Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 immediately caught my eye when it was first showcased during an Xbox Preview show. It had the “look” of your typical action adventure AAA game. But then they showed off combat and it was turn-based. I have been meaning to get my hands on it ever since.

Active turn-based combat

The developers weren’t shy in sharing that they took a lot of inspiration from the JRPGs from the 90s to the early 2000s. Another obvious inspirations are the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei games from Atlus.

I have poured significant hours into Persona 5 and a few more to Metaphor ReFantazio. While Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s general layout resembles those games a lot, it’s not a blatant copy. The game adds a few wrinkles unique to it adding depth and tension to the combat. 

The wrinkles are parry and dodge mechanics that can turn the tide of battle in an instant. Parrying lets you counter. So, instead of taking damage, you deal damage on the opponent’s turn. But not everything can be parried, thus, the dodge option. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me walk you through a combat encounter. 

Combat Walkthrough 

The Demo begins with what I suppose is an abridged cutscene of a major incident that takes the player to the first area where there are plenty of possible combat encounters.

You enter combat once you encounter enemies during exploration. If you manage to strike the enemy in exploration using the R1/Right Button, you will enter combat with a First Strike advantage. But if the enemy gets the jump on you, they gain the turn advantage. 

That’s pretty par for the course in modern turn-based combat. What I was surprised by was when I thought the enemy hadn’t spotted me so I leisurely walked up to a loot first. When I turned around the enemy was right there waiting to pounce. It was a near-jumpscare. 

Once you enter combat, you’ll immediately see the Persona-like layout for the commands. I might be mentioning Persona a lot because Persona 5 is the game I spent the most hours on with a similar layout. 

Like in Persona, your characters can fire guns without it costing a turn. Plenty of enemies have weaknesses that can be exploited with a gunshot. Others are entirely weak to them and can be taken out just by shooting. 

Once you Attack, use a Skill, or use an Item, that’s when a character consumes a turn. Some attacks build towards a stronger Skill effect. And some skills won’t be available to you unless you’ve built up enough levels by attacking. 

Like in RPGs, there are also elemental affinities that you have to consider. They are pretty standard too if you’re familiar with them. So far, I encountered Fire, Ice, Thunder/Lightning, and Wind. 

But what keeps things exciting and the tension high are the abilities to Parry and Dodge.

Impeccable timing required

Parry and Dodge aren’t new combat mechanics. But it’s rare to see them implemented in a turn-based style of combat. 

As mentioned earlier, Parrying an attack lets you counter which deals massive damage to your opponent. In this section of the demo, the attacks are actually telegraphed. You’re given a prompt on the enemy’s attack speed: slow, normal, quick. But even with these prompts, it’s not always easy to get the timing down. However, that might just be a skill issue on my part. 

Dodge requires the same level of skill and timing. Some attacks cannot be parried so you’re better off trying to evade than taking a hit. 

I vaguely remember a tutorial note on which attacks should be parried and which one should be dodged but the actual detail escapes me. From experience though, I was not able to parry magic attacks. But physical ones that will hit your entire party can be parried. That means your entire party will also retaliate for an even bigger damage towards your enemy. 

Some attacks also offer the opportunity to add more damage with QTE or Quick Time Event moments. I cannot emphasize ‘quick’ here more. You have to carefully time button presses to deal heavier damage. It’s another way that the game keeps turn-based combat even more active.

It’s such an engaging combat experience and I can’t wait to experience more of it once we do our review. 

Skill trees, weapons, exploration, and more

Lune. Your mage

Like many RPGS of its ilk, Expedition 33 has more than  its fair share of progression trees. There’s the usual Skill Tree for each character. Each character is their own archetype. Main man Gustave, voiced by DareDevil’s Charlie Cox, is your swordsman, damage dealing MC. Lune, who looks absolutely stunning, is your mage and more. 

Check out the rest of the characters:

Outside of the skill tree, there’s also the ability stats. It’s not too complicated here. You have a stat that affects attack power, how fast the character earns a turn, defense, how much health they have, and their critical hit rate. 

You gain skill and ability points after every combat encounter. 

The menu screen doesn’t look too busy but because of its presentation and style, it might feel like so. It can be a lot to take in at first. I think it could have been designed better but maybe that’s just because of the limited playtime of the demo.

This is not an open world. It’s a pretty linear path with little branching areas here and there for items and weapons you can pick up. The world itself is pretty lush and is a sight to behold. But outside of the scenery, there’s not much going on, at least in the areas available in the demo. 

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 

As for what the story of Clair Obcur: Expedition 33 is about, I’ll just put here what’s been shared in some marketing materials so far. 

Here’s the game’s brief synopsis: 

Once a year, the Paintress wakes and paints upon her monolith. Paints her cursed number. And everyone of that age turns to smoke and fades away. Year by year, that number ticks down and more are erased. With only one year left to live, join Gustave, Maelle, and their fellow Expeditioners as they embark upon a desperate quest to break the Paintress’ cycle of death. Follow the trail of previous expeditions and discover their fate. Get to know the members of Expedition 33 as they learn to work together against impossible odds.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 will be playable on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S (available day one with Xbox Game Pass), and PC via Steam. The release date is on April 24, 2025.