act 2 ||I had Monoco as both support and Break (with that one skill that gives 20% break with the right mask). I also gave him Roulette and high crits. So I hit stunned enemies with his gradient and just pulverize them ||

[merry lance]

Act 2 ||The big thing I remember doing with Monoco was giving him I think it was called Cultist Blood? and a handful of luminas that give boosts when your health is low.||

[main olive]

I love this guy

[old night]

Anyone else only know the French from the Muzzy commercials as a kid? I can't do much in French, but I can say "I'm a little girl" (I'm not) perfectly.

[main olive]

Act 2 ||Maelle friendship||
||Now this game is teasing me about my theory that Maelle is somehow related to the Paintress or a fragment of her or a time traveller or something, how dare you.||

[nova temple]

Heh, everyone raises an eyebrow at this 😅

"filmmaker reacts to am cutscenes, part 1" - video it's 2 hours long

[exotic ember]

Someone beat the game without dodging or parrying just to prove you could

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/clair-obscur-player-tanks-their-way-through-the-entire-game-without-dodging-or-parrying-to-prove-a-point-you-can-finish-it-without-gamer-reflexes/

[obtuse pond]

I wanna judge
But I also mainly default to Lune

[nova temple]

I see you, gamers

[obtuse pond]

Honestly I do feel like Lune is easier to platform with.

[reef iron]

in act 1, gustave or sciel

[fallow geode]

I just prefer to float than run

Act 2 ||but also the correct answer is Esquie||

[split canyon]

I mean she does have her feet out from level one

So clearly I have to pick her

[shell minnow]

I just love to go swoowsh

[dawn spindle]

Lune for sure, we're all quite basic, one reason or another

[analog tiger]

you pick Lune because she floats/makes no noise when she runs
I pick Lune because <this statement was banished to the horny realm> her feet

we are not the same

[reef iron]

act 2 and on ||and then from act 2 and on, my face character has been Verso||

[shell minnow]

I finished Act 2 last night! ||And now I understand everything perfectly||

[shell minnow]

End of Act 2 ||Hold up, I just realized Verso actually wasn't lying when he said his father Renoir had been made immortal by the Paintress and didn't want to die. I so thought that was just a cover story but it's actually true, damn||

[nova temple]

||He mostly lies by omission, and by saying that he doesn't know things when he does. Not a lot of direct lies||

[shell minnow]

Same, big spoilers ||Also gotta say the realization that Aline painted Verso back to life in the Canvas but still painted the new Alicia as horribly burned and scarred from the fire instead of healed is kinda terrible. If you're painting your own perfectly fixed family where nothing bad happened to them... why not heal your daughter too?||

[nova temple]

Act 2 full ||It's not clear clear, but she kind of blames Alicia for Verso's death, so I think some of that translates there. There's also a "blink and you'll miss it" line where Verso tells Maelle that Aline made this painted version of her family as if the fire only took Alicia, so maybe it's easier to make painted versions of real people if the paintings are similar; she put in the effort for her baby boy, but couldn't be assed to fix Alicia||

[potent tapir]

Act 3/Endgame || iirc they state that she blames Alicia explicitly in a side quest||

[merry lance]

Act 2 all ||Probably the same reason Paint Renoir has a cane. It's easier to Paint things as you remember them, and she remembers a living Verso more clearly than a not-burnt Alicia. Also, it's worth noting that when Alicia was Painted into Maelle, the burns were healed.||

[nova temple]

||Maybe. I think most of the act 3 side content provides additional context to the ending of 2, but didn't reveal much new information||

[shell minnow]

Act 2 ||Yeah I recall that line about the fire only taking Alicia and it's like, hold up, that's different from painting a world where the fire didn't happen. HMM. I think this family... are bad.||

[merry lance]

Act 3-but-probably-really-just-2-all ||Also, fresh ponder, where was painted Clea?||

[nova temple]

||You say bad, I say rich in narrative!||

[potent tapir]

Act 3 || based on the small wall real estate her paintings got (and Alicia's comments about it), I don't think Aline or Clea had a high opinion of Alicia at the start of this whole mess||

[nova temple]

Act 3 || I mean, we know that, Clea Painted over Aline's painting of her, and that painting now lives in the Flying Manor, painting nevrons||

[analog tiger]

Act 3 ||this family is a bit messed up 😔 ||

[merry lance]

Bleh, shouldn't've clicked

I haven't really done any act 3 story, just new side content

Act 2 ||I wouldn't even say bad, just still firmly in the emotion of the moment. All signs point to the fire being fresh in everyone's mind, and that something Alicia did caused the fire, or at least its location. The moment it became fact, her being burned was non-negotiable.||

[nova temple]

That's side content

It's just that side content can have a little bit of story 😅

Sorry, I should've been more careful with my answer

[analog tiger]

act 3 ||it does feel like this has been a bit more than the usual mourning period for the setting||

[merry lance]

Act 3 ||Flying Manor|| ||There are worse things to click, I'd pieced most of it together already, except for the location and that it was her painted self actively making Nevrons instead of a grand act of creation half a century ago (though now that I think back to the bleached Nevrons' dialogue, it absolutely tracks)||

[analog tiger]

act 3 all ||(actually it's kinda general because this is a line that is said early in act 3 tbh but just to be safe) also about verso, there is that a piece of his soul is in the Canvas, might make recreating him easier||

||though then again maybe not||

[shell minnow]

Act 3 ||Yeah like Maelle's injuries are fully healed in the real world, and they looked pretty extensive, this isn't something that happened overnight||

[nova temple]

^ ||plus, references to Aline having been in the Canvas too long. We don't know how long is too long, but it probably hasn't been a weekend. The manor also doesn't show signs of the fire anymore - but it hasn't been fully repaired either. So probably months, at the very least?||

[reef iron]

act 3 general ||also CRAZY of Renoir to be like "Alicia you've been in the canvas too long" when he and Aline were in there WAY longer||

||like mmmm... ok.....||

[analog tiger]

act 3 all ||though I don't think he's wrong; there might be an element of experience to it or maybe her injuries make it more dangerous for her or maybe both||

[potent tapir]

act 3 || I also wonder if not knowing you are a painter and "going local" so to speak, is more stressful. I'd assume that its not great for your mental health. ||

[analog tiger]

Act 3 all ||man I'd need a minder if I was a Painter because I'd go local every time 😔 ||

[nova temple]

act 3 ||I agree, I think more experienced Painters can last longer. And Alicia/Maelle could've been still weak from her injuries, and less able to stick around. Plus, it's not like Renoir himself wants to stick around, he wants his family out so he can destroy this Canvas||

[reef iron]

act 3 ||I'm not really a fan of coming up with reasons to make something work that makes me go 🤨 in the first place||

[potent tapir]

act 3 || I mean him being more protective of her than of himself is what I just automatically assumed. ||

[merry lance]

Act 3 general ||Yes, but I'm under the impression that his stance is a combination of "So leave so I can finish up here real quick and we can both get out", him having a lifetime of practice being inside canvases too long, Alicia already (arguably) having lost herself in this canvas once, and boring normal parents caring more for their childrens' well-being than their own.||

[nova temple]

^ ||more or less yeah, except I would flag that of the two parents, Aline is the better Painter, so I wouldn't say that Renoir has a leg up on the whole "staying in canvases long." But Aline has been here longer - he did come to get her out, after all - so that's moot anyway||

[reef iron]

ok hold on I have another Comment act 3 ||if Aline is the better painter, why is the big shiny atelier Renoir's :(||

[analog tiger]

Act 3 all ||that's true yeah||

Act 3 all ||my guess is the usual sexism; I'd guess he's the Dessendre||

[nova temple]

mhm

[main olive]

When do I unlock ||Esquie's ability to fly? I want to go back to find feet for Monoco on early enemies, I have some interesting ideas||

[nova temple]

Nick ||in act 3||

[main olive]

Not me struggling to write that name

Time to backtrack some I guess

[merry lance]

Act 2 ||It could be worse, you could be like me and have your brain autocorrect it to l'Esquie||

[granite sage]

act 3 ||funny, this is why Verso holds out on Soarie, he doesn't want the party to backtrack||

[nova temple]

You could, if you wanted to, but I don't think it's super worth it

Unless you want to kill some time

[main olive]

I just see locked out boxes that could be skills for this character

I need them open

and I need easy fights because the game does beat my ass

[obtuse pond]

Act 3 ||The comparison I thought of in my head is that it’s kinda like alcohol, where “experienced” drinkers can handle insane blood alcohol content levels like 0.3 or 0.4 when that would kill most people.||

[obtuse pond]

Act 3 ||Well Aline is the head of the Painters council which means she presumably commands more respect, so I’m not sure it’s as simple as that.||
||Maybe she travels for work more while Renoir does most of his work at home.||

Act 3 ||Idk there are a lot of weird and unexplained things with the Dessandre family. I hope we get more info about them in future games.||
||Particularly hoping for a Clea focused game.||

https://www.tumblr.com/ethernalium/783433718861856768/when-you-playing-expedition-33-and-the-enemy?source=share

[main olive]

A frenzied combo

I hate it when they do like seven consecutive attacks

My brain can't keep up

[nova temple]

Act... let's say 2, gen ||I like that it took less than 3 hours to go from https://x.com/expedition33/status/1923006237978841530 to https://x.com/Sunnbnn/status/1923057071013916803 and https://x.com/RBaruffato/status/1923043414599180572 ||

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (@expedition33) on X

Mes amis I wish to see art of Maelle giving Esquie a really good hug, but art is very hard. I tried.

It seems impossible. 😔

X · May 15, 2025, 1:23 PM

PLUM✨ (@Sunnbnn) on X

@expedition33 I gotchu mon amiiiiiiiiiii

X · May 15, 2025, 4:45 PM

Jabberwacko (@RBaruffato) on X

@expedition33 Did a quick work doodle of it !

X · May 15, 2025, 3:50 PM

[hollow ruin]

awww

[main olive]

I love this big fella

he's just so nice

[hollow ruin]

he is delightful

[nova temple]

https://x.com/expedition33/status/1923065847058186649

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (@expedition33) on X

The Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Art Blast is now live on @ArtStationHQ!

Get an in-depth look at the stunning artwork that brought our world to life—from characters and props to environments, cinematics, and beyond.

https://t.co/dirvaui12n

X · May 15, 2025, 5:20 PM

A lot of characters and areas, but on a quick scroll I don't see any explicit spoilers

well

file names contain spoilers

so, exercise care

if you are just looking at pictures, it's probably fine

but clicking on things and digging deeper will spoil things

I don't know, I go back and forth, maybe don't look unless you are done with at least act 2 😅

maybe I am just paranoid

https://www.artstation.com/nicholas-maxson-francombe is not really safe, but boy are there wallpapers in here

gonna start with this one

[hollow ruin]

art, I guess? ||interesting that some of the concept art shows someone wielding a bow. I guess an old unused character concept?||

[nova temple]

huh, neat

[main olive]

||Well there's been like a million people in these expeditions, I'm sure someone used a bow at one point||

General
||I kind of want do do the insane thing of trying to calculate the dead bodies.||

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||The Abyss|| ||

^ ||takes so long to get there, and I need practice on the triple attack ||

[main olive]

I ALMOST clicked on that when I saw there was a new message on the chat

I held back just in time

good to see I can dodge something

[nova temple]

Well, not to incentivize you, but that's mostly a big ol' EXPEDITION FAILED screenshot

from the boss I've been grinding

[main olive]

https://tenor.com/view/fantasy-demons-gif-27253244

[fallow geode]

that's every boss for me atm

[main olive]

I somehow managed to beat a big boss on the first try

Act 2 ||The Quarry|| ||that guy with four arms and dual swords, duellist something, somehow I managed to stall enough to nuke him twice with Sciel||

[fallow geode]

||Duellist is fun||

||I enjoyed learning to parry him||

[nova temple]

100%

[fallow geode]

I did another later boss today, but ended up feeling too much fustration to enjoy the story surrounding it

Act 2 NSF Nick ||Old Lumiere|| ||I did not manage to understand Renoir's timing before I beat him, so I was left stewing over that while some amazing tidbits floated by||

[dawn spindle]

So far im doing great in hard mode

But again I'm only at Act 1 ||after Gestralt village||

Just got ||Sciel basically||

[main olive]

Minigames ||Getting over it with Expedition 33||

[nova temple]

100%

[fallow geode]

Minigames ||I did it in one shot, no falls||

||I'd like my medal now||

[analog tiger]

Minigames ||the most tense I felt the whole game 😔 ||

[fallow geode]

||It was legit chill for me. Just mash into every ledge and mantle it||

||Now the ocean run, that was a nightmare||

[merry lance]

Minigames ||Beach 3 wasn't mechanically hard, but it was long. Like a marathon, but instead of marathon lengths, it was a 5k with a low hurdle every 100m||

[main olive]

I was about to say "If the reward isn't ||Monoco on a speedo|| I'm going to be angry"

and lo behold the game read my mind

insane

French magic

Act 2 ||Verso with the bun hair looks remakably like Gustave.||

[fallow geode]

Let me tell you about the hair style I picked up recently

[analog tiger]

Act 2 ||after Monoco Station|| ||I didn't do much outfit changing but the Monoco and Verso new haircuts I kept||

Act 2 ||felt appropriate||

[main olive]

Mechanics ||Gentlemen, I may not have a brain but I have an idea.||

||Monoco is about to become my funniest party member||

[reef iron]

everyone loves this loadout the moment they see it

[main olive]

The pieces of the puzzle just fall together

[halcyon elbow]

Okay

I'm restarting now that I'm at home on my PC so I can actually see the game

[nova temple]

Good, good

[main olive]

Is there a way to swap characters mid fight?

[wild jackal]

Not that I'm aware of.

[exotic ember]

Dying?

Technically

[main olive]

Act 2 ||Gestral secret arena|| ||It's really funny entering the fight with just Monoco and instantly win||

||I wonder why it only works on some of these fights and not all||

[halcyon elbow]

Prologue ||I'd pay money for this painting||

[nova temple]

Mhm mhm

[halcyon elbow]

God damn this game is beautiful

[exotic ember]

Yes, yes it is

[halcyon elbow]

Also, unrelated:
What's the plural of Pictos? Pictoses? Is it singular and plural? What's going on here?

[exotic ember]

Pictorionis

[analog tiger]

Celts

[hollow ruin]

Picto -> Pictos

[halcyon elbow]

They've been using Pictos as a singular

[reef iron]

it's like fish

[halcyon elbow]

Unless it got missed in an editing pass or something

[reef iron]

it's a fish and there are fish

[halcyon elbow]

👍

[hollow ruin]

🤔 maybe my memory is failing me

[halcyon elbow]

Picto -> Pictos makes more sense to me for sure

[shell minnow]

Pictos is singular and plural!

But lots of people use "picto" as the singular

the game doesn't, but the fans do, and sometimes language is whatever we make of it

[halcyon elbow]

I do think I'm with spookyspren on this

Pictopedotes or what have you

Act 1 ||I couldn't tell that these were all Expeditioners in this pile of dead bodies the first time||

||And going into the room||

Too blurry

[halcyon elbow]

I think I might be worse at the parrying now that I can see what's happening and I don't have to rely on the sound cue lmao

Yeah it actually is just straight up easier if I look away during enemy attacks

Insane

[main olive]

Kon I gotta tell you that in Spanish Pedote means big fart

[halcyon elbow]

Well obviously who doesn't know that

[ionic kite]

Act 2 ||Can't believe the achievement would spoil that Monoco is a playable character (ignore how i already figured he would be because he's on the box art)||

You know, this game was always funny
But once Act 2 hit
It became so much funnier

[dawn spindle]

It's pictos > pictos

[obtuse pond]

Act 3 ||So if all the Axons are Renoir’s depictions of his family, is the dead one in old Lumiere meant to be Clea?||

[nova temple]

||I was trying to work those out myself yesterday... I think the way they map out is, Reacher is Alicia's, Mask Keeper is Verso's, and Dancer is Clea's. That leaves the Old Lumiere one, which... Could've been Clea again (and he painted a new one for her after its death). It also could've been something... neutral; the giant Paintress seems to be either an Axon or in the same level, so maybe... Hauler? it's what I think the other one was called, was also just a big baddie, not a specific tribute. It is probably the one seen in the atelier though, which is notable...||

[obtuse pond]

||I think Sirene was Aline.||

[nova temple]

||That was my initial assumption too, not sure why I thought that was wrong... He also could've had an Axon for himself.||

[obtuse pond]

||Clea’s Axon being this giant thing carrying a city on it’s back would kinda fit with how Clea is basically taking care of the entire Dessandre family’s responsibilities while the rest of her family is mourning and fighting each other.||

Act 3 ||The Abyss|| ||Also has some interesting implications with the idea that Simon killed it with power he got from Clea.||

[shell minnow]

Act 3 ||Sirène is definitely Aline, they talk about those two being her and Verso at the end of Act 2||

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||Yeah, I think I might be misremembering that scene. ||

[nova temple]

||There's... stuff in that thur Abyss||

[hollow ruin]

Look at my in-game playtime 👀

so close to perfection

act 3 general ||also, i have just now realized that you can press shift to speed up when flying on Esquie...||

[nova temple]

nice

[hollow ruin]

||somehow i did not connect the fact that he can run faster and swim faster with the fact that he can, in fact, fly faster as well||

[nova temple]

Does it not say that on your HUD?

[hollow ruin]

possibly, but bold of you to assume i noticed that there were instructions for movement displayed on my HUD 😅

[merry lance]

You say so close to perfection, but you know what the difference is? Another 3!

[hollow ruin]

(meme voice) That's a lot of damage!

(that's a single hit, to be clear)

(standhal do be busted)

[main olive]

What's a Standhal and how do I use it

my damage peaks at like 10K I think

[hollow ruin]

so far, your damage is hard capped at 9,999

you will find a way to uncap it at about the same time you will unlock the ability to use Standhal

don't worry about missing it, it can't be missed

[main olive]

Yay

Yeah I was wondering why I did 9.999

Final fantasy style

[hollow ruin]

man, i've been looking for this one paint cage... blob for almost ten minutes now and i cant' find it anywhere 😭 i feel so blind

[analog tiger]

where is it?

what dungeon I mean

[hollow ruin]

act 3 ||eternal night sanctuary||

[analog tiger]

oh nvm not the one I was thinking of

no idea where that one is

[hollow ruin]

||i found the one in the boxes and the one in the trees, but the third one eludes me 😭 ||

[analog tiger]

act 2 ||inside the monolith|| ||I'm 99% sure that there's a blob behind one of those breakable roots in the gestral forest part of that dungeon||

[hollow ruin]

that'd be devious

gah... you'd think in a night area, it'd be easy to find glowing objects

and yet, the game's got me pixel hunting

oh my gods i found it

i refuse to believe it was there all this time, it must've loaded in later

[nova temple]

I struggled with that one too a little

[hollow ruin]

act 3 ||eternal night sanctuary|| ||it's on the leg of the giant statue, if anyone ever goes back to this post to search for it||

all this for a single chroma catalyst 😂

[fallow geode]

Act 2 ||Falling Leaves|| ||what? and ew!||

Act 2 ||Falling Leaves Manor|| ||So the Alicia Record is in the room next to where we find Maelle 👀 ||

[nova temple]

haha, reaction-worthy, definitely

I had one too

[fallow geode]

Act 2 ||Falling Leaves Boss|| ||How on earth do those masks work??||

||He summoned, "hid in the darkness" and attacked, then I got a turn while the masks blink in and out, and my free aim gets jerked all over the screen, I can't even tell if they took damage||

[nova temple]

^ ||IIRC you have to keep shooting them for a while, but you need to be a little fast because they do disappear & reappear||

[halcyon elbow]

Mechanics question ||Can you parry having someone in the party removed from the battle (e.g. eaten)?||

[nova temple]

no

[halcyon elbow]

Okay that actually makes me feel less bad

Wondering why I keep missing that

[halcyon elbow]

Act 1 second.... dungeon, I guess? ||Wild to me that this is clearly the Eiffel Tower, the game calls it the Eiffel Tower on a sign, but also calls the part of the city "Old Lumiere"||

[nova temple]

Mhm mhm

We usually do tags that look like this, Act 1 ||zone name|| ||message||, if you want to follow that

[fallow geode]

you can see zone name on your [Y] menu (assuming xbox controller)

[halcyon elbow]

Ah okay I haven't been reading stuff so I wasn't aware of the convention

I know where I am I just didn't know how to more precisely describe it than "act 1", which has already been A Bit

[fallow geode]

which has already been A Bit
you can see why we started naming the zone

[nova temple]

Heh

[main olive]

Time to continue this expedition.

It's gloomy.

[main olive]

Act 2 ||Old Lumiere|| ||Nooo Monoco stop crying, you did show off! it was so cool! you blew up the entire building with us next to it!||

[obtuse pond]

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/clair-obscurs-director-has-an-old-youtube-channel-full-of-masterful-no-hit-devil-may-cry-videos-because-of-course-he-does/

[exotic ember]

I opened this, read it, found it interesting, forgot that I found it here, and was about to link it here

[analog tiger]

it'd be really funny if it wasn't royal guard

[main olive]

Act 2 ||Old Lumiere|| ||I'm all alone now, but thankfully Noco is with me.||

Act 2 ||Old Lumiere|| ||Wait wait wait wait wait wait WAIT HOLD ON A MOMENT||

||What is going on here||

[nova temple]

🍿

[main olive]

I feel like the answers have been staring at me in the face since end of act 1

they're right there, I just need more pieces of this puzzle

Act 2 ||Post Old Lumiere|| ||So when is Gustave showing up, he's taking way too long, he's coming back right.||

[halcyon elbow]

Act 1 ||Gestral Village|| ||lmao I found a painting of the dev team inside the manor door area||

[nova temple]

I found that sooo much later 😅

It's neat

[halcyon elbow]

This game manages to walk the line of being desperately silly and truly dire without those two tones ever really being in conflict with each other

Remarkable

[nova temple]

Absolutely

[main olive]

French wizardry

It's a game where you can have a "funny moments compilation" and a cinematic with some gut wrenching emotion and music and they don't clash with each other

[nova temple]

some dark magic was definitely involved in the making of this game

[main olive]

My only problem is that I really like having a lot of menus to check stuff and micro manage my run/save
This game has as few menus as it can get away with I think

[analog tiger]

I have some problems with this game

none of them too big

but there are issues

[ionic kite]

Yeah same. Mainly UI

Traversing through Pictos and Luminas is a pain

Not having a minimap is a pain

Not having any of the side stuff marked and just having to remember it is a pain

None of it is huge

[analog tiger]

yeah minimap would be great

not having multiple save slots is unacceptable

[ionic kite]

But collectively they're just Very Inconvenient™️

[analog tiger]

I don't remember if there are ways to sort pictos and luminas

[ionic kite]

But also the fact that this game is as good as it is and the biggest issues are minor UI things is a marvel

[ionic kite]

There is

But it's not as robust as I would like

You can sort the Pictos by stats highest to lowest, level, and most recently obtained and Luminas by their type (offensive, defensive, support) and probably cost?

And of course alphabetical as well

[analog tiger]

yeah that's okay but I would like more

[ionic kite]

Same

idk what else you would do but

When you have this big ass list, it's a pain trying to find what you want

Also

There's no way to sort Pictos by whether or not you have their Lumina

[analog tiger]

well there kinda is but not really

the ones that you don't have are white, the ones you do is coloured

though that's more identifying than sorting

[ionic kite]

Yeah I know that

But I meant like

Actually push the ones that aren't maxed to the top

[analog tiger]

fair yeah

[ionic kite]

Instead of needing to scroll through them and find the one that's a different color

Cuz it's also not that easy to see

It's just the border

[analog tiger]

also loadouts

I'll forgive not having loadouts because it's just one person doing the UI apparently but that really should have been a priority

[ionic kite]

Yeah that too

You can favorite Pictos and Luminas

So that's something at least

[analog tiger]

yeah

I got lost a lot on my luminas and pictos playing late at night lmao

or just after several hours of gameplay switching up a build I'd get pretty lost on what was what

[potent tapir]

allegedly loadouts are something they are looking at doing in an update.

And not having a minimap was a deliberate choice so that players would use the environment to navigate

[dawn spindle]

The map thing is one of those things I get why and what it's going for but id still rather have the map in some form, even if just an outline.

The enviroment is too busy for me to use as landmarks of any sort when it comes to less relevant spots.

[halcyon elbow]

I think having a dungeon map even if only in menus is probably The Compromise there

[dawn spindle]

Yeah just in menus would be fine.

Like I don't want a full blown map but I also don't want to go around 10 times the same area wondering if I've missed a corner

Which is what I'm currently doing

[halcyon elbow]

https://youtu.be/tHc19A0MrLY

Best comment: "omelette du gommage"

[main olive]

Act 2 ||Now that I can swim closer to her, the Paintress is huge mungously massive||

||I can't even fully see her because the camera doesn't move that far||

[nova temple]

Act 2 ||I do like getting a sense of scale with her. ||

[main olive]

Mechanics Act 2 ||I've started hitting the damage cap with some characters (mainly Sciel who is the tip of my spear) I've started hitting 9.999 more often than not, sometimes it's enough and sometimes you can really feel it when it's a one hit attack||

||Sciel just said "Let's Gamble." on her turn||

https://tenor.com/view/lets-go-gambling-gif-3937562841362806777

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||The Abyss|| ||Starting to think that I might not mess around with Simon, actually... I still feel that fight is completely doable, and I can feel myself make progress, but it's starting to become more frustrating than fun...||

[exotic ember]

Alright, back to Clair Obscur now that Doom is done. Picking up on Act 3 on PC today until I head to my girlfriend's place for a few days

Act 3 || Chromatic Aberration || || Alright, well this one seems mean ||

[nova temple]

^ ||Haha, yeah, that's one of the first things I tried in Act 3, and immediately decided that it's maybe a mistake||

[exotic ember]

^ || I came to the same conclusion ||

[main olive]

I remade a few builds and now they feel worse than before

Act 2 ||I tried to make Lune into a healer support but it's hard to make it work because she doesn't have much else to do between turns and clashes with Verso because he needs to stay more or less low on health to maximise damage||

[exotic ember]

Oh gosh I've lost all my parry timings

[main olive]

I went looking for mods and every time I read (with jiggle phyics) I chuckle

[exotic ember]

Act 3 || Painter's Workshop || || Oh wow the platforming is worse than I remember. Doom probably didn't help me there with how polished its movement is haha ||

^ || If I could stop rolling off things after jumping on them, that'd be great. K thx ||

[nova temple]

Yeah, that last one is a little trickier than the rest

[exotic ember]

This is the first one I'm trying haha

[nova temple]

oh, heh

[exotic ember]

Act 3 || Painting workshop || || First one I did was on the island to the left of a gestral beach, southeast of the Blade's Graveyard. Interesting. Seems that I need to go to multiple of these and then there will be a very dangerous fight ||

[nova temple]

mhm

[exotic ember]

Act 3 || Kind of unsure where to go and what to do at this point haha. Just kind of wandering around for non-danger zones. I am definitely not outputting the damage I need to for some of these fights in the overworld accessed by flying ||

Act 3 || Abbest Cave || || Nevermind, Lune just did 80k with a free aim attack against the Chromatic Abbest? That's nutty ||

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||I'll say, I stuck my nose in every zone I could see, danger or no. Some... weren't dangerous, at least not immediately. Like, the Little Burgeon, doesn't have any fighting, it just sends you on a quest to fight a real Burgeon, which in turn is where the danger is.||

That feels like you hit the weak point 😅

[exotic ember]

Yeah definitely did ha

[exotic ember]

Act 3 || Yeah I'm trying to be a bit tactical about it, aiming to avoid going into places marked danger just so I can use the named vs unnamed places on the map to track where I have and haven't been yet. So I hopefully don't run into too many cases of "oh I forgot I dipped out of there to come back to later" ||

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||I ended up just sweeping the map after each act, checking even named areas, to see if they looked like something I had left for later||

[exotic ember]

Very fair!

[halcyon elbow]

https://youtu.be/7WY-ZcPdYXo

Game director and also art director here

[main olive]

Act 2 ||Visages|| ||I'm grinding this contortionist enemy because it drops a lot of XP, money, and good items, I've killed like it like a dozen times.||

[hollow ruin]

same tags ||ngl, i always avoid the contortionist enemy 😅 ||

||its jerky motion disturbs me||

[main olive]

||It's really creepy, but don't worry I've beating the chroma out of it for two hours now, it won't hurt you.||

[shell minnow]

Act 2 ||Contortionist's ability for Monoco is CARRYING me right now I love him||

[hollow ruin]

||which one was it?||

[halcyon elbow]

When asked if there was anything they felt was missing from the game: "No big regrets... I think compared to the original vision we are like 80% of the way there, which is amazing because the original scope was way too big"

[main olive]

Act 2 ||Visages|| ||Me right now||

[main olive]

||Drains enemy hp and heals||

[halcyon elbow]

Apparently the move towards a French identity was a shift over time. They'd originally started a lot more English Victorian inspired

[shell minnow]

Act 2 ||Contortionniste Blast: hits all enemies for medium damage and heals all allies for 10% for each enemy hit, and I've got him stacked up with Luminas so he's adding haste, greater shell, and powerful to the full party on it. AND despite it supposedly being "Medium" damage, it frequently 9,999s on AOE. It's cracked.||

[hollow ruin]

[shell minnow]

||It's almost always my opener, even when we don't have damage to heal, because the buffs are so good||

[exotic ember]

Act 3 || Sprong || || Got it down to 25% or so this time. Surprisingly not too bad of a fight. Just a bit long. Managed to get a Stendhal for about 300k at one point ||

[main olive]

you gave me an idea for a really cracked build

thanks

[exotic ember]

Oh nice!

Act 3 || Just got a 470k Stendhal 👀. I know those numbers aren’t that crazy but I’m like level 50 ||

[hollow ruin]

act 2 general ||i'mma need to sit down and rebuild my Monoco at some point cause I feel like i have so many skills i'm missing teh really good ones||

||building him for support since nobody can match Maelle for pure DPS as of yet||

[nova temple]

||I am not sure, but I think Breaking him is extra good, it felt like it took him longer to get out of the stun, and it made him skip some of his worse attacks for a bit||

[ionic kite]

If I reach the top of this parkour challenge, I'll get the greatest of Gestral rewards?
I swear to god if it's a swimsuit for a 15 year old

[main olive]

Act 2 ||Visages|| ||Wait a moment hold on|| ||"He who painted this world" HE? HE? WHO'S THIS?||

[nova temple]

16

[fallow geode]

nah, it's much better

[ionic kite]

LMAO ||IT WAS A BIKINI FOR MONOCO||

[nova temple]

it is

^ ||it's the only beach outfit I equipped for a long period of time!||

[hollow ruin]

||omg maybe i should give that gestral beach another try||

[ionic kite]

I am honestly shocked I haven't found a Maelle swimsuit yet, I've got everyone else's. I wonder if I just missed it lmao

[nova temple]

you have not

[ionic kite]

Is this because it is not in the game

[nova temple]

no, it exists

[hollow ruin]

it's in the game, you just can't reach it yet

[exotic ember]

Act 3 || Sprong || || Sprong down! I repeat, Sprong down! ||

Wait

Act 3 || Gradiose catalysts can upgrade weapons up to level 32!?!? I thought 20 was going to be the max. Dang, that makes sense though ||

[halcyon elbow]

I did get my first baguette outfit yesterday

Lune's

[nova temple]

this is what winning looks like

[ionic kite]

So you missed the first one then

Cuz the first one is in Lumiere

[halcyon elbow]

I ||killed a mime|| in Lumiere but it did not give me a baguette outfit

[ionic kite]

Oh

Did that one not give you the Baguette

I thought it did

[nova temple]

Am I the only who missed it 😔

[halcyon elbow]

It gave me something else

Can't remember what offhand

[hollow ruin]

no, i missed it too

[halcyon elbow]

An outfit for Gustave as I recall, but not the baguette

[fallow geode]

first baguette is in ||Spring Meadows||

[halcyon elbow]

I've got like six because I have the deluxe edition and I am not at my computer so I don't remember

[fallow geode]

that's the flowers outfits IIRC

[halcyon elbow]

Flowers came from the deluxe

As well as gommage

[fallow geode]

ah, Flowers & Gommage are DLC
also Obscur and Clair

[halcyon elbow]

Then there's the red Gustave uniform you get for ||giving the kid the uniform his dad made, and then taking it from him (this is unhinged behavior)||

[ionic kite]

||Didn't the kid give you the outfit||

[analog tiger]

I missed it too

[ionic kite]

||The real question there is why tf this outfit for a kid fits a grown ass man||

[reef iron]

prologue ||it was for the kid when he grew up||

[ionic kite]

Ah

[halcyon elbow]

Prologue ||He does, but if man's dying request is to give something to his child and his child tries to regift it back to you, you say no||

[reef iron]

prologue ||people tend to go on an expedition the year before their gommage, which the kid was nowhere near||

prologue ||idk, i know why the kid did it||

||things are weird about grief there. they're pragmatic folks sometimes||

[halcyon elbow]

Prologue ||Presumably that's relatively new, I can't imagine Expedition Zero or the first ~20 or so were primarily comprised of the elderly||

[reef iron]

i think so too

[fallow geode]

|| newish, yeah||

[reef iron]

prologue ||presumably the population of lumiere was big enough that early expeditions were more a mixed bag of ages||

||more spread of ages||

[halcyon elbow]

Prologue ||It makes it more reasonable for someone like Maelle to go as well, given there would probably be extensive precedent for someone going "early"||

[exotic ember]

Act 3 || Lumiere || || I swear, even though Doom is definitely technically the more visually impressive game from a technical standpoint I guess, Clair Obscur I think is still a better looking game. Coming back here again, this is gorgeous ||

[main olive]

General, act 2 vague location
||There's also like a million dead people everywhere, they sent the whole population at first it seems because lord that's a LOT of dead bodies||

[nova temple]

As I consume all sorts of media about this game, and my brain thinks about it... I think one of the many many things I appreciate about it is that while the story is thick with themes, the game doesn't actually tell you what to think about the ideas presented. It's just characters, people, reacting to situations in very real, and sometimes messy, ways. It sounds a bit simple when I put it in text, but it feels profound to me, as I turn my mind's eye to all the many individual instances where the game does this

[exotic ember]

Act 3 || Lumiere || || Oh yeah wait I haven't done this level on PC yet. Was running through skipping everyone because I wanted to fight horse orb for his foot and I just remembered I don't have the foot because I haven't been here lol ||

[nova temple]

🐴 ⚽ 👏 🐴 ⚽ 👏

[main olive]

I have somehow turned Maelle from one of my least useful characters into a murder machine.

Holy hell

[halcyon elbow]

That Maelle is a murder machine is the one thing I know externally about buildcrafting in this game

Even after a like 70% hit to her most powerful skill

[nova temple]

I was like this with Lune

She went from being okay to being a nuke for me

[halcyon elbow]

I'm getting a lot of damage out of Lune

[ionic kite]

They're all nukes if you play them right

[halcyon elbow]

She is a Black Mage

[fallow geode]

she (Maelle) is one of the ones that has an realtively obvious "go this way for big damage" build

[main olive]

Act 2 buildcrafting
||I just found a pictos that makes me stack twice as much burns, and now she can give enemies like 20 stacks in one turn dealing absurds amounts of damage over time||

[ionic kite]

I just find Lune far more complicated than the others to do big damage

With Maelle, it's like "use that Virtuous Stance weapon and spam Fleuret Fury"

With Lune you need a lot more steps

[main olive]

Lune has a specific gimmick that requires all the skills to go in order, like step by step

yeah

My favorite setup damage is Sciel tho

[ionic kite]

Sciel has less steps than Lune

[main olive]

She nukes people

[nova temple]

I still find Sciel difficult 😅

She feels like she should be straightforward, but something is not clicking for me

[ionic kite]

Honestly all I do is use Focused Foretell, then Sealed Fate

I will probably mix in Card Weaver now that I have it

Phantom Blade is an easy 9999 damage but I prefer Sealed Fate cuz it's multi hit

Which means it does more on average

And you don't get hit by the damage cap

[fallow geode]

I just started trying to use her again
but I decided to do so in a zone with Dark Absorbers

[exotic ember]

Act 3 || Lumiere || || Trash can man left me a perfect chroma catalyst to upgrade weapons to level 33. I should have known. Roll credits ||

[ionic kite]

Act 2 ||Verso is the one that I'm not sure about||

||Verso feels kinda weak||

[nova temple]

act 2 ||my build for him isn't the biggest numbers (though he isn't bad, he is #3), but he does a lot for the party - applies debuffs, sustains himself, applies a ton of breaking damage (and breaks) ||

[ionic kite]

||Dualiso + Combo Attack seems fun but it doesn't seem that practical at the moment, it probably gets better later. His other swords don't really feel like they're nearly as insane as the other characters weapons. Like Maelle gets Virtuous Stance from the start, Sciel gives you 10 Foretell for every Sun skill, Lune lets you buff up basically any of her elements or give you stains with every Free Aim. Verso just doesn't feel like he has a niche. Monoco's skills also just feel far more powerful than Verso's||

||It may just be the way I play being "big unga bunga damage I don't need support"||

||Which is how I play most RPGs lmao||

[nova temple]

^ ||Dialiso + Combo Attack is how I roll with him. For most of Act 2 it was just a way to get a free bonus turn essentially (free aim + basic attack for some free damage, and then take my normal turn), but some pictos I found really amplified all that to the point where using skills on him feels like a waste||

[ionic kite]

||Yeah, I was feeling that Dualiso would be a really good build.... when you actually get the resources to make it work||

||It takes so many Pictos and it needs higher weapon levels for it to feel super busted tho||

[analog tiger]

the easiest setup for Lune is Mayhem. Act 2 mechanics ||get her the weapon that gives random Stains on free aim, +damage, +critdmg and +break as well as some AP generating luminas or pictos and watch her melt most enemies||

[main olive]

Act 2
||This is just one turn, insane||

[ionic kite]

||Also since Combo Attack is a 1, that means there's MULTIPLE Combo Attacks||

||And throwing even two of those on Verso is gonna be ||

[ionic kite]

Yeah that's what I'm doing too

[nova temple]

||And with +AP on basic attack hit, you just get full AP for free||

[ionic kite]

Yeah

||It just doesn't feel like it's doing a lot of damage atm, but the weapon is also only level 9||

||Once I get it to 10, I imagine it'll feel a lot more effective||

||Plus I need to equip Augmented Attack, I don't have the points to equip it along with everything else yet unfortunately||

||Augmented Aim would also be good||

||I do have Versatile tho||

[main olive]

I have to stop this expedition to cook some stew

I'm so happy my builds improved drastically today

[halcyon elbow]

To this point, I am surprised to see recognizably-a-Final-Fantasy-Machinist, recognizably-a-Final-Fantasy-Black-Mage, and recognizably-a-Final-Fantasy-Red-Mage in my party so far. Adhering pretty strongly to FF style jobs

[ionic kite]

What's a Machinist?

And who's the red mage?

[halcyon elbow]

Uses tools and commonly guns

[halcyon elbow]

Maelle

[ionic kite]

Ahh

[main olive]

Monoco is a blue mage

[ionic kite]

🤔 She doesn't feel like a red mage to me

[halcyon elbow]

She doesn't Dualcast, but she has most of the other hallmarks

[ionic kite]

Maybe I just haven't played enough FF games to know what a red mage is

I thought a red mage was a dual support/damage caster

(this comes from bravely default)

[main olive]

I like my Mages how I like my coffee, Black

[halcyon elbow]

Red Mage is a little support magic, a little damage magic, and importantly a little melee, to include using a rapier traditionally

The melee part is specifically a Final Fantasy interpretation of the idea of Red Mage

[ionic kite]

Ahh

[analog tiger]

yeah I would not call Maelle a red mage

[halcyon elbow]

She's light but not nonexistent on the support and does not dualcast

[analog tiger]

Red Mage originally is primarily a hybrid between black and white mage with a little melee

[halcyon elbow]

But like gestures at 14 light on the support is not exactly out of bounds

[analog tiger]

Maelle is more a fencer with fire magic

if anything I'd put her as Rune Fencer

maybe one of the <blank> Knights from FFT

[ionic kite]

Actually why was I using Focused Foretell when I can use Marking Card