VaranDragon wrote on May 7, 2025, 03:56:
While I do enjoy turn-based games, I really, really dislike the art direction and steampunk\jrpg influences on the art and story direction, from all I've seen of it online it's extremely heavily influenced by those types of games. Which I for the most part really dislike. Then there is the gameplay, the addition of a souls-like dodge system in a turn based game, it's just.....ugh.

I guess it's different strokes for different folks, but give me traditional RPGs any day of the week.

I agree that the... weirdness of the setting is a little off-putting. I mean, "art" or not... those nevrons and gestrals are weird as fuck. I also would have preferred more "normal" monsters. Not necessarily elves and orcs but simply "normal" organic creatures of some sort instead of these weirdo critters everywhere.

I can overlook it because the content is good, the exploration is fun and the progression system is rewarding and interesting with the combo of skills, stats, pictos and lumina.

You can somewhat mitigate the Souls-like parry system in several ways (btw, dodging is comparably easy... only parry is really hard to time right). For one, it is a simple matter of practice. The longer you play, the better you will automatically get at least at dodging. Some enemies also have pretty easy to read attack patterns so you can practice your parry skills on those.

Secondly, you can simply dial down the difficulty to 'story'. There are no difficulty related achievements so if anyone cares about that then there's no need for FOMO.
And thirdly you can focus on pumping your vitality and defense stats almost exclusively. You won't mess up your build. Stats are not that important. You can safely put e.g. two points in vitality and one in defense every level-up (you get three stat points on level-up) and achieve a decent level of survivability where you can easily miss your dodges and parries without getting into too much trouble.

Finally, pick your fights. The game is set up in a way that almost every area has easy to avoid "impossible" fights for your low(er) level party. Save those for later. The mimes and the 'chromatic" bosses are all intentionally hard and, with the exception of the mime in the prologue, you are not even supposed to be able to beat them when you first encounter them.

I really dislike Souls-likes for their time-wasting bullshit but Clair Obscur is way more accessible with enough options to make the game easier. You can save any time and anywhere by simply switching your outfit. The game also autosaves generously when picking up items etc. so it's not like a fucking Souls-like game that does not respect your time and makes you do the same shit over and over and over again.

The story is generally quite interesting but I would say that the digital acting and dialogue between party members is actually pretty cringe. There is quite a bit of overacting and cheesy lines (especially Gustave is a weird dude). That's why I would not agree that the writing deserves unanimous praise. It does feel a bit amateur at times while some of it is also really good. It's a mixed bag.

I can definitely see how it's not for everyone. Heck, I'm not even sure, as much as I'm enjoying it now, if I would buy a DLC or a sequel. I think I will have had enough of this very peculiar setting once I'm done. It's intriguing, it's a complete change of pace and scenery, it's fun and rewarding but it might end up being a one-off detour for me because I'm also not a huge fan of the strangeness of the setting.

While I do enjoy turn-based games, I really, really dislike the art direction and steampunk\jrpg influences on the art and story direction, from all I've seen of it online it's extremely heavily influenced by those types of games. Which I for the most part really dislike. Then there is the gameplay, the addition of a souls-like dodge system in a turn based game, it's just.....ugh.

I guess it's different strokes for different folks, but give me traditional RPGs any day of the week.

Wishlisted and will get to it at some point. The game looks fun!

Impressive for a new IP, and I imagine a percent of their sales went to the surprise release of Oblivion remaster too since there is some overlap in genre interest there.

Glad to see this! The game is great!

gud geym

Awesome! I can't wait to see what they come up with next.

Congrats to them, always great to see someone do something different and succeed.

Well deserved. Great game.