Endgame Clean-Up, I Think, in COE33

 I suspect that one of the inspirations for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was Final Fantasy VI.

Not only is FFVI considered by many to be the best of the series (though VII is better-known, with more spin-offs, remakes, and such - and VII is another best-Final Fantasy contender).

The main thing, though, is that you hit a point in the plot where the world opens up significantly, and you can technically just go straight to the end of the game, but there are tons of side-quests.

I'm given to understand after beating the game's story, you can continue to play (good given that it's a game that auto-saves,) and that some people recommend even going right for the final boss/dungeon when you can and saving the other stuff for later.

Right now, I've got a few character-focused quests that seem to be able to upgrade their "relationship level," which then unlocks their final Gradient Attacks. I've finished this on Lune and Sciel (Sciel's doesn't seem to actually require anything beyond talking to her) and I've got missions from Monoco and Maelle to get theirs done.

Now that Esquie can fly and dive underwater, I've got the whole map unlocked, but there are still several areas that say "Danger," implying I'm too low-level to attempt them.

Even the level-appropriate stuff is quite tough. I fought the Chromatic Gold Chavalier in Crimson Forest, which was truly brutal - basically, until I had perfected my parries and almost never actually get hit by its attacks, nor those of the Clair and the Obscur fighting alongside it, I'd just get totally wiped. The worst part is that when your timing is off on one of their swings, it tends to get screwed up on subsequent swings.

But yes, I'm still having a bit of a challenge finding stuff I haven't done that isn't considered too hard for me. One thing I've really needed to work on strategizing is equipping Pictos with good stat bonuses - it was embarrassingly late in the game that I even realized they did anything other than the effect their lumina provided - I wondered why, with the same or nearly the same Vitality, Verso had less than half of Lune's HP, until I realized none of his Pictos buffed it (this made that Chavlier fight more forgiving).

It's interesting coming off of playing Super Mario RPG and then Lies of P. Mario RPG has its own special timed-button dodges and bonuses to your attacks, but until you get into the remake's new post-game content, these are more of a bonus than a necessity. COE33 clearly makes them absolutely necessary - I don't think you can beat any of the, honestly early-mid-game bosses without doing at least decently on parries.

The difficulty of pulling it off, especially against really long combo-attacks, does make it profoundly satisfying when you do pull it off. Difficulty is something of a contentious issue in gaming, and I find myself sort of of two minds:

A game being difficult pushes you to really get yourself in the game's groove, and mastery over a difficult game feels incredible. And yet, I also feel sympathetic to people who feel like they aren't able to experience a game if it's too hard.

I suspect that I would do a lot better playing the original Dark Souls if I went back to it after years of Bloodborne, Elden Ring, and most of DSIII under my belt.

Basically, I love the model of how COE33 plays, and while this is a story that I don't see there being very obvious ways to make a direct sequel (though I haven't beaten the game, so we'll see) I'd love to see Sandfall studio play with what they've developed here. Indeed, if "Clair Obscur" becomes an anthology-style franchise like Final Fantasy, where the world and story moves onto something else, but the game mechanics (and perhaps the fun creatures, like Gestrals) return, I'd be pretty happy with that.

All this being said, I do think I'm eager to play some old Final Fantasy game after this - my roommate just beat FFVIII and is playing FFIX (though he's been drawn into COE33 after hearing me talk about it - and I'm worried that just by looking at my screen he's figured out at least one of the major twists). Still, as much as I'm loving this game, which could be in the "Instant Classic" category, I think I'm probably going to try something a little easier, or at least a little less "perfect rhythmic timing"-focused, next.