Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

[hoary nacelle]

my brain rn

[green escarp]

visual representation of Blossom's thoughts xD

[pallid gull]

motivated to finish by the essays that i can't access...

[green escarp]

We also want to read the one you'll write when you do finish

[languid gyro]

This was me looking at your essays for most of my playthrough whilst catching up 😭

[pallid gull]

stoooop i just love yapping im glad people enjoy it

[languid gyro]

You just have particularly tasty brain fish 🐟

Always a treat

[green escarp]

points at this community Do I even need to say anything?

Lets not forget the reason for this community existing in the first place has a "Certified Yapper" sticker on her microphone lol

[hasty halo]

[Late game spoilers] ||I still can't get over the banger that was Une Vie à t'aimer||

[wheat tulip]

Im so glad i can sing it lmao

[green escarp]

Video/Audio or it didn't happen

Share with the class

[wheat tulip]

NE-VER

[hoary nacelle]

i can sing it too 😌

[hasty halo]

I will probably have that one on a BIG repeat

[wheat tulip]

Didnt know you could sing in french lets goo

[hoary nacelle]

hs french taught me ernough about how to read and pronounce french lmao

also im a big language nerd anyway

[hoary nacelle]

i cant remember anything other than how to say the words

[wheat tulip]

Nawt surprised

Since you are polish living in scotland( right? I forgot which one was it)

[hoary nacelle]

yup!

[wheat tulip]

Thats already something lmao

[hoary nacelle]

u got it right

[wheat tulip]

Lets goo my memory isnt shit for once

||i remember i was wondering why at a moment victor has an accent during the song and i know now hes not french||

[hoary nacelle]

you dont know how long it took me to realise couleur is colour its actually embarassing

and its so obvious as well

[wheat tulip]

Thats not surprising our sound are REALLY different

[hoary nacelle]

|| that makes sense actually i know what youre talking about. In some parts of the song he doesnt have the french r and im like 🤨 ||

[hoary nacelle]

the spelling is pretty similar but my brain just didnt compute ig 😭

[wheat tulip]

Depends honestly

[hoary nacelle]

for the word couleur speficially i meant lol

[wheat tulip]

And the singers sings a particular way

[wheat tulip]

Oh kfkffk

[hoary nacelle]

i think another one of my favourite songs is || aline ||

post act 2 spoilers on that id say

[wheat tulip]

Its so good 🙂‍↕️

[hoary nacelle]

yeah totally they dont pronounce all the words how theyre "meant" to be pronounced in speech but thats extremely common in songs

plus the way they say the words sounds nice in the song

[wheat tulip]

Yup yup

||i know in one of the ost the singer says alina and not aline too ||

[hoary nacelle]

|| oh I've heard that yeah! I think they sing it like that in Une vie à rêver, probably other songs too ||

[wheat tulip]

Yess

[green escarp]

Late Game spoiler: OMG
||https://bsky.app/profile/koyorin.bsky.social/post/3lq6s6gg6y22r||

koyorin (@koyorin.bsky.social)

clea // #ClairObscur #Expedition33

Bluesky · May 27, 2025, 11:00 PM

||Artists I follow starting to make E33 art, lets gooooo||

[wheat tulip]

||i love the way the dev showed how they are using their powers its so cool||

[hoary nacelle]

|| I've been planning drawings for the game myself too. Gotta draw these silly people saur bad raahhh ||

[languid gyro]

[Final story area] ||OH YEAH it's been so long since I last progressed story that I forgot Maelle just has a phantom Expeditioner army she can summon now 💀 ||

||Oh THIS is the music we get here 🔥 ||

||Also can I just say, what an incredible choice to have Lumiere be the final story area||

||Going through all these familiar streets but in an entirely new context... starting from the harbour this time and working our way in||

||oh my god you can even see the nevrons and expeditioners fighting in turn-based fashion, amazing||

||bit unfortunate, with all the epic setup, that just my auto-death bombs are killing everything immediately, before I get to take a turn 💀 ||

||poor Renoir doesn't understand the force running towards him 😭 ||

||Admittedly though at points the RGB sky lighting takes me out a bit because it's giving rave party 😭 ||

||The beginning of the game.......||

||The 32s??? ||

||She painted the Esquie statue!! And engraved Sophie's name 😭 😭 😭 ||

||Just let him rest!!! 😭 ||

||Also I just really, really love the way the music evolves and changes as you move from section to section||

|| 🥲 ||

||Okay so I admit I was spoiled on this because I've been seeing Expedition 60 memes everywhere (which is fine, this kind of tiny fun world trivia I'm a lot less strict on avoiding spoilers for) but it's still a treat to actually get to read about this legendary group in-game myself. Just absolute gigachads who got all the way to the Paintress (including breaking through the barrier with SHEER MUSCLES), learned the truth, went to confront Renoir, and nearly SWAM all the way across the ocean back to Lumiere to tell everyone about the truth, just holy shit||

||his soul playing the piano here... 😭 ||

||the 4 turns in a row 💀 this poor merchant...||

||This is also with no Rush on Maelle, no Slow on him, and Maelle is purposefully tuned to be the slowest member of my party 💀 ||

||not them playing the Gustave Death BGM in Lumiere's Gardens 😭 💀 ||

||damn imagine if I also had this when I fought Simon||

||was already doing this even without the additional 25% damage boost||

[keen thunder]

ENDING SPOILERS
||I’ve been reflecting on my thoughts on the overall game for the past few days and the more and more I think about it I’m neither pro Maelle or pro Verso ending. I am unironically a “Lune ending” truther and I will always demand she has vengeance I didn’t post much about it here cause im afraid the dissertation will be too long 🙃 as much as I have criticisms on some aspects of these story, the characters and themes they do do well are fun to dissect||

[wheat tulip]

Thought the same thing lmao

[wheat tulip]

We will always want dissertation kupoyo!!

[languid gyro]

||It's so amusing that this Creation spawning is treated like an "oh look! extra strong monster!" moment but like... I've already fought and killed the Chromatic version of you in Renoir's Drafts 💀 ||

||And with that, I've officially gotten the last picto 🎊 (other than the one I'm locked out of because I spared the White Chalier 🥲 )||

||Feels like this is the flag before Renoir so gonna step out for a bit and go to his Drafts to grind the rest of the way till 99 for the achievement lmao (and to learn these new pictos)||

@green escarp other than NG+, is there a faster way to grind levels in a regular NG besides just killing the enemies at ||Renoir's Drafts||?

[green escarp]

Not really, no

[languid gyro]

Alright maybe I just get Maelle there and not worry about getting literally everyone there then bc I don't have the patience tonight for this 💀

I just want the achievement 😭

[green escarp]

It gets to be kind of a slog in the first playthrough tbh so I don't really recommend it lol

[languid gyro]

I mean she's already 98 just naturally without doing any additional grinding

I figure manually grinding one single level shouldn't be too bad, in theory

also uhhhhhhhhhhh ||character menu looking a little different 💀 ||

[languid gyro]

all good just needed to reload the save lol

Also 🎊

[languid gyro]

||ONE BILLION DAMAGE LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOO 🎊 🎊 🎊 ||

[wheat tulip]

Congrats !!

[languid gyro]

||Also main squad is now 99 (sorry Lune and Monoco 🙏 ) so it's time to head back to Renoir 🔥 ||

I also now have I think literally every lumina equipped that I care about equipping on my main 3, and I still have nearly 200 leftover colours of lumina 💙 the game is immensely generous with them

||no I don't have favorites why do you ask||

[Final story boss] ||What an incredible field... the flowers..... ❤️ 🥲 ||

Gonna go put my dishes away now so I can listen to the full music before actually getting into the fight lmao

Also first go or two I might just skip all my turns and dodge only so I can see all the attacks

[languid gyro]

||also the way I literally can't even see him in the turn order 😭 ||

||I counted...I had to skip 12 turns to get to his first one 😭 (and my setup guarantees break on turn 1, so even if he hypothetically had enough HP to survive 12 of my turns, he'd still be stunned on his first, and would then need to survive another 12 of my turns before he gets to move once 💀) ||

||Okay saw all his basic moves (surprisingly all very easy to sightread on first try), lightly tapped him with free aim shots just enough to get him to half for the next section, and…||

[summer yarrow]

||I got to the second Axon fight with Sirene. I’ll just call it a night there. I’ve lost to it twice || Act 2

[languid gyro]

||He summons the Axons?? Cool as hell||

||Also the evolution of the music once he gets down to half 🔥 ||

[languid gyro]

You’re making good progress though!

||ah shit I tried to keep him barely alive (in case lower HP thresholds led to even more changes) but now he just might die to the burn 💀 ||

(btw just to be clear, Tea, don't click on any of my spoilers, that's me continuing to talk about other stuff)

(if I'm responding to you specifically I'll reply/tag)

[summer yarrow]

||Ngl it’s interesting how the mobs are called Axons and Nevrons. Similar to Neurons if you swap the V with a U.||

[summer yarrow]

The dancing is throwing me off

[languid gyro]

To be fair, I think that's the idea

[summer yarrow]

Yea

I should probably lower the music

It’s a little hard to hear the parry sound

[languid gyro]

On one hand, that's totally fair

But on the other, turning down Lorien's OST is blasphemy

[summer yarrow]

[languid gyro]

[More final story boss ramblings] ||HOLY SHIT where do I even begin||

||FIRST OFF this music 🔥 🔥 🔥 like it’s absolutely no surprise that Lorien would go all out for the final boss but this is still just some incredible work||

||Okay so on one hand, THE PAINTRESS TITAN coming in and smacking the Axons was NOT on my bingo card and is, on the surface, very cool||

||But also…the pain in Verso’s eyes when he sees Aline come back… he wants so badly for his family to just STOP FIGHTING and tearing themselves and everything else apart 😭 ||

||Renoir: “It’s supposed to be you and me, Aline, not you against me” “Aline, Alicia can’t be in here anymore” “Why am I the only one who sees this??” oofff I’m so glad I’m just spamming dodge for the battle dialogue||

||Also, I just love it when you can bits of other musical motifs come in during a huge medley finale piece like this||

||W-why did the music suddenly shift keys in such an ominous way when Maelle told Renoir "you can trust me, it'll just be a little bit" hello??||

||But also god, the way Verso's just looking at Aline through the Canvas||

||I sort of never figured that E33 would have a happy ending, maybe bittersweet at the most, but what I was expecting was an ending where the Dessendre family is finally able to let Verso rest and accept his death and move on. But now the vibe I'm starting to get more of instead is Maelle/Alicia falling into the same cycle as Aline was (remaining in the Canvas to live with her loved ones in here, at the cost of her life and health outside)||

||also this space is also cool as hell, god the art direction in this game...||

||...is this Verso's soul perpetually Painting the Canvas...||

[languid gyro]

||Oh okay they just straight up call her out on lying about it, I'm not crazy||

||The way they're setting up Verso and Maelle to mirror Renoir (wants her to leave) and Aline (wants to stay)||

||HUH||

||FUCK||

||I'M SO CONFLICTED||

||AND LIKE YES I KNOW THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT BUT YEAH WOW THEY DID IT THEY GOT THE POINT||

||Because I definitely see both sides here. I understand that Maelle has no desire to leave this Canvas and live life disabled and miserable in the "real world". But also Verso doesn't want Maelle to wither away here as Aline did (especially since she explicitly lied to him about stay "just a little bit longer"), and he himself just...wants it all to end. Both for him, for his Painted Self and all the existential dread that I've talked about at length through this run, for his childhood soul who wants to stop Painting this Canvas, for his family who continue to fight each other over this Canvas...||

||OH AND FUCK THIS MIRRORS WHY GUSTAVE AND SOPHIE BROKE UP BEFORE THE PROLOGUE TOO||

||With Sophie not wanting to have children and bring them "into this doomed world" and Gustave having hope in the future, bleak though it seems, for the world to no longer be doomed. In a way it parallels Maelle not seeing any hope in a life "out there" while Verso does, for her, if she's able to move on||

||Actually what even happens to this world if Maelle stays||

||I guess the first implication is that Verso's soul would be stuck Painting it forever because at the end of the day it's his Canvas, which sucks for him||

||But then also...Renoir left because he wanted to believe in Maelle, but if she lied and instead chooses to stay here, two things happen a) her body begins to deteriorate on the outside just like Aline's and also b) I feel like Renoir just fucking comes back?? to drag her out for sure this time??? and presumably this time she won't even have the assistance of Verso so like what's the plan there||

||Like to be quite honest it feels like the Canvas goes no matter what, just a matter of sooner or later||

||I also empathize with both of them though, and quite honestly I think if I were in each of their shoes I could see myself going either way||

||If I lived a life like Alicia's and lost my brother, and then was also disfigured from said incident and have the mother blame me for it (whole 'nother can of worms there) and was able to escape into a world where my brother is "still alive" and I am not disfigured and am powerful and free I can't say for sure that I'd have the willpower to not succumb to that myself. There has been more than one piece of media in the past where a character is trapped in some kind of dream/virtual/fantasy/alternate world and should go back to their reality but find staying really, really tempting (hell it's just literally the Calypso greek myth isn't it), and I have definitely thought to myself in some of those situations "I...don't know if I'd be able to break myself away".||

||But if I lived a life as tormented as Verso's, with all the pain of his existence, but especially knowing that my continued existence harms, or at least has the capacity to harm the family I care about, and that my existence and this place are being used a) as a battle ground and b) to stagnate the process of moving on, I would 100% want it all to stop||

||Also can I just interrupt my rambling to say, I would like to both shake the writers' hands and also strangle them||

||I'm actually genuinely so conflicted||

||Fuck||

||or "Putain" I guess||

||what if I just leave my PC running overnight on this screen and come back to it tomorrow||

||Not to bring Xenoblade into everything, but... I think ultimately Maelle's choice is to embrace the [Endless Now] yes I know there's more factors and nuance to it||

||And I've spent the majority of the game with Verso as my favorite character out of the whole cast, and empathizing with his situation the most, and also DAMMIT I want him to be able to finally have some kind of agency and actually get to make a choice for himself||

||But it's really, really difficult to solidify a choice||

||But I think I have made my decision||

||It's also a little poetic that the first combat of the game is Gustave dueling Maelle...and the last is Verso facing off against her||

||The 4 turns before her first 💀 ||

||Even with all of my lumina setup being mostly geared towards supporting a DPS Maelle, instead of being a solo carry, I think it's probably still joever no matter what 💀 ||

||But I shall do what I did with Renoir and mostly dodge so I can hear dialogue||

[languid gyro]

||Not the way they literally have the melody of the Gustave x Maelle duel bgm running under the vocals of this track 😭 ||

||”We’re all hypocrites, doing the same thing to each other”||

||God now I’m just thinking about the Verso and Maelle quest and camp scenes…. of Verso seeing Maelle Gommage Alicia in front of him, of him letting Gustave die in front of her, and of Clea and her fate||

||”What about Lune and Sciel and Monoco? What about Esquie?” Oh shit maybe I turn back||

||But Monoco at the very least must know, and he’s been assisting Verso willingly ever since the beginning, knowing that Verso wants the Canvas gone||

||Esquie probably knows too honestly||

||But I do feel guilty about Lune and Sciel though… the last survivors…||

||The other reason this was a good choice is because I'm much more familiar with the timing of Maelle's skills than Verso's so they're easier to dodge asldkjalfkjeafasf||

||Glad it's a preloaded Maelle and not my Maelle though because one basic attack would've killed me 100 times over 💀 ||

||even defeated with a lightning strike just like Gustave's Overcharge 🥲 ||

||Some of Maelle's words immediately after defeat though... "Please don't leave me again" is on one hand so sad 😭 but also does hammer in that...yeah she was not ready to move on from Verso's death...||

||Esquie and Monoco here to say goodbye is gonna tear me apart…||

||Sciel............||

||Oh and Lune is [very understandably] pissed||

||Oh....the tombstone....the Un 33 Décembre à Lumiere track is about the day of Verso's death.......||

||also, hey, straight confirmation that the "real" world is in 1905||

man….

I will be thinking about this game for a LONG time

||I also need to go watch the other ending on youtube immediately||

I’m, uh, sorry about just completely taking over the channel 💀 that was a lot of text

And almost all of it feels like emotionally-charged incoherent rambling than anything refined or essay-worthy 😭

[languid gyro]

Also, sorry, coming back to this ||(because I need some brevity), it’s so funny to think about the final boss just chilling in your camp for most of the game, like imagine playing BG3 and the final boss is actually just Withers 💀 ||

(This also has the benefit of providing a link up to exactly when I start talking about the final boss encounter specifically, and everything after, for y’all nosy finishers getting your kicks looking over everyone else’s thoughts (this is also gonna be me starting after tonight)

Or should I say…it’s for those who come after

||No, thank YOU 👏 what a game||

what am I missing??

so much for getting the 100% right as credits roll 😭

||omfg of all things it was the basic Sciel achievement 💀 because I virtually never used her for anything but pure support (and because consuming 20 Foretell takes at least 3 turns (2 turns to apply 10 each, and also to enter Twilight, and one turn to consume), and it's been a LONG time since any fight lasted a whole 3 turns||

I AM DONE 🎊

[languid gyro]

||I have now watched Maelle's ending, and...||

||I think I stand by my choice||

||But fuck it was a difficult one to make||

||And it's only bittersweet at best, certainly not a golden happy ending, but that's what I came to expect||

I'm gonna actually steal/share this youtube comment I saw about the ending of the game because it's a much more thought-out piece than anything my currently still emotionally-charged (and also quite eepy) brain was able to type up in the heat of the moment earlier

||Once again, I deeply wish to both shake the devs' hand and also curse them||

||So well-written, so thought-provoking, and so, so painful||

||Also I am SO glad that I decided to 100% and do all the optional stuff before rolling credits. After an ending like that, I think I, personally, would feel very weird/disconnected just jumping back into the game and running around doing sidequests and exploring||

||Perhaps, like Verso, and the Dessendres, it is time to move on||

||Tomorrow comes.||

Anyways

Speaking of "Tomorrow comes"....

I am way past my bedtime and am definitely going to be feeling it tomorrow morning when my alarm goes off 💀

So off I go

Though I'm not even sure I'll be able to sleep despite how late it is

Brain will likely be abuzz thinking about the end of the game for a while yet 😭

[wheat tulip]

Congrats on finishing the game amphy!!!

[pallid gull]

waking up to amphy essays that i have no access to

https://cdn.betterttv.net/emote/665630d7bc194ad7f0d164da/2x.webp

[wheat tulip]

Lmaooo

[pallid gull]

but congrats amphy!! or my condolences, i am not sure

[wheat tulip]

Ckekfkfif

Maybe both

[wheat tulip]

Just read the final boss ost lyrics ||i want to fucking die ||

[pallid gull]

optional area and optional boss ||endless tower but PAINTED LOVE??? im getting my ass beat damn||

[wheat tulip]

You can do it!!

[pallid gull]

okay this was actually easier than the other stages 😭

optional area but also huge story spoilers ||im glad i finished this because this entire conversation gives a lot more insight on clea||

||like oof she really is too far gone into their mess and she's trying to pull her sister out 😭||

||"the only thing you owe them, is to live a life you enjoy" 🥲 oh||

||oughhhhh these outfits... putting them in my pocket||

optional area ||i just got to white sands and the poem is giving me chills but with my rusty ass french i can only make up bits and pieces, i need to look up a translation 😭 ||

[wheat tulip]

Its really good 🙂‍↕️

[pallid gull]

it is

i luv this game

[languid gyro]

||This was my read on her even before Endless Tower/Flying Manor content and it makes me so happy that the game gives you just enough to be able to have all these thoughts about this character with barely any dialogue just from the first meeting and some hints sprinkled throughout. The family really just so badly needs therapy 😭 just trauma all around||

[languid gyro]

||These are the outfits I had on them till the end of the game! Almost the same hair too! (I had that hair for Maelle but kept Verso’s default bc I like the fruity little streak||

[hoary nacelle]

|| i had everyones hair white and i gave maelle the "painted me" hairstyle cause i think alicia's hairstyle is really pretty ||

[languid gyro]

||I tried the hairstyle but just couldn’t do it; Verso doesn’t need more trauma 😭 ||

[hoary nacelle]

fair enough 😭

[languid gyro]

These were my outfits at the end of the game

||The deluxe edition Gommage outfits work so well with the white hair||

[hoary nacelle]

|| is that the outfits that lune, sciel and monoco have on? cause ive never seen them before and theyre really pretty ||

|| the outfits i ended on i think were obscur on Maelle, the default outfits on Lune, Sciel and Monoco and Verso had the Pelerin outfit||

[languid gyro]

||Pelerin goes hard; I had it on for a lot of the game. But I wanted everyone on theme for the end||

[hoary nacelle]

|| i read its wiki page and its apprently a ffxvi ref to clive's outfit which is fun ||

[green escarp]

THIS MAKES SO MUCH SENSE WTF

||Why didn't this click for me I'm a fake ff16 fan 😭||

[wheat tulip]

Wait the devs said so?

[hoary nacelle]

Nah || I just saw it on a wiki page for the game ||

So it could be not true but like, I very much see it so I'd like to think it is lmao

[wheat tulip]

Lmaoo i understand

[languid gyro]

[ending spoilers] ||rewatching the ending cutscenes via streamers at work to feel something (that something is depression)||

||There really is no real good ending, huh. My purest gut reaction to one was “wow that sucks”, and my reaction to the other was “wow that sucks even more” 💀 (to be clear, I don’t mean the quality of the writing; the writing is excellent as it is painful||

||Wonder which one Lorie will pick (though I hope she views both regardless)||

||Also the ending sequence with choosing between Verso and Maelle was reminding me of something but I couldn’t place it last night||

[NieR Automata] ||it’s literally just Nier Automata but with no Ending E option 😭 ||

||Hell, they even did the Nier Automata “actually the MC you start with isn’t the real MC” switcheroo partway through the game||

||Speaking of which, I think in hindsight that the death of Gustave is extra excellent in the context of the ending. Because we really feel his death, his loss, and we empathize not only with Maelle in the moment but also in a way with the family’s loss of Verso. And a big part of the ending is also about how we grieve, for both him and the Canvas world, and what choices we make in, or despite, our grief||

||I also love all the irony wrapped up within Maelle’s ending, multiple layers of it. She wants to live a life, even if “fake”, where she has agency and in doing so she robs others of their agency (Verso especially). “Tomorrow comes” but never for her; she persists in a sustained Endless Now. And she’s also just an excellent narrative deconstruction of the typical Chosen One narrative that I, and many others, at first thought they were going with Maelle||

||It’s also just so interesting because so many JRPGs are about growing up and fighting against your parents for the right to be free to make your own choices and be your own person, and a lot of the final Renoir fight carries that tone (and I see a lot of streamers as such actively cheering for Maelle/against Renoir because that’s the expected narrative: for us to see his perspective but ultimately triumph over him and make a choice for ourselves that’s better than what he wants for us). And in many games that’s what happens. But she doesn’t. She earns the freedom to make a choice upon his defeat, and this should be a moment of triumph, but in her grief and in her trauma….she makes the choice to lie. To stay. To escape. To remain in and die in the Canvas rather than go back out to live in reality.||

||It’s just so bleak because there is a middle ground between Maelle’s ending and Verso’s ending, but they’re both too selfish (not a criticism; they are amazingly written human characters), and too traumatized, to for things to go any other way in that moment than the way they do. It’s just a tragedy all around.||

||And that’s why the ending hurts so much. Because no matter what you pick, there is a great sense of loss. Of what could have been. Of what will never be. It’s bleak, but it’s raw, and it’s real.||

[low steppe]

wanna click so bad

[green escarp]

DO NOT

[languid gyro]

Absolutely DO NOT

[vivid peak]

The way I want to as well especially the nier automata one when I haven’t even finished that game either

I shall put my phone down and sleep as a method of self control

[languid gyro]

Spoiling two masterpiece games for the price of one 💀

[vivid peak]

Efficient if nothing else

[green escarp]

We need to make a bubble wrap spoiler channel for some of y'all just to fight your impulse control

[low steppe]

the only thing i cannot resist is temptation 😔

[summer yarrow]

Ok I definitely think I need to level up my characters

Cause this area says danger

[summer yarrow]

Same 😭🤝

[languid gyro]

Is it ||Frozen Hearts||?

[summer yarrow]

No ||Sirene||. My characters are currently lvl 32. I think they need to be lvl40-50

Are there any good farming spots

Where I can get bunch of xp

[languid gyro]

Levels make very little difference in this game compared to picto/lumina setup tbh. A level 30 team with a good setup can easily do way more damage, several times, than even a level 50 team with a mediocre setup

[summer yarrow]

Ohh

[languid gyro]

I never had to intentionally grind even once the whole game, except at the very end to get my level 90ish team to level 99 for the Steam achievement

That said, if you really want to grind levels, the best spot for it in Act 2 is ||Frozen Hearts, near Monoco’s Station||, but just be warned that if you successfully fight your way through that area, you will completely trivialize the rest of the Act

[summer yarrow]

I just assumed that since my characters have low health and aren’t dealing a lot of dmg

That I would need to lvl up 😵‍💫

[languid gyro]

In Act 2 I personally did ||Forgotten Battlefield -> Monoco’s Station -> Frozen Hearts -> everything else, and by the time I made it out of Frozen Hearts, my characters were so strong that none of the rest of the Act 2 bosses got a turn||

||I killed both Axons and the final bosses of the Act before they reached their first turn 😭 ||

[summer yarrow]

Im the opposite

It’s like my characters are tickling the boss

[languid gyro]

Health, especially midgame onwards, comes from what pictos you equip, not levels

[summer yarrow]

Barely dealing dmg

[languid gyro]

Levels make almost no difference

Damage, meanwhile, comes mostly from weapon upgrades

[summer yarrow]

My weapons are currently lvl 10

[languid gyro]

It goes weapon upgrades > lumina setup > level in terms of how much each thing factors into your damage

[summer yarrow]

I should work on that then

[keen thunder]

I was trying to keep myself not over leveled so a lot of places like that I ran through and juked enemies while picking up stuff LOL

[languid gyro]

Honestly even doing that would be a tremendous advantage because that area drops ||stones that can level your weapons all the way up to 32, while at this point in the game a lot of people’s weapons are like 10-15ish; even getting a weapon to 20 is a massive boost||

[keen thunder]

Ohh! ||I actually don’t have a weapon at 32 yet =x I think I was still running weapons below 20 before I finished act 2 ||

[languid gyro]

Which most people are, I think! ||Pretty much the only reliable way to have weapons at 20+ in Act 2 is Frozen Hearts drops||

[keen thunder]

I actually ||kept a lot of resources banked until I started using a few of them in the last act ||

[languid gyro]

Yeah I always had a bunch of stuff banked, mostly weapon upgrade stones and colours of lumina

I wouldn’t hoard all of them, but usually still enough in the bank to immediately max out a new weapon if I found one I wanted to swap to

[keen thunder]

In retrospect ||I should’ve not upgraded anything cause I was still too strong LOL like even keeping myself under leveled and stats banked was not enough ||

Metaphor endgame is more balanced imo iykyk

Still love the pictos/lumina system but yea

[languid gyro]

||I mean tbh the game balance in general just sorta goes out the window after Act 2||

[languid gyro]

Honestly they were fairly similar for me; in both Metaphor and E33, enemies, including bosses, stopped making it alive to take their first turn by the time last third of the game

[Metaphor] ||Even the Trial Dragons and the final boss died before getting a single attack in; and it wasn’t because I was overleveled because I did the dragon trials in like…the high 50s or so||

[keen thunder]

Yea I had that kinda experience too I skipped stuff I should’ve seen. So I’m making a statement when I say Metaphor is more balanced haha

[languid gyro]

It’s tough to balance in general when you have games with this much build diversity, because you can have newer players struggling with a fight at level 70 while veteran JRPG players who know how to optimize builds can come in and trounce that same fight at level 40, and as a developer how do you balance around that kind of range

||Though that said I think the general consensus for E33 is that post-Act 2 is far too easy overall, even more moderately skilled/knowledgeable players much less veterans, so they definitely could/should have scaled things more||

||I understand the design philosophy behind wanting players to feel powerful, but there’s a fine line to balance between “players feel like they’re powerful” and “players feel like the enemies are weak”, and as much as I love E33 I’m not sure it balances that line in the last stretch as well as I’d wish||

[keen thunder]

Totally agree

[languid gyro]

That’s just game balance though; most other facets of the endgame were incredible between things like the writing and the music, and make no mistake, despite flaws I find with it here and there E33 is my undisputed GotY

[keen thunder]

Completely agree. I dunno if it’s my GOTY yet so we’ll see. But so many aspects of the game are amazing and well done

[languid gyro]

While we’re at it, I’d say there’s a fourth thing, perhaps more important than any of the above, and that is teambuilding (which 3 you use, what skills they have, and what your team’s speed/turn order is)

I want to stress those last two especially because two players with the same team of 3 can have drastically different results depending on how they use them

An easy Act 2 example is that ||if you have both Lune and Sciel, using Sciel after Lune can be much more powerful than Sciel going before Lune, depending on setup. One simple example setup where this is true is that Lune can Elemental Trick turn 1, and then Sciel uses Intervention to make her go again, then Lune uses Elemental Genesis, still on “turn 1” (before enemies get to go) and that often just wipes the field. That combo would not be possible if Sciel went first and Lune second||

There are a million different examples of stuff like that (a very early game example is having Gustave go before Maelle so he can Marking Shot -> comboing into her Percee which tends to be a stronger rotation than Maelle going before Gustave (but if you build those two differently the reverse might be true)), but the main point is even really “minor” details like what order your team goes in can make a huge difference in your overall success

[keen thunder]

I had this exact issue with figuring out turn order and later learned that it’s not just the speed stat but the order you select your party members in the menu which no tutorial covers (unless I missed it or something)

[languid gyro]

More specifically, it is speed for after the first turn normally, but if you either a) start battle with an attack or b) have the First Strike picto, then it’s determined by menu order and not just speed

It’s weird the way it works but I guess it’s to allow the flexibility of a specific first turn setup that’s different from the rest of your turns (because sometimes that is indeed an advantage that you want)

But I do think the game should have been clearer about how exactly that worked

[languid gyro]

For example maybe I normally want [P4] ||Sciel|| to be last in my party order so she can consistently Intervention my DPS, but just for the first turn I want her to go first so she can All Set and buff the team

Plenty of other examples where being able to manipulate specifically just the first turn, independently of the natural turn order, is a great boon

[keen thunder]

Yup exactly, took me a long time to figure out what’s going on and had to look up the subreddit

Shenanigans like that would’ve been nice in a tutorial

[languid gyro]

Speaking of speed, one thing I would have appreciated is a toggleable setting (since I know not everyone would care) to show speed values/points on the left timeline, similar to Honkai Star Rail, so that I can much more accurately assess stuff like whether a Rush or a Slow would make a significant difference in turn order, or what specific speed breakpoints I’d need to aim for in order to double (or not get doubled by) specific bosses

In general I would have greatly appreciated more transparency and specificity for a lot of the numbers behind the game. You can tell me a move does “extreme fire damage” but like…what does that mean? What’s the actual damage multiplier, so I can determine precisely how much more damage it would do than this other skill that does “heavy fire damage but 3 times”. Or if you tell me a skill does “more damage” when character [P6] is ||in “Heavy Mask”|| okay how much more is “more damage”? Does it double the damage? Triple? A 1.5x multiplier? ||Burning Canvas deals more damage per burn stack, but how much? At exactly how many stacks does it outdamage Stendhal?||

Heck, it gets messier when different skills with the same adjective modifier have very different damage multipliers. For example: ||Maelle’s Sword Ballet deals “extreme damage” and Stendhal deals “extreme damage”, but Stendhal has a damage multiplier triple that of all 5 hits of Sword Ballet combined, despite them both being labeled “extreme”. Meanwhile, Gommage also just says “extreme” damage but has a damage multiplier more than double Stendhal’s. Make it make sense 😭 ||

These are the kinds of things I need to know for every game so I can accurately weigh my options, and it’s always slightly annoying when games don’t provide the numbers for me so I have to download a mod or look them up and just have a spreadsheet open on my other monitor with actual multipliers/modifiers datamined and listed out

[keen thunder]

Speaking of the turn icon UI, this was a nitpicky thing but when there’s more than one of the same enemy it didn’t distinguish which was which and I’m particular about that in case I wanna kill the one that’s coming first for example

[green escarp]

GOD DAMMIT WULF

Maybe Lorie will forget by the time she gets there

[pallid gull]

it's okay dsjksdf

[wheat tulip]

Wait what was it

Im spacing out a lot today😭

[green escarp]

late game: ||mentioning act 3||

[wheat tulip]

Ugh

[green escarp]

Rain maybe you should sleep lol

[wheat tulip]

Its 8 pm its too early jfkg

I still didnt ate either

[green escarp]

8pm is early? 😭

Also you should eat!

[wheat tulip]

It is we eat on thoses hours

[green escarp]

8pm is bedtime for me (or its supposed to be) because of work

At least for one more day. I need to survive tomorrow then I'll be freeeeee

[languid gyro]

Same but I was up past midnight last night to finish 😭

[wheat tulip]

You eat at like 6pm right? So not surprised

[summer yarrow]

How do I unlock different ||gradient|| attacks for each character? Is it from the ||friendship|| level?

||I don’t remember how I unlocked Verso’s second gradient attacks || act 2

[languid gyro]

||Yes, from friendship ranks||

[summer yarrow]

Thanks

[summer yarrow]

||Yay Sirene was taken down|| act 2

||BARRIER BREAKER ACQUIRED!!!!!!it’s so going down ||

[summer yarrow]

||This is so cool. Going through all the areas||

[wheat tulip]

||https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdkCApmj/ ||

Act 1 and outfit spoiler

[keen thunder]

Omggg

[pallid gull]

diva

[wheat tulip]

Truly

[summer yarrow]

||WHAT JUST HAPPENED. Everyone DIED?!??|| act 2 ending

[summer yarrow]

||It’s a PAINTING my HEADD || start of Endgame

||Never would I have ever thought of a painting thank god I didn’t get spoiled on this.|| Endgame

[keen thunder]

Not sure if this may have spoilers but Alex Moukala did an interview with the composer and director https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oKM2TjBaqU

https://vxtwitter.com/alex_moukala/status/1927813927846469899?s=46

Alex Moukala (@alex_moukala)

How one of Expedition 33's best themes was made

▶ Play video

vxTwitter / fixvx · May 28, 2025, 7:47 PM

[summer yarrow]

||The curator being an op 💀 || Endgame

[green escarp]

||please use endgame or postgame or anything other than act 3 as a label because the game tries to fool you with the false epilogue for Alicia so we don't want others coming into this thread and immediately going "oh well of course there's an act 3"||

[languid gyro]

In the midst of downloading the soundtrack to my phone (and also taking this time to just really sit down and listen to each individual song from the beginning of the game to the end in full) and I'm just sitting here tearing up at like every other song help 😭

It's just so good

I haven't even gotten to the 2nd Act 1 area yet 💀

[languid gyro]

Wait why is [endgame optional overworld boss] ||Serpentshare one of the earliest tracks, with all the rest of Act 1 Flying Waters??||

||Also slightly confusing that the track named [Goblu] is in fact not the track for the Goblu boss fight (instead, that track would be [Rain from the Ground])||

[languid gyro]

Wait when did this play in-game?? I swear to god I'd remember if I heard ||Jazz Alicia||

Apparently there's even [end of Act 2] ||Jazz Une via a t'aimer?????||

||Also in general I just really love how much they lean into the jazz motif with the Gestrals; it gives them a fun and unique musical identity separate from the rest of the world||

[summer yarrow]

||not the clothes slowing them down. Is it wrong if I want an expedition 60 DLC just a bunch of naked men and women charging the paintress lol I’m honestly shocked they made it so far. They even learned about what the paintress was doing || endgame

[summer yarrow]

||Also the way I always run with Luna and nobody else. The flying is so peaceful the footsteps drive me crazy at times||

||https://youtu.be/0bd3Zgf964k?si=QqFEyFqtln9jXdhc|| an edit. Endgame story

[languid gyro]

Wait @summer yarrow are you done? You really blazed through the game 🔥

[pallid gull]

optional boss dying in two hits because i didn't come here earlier

[pallid gull]

optional area ||renoir's drafts|| but ||what is going onnn what is this 😭 ||

[languid gyro]

I love Elden Ring

[summer yarrow]

Not yet but I think I’m close

[pallid gull]

i feel like im losing it bc i just ordered my luminas in alphabetical order but they dont seem to be in alphabetical order?? 😭

oh... they're organized differently

[pallid gull]

i might finish today depending on how i feel

[wheat tulip]

Golden shower

[pallid gull]

oh wow

[green escarp]

Bad

[wheat tulip]

||its where the piss swords came from!!||

Lmao

[pallid gull]

question about optional area ||is there anything else in renoir's drafts except for the merchant and the chromatic creation?||

||and the bit of lore from the renoir shade||

[wheat tulip]

Some loots i think

||and of course the passsage to another place||

[pallid gull]

wait which one

[wheat tulip]

Mmh

How to say it

[languid gyro]

Just keep exploring lol

[wheat tulip]

Yup

[pallid gull]

https://tenor.com/view/orange-cat-gets-flung-and-explodes-orange-cat-funny-cat-meme-explodes-gif-10706110874965244466

but im lost

[wheat tulip]

Just keep trying to find your way you can do it!!

[green escarp]

||Did you find the second flag?||

[pallid gull]

probably... i'll tp to it, i left before i got an answer because i thought that i was done i'll go back

ohhh okay i got it

i completely missed it lmao

[hoary nacelle]

im only one achievement off of 100%ing aaaaaa

[pallid gull]

you got this!!

optional boss + story ||not the verso and simon doomed yaoi ||

||damn there's so much going on in this fight, idk if i have it in me to learn it lmaooo||

||i do want the extra lore though, i might have to cheese it||

music so good though

||help, i gotta redo the first fight all over again nawt that||

[wheat tulip]

Which one is it?

[wheat tulip]

You can dew it!!

[hoary nacelle]

|| the one where u have to defeat a mime in lumiere at the start of the game 😭 i completely missed it so ill have to start ng+ to get it dgsfkjdsgf ||

[pallid gull]

im considering skipping on it and finishing the game cause im kinda impatient rn lmaoo

i might do it post-game

[hoary nacelle]

yeah fair... || its a really difficult fight, i had to one shot it cause there was no way i was gonna be able to do it normally 😭 ||

[pallid gull]

yeah, i could probably learn the moveset it'll just take me more than a few days and idk if i have it in me 💀

[wheat tulip]

Oh nooo

[wheat tulip]

Understandable !

[pallid gull]

i wonder how this will go

[wheat tulip]

[pallid gull]

not well LMAO

[wheat tulip]

Help kfkfkx

Dw ||its the hardest boss in the game thats okay||

[languid gyro]

I think in general it may be unwise to fight him if your weapons are still at A/B scaling 😬

You’ve done pretty much all other content, right? I think you should have the stones to max out your main team’s weapons for S/A scaling

I’m also more than happy to provide any kind of advice re: weapon selection, stat allocation, teambuilding, lumina setup, etc. because that side of games is very much my wheelhouse (but I will of course also hang back unless called upon if you wanna figure stuff out on your own)

[vivid peak]

I love this game, it might be up there in my all time faves

[languid gyro]

It has 100% cemented itself there for me

A masterpiece

[pallid gull]

lmaooo yes, i actually forgot i have not leveled up my weapons since............. late act 1 maybe

[vivid peak]

Im sure by the time I finish it will only have risen in my esteem

The gameplay loop is just so fun

And it is very often visually striking

It’s such a love letter to French culture too

[languid gyro]

What weapons are you using on everyone?

[languid gyro]

A flawed masterpiece 😔

||kidding, of course||

[vivid peak]

Act 2 p6 ||I keep thinking when can I hear monoco’s song again||

Rhetorical, I guess

[languid gyro]

P6, and yeah it’s a banger 🔥

[vivid peak]

Oh my bad lol

[languid gyro]

Mentioned before but I really like ||that they went with a jazz motif for the Gestrals||

[vivid peak]

||I promise I didn’t forget about old mate Gustave 💀 ||

[languid gyro]

||They stick out so much from the somber orchestra/choir that dominates most of the rest of the game, and it gives them a clear unique identity||

[vivid peak]

||honestly his whole intro was iconic. Hitting himself in the face||

[wheat tulip]

Cant believe you did that!!

[languid gyro]

Also, fun bit of trivia about that character re: the developers behind the game: ||he’s named after an official, and very important, staff member||

[vivid peak]

You should be used to la francophobie by now rain

[languid gyro]

||I imagine this is also where the feet thing comes in too; probably an in-joke on how the dog is irl||

||or the devs are freaks who knows||

[wheat tulip]

I am but still shocked by it!!

The audacity!!

[vivid peak]

I see just being dramatic

[wheat tulip]

Honestly i think both

[wheat tulip]

Yes and??

||look at p2 first outfit||

[languid gyro]

Probably fair, given Lune and [post-Act 2] ||Clea||

[wheat tulip]

||feet on display for everyone to see when she flies...||

[wheat tulip]

Yup yup

[vivid peak]

Oh it’s a French fetish les pieds nus?

[pallid gull]

glaisum on p3 and corteso on p5, i tried to build them for solo things and i think im still missing a bunch of pictos and lumina so maybe i'll just stick to finishing them game 💀

[pallid gull]

fuck i looked up the origin and it might've been freud... why is he everywhere

[vivid peak]

Really…

[pallid gull]

yeah, it showed up documented as a fetish in one of his books. to be fair, it has most likely always existed, but documented it might've been him

[vivid peak]

Sigmund

I am sort of curious how you looked up the origin but not enough to look it up myself

[languid gyro]

Who’s your 3rd?

[vivid peak]

Do most people stick with certain party members or try to rotate them often?

[languid gyro]

Also just to double check: do you mean “Contorso” or “Corpeso” for P5 because I’m not finding a “Corteso”

[languid gyro]

I sorta rotated in the first half or 2/3 or so of the game but ultimately settled into a definitive main party for the last stretch (that said I don’t think I ever swapped Maelle out; she was in the party beginning to end)

Colours of lumina being non-refundable did sorta push me to be a little more rigid, ultimately

[pallid gull]

help i mixed up the two....corpeso, yes

[pallid gull]

p2

[languid gyro]

Is Glaisum helping you in the fight at all? (Genuine question: does the heal/shell contribute anything, or do you die to a single combo regardless?)

[pallid gull]

honestly no, she just gets one shot if i miss the parry lmao i think i stuck with it from the last fights

[languid gyro]

Well if P5 is on Corpeso, you have a good burn engine going, so that’s potentially one route to look into for her weapon options (I know she has a few that lean towards that)

[wheat tulip]

No?? Wtf

I mean its a personal preference but i dont think thats a really french thing its just one or two devs who i think liked that since theres so much of it in this game

[pallid gull]

just foot fetish origin

[languid gyro]

You also probably know this (but if you’re a hoarder like me might still need someone to say it), but the game is super generous with recounts so don’t be afraid to mess around with different weapons and completely respec to match their scaling

At A and S rank, you get more damage per point into the scaling stat than you do per point of Might

So endgame stat allocation tends to almost universally be to respec for 1) 99 of the S-scaling attribute, then 2) 99 into the A-scaling attribute, and finally 3) dump everything else into Might (arguments could be made for points into Agility or Luck, but by the time you have S-scaling weapons, you tend to also be able to get far more of your stats from pictos than levelup points anyways)

For example, 99 points in agility gives an additional 346 speed. By endgame you can get literally over 1000 speed from a single picto, of three. The rest of the stats are all similar in this regard.

[pallid gull]

i see, thank you

and i am hoarder, yes

[languid gyro]

I get it 🥲

I’ve tried to be more free about spending resources and even then I pretty much permanently kept like 200 colours of lumina and enough stones to level/max multiple new weapons just unspent through the whole game “just in case”

[pallid gull]

think i got spoiled

it's fine... idk what that means anyway... i'll just go finish the game now

[languid gyro]

Oh nooooo

[pallid gull]

https://tenor.com/view/daladada-cat-crying-cry-scream-gif-24748831

the music

game is so good

i need this soundtrack injected into my brain

i might be a bit overleveled for this area

[pallid gull]

ending most likely ||this does not feel good y'all i do not feel good about what we're doing||

||but the alternative sucks too ||

also... i was very overleveled

i should've slowed down 😭

[languid gyro]

Yeah I spent several turns just dodging and performing no attacks so I could see attack animations and hear dialogue

[pallid gull]

yeah, i kinda wish it scaled with our progress because i'm not even huge on building characters and it still felt a bit like a joke 😭

okay i continue now i took a break to eat

‼️ ending ||i'm sorry maelle ||

[languid gyro]

||It was an incredibly hard choice, but this was also what I went with in the end.||

||You can scroll up to a few days ago and just see me completely melting down over having to choose 😭 ||

[pallid gull]

i finished

||i didnt take time to think about it because i think my mind was set during the renoir fight, the entire time i felt so wrong and the way verso felt about it just solidified it||

||i think what really killed me was lune just... angrily sitting on the floor and refusing to make eye contact during her last moments lmao i don't blame her because i understand her, she has the right to hate him but oof brutal||

||i will check what everyone had to say in a bit i'm still exhausted emotionally lmaooo||

||evil ass company do not thank me!!!||

i got an anti-stress ring recently and i've been aggressively twisting it for hours lmao

[wheat tulip]

Lmaoo

[summer yarrow]

||I just saw a post saying Verso was the one that picked up from the beach at the beginning and then left the note saying go to floating waters ||act 2

[keen thunder]

My thoughts 😅 #1364710431179935744 message

[pallid gull]

||lune u will always be famous, so true 😭 ||

[pallid gull]

||remembering i romanced her too and she had to witness verso betraying her and killing everyone including everything they fought for up till now... the french love drama||

https://cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/1320524695270981643.webp?size=100&animated=true

[green escarp]

||See that's part of the reason I can't pick Verso's. Moral and philosophical debates aside, I just couldn't go through with wiping out everyone in the canvas world after everything they went through. Yes its at the expense of Alicia and the Dessendre's in the long term but... ||

[pallid gull]

||yeah, that's very valid, honestly, i will be very real and say that the main reason i didn't even hesitate was because i was so tired of verso constantly sufferintg in 1000 ways 😭 ||

[green escarp]

||This game's ending is gonna be talked about for years. For better or worse.
We're going to have rich and interesting discussions but also I see this turning into "WHO DOES CLOUD LOVE FOR REALS" FF7 levels of discourse too||

[pallid gull]

it's already happening dw lmaoo

[languid gyro]

||I don’t have the meme template on hand (and it’s a pain on phone) but Expedition 33 is the soldier protecting us from 5 more years of Fire Emblem Three Houses discourse by taking on the new mantle 🫡 ||

[languid gyro]

Anyways though congrats! And my condolences!!

||Though, as Maelle and Verso point out: there’s no real comfort in condolences 🥲 ||

@pallid gull ||if you have a spare moment I’d recommend looking at the other ending too on youtube (or just reloading an older autosave and doing it yourself)||

[pallid gull]

i might do the latter but i think ||my "canon" ending is definitely verso's||

||i don't think it's the "right" choice by any means, it's just... who i am i guess lmao||

[languid gyro]

||Verso’s ending is definitely my preferred between the two, ultimately||

||But neither ending is “good”||

[green escarp]

If its any consolation ||There is no right choice and I believe the devs even said recently it was meant to be a difficult choice||

[languid gyro]

||It’s a brave narrative choice that I respect the hell out of, and also curse them for||

[pallid gull]

yeah, that's kind of how i see it anyway

[hoary nacelle]

congrats on finishing the game aiden !!!

[hoary nacelle]

|| totally agree with you that i like verso's ending more. i picked maelle's and then afterwards i watched verso's and i was like fuuccckkkkk they both hurt in their own ways tho...||

[languid gyro]

Boss starts here, if you wanted my ramblings; though a lot of the following is raw stream-of-consciousness lmao

[languid gyro]

And then next-day thoughts

[green escarp]

E33 and FF16 ending spoiler (there's a point to this is promise) ||It's funny that both games I've played starring Ben Starr have left me emotionally devastated. Though I will say for all the pain E33's gave me, I found the endings more satisfying than 16's. Mainly because i guess there's more closure in both endings despite the horrible implications that come with either. 16s felt too open ended and I was left angry at the ambiguity||

[hoary nacelle]

oop cant click on that i plan on playing ff16 eventually

[green escarp]

Yeah sorry y'all lol

[hoary nacelle]

its been sitting on my ps5 for multiple months, ill get to it eventually....

[languid gyro]

FF16 has been vaguely in my backlog, but getting acquainted with ||Ben Starr Verso|| through E33 pushes it up a bit in the priority rankings now lmao

Also, man, still can’t believe ||The Reacher and Flying Manor|| were not required main story content, or at least the former

[green escarp]

There's so much side stuff that should have been main story priority

[pallid gull]

ending thoughts ||i think the verso ending for me was the conclusion of things that accumulated over time. doing maelle's quest and clea's boss 100% had some influence on my decision even though i didn't realize it at the time. honestly, even simon even if i didn't know all the lore, just the introduction. then more stuff stacked up with renoir's fight just making me feel like i'm bullying a man that is grieving for people that are still alive. and then verso kept looking at things and blaming himself. child verso also kept saying stuff like "maybe i should stop..." and i immediately thought "he wants to stop painting, he's tired too". there were definitely two wars inside of me of "why should everyone be considered less human just because they're painted". you don't feel good either way, and i think my verso bias definitely weighted a lot in, but something about tormenting a "dead" soul really fucked me up a lot more than i thought it would||

[languid gyro]

||100% echoes a lot of my personal thoughts and biases; I wanted so badly to finally let them rest||

[green escarp]

|| The moment Verso became your darling Aiden I knew which ending you were going to pick lol||

[languid gyro]

||I have additional thoughts also but they’d require you to view the other ending first real quick so I’ll hold off||

[languid gyro]

||I mean he definitely ended up my favorite character overall, but it was still an extraordinary difficult, conflicting decision||

[pallid gull]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/1320524695270981643.webp?size=100&animated=true

[pallid gull]

oh i didn't notice ||incredibly evil game||

[pallid gull]

||NOOOO I BEAT HER UP TOO FAST 😭 ||

[green escarp]

||Oh trust me I sat that screen for like, 15 minutes just asking how they could do this to me 😭 ||

||And that's with my bias leaning more towards Maelle too||

[languid gyro]

||It’s interesting too because I loved Maelle through Acts 1-2, but I felt a definite shift in Act 3. Once she was no longer just Maelle but also Alicia, she felt like she became a very similar but distinctly different person, even in just subtle ways like the way they talk and body language. And I did still love her, as I do all the characters, but in a different way than I loved “Maelle” before.||

[pallid gull]

||i've been trying so hard it but i think this is the best way, i think that in general, while learning more about the dessendre family i've come to empathize with them deeply while at the same time empathizing with all the people they have hurt and i kept feeling so incredibly conflicted lmao||

[languid gyro]

||Also Act 3 catapulted my already growing appreciation for Verso into the sky; he rose up very very quickly after the “epilogue” revelations and all their implications clicked for me, and I understood everything he was feeling and saying through the game up till then||

[keen thunder]

ENDING thoughts pipeline
|| First instinct is to go with Verso to give him closure > thought about it for 15 minutes > went with Maelle knowing it’s at the expense of both Maelle’s wellbeing and Verso continues to suffer to save the many lives who fought for a better tomorrow and who had nothing to do with their family issues > watched Maelle’s then watched Verso’s > Verso’s felt more satisfying thematically with bittersweetness with a bit of genocide > okay yea nm I would’ve still picked Maelle knowing the cost and as much as I understand and relate to both Maelle and Verso. And this is looking at it solely with what is happening and not how it’s framed in presentation, editing, sound design etc. I think they intended both endings to have both the Clair and obscur and be about even, but in execution it still feels like the bias is towards Verso’s ending which ended more on the bittersweet note while Maelle’s is on a disturbing note (and I would’ve been 100% with Verso’s save for the genocide part). ||

|| If you look at it solely from a meta narrative standpoint, there’s some great themes to dissect and analyze and I really love the trolley problem endings from that. It gets you to really think about your values and what you’re willing to pay for them. And maybe from that meta pov the point was they got you to care about the denizens of the canvas to add to that dilemma “you’re just like Alicia/Maelle now cause those people to you are real”, but I feel that’s a leaning a bit into a similar example of being forced to do something you didn’t want to but had to progress the story (with no choice), and then guilt tripping the player, which takes me out of it a bit.

But if I were to come down to it, I care more about the powerless beings at the whims of a privileged god family (though their suffering is very human and relatable). ||

|| I may have some mixed feelings in some execution here and there but I do enjoy analyzing the themes and characters from the overall story. Also I still like Maelle and Verso in the end, Verso being a fascinating story to follow (there’s a LOT to dissect with him) but I would not get anywhere near the guy due to his deceptive record ||

|| Lune was also right, about everything ||

[languid gyro]

||She was right, but I also think that just adds to the tragedy of the situation. Objectively, yes there was potential for some compromise between the two endings we got. But we reached the specific boiling points we did because the characters by this point were too traumatized and too blinded by their own biases and needs/wants to be able to pick anything but their two extremes. There should have been more than two options, but to them, at that point, there couldn’t be. Not then. Not anymore.||

[keen thunder]

|| yea I think that’s the point the writers intended. The characters are basically incapable of reaching what would be some obvious middle ground which leads to the tragedy. My only issue is the execution of that point in some other areas of the story but I don’t wanna go too deeply into that here. Another thing I like thinking about is the what if scenario if Verso had left Gustave live and how he’d feel about the conflict. And maybe that’s another mistake on his part, and intentional by the writers ||

I also like || the meta message of “The Writers are the true enemies!” LOLOL ||

[green escarp]

The Ending Essays! They have begun!

[languid gyro]

||While I think it was morally wrong for Verso to allow Gustave to die, I don’t necessarily think he was logically incorrect in that Maelle probably would have been even less likely to help Verso kick Aline out of the Canvas if Gustave were still alive at the Monolith and would become gommaged||

[keen thunder]

|| nah that’s exactly why he did it, it would’ve foiled his plan. I think I meant that was another factor for forcing the trolley problem. Now for why there were a lack of consequences if you tell Maelle the truth and she moves on it pretty quick, I’m not sure. Maybe because she’s like “I can just bring him back” but more importantly concerning is how Verso lied/withheld info again. Same with Lune’s reaction *beginning Act 3 Lumiere gommage later ||

More story reflection stuff || I think what I also would’ve liked to see more is more interaction between Maelle, Sciel and Lune without Verso involved. Would’ve been interesting to see their thoughts on his actions and give more autonomy to Lune and Sciel since their say in act 3 felt very terse. Also seeing more thorough reaction to the revelations in the story. That’s the nature of the story shifting focus on the grief conflict with the family which I still liked, but I guess I was feeling mixed on that. Especially since Act 1-2 had some great scenes between them ||

[wheat tulip]

||https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdkWd9kQ/ || p5 spoiler

[pallid gull]

||oh yes, i actually agree so much with the interactions between others. while i love verso as a protagonist, i feel like since gustave stopped being the mc, there's been a lack of interactions between the other characters. i know act 3 had the personal quests, which is why there haven't been that many "check up on others" moments, but monoco, for example, barely interacted with sciel and lune and the awkwardness of the romance sometimes took me out of it as well||

[pallid gull]

https://tenor.com/view/orange-cat-gets-flung-and-explodes-orange-cat-funny-cat-meme-explodes-gif-10706110874965244466

i want him so fawkin bad

[keen thunder]

Keep those edits and fancams coming

[wheat tulip]

Lmao if i see more then okay!!

[pallid gull]

||also lmao rereading the convos above and i'm wearing such verso tinted glasses bc the way i forgot he withheld info twice||

[wheat tulip]

Lmaoo i understand dw

He cant do wrong !!

[pallid gull]

||he can do Some wrong... but i will still give him a kiss||

[wheat tulip]

Truly

[keen thunder]

https://tenor.com/view/okay-sounds-good-jim-halpert-the-office-good-point-gif-1570599340039365094

[pallid gull]

ending ||i thought i was gonna take a break but i think im gonna attempt the second ending tonight since it seems like the last save point just puts you back in lumiere||

[languid gyro]

||It was definitely more than twice 💀 He Who Guards Truth with Lies indeed… (love him still though)||

||Speaking of, was really neat rewatching the Visages fight, specifically Mask Keeper, and seeing how much his fighting style echoes Verso’s and the way that just entirely passed me by on first play||

||Also all the piano used throughout the Visages area 🥲 ||

[green escarp]

||recent save is postgame. you're in Lumiere but the boss is gone. you'd have to load an earlier save to fight the final boss again||

[languid gyro]

||So, yes, but it doesn’t reload Renoir, so you’d need to dig to find the autosave from when Verso jumps into the in-between world right before he confronts Maelle||

[pallid gull]

https://tenor.com/view/orange-cat-gets-flung-and-explodes-orange-cat-funny-cat-meme-explodes-gif-10706110874965244466

gonna do that then, thank u

[languid gyro]

Every time you use this it never fails to take me tf out, thank you aiden

[pallid gull]

LMAO i'm so glad, i love this gif

but i do have a new obsession

https://tenor.com/view/dog-walter-walter-dog-bull-terrier-long-nosed-dog-gif-26541605

it's this one

[green escarp]

I've traded Aiden saying everything I'm going to with more detail for Amphy saying everything I'm going to with more detail xD

[green escarp]

This feels like a Dulci gif

[pallid gull]

LMAO also true

[green escarp]

This is not me ragging on you btw Amphy just a funny observation

[pallid gull]

||wait did he do it more than twice... damn a red flag in front of me and i'm just nodding along and doing whatever he says||

[languid gyro]

Just balancing things as a good Libra would ⚖️

[green escarp]

||Didn't you say something along the lines of being red flag colorblind before? ||

[languid gyro]

||A lot of them are more minor, but there are so many little moments throughout Act 2 where like Sciel or Lune’s just casually like “hey why did he say that?” or “do you know anything about X?” and my husband just lies through his teeth with a casual “damn I have no idea, crazy stuff” (paraphrasing ofc)||

[pallid gull]

oh yes LMAO

||the way i completely forgot bc it seemed playful to me at the time but in this context im like nvm||

oh also ||do we ever find out who julie was? he mentions her at the beginning and im assuming she was an expedition member like simon but i don't remember if got her journal||

[green escarp]

So about the journals in the game... :)

[pallid gull]

what is it?

[green escarp]

Do you actually want to know?

[pallid gull]

i dont know now

[green escarp]

Keep exploring the world then :)

[pallid gull]

i might... i still haven't quite decided what to do

there's quite a few things that i haven't finished but i'm like... do i wanna do NG+ or come back months later to it

ending spoilers ||okay game, i get it, on the aline vs renoir i went with renoir 😭 ||

wait ||if i attempt the other ending, do i lose these?||

[vivid peak]

Congrats Aiden 👏

[pallid gull]

thank u!!

[summer yarrow]

Final boss ||huh there’s more Axons. There seems to be 4 and I only defeated 2 ||

[green escarp]

||nope||

||ending choice has no bearing on post game rewards etc||
Well now I just don't know...

[wheat tulip]

Feels like the homophobic dog

[pallid gull]

okay thank u!!

[wheat tulip]

As you should yes👏 👏

[green escarp]

||one is tied to Maelle's quest and one is dead before you even start the game (you see it in Old Lumiere)||

[pallid gull]

fawk they're all so recent... i dont think i can replay

i must've accidentally spammed the flag or something just now LMAO

[summer yarrow]

Oh

[wheat tulip]

Wait i didnt got that one

[green escarp]

???

[pallid gull]

||you get it if you side with verso||

[wheat tulip]

Huh

I did this one tho

Or maybe i didnt checked kfkfkx

[green escarp]

Gimmie a sec now I need to log into the game

[wheat tulip]

Honestly ||at the end of the game my tears blurred a lot-||

[green escarp]

I will not be held responsible for misinformation

[pallid gull]

||WTF why is verso alone in my team dfskjhfdsjkshdf 😭 ||

[green escarp]

||WAIT FUCK, I CAN'T EVEN VERIFY BECAUSE I'M IN ACT 1 OF NG++ SO I DON'T EVEN HAVE VERSO||

[pallid gull]

what are you trying to verify?

[pallid gull]

ending ||alone, almost dead, i mean canon but what the fuck do they just load you in like that if you side with him im crying||

[green escarp]

If I had that outfit despite ||not picking Verso's ending||

[pallid gull]

oh you shouldn't

||unless you picked it?||

||wait you mean replaying it?||

[green escarp]

||I wanted to see if I had that outfit because I picked Maelle's ending both times, but I thought I might have gotten the outfit, but I have no way of checking now until I get to act 2.||

||but if it turns out its exclusive to Verso's ending, that means Maelle gets zilch for rewards as far as I know||

[pallid gull]

||yeah, his hair and suit are exclusive to his ending, i know bc i got spoiled that way LMAO||

||i saw the hair on the wiki and i was like "oh this looks cute on him" and then the wiki was like "you get it by siding with verso" and i was like what the fuck does this mean lemme finish this game before i get even more spoiled||

[green escarp]

https://tenor.com/view/pingu202-gif-20765759

Wow fuck this game

||can't wait for this to be used in arguments on the "correct" ending||

[wheat tulip]

Oh nawt the outfit spoiling you!!

[wheat tulip]

Oh no😭😭

[pallid gull]

ending spoilers ||what the fuck they have actual conversations with each other, i didn't get to see anything bc i just annihilated everything i hate that dfksjhdfs||

[wheat tulip]

||Honestly theres no good ending and im gonna curse the devs for it(joke)||

[pallid gull]

||my god the voice crack with the "unpaint me" ben starr where's your award||

||brutal though, once again ending this by robbing him of all his agency like they've done this entire time||

[green escarp]

||"I don't want this life..."||

[pallid gull]

he did such a good job

[green escarp]

best VA award at the VGAs this year or we burn down Geoff's house

(for legal reasons this is a joke)

[pallid gull]

||looking at this cutscene and telling myself "this feels like a horror movie" and then it goes black and white and cuts to maelle slowly dying 😭 sandfall u evil ass company||

[keen thunder]

||like I said the Writers are the bad guys! nah but seriously i'm down for the studio to expand on the lore with another game. ive been wondering about this war with the Writers vs Painters ||

[keen thunder]

||the 4:3 ratio black and white they use through out the game is a neat motif. The storyboarding and mis en scene (heh french word) of that is so well done ||

[wheat tulip]

||i saw theories about the world where the real dessendre lives as the one created by the writers my mind was blown away||

||since 33 décembre doesnt exist||

[pallid gull]

||have they actually confirmed they plan on extending this into a franchise? i've seen people comment on it but i don't know if there's an actual source or assumptions||

[wheat tulip]

Only a rumor

[pallid gull]

ahh okay

[wheat tulip]

||the only real information is that they are already planning another game which isnt surprising jgkfkf||

[pallid gull]

and i will eat it up when it comes out

[wheat tulip]

French invading again hope yall are ready😭

But i dont think we will see any information on it before 2 or 3 years

[pallid gull]

yeah, that's normal, but it's okay, i will eat it up anyway 🙂‍↕️

[wheat tulip]

They are still pretty busy with all the bugs on e33

[pallid gull]

it's also very exciting that their game did so well bc now they benefit of even more resources

[wheat tulip]

Yess

I wonder if they will keep the same team

[keen thunder]

i saw somewhere || it had something to do with an antiquated French calendar "plus five or six intercalary days at the end of the year to fill out the balance of a solar year". so may be nothing, may be something? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_calendar ||

[green escarp]

Its the most y'all have contributed in years!
(this is a joke I have nothing against the French)

(in fact I never really understood the anti-French sentiment online, joking or otherwise)

[wheat tulip]

Because people think we are rude and smells bad

[pallid gull]

smell bad?? 😭 i didnt hear that one

[green escarp]

Ok well that first part is sadly true in my experience visiting Paris

But I'm also a filthy American (despite being Hispanic and looking like someone ICE would kidnap given the chance) so maybe that contributed to it?

[pallid gull]

i think parisians are just notoriously mean to tourists aren't they

[wheat tulip]

Ngl i never studied it fkfkfkf

[green escarp]

I am assuming this is true because hoo boy

[wheat tulip]

I mean i couldnt live in paris 💀

The worst city i ever went to

[green escarp]

Like I keep telling this story to peeps when it comes up and the only nice person my family met in paris was the hotel receptionist and she was Asian

[wheat tulip]

I went to it for japan expo and paris games week eww i went back sick with how polluted the rain was

[green escarp]

at least there's the funny bit about that one time we dined in like an outside restaurant area, turned down wine because we don't drink and just ordered soda and the waiter just went in like the most villainous accent: "Of course..." and walked away scowling

[wheat tulip]

Oh surprised they are the meanest here sometimes

[wheat tulip]

LMAOOO

Dw about that

They side eye every person not drinking alcohol

I dont and damn the stares i get

[green escarp]

Yeah we kinda learned right away lmao

[wheat tulip]

But honestly i just throw a middle finger in their face usually

You need to be assertive in france

Even as an introvert

[green escarp]

I'd rather just let things go. I try not to be combative because with my luck I'll piss off the one person who would pull a weapon on me

[pallid gull]

valid fear to have when you live in the US

[green escarp]

Sad but true

[wheat tulip]

Oh right

[green escarp]

Violence warning? ||Co-worker got her tires slashed and nearly stabbed this week just for getting in front of a guy in a Wendy's drive through. Some people are fucking insane||

[wheat tulip]

Wtf

[green escarp]

You can't make this shit up

An she lives like a town over from me in what is a relatively safe area

[wheat tulip]

Im sorry to say that but it really feels like the united states feels like it doesnt exist in our reality sometimes 😭

[green escarp]

You just never know

[green escarp]

Imagine how WE feel living here 😭

[wheat tulip]

[pallid gull]

ending spoilers ||im thinking back on it and now im wondering what "death" is in the canvas anymore... because yes, they age, but what does aging even mean if they can be brought back from the dead now||

||cause i was wondering to myself "if verso didn't want the life they gave him, why is he aging and staying there" but now i'm like... can he even die now... can any of them||

||cause we know gestrals can and they even reincarnate, but the death of the humans in the canvas was influenced by renoir and alicia rather than a natural process if that makes sense?? unless maybe if you die by natural means and not the gommage, then you can't be brought back||

||idk i have so many questions now LOL||

[green escarp]

||on the point of non-gommage deaths: Sciel's husband died in an accident and he got brought back so there doesn't seem to be a limit on Maelle being able to resurrect anyone. Verso is aged so the assumption is that Maelle would let him grow old and eventually die. But then you wonder if Maelle would respect the "natural order" and let people die of old age, or if she would eventually decide she doesn't want anyone to die and makes them immortal or brings them back because now she can, as she is effectively a god in that world. All this is hypothetical of course but its interesting to think about||

[pallid gull]

||right, that was my thought process as well, it seems like it falls on maelle because i just remembered that she technically "killed" verso once already and decided to bring him back. that raises so many interesting ethical and philosophical questions on what is life without death, it vaguely reminds me of|| ffxiv spoilers dawntrail ||the regulator storyline dt||

[wheat tulip]

||Honestly i thought that too then i remembered noco... i dont think they are the same as before ||

[vivid peak]

The anglophone hate goes back centuries but I do remember the more recent American led anti-French campaign of the 2000s originated from the refusal of the French government to join the coalition to invade Iraq. This is where the surrendering cheese monkeys insult became popular as Americans rubbed D-Day and the liberation of Europe from Nazi germany in their faces as a sort of retaliation for the perceived lack of allyship

But of course history ended up showing the French weren’t wrong about what bush’s motivations really were in Iraq

Why did I type this unrelated essay idk

[green escarp]

||For the Gestrals sure, but they may operate on different rules. And when Maelle un-gommaged Sciel and Lune they were unchanged so that doesn't seem to be a limitation on her abilities as a Paintress||

[wheat tulip]

Oh true

[wheat tulip]

Because you can

[pallid gull]

||gustave died of a "natural" cause technically but he seems to have kept his feelings for everyone including sophie, there seems to be a difference between gestral death and human death, with gestrals there's some consequences. which is interesting knowing that this is what og verso planned, it's almost as if, despite wanting a childhood wonderland, he still wanted the cruel reality of what death takes from you...and it's interesting that in opposition, his grieving family does not accept anything but a happy ending||

[green escarp]

I for one appreciate your info dump

[wheat tulip]

Truly ||when you think he was a child while doing that too....||

[wheat tulip]

I was so confused at first when i saw online that we were treated as coward???

[vivid peak]

I think now the jokes are just that and It’s mostly removed form that background now twenty decades later but it does remind me that both the French and the Americans have their own imperialist pasts (and presents)

Twenty decades? Twenty years

I just woke up

[pallid gull]

welcome awake

[wheat tulip]

Dw lmao take your time

[pallid gull]

i appreciate u giving us a history lesson while half awake that's impressive

[green escarp]

||This is based on nothing but personal extrapolation but I like to think Aline taught Clea and Verso to "respect" the worlds they created, even when it comes to life and death. Something I'm assuming from things like Renoir talking about how he was taught by Aline to use their gift properly.||

[vivid peak]

Yeah… As if napoleon didn’t almost Conquer the whole continent at one point. Not that that’s something to stan lol

[wheat tulip]

Ckfkfkxk i mean it wasnt my first exemple but yeah😭

[pallid gull]

the way half of les mis is victor hugo going gluck gluck for napoleon it's so djksndkskd

[wheat tulip]

Ooh yup i can see that

[wheat tulip]

HELP

Why did i heard the sound in my head

[pallid gull]

cause of all the yaoi you read

[wheat tulip]

C'EST FAUX

[vivid peak]

I say this as my own country followed USA into Iraq and much like the British there is huge regret about it. You might have been called cowards but at least you weren’t complicit in a foreign war instigated on false pretenses

[vivid peak]

Yeah… yeah

[wheat tulip]

[vivid peak]

🙂‍↕️

[wheat tulip]

???

I cant hear something thats readable??

[wheat tulip]

Ngl kinda happy nawt reading it

[low steppe]

audiobooks 🙂‍↕️

[wheat tulip]

I cant jcdkfk

My brain doesnt like it

[vivid peak]

Yeah I have a friend who can’t do audiobooks either

I enjoy them but it’s very dependent on the narrator

[pallid gull]

the writing is great and the core ideas are pretty relevant to this day, like oppression of the working class, the shitty justice system, the lack of perspective when you put everything you have on idealism, and french yaoi, but...he did have a major flaw which is that he did write more than 50 pages and described how gay he is for napoleon being imperialist lmao

[wheat tulip]

Im cringing so hard usually... and i need to read with music

[vivid peak]

French yaoi where are you Arthur rimbaud

[wheat tulip]

HELP

Not the gay right sidist

[pallid gull]

arthur rimbaud...traumatized diva

[wheat tulip]

Im traumatised by this man

[vivid peak]

Help I haven’t read it in ages and I feel like I blanked out all the napoleonic propaganda

[pallid gull]

LMAO it stuck with me because i was like please please i need it to hurry up

"you could've skipped on it" unfortunately that's just not who i am

[wheat tulip]

The other one im side eying is zola

Ouh i hate this man too

[pallid gull]

emile zola, right?

[wheat tulip]

Honestly our litterature classes were just contest for the writer who traumatised us the most

[wheat tulip]

Yup

[pallid gull]

yeah, honestly it's the same here

but i feel like that's just classics

especially novel writers

[vivid peak]

Isn’t your prime minister gay?

[pallid gull]

tho i think symbolism came from france and y'all are messed up for inventing a literary current that's just about being sad and wanting to die

[vivid peak]

Sorry this was to rain and sorry it’s a little out of nowhere lmao

[pallid gull]

LMAO

[vivid peak]

Maybe I’m thinking of another French speaking euro state

[pallid gull]

no you're good i thought you asked me and i was like if he were gay he would not be a government official

[vivid peak]

Felt though

France was the centre of intellectual thought for a long time to be fair

[pallid gull]

pls it was my favorite literary current in school

yeah, i think most literary movements came from there?

[vivid peak]

Like all that existentialism sartre and Camus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Attal

I was sort of right

He’s no longer

[wheat tulip]

Yup he was up during 6 months i think? Lmao

[pallid gull]

damn that's right, i was just thinking about it but the french also did realism and romanticism

[wheat tulip]

Yup yup

[wheat tulip]

Realist tho

[wheat tulip]

Yup... the way i had to memorize so much movements at school💀

[vivid peak]

Our country being such a baby means our literature is like. “Who are we if we aren’t British?” And also “nature. She is beautiful even when she tries to kills us” and occasionally “oh yeah there were people living here for tens of thousands of years before actually but we pretended they didn’t exist”
That’s Aus literature summed up

[pallid gull]

me too but im a nerd so i enjoyed it

[pallid gull]

the nature one is nice though

[wheat tulip]

Im sorry aiden but... maso

[vivid peak]

the narrative art of Australian writers has, since 1788, introduced the character of a new continent into literature—exploring such themes as Aboriginality, mateship, egalitarianism, democracy, national identity, migration, Australia's unique location and geography, the complexities of urban living, and "the beauty and the terror" of life in the Australian bush.

Even Wikipedia agrees

[wheat tulip]

We hate our litterature so much here but we respect it

[pallid gull]

the beauty and the terror 😭

[wheat tulip]

Oh... im sorry

[pallid gull]

i feel like that's lots of classics, a lot of them were pretty shitty people because of the times, but it's also just fascinating to see how art has evolved over years and how the themes have remained relevant in our days

[wheat tulip]

Its a way to describe it i guess

[wheat tulip]

Truly

I just wanted to throw most of the books because it was en ancien or moyen français 💀

[vivid peak]

They were also a product of their times, perhaps if they existed today they would be more progressive (although many might not be 💀)

[wheat tulip]

The way so many of the writers were ||grapers ||

Im always shocked by that

[vivid peak]

Is there a French equivalent of Shakespeare

Maybe Proust or something

We did so much Shakespeare in school I feel

[pallid gull]

i have yet to read something by proust

[wheat tulip]

Not really ?

Its hard to compare ngl

[vivid peak]

My final year English class we did the stranger by Camus actually

[pallid gull]

i wanna read that

[vivid peak]

It’s not very long

[pallid gull]

im still ??? bc apparently ive read something by stendhal lmao

[vivid peak]

Oh I’ve never

[pallid gull]

P3 skill ||wish i could apply it here somehow alas not a clue what was going on||

[wheat tulip]

Oh you would like it aiden 😭

[vivid peak]

Was it the red and the black?

[pallid gull]

yes

[vivid peak]

Not the emoji lmao

[pallid gull]

i vaguely remember the plot

[wheat tulip]

Its the most popular one i think

I didnt study it, it was another class who did it

Yeah our program depends of the class and teacher

Or my middle school was trash , could be that too

[pallid gull]

is stendhal for middle school??

[vivid peak]

I was wondering if it was like ||the Stendhal syndrome being applied because of the painting/art theme of e33 but I haven’t read any of their work so it’s probably more to do with something they wrote about||

[wheat tulip]

Oh yes...

Traumatised at 11 years old haha

[pallid gull]

no cause why did they make y'all suffer like that

long ass book with heavy themes should've been high school at least

[wheat tulip]

Because they can

[pallid gull]

ohh this is interesting i haven't thought of that, could be both?

[wheat tulip]

But we got to see gang bang in ancient greek at least 💀

[vivid peak]

|| A more recent account of the Stendhal syndrome was in 2018, when a visitor to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence suffered a heart attack while admiring Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus. || omg

[vivid peak]

I just read this with no context

[wheat tulip]

Theres none anyway lmao

[wheat tulip]

Wtf

[pallid gull]

what is the syndrome exactly?

[vivid peak]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stendhal_syndrome

[wheat tulip]

WTF

[vivid peak]

It’s like a physical reaction to art

[wheat tulip]

Thats so surprising

[pallid gull]

ohhhhh

[vivid peak]

So yeah
That’s what came to mind when I saw the skill

[wheat tulip]

Which one,

Nevermind

My brain separated the skill and the person

[pallid gull]

where are you at in game jonjon?

[vivid peak]

@wheat tulip this one

[vivid peak]

||just exploring old lumiere, not very far in||

[wheat tulip]

||Oh yeah but you shouldnt have it unlocked yet...||

[summer yarrow]

Just finished the story

[wheat tulip]

Already?! Congrats !!

[vivid peak]

Yeah but I saw stuff on the internet about the nerf

Or something like that

[wheat tulip]

|| nawt the nerf patch spoiling people||

[vivid peak]

Congrats!!

[summer yarrow]

||I choose Verso at the end. Time to go back and see the other ending|| final boss spoiler

[summer yarrow]

Binged it nonstop

[vivid peak]

Yeah I didn’t consider it a big one because I don’t know the context. Don’t confirm though lol

[summer yarrow]

I haven’t played another game

For like 6 days

[fringe walrus]

Didn’t… you just start??? Help???

[summer yarrow]

Yes 😂

[vivid peak]

Felt like two days ago tea was asking should I play this game

[fringe walrus]

Lmaooo I guess in reality the game isn’t really that long in comparison to other RPGs

[pallid gull]

tbf i feel like if you don't do a lot of side stuff, the game is not very long

[summer yarrow]

I explored but I skipped the side story

[wheat tulip]

Mostly 30 hours if you focus on story

[summer yarrow]

I also played on story mode lol

[wheat tulip]

Yeah its faster on this mode

[summer yarrow]

It took me ||30|| hours to finish the story

[vivid peak]

That’s what I heard from launch

I think I’ve got 20 hours but I do a lot of wandering around and looking at things lol

[wheat tulip]

Honestly i could have done the same but i wanted the 100%

So i did 72h

[summer yarrow]

Wow

[fringe walrus]

The blue is e33 and the red is fantasy life LMAO the fact they’re around the same hours is so funny to me for some reason

[summer yarrow]

I just wanted to finish the story

[pallid gull]

i feel like there's some side things too that are def worth it for story and world building if you're into that i mean...but i also spent a lot of hours getting my ass beat on bosses that were way higher level lmao

[summer yarrow]

I’ll go back and explore

[wheat tulip]

They are almost the same ooh

Maybe when ill get my switch 2 ill buy it

[fringe walrus]

Did you preorder one?

[wheat tulip]

Nope

[summer yarrow]

I skipped all the hard world bosses

[wheat tulip]

Wanted to wait for pokemon to launch to get it

So in october

[fringe walrus]

Oh valid!!

[summer yarrow]

I ain’t fighting ||Golgra || act 1

[wheat tulip]

And honestly its gonna be hard to get one at its launch😭

[pallid gull]

oh that's a superboss i think

[summer yarrow]

Two hits

[fringe walrus]

I’ve been pondering possibly lowering the difficulty to just continue with the story. I think if I did that, I’d probs be able to finish the game a lot faster

[summer yarrow]

And maelle is head

[wheat tulip]

Dew like you want it! No pressure !

[fringe walrus]

I love the combat but I think this’ll take me a lot longer and talking about the other games I left on read made me sad LMAO

[pallid gull]

you should if it's what you want!

[wheat tulip]

And honestly between emotional and physical damages i get it😭

[summer yarrow]

I can parry properly on story mode before I was fighting for my life

[wheat tulip]

Understandable !!

[summer yarrow]

Idk how ppl do it

[wheat tulip]

I took my time to understand too lmao

[summer yarrow]

Also the dodge button don’t exist

I don’t think I ever used the dodge button

[wheat tulip]

Honestly i use the strat of dodge the first few hits then try to parry it

[summer yarrow]

It’s either I die or parry

[wheat tulip]

Mostly for newer ennemies tho

[wheat tulip]

I dont want to die!!

[summer yarrow]

Maybe I should have done this. The fake outs are ridiculous

Just when you think the enemy is about to attack

[wheat tulip]

Yup yup

[summer yarrow]

They add another move

Goty 👏

[summer yarrow]

I thought this was a horror game

[pallid gull]

i do feel like the horrors are everywhere since i've started playing it yes

[summer yarrow]

||If the devs ever decide a dlc. I want the painters vs writers through Clea’s perspective || endgame

[pallid gull]

||i don't think they're planning on making a dlc, but they are thinking of another game (we dont know if it's related or unrelated to this game yet)||

the way my answer isn't a spoiler idk why i spoilered it 😭 habit i guess, or context

ending spoilers ||wait we just found out through the grave that verso is a pisces omg... lying puppy dog eyes man i love him||

endgame spoilers ||https://64.media.tumblr.com/cf708be84af0039326d3921abcc217a4/c409b979becd5928-93/s1280x1920/499ea06564a9d4b58b6855634fd3ea10761c4660.pnj ||

endgame spoilers im sdfkjhfsdjkhgjks

[summer yarrow]

lol

[pallid gull]

ending spoilers ||https://www.tiktok.com/@handsvermillion/video/7505063830523825438?q=verso&t=1748562231411 ||

[wheat tulip]

THATS SO MEAN HELP

[wheat tulip]

Nawt the ff16 slander in the comments ??

[pallid gull]

yeah, i am not reading those LMAOO

i am spamming cause im coping but

ending spoilers ||https://www.tiktok.com/@imtootiredforthisugg/video/7509254935586852126?q=verso&t=1748562231411 ||

||genuinely what got me the most i think, the "you did it this, you will not get a goodbye, you will not get my anger or sadness" stare||

||couldn't even look her in the eye, just brutal||

[wheat tulip]

||HER REACTION KILLS ME||

||the stare is so powerful||

[pallid gull]

||it's so sad to think about the fact that they're just innocents stuck in the middle of all this shit and each time i think to myself "well the alternative would be selfish" i realize that both endings are selfish just in different ways||

the way somehow finishing this game has made me More annoying about it

[summer yarrow]

Lune has my favorite voiceline in this game

It’s like early on

[pallid gull]

i think i know which one you mean

[summer yarrow]

||https://youtu.be/p9wJVQKPxMM?si=QUNJre1oE2O5K8LU||

This one

From act 1

[pallid gull]

yesss i love this one so much

[summer yarrow]

I was locked in during this moment

[wheat tulip]

Annoying??? NO

[wheat tulip]

Its one of the most important moment

[keen thunder]

Love this scene

Ending spoils || I love how it’s a thematic foreshadowing to a philosophical question that the game also asks and that Lune poses that their oath is about the many outweighing the needs of the individual and Gustave’s hesitation. It’s very human ||

[green escarp]

Excuse you, don't call my friend annoying I will fight

[pallid gull]

ending ||trying to find sexy verso edits after so many people have finished the game has proven to be an insufferable experience, i don't care about the moral dilemmas and infighting any longer, put him to beyonce in slow mo||

[wheat tulip]

LMAO AIDEN? Going feral i see

[pallid gull]

im coping cause i already miss the game so much LMAO

[wheat tulip]

Felt!!

But you can start a new one now!!

[pallid gull]

true but it wont be this one

[wheat tulip]

True

Start a new french game then lmao

[pallid gull]

time to google

[wheat tulip]

Lmao

I dont think theres a lot of them

[pallid gull]

oh the council is a french game, i had that one in my backlog a while back

idk why this took me out

[vivid peak]

I think the plague games are French

[pallid gull]

the plague games?

[wheat tulip]

LMAO

[keen thunder]

Another French RPG? Sea of Stars, the DLC just came out not long ago too

[languid gyro]

Arcane just aired wdym 💀

[pallid gull]

oh!! i had no idea sea of stars is french, i remember lor played it on stream for a bit, it looked so good

[wheat tulip]

Sea of stars is french?!

Maybe canadian french

Nawt the director being named boulanger poor guy😭

[green escarp]

See I never watched Arcane (and I hate League) so I wouldn't know lol

[keen thunder]

Yea studio is based in Quebec but had some French stuff in it 😅

[wheat tulip]

Knew it

Still cool tho

[languid gyro]

||It should be noted though that Maelle was personally familiar with Sciel and Lune though and was able to accurately recall their "essence". It's left vague whether she'd be able to bring anyone else back to that same degree of accuracy.||

[green escarp]

||I mean I'd point to Sciel's husband also coming back in Maelle's ending and nothing seemed to indicate she got that wrong either.||

||I keep forgetting that guy's name too. Was it Pierre?||

[languid gyro]

||It's an incredibly interesting choice they made in regards to her, especially when put together with other details of Maelle and Alicia throughout the game. She is of a family of Painters, yet her signature skill is named after a Writer. She is repeatedly shone to have an affinity towards writing (Gustave's journal, the personal journal/diary she keeps that she and Verso talk about in a relationship scene, etc.). And her room in the manor is notably devoid of paintings relative to her other family members, but in the center of the room is....a typewriter.||

[languid gyro]

||It is, yes. Which I've been told means "rock". So she was found by Esquie after she lost her "rock." 🥲 ||

[green escarp]

||....I am amazed at all the subtle ways this game manages to destroy me||

||and the not so subtle ways||

I can't decide if the writers at Sandfall deserve a handshake or desperately need a hug

Man I really do need to play Fantasy Life when my Switch 2 gets here, I need a change from Emotional Damage in concentrate lmao

Joking aside I love this game. Just incredible.

[keen thunder]

|| love all those story details from watching streams I keep picking up small things here and there in earlier parts of the game I didn’t notice right away||

[summer yarrow]

One of my favorite battle themes early on

||https://open.spotify.com/track/7KxSdzfHwutCbQNRthANLw?si=dW6jXMK5T_-CGHjEaihD8w&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A5epJvt9jHbYI1j6WqCppGc|| act 1

[pallid gull]

anyone woke up and is immediately thinking about this game lmao

[vivid peak]

Welcome awake

[pallid gull]

thank u jonjon, morny

https://cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/647694391867211776.webp?size=100&animated=true

[vivid peak]

I am eating dinner and then I shall continue my e33 journey

[pallid gull]

yippeee enjoy

[hoary nacelle]

all day every day 🤝

[pallid gull]

after finishing the game i realize that i kinda dont like the way the game saves

i would've liked to replay some scenes with the outfits that i have on them but since you can only access the 3 last saves u just need to replay the whole game

[hoary nacelle]

i feel that i wish it had actual save slots...

i totally get wanting the auto saving only for like a seamless experience where u dont need to go into save menus but at the same time i like having save slots 😭

[pallid gull]

same