Well, I'm not proud, but it's not like I broke any rules of the game.
I looked up and used a one-shot build to deal with Simon, the ultimate, hardest post-game boss (at least I'm pretty sure he is) in Expedition 33.
I had gotten him to phase 2 many times, but even though I managed to figure out the parry timing on some of those phase 2 attacks, I just wasn't having it.
So, I had a build that essentially let a ton of powerful and multiplicative buffs go to Maelle, who finished the boss off with a single Stendahl, and then rinse-and-repeat for phase 2 (I had thought there was a phase 3, but evidently not).
Anyway, with that, I don't think I really have any major combat challenges left in the game. I've beaten Clea in the Floating Manor and the combined... er, spoilerrific endbosses of the not-so-Endless Tower.
Now, what's left to me are basically Gestral Beach challenges (the volleyball, timed climb, and dodging the energy balls while climbing ones are what I have left - and for Volleyball, just the highest difficulty one) and then just buying up every Picto, finding all the journals, and finding the last two of the lost Gestrals.
It's bittersweet - the game is phenomenal, though I'm still feeling a bit melancholy about the ending. And honestly, even if I felt pushed to pursue this nasty build to take down the ultimate boss, I guess I can feel some satisfaction in the fact that I only did it on this one, and not some of the other profoundly nasty bosses of the post-game (getting the parry-timing on Clea's fight was particularly satisfying).
I don't know if this game was ever intended to be a franchise-starter - while the title feels like it could absolutely be the start of a future "Clair Obscur: Some Other Subtitle" anthology series in the vein of Final Fantasy, I can also imagine that Sandfall might be philosophically opposed to just iterating on the same idea. (It's interesting to me that Dark Souls III feels very much about the need to stop making sequels, but at least on a mechanical level, Elden Ring was transparently a further iteration of the same mechanics - but in a new world with new lore, that, frankly, I actually like more).
Still, I think everyone is going to be looking at what Sandfall does next, even if that project might not be for several years.
I do also wonder if SquareEnix is looking at this and thinking about what they might do in their grand Final Fantasy series. I know that FFXVI has lots of big fans, and there's a lot about the story (mainly the characters) that I like, but I never really wanted my Final Fantasy game to play more like Devil May Cry. The FFVII remake trilogy has show that they have some really cool ideas to make more action-forward combat along with strategic spellcasting and abilities.
But Expedition 33 showed (or perhaps synthesized) that you can do a really compelling form of turn-based, heroes-in-a-line combat system. There's deep strategic depth on top of Dark Souls-like reflex-driven stuff here that, clearly, was a big hit.
Now, I'm not advocating for SE just eating Sandfall's lunch here. I hope that Sandfall continues to make beautiful and original games. But in a sense, perhaps it's an elder statesman like SquareEnix's role to then make games that have that old-school feel while newer studios are experimenting.
I'd have loved to play a version of FFXVI where I got to make more complex strategic choices, and perhaps where Cid, Jill, and Joshua were also playable rather than just coming along for the ride sometimes.
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