I'm only a few hours into Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 (which I'll henceforth abbreviate because who has the time?), a game that I don't think I'd even heard of a week ago, and boy howdy, this is one of the most exciting new titles I've played in a long time (no offense to Lies of P, which I did enjoy a lot).
I'm still figuring out some of the game's systems - I have a number of items that "can be consumed to..." do things like upgrade weapons or permanently learn various "pictos" skills, and either I missed some tutorial or there isn't one or maybe it comes surprisingly late.
But I'm getting a feel for the combat, and... just... this feels like an amazing evolution.
Like a Final Fantasy game, the heroes and monsters all line up facing one another, and take turns based on their agility.
Each character can use a basic attack that is free, and relatively low-interaction, but will build an Action Point. Ideally, you're doing that infrequently, and we'll get into why shortly.
Each character can also free-aim a ranged attack. This costs an AP but doesn't actually cost your turn - you can burn through your AP if you have sufficient targets to hit. Some flying enemies can frequently dodge your normal attacks, so it's not a terrible idea to use this to take them down, but the real benefit is that many enemies have weak points that can explode, dealing them and sometimes their allies a ton of damage.
Now, you can build up AP with basic attacks, but the other way you can gain them is by dodging or parrying incoming attacks.
This becomes a big part of the game - you can fully avoid taking damage from, I think (or at least so far) every attack monsters throw at you. But doing so also means you can use your cool abilities as well. Figuring out the timing and tells of enemies seems a big part of the game - not entirely unlike learning to dodge or parry in a Souls-like.
However, there are also many layers on top of this in terms of strategy:
Each character has their own unique skills, but these can interact with each other in interesting ways: Gustave, for example, can hit a target and put a mark on them, which then Maielle can use to do insanely high damage with one of her abilities. Likewise, there are elemental status effects, like burning, which some abilities key off of in fun ways.
Most skills have some kind of quick-time-event associated with them, and there's a narrower window to get a perfect effect, which seems to increase the effectiveness of the attack or other ability you use.
One of the most thrilling things is that some enemies have jump attacks: these can't be dodged or parried conventionally, but if you see the little icon that pops up when the jump attack comes at you, you can hit the jump button (X on a PlayStation) to have the entire party leap over whatever shockwave is coming at you, and then have all three party members strike back with a counterattack.
Enemies sometimes attack in multi-hit combos. It seems that if you successfully parry all of these in a row, you get a counterattack (if there's only one hit in the combo, I think you still get the counter for the one necessary parry). Enemies will delay their attacks sometimes, so you need to figure out the rhythm.
Currently, I'm kind of flailing around with what skills I'm equipping to each character, and I'm hoping that the items that allow you to re-spec your character won't be too hard to come by as I find a way to refine my builds.
Still, I've got to say, there are tons of ways that the folks who made this game are breathing life into the turn-based RPG that has me super-eager to play more.
Also, this isn't what the post is about, but it's also a freaking gorgeous game. I think I mentioned this in the previous post, but I'm in a kind of underwater-except-for-the-water-part region, with beautiful shades of blue and green and purple.
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