C'est la dernière fantaisie - talkin bout Clair Obscure Expedition 33

Excuse the cliche "it's Final Fantasy but French" title, and possibly inaccurate translation...

I'm one of the apparently over a million people who picked this up on launch weekend and I'm having so much fun with it I'm about 10 hours in already. I haven't played a final fantasy in a very long time (VIII was probably the last one), and I bounced off the few Souls-like games I tried, which are two of the comparisons that keep coming up with Expedition 33. Anyone else picked it up?

this unfortunately came out around the same time as a bunch of other stuff i want to play but i'm interested in it. hearing a lot of comparisons to Shadow Hearts and Lost Odyssey which are not the usual touchstones for western-made JRPGs, very refreshing

Was aware of it from previews, but somewhat taken aback by how massive its release was

Also very logjammed with stuff rn but will be keeping an eye out

I tried with Lost Odyssey back in the day but did not care for it

I feel like it came from nowhere for me. I saw a post on BlueSky from someone that played a preview, thought it looked neat so checked it out and saw it was releasing the next day. I think I might just be terrible at following games news, as I hadn't heard anything of Blue Prince until it blew up too.

So far the main thing I have mixed feelings about is the quick time events in Expedition. They're definitely way more forgiving than, say, Mario & Luigi Partners in Time etc, and it's really satisfying when you smash a run of dodge/dodge/counter against an enemy's big attack, but they're still QTEs and therefore bogus.

Hope they're all getting fat bonuses with how big huge its release has been.

I heard that the parry window is extremely small and tight, which gives me pause because I don't like those names. It's it possible to middle through without having Sekiro grade reflexes?

I do find myself often opting to dodge rather than risk a parry as it's a bigger window on dodge (and when defending a multi-attack it's really just countering the last hit that matters). But I've not felt cheated, and I'm landing a satisfying amount of counters so far and my reflexes are more xcom than sekiro.

Digging a lot of the vibes and look of her game. The timing aspect does not exactly encourage the playing of the game in an altered state

Ah I was just about to start a thread on this one. Started it yesterday while suffering from a pretty bad hangover. Got jsut past the intro section in the harbour and I can see myself REALLY enjoying this game.

I call it FINAL FRANCE-TASY!

I spent a good while fighting Maelle in the harbour - it wasn't easy. I wanted to nail dodging before I progressed. I still don't know the timing to get upgrade a regular attack so it deals extra damage. It is VERY twitchy and timing has to be on point within a microsecond sometimes.

My question is: Should i have audio set to English or French? I went with the latter to start, but later found out that they got some pretty big English-speaking names in the cast.

haha, Now I'm actually reading the thread and the title, I see the Final France-tasy joke's been done

I only got into the main meat of the game late last night, but I'm loving what's happening so far. Hoping I can get used to the timing windows, or at least that they'll be a bit more forgiving than Maelle, who fights HARD for a tutorial enemy

"Final France-tasy" is a better constructed joke than my lazy google translate!

I'm using the English audio - it defaulted to that, and I spotted Andy Serkis in the cast, so figured it's a pretty high-effort translation if the 'official' audio is French.

I keep forgetting to go in and check if I've "learned" my current pictos, and assign them to my team, etc. It's a lot easier to keep track of all my stuff than all the materia stuff in FF where I've always thought I'm just not doing it right. Though I also have the same worries about what skills I'm learning - I always get the niggling/distracting doubt I'm not on an optimal build on RPGs. It doesn't seem to matter too much, so far though, other than the occasional battle where I get one-shotted by an OP enemy.

I did wonder if the French audio was the official one - I know it's a French studio, but it might not necessarily have been written in French first. I like to play French studio games in French sometimes as I used to have quite good French skills but have lapsed in recent times.

Ah I've only just got to the bit where you're starting to get Pictos. It's the kind of game where a lot of the story and systems get alluded to a short while before they're explained or experienced. It took me a while to figure out the various menus. Do different outfits actually affect the game, or are they just for drip?

I've heard this is great, like, nothing but superlatives, but it's turn based?

it's hybrid. command-based with parrying/dodging

Yes, turn-based with quicktime events. On one hand that could feel like a concession (is this a strategy or an action fighter?) but the QTE is challenging enough to keep the fights exciting and not just repetitious menu crawling. I think it's really well done, and if you're into games like Sekiro, Khazan or even the Souls games, you'll enjoy the twitch-perfect timing required to pull off a parry or dodge.

I recorded myself playing the first hour or so, although it's mostly just the little intro area and me doing bad pepe le pew impressions - doesn't tell you a lot about the gameplay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1jWDQ5wdFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhpIToaSaSg

oops, formatting. I just wanted those as links

if you want a look at combat (and I was bad at it), the last 30 minutes of the second video has me battling the kid sister tutorial

last 10-20 minutes i should say

I love your videos and commentary.

haha I'm mostly just doing it for the craic when I'm feeling lonely, usually a bit tired and hungover and just mumbling bullshit, but thank you

I've been really pleasantly surprised by this. I expected an experience similar to what I had with Avowed earlier this year: something enjoyable-enough that I'd play on Game Pass for a while, drop, and move on to the next thing. But man, what a game! This really captures the Mistwalker/Sakaguchi-led FF vibe like nothing else, but it also really feels like its own thing, and like it's confident in its own choices. And this game makes choices, aesthetically and mechanically. I thought I'd be put off by the most notable of these, namely the timing elements of combat and the overwhelming Frenchness of it all. Instead, I'm charmed and delighted, and eagerly looking forward to playing more.

I will say that the menus are a nightmare though.

Okay I've played a few hours of this and I'm on to the second main area and it's just a delight. If I had to nitpick, it's that I often get a bit disoriented and lose my way, sometimes accidentally backtracking through a level when I thought I was headed forward. But it doesn't really matter

This looks interesting, but I sent this grumpy text to a friend who sent me the trailer:

I hate how parrying has become synonymous with Sekiro now, like it invented the mechanic instead of just (as usual) using it really well in an integrated system. Like, the whole point was how it changed the rhythm & positioning of Souls combat with the posture system, instead of the old dodge/block & counterattack. Sorry, but adding quick-time event button presses into turn-based combat is taking Sekiro's name in vain!

there's never a "first time" for anything, sure. still, to be fair i can see why people make the comparison seeing as Sekiro is possibly the most well known recent game to incorporate it. if you've not played it yet Jorden, it's definitely giving me Sekiro vibes, play-wise, even as QTEs

played the first 2-3 hours and enjoying it, but maybe slightly less than I thought I would? love the worldbuilding & soundtrack but wasn't expecting the combat to lean in so much on the QTEs, which I'm not the greatest fan of. also getting slightly disoriented at times even tho the areas are relatively small! still a fun time.

i'm not the twitchiest of players, but I'm starting to get the hang of it and pulling off a few perfect dodges, the odd parry, and really enjoying how deep the various buffs and effect (Pictos/Lumina) go, and how you can cleverly stack things in your favour. It's complicated to a degree but the game does a great job of introducing things without tediously spoonfeeding you the info.

yeah the disorientation is the only thing that's a bit of a faff. It's easy to come out of a battle or an upgrade menu and forget which direction you were going (pressing triangle on PS does bring up a compass, I found out). And once you rest at a "bonfire", the enemies reset, which can make it very confusing as to where you've been and where you're going, seeing as while the landscapes are very pretty, they're also incredibly maze-like and kind of uniform.

Gah, I wish I didn't know better and thought this was for me, but parrying, turn based ... just not my jam. People went nuts for Baldur's Gate 3, too, And the same instincts overcame my fomo.

Like, I liked Sekiro a lot but wish I loved it, because I'm not a huge fan of parrying. A lot of people were like, you've got to play it like a rhythm game! But I don't really like them either. Loved the world building though, just as I assume I would love it in this game.

That's the thing for me, Sekiro isn't really about parrying in isolation, I think the idea was to change the flow of their combat system (longer, faster exchanges until someone's posture is broken).

But I haven't played this, so if it reminds you of Sekiro, then I believe you dl!

it sort of is a rhythm game. i dunno. it is and it isn't like sekiro in the same way it is and it isn't like super mario rpg. the gameplay honestly feels unique but familiar. it's largely based on memorising the individual enemy attacks while being as organised as possible with your team and finding unique ways to OP your enemies.

Here's me fighting the first boss. I'm terrible at it, but it might give you and idea of what's going on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6WG_P5h8b4

I am not very good at parrying/dodging in this game, but I've found that it isn't critical for success (except on some optional bosses who can one-shot you). It won't necessarily spell failure if you miss half your attempts, as long as you are playing smart with the character skills and perks. The traditional RPG party-building and planning is more critical than any of the twitch stuff. For example, one of the Pictos/Luminas is a life-steal skill that couples with any party member's basic attack. And some of the party members have bespoke life-steal skills that are even more powerful. And then There are also shared AP-buffing skills, etc. And then there are all the ways you can buff damage to ludicrous extents and take suckers out quick. This stuff has gotten me to the end of some tough fights.

ugh, i woke up with a low key RSI in my index finger from playing this

i'm still a bit confused about how Luminas and Pictos work tbh

It took me a while to wrap my head around it too because of the weird jargon and bad menu system, but it's pretty simple.

Pictos enable passive abilities for a single character. Once that character wins four fights with the Picto equipped, the ability enters the pool of Luminas that any character can equip, provided they have enough points for it.

What's confusing to me is the weapon upgrade system. I thought it was just a matter of giving the upgrade materials to creepy faceless guy at camp, but also they seem to get upgraded after use in battle sometimes? While this game is very good, it does seem to suffer a bit from mechanical over-design.

I just got into Act II and a Persona-style relationship leveling system has been introduced, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. To borrow a Tim Rogers word, it feels a bit paraphenalious.

I don't feel like we're talking about this game enough. Maybe because any discussion would involve spoilers and it's the kind if game that just keeps giving and giving when it comes to story and plot twists.

But I think it's fantastic. Maybe the best thing I've played since Elden Ring, which is high praise. Something about turn-based RPGs means you get to meet a cast of buddies and hang out with then, as opposed to being just a lonely rugged guy thinking baout things and never saying very much.

The combat is so satisfying. I rarely bother with dodging any more - no point really, if I can attempt to parry. It is tough though. That said, I've pretty much found my build, preferring to use the three female characters (Maelle is OP) over Monoco and Verso whose mechanics seem complicated. Just at the part with the Axons and I'm beating bosses and enemies pretty easily at this stage.

I've put a solid 40hrs into this so far and I'm still about halfway through the game, but there still seems to be so many places to explore - and that's before I get the ability to fly or swim underwater, so looks like I'll be playing for a good while more

Yeah I'm at 30-something hours and have also not yet gotten Esquie's diving or flying abilities. I've taken down one of the Axons, and recently got the ability to destroy those gnarly root things that are scattered around the world, so I've been going back to previous areas to break those and unlock goodies & fights. I'm not a completionist; I don't have the level of obsession required to 100% any game. But the figures on Howlongtobeat are misleading for sure. I'm estimating I will finish having put 50-some hours in. Which honestly, is a good JRPG length for me, but I wouldn't mind something even shorter!

I'm going to take back what I said earlier about the dodge and parry timings not being that important. They are really important. But again, you don't have to make all of them; getting it right 2/3rds to 3/4s of the time is about enough.

One weird detail about the world map is kind of driving me nuts. How do the expeditions sail from Lumiere to the inner part of the continent when there is clearly a wall of impassable mountains in the way?? I'm assuming the map is designed that way to keep players from returning to Lumiere as soon as Esquie can swim. Does that mean that the party can return to Lumiere once he can fly?

Some random observations:

- every time the BACK AT CAMP title card shows up, I cringe at the poor kerning

- You get to level up A LOT in this game, so much so that it can start to feel arbitrary where I put my points a lot of the time. I don't really know whether I should be putting more points into different aspects for different characters. Tend to stick a lot of vitality and defence into Lune, as she's a healer, but other than that it's fairly evenly spread.

- you can re-jig most of the stats at any point, but adding Lumina points or upgrading weapons has to be done at camp; but I'm not really sure why they decided to make it like that

- I've got a rrally good system going on with Maelle, Lune and Sciel now - I don't think I'll ever use Monoco and Verso unless they get brought in as the B team in a tough fight. That said, my method of applying burn with Lune, then getting Maelle into Virtuous Stance asap seems to work in almost every case. I'm pretty over powered now so I'm not finding many enemies challenging. Maybe I should increase the difficulty

I adore this game. just started Act III last night.

Oh yeah. Hands down most enjoyable game I've played since Elden Ring, and that's saying something

Aw man, I like the idea of playing a big ol' RPG in theory, but then I remember that I have no tolerance any more for passively taking in dialogue (or story really) in games, and that they probably don't work in the 30 min bursts that I have for playing. Maybe someday.

Fwiw I don't feel like they waste your time in the cutscenes. And the "talky" bits are paced really well throughout. It's like, you play a bit, then there's a section where you regroup with your pals, and those bits feel naturally like the game is telling you to switch off and come back tomorrow

Has anyone ever used a recoat in this game? I seem to have acquired a ton of them, but I don't really see why I woukd want to use them really

i used one when i accidentally put points in the wrong stat after changing my weapon lol

Just pulled off 94 successful parties in a 20 minute battle with a mime and two aides. Phew! My trigger finger is going to hurt tomorrow. I'm seriously worried my controller isn't going to last the day

Xp I feel like I get so many chances to level up that it stops really mattering where I put my points, and even if it did, I'd be able to balance it out after a few fights. I'm not really too sure how tactical I should be with my stats, but I'm near the Paintress now and the difficulty level is starting to ease off a fair bit, save for some tougher optional bosses - I'm pretty OP and seem to be able to get away with deploying roughly the same tactics with each fight.

That said, the great thing about this game is that the team knew exactly how much they could chew and they took it to that level and went no further. That's actually a really good thing: It's ambitious enough, but everything it does, it does extremely well

I worry I'm nearing the endgame on this, but I'm only about 25hours in. Feel like I've gone in a fairly straight line, though, so might go rummage around the overword for optional bits - are there entirely optional areas beyond where the map arrows direct you?

Yeah there are. The advice I've been given is that you should just play the main game through and then do the other stuff later

OK I'm finally at Act 3 and I'm not sure how I feel about the narrative and perspective shift. I won't call it a "twist" because it's not that--the groundwork is so clearly laid for it that it doesn't really come as a surprise. Even a player paying the least attention to the story would noticed that the game's world isn't exactly as it seems. So I knew something was up, but I didn't expect the fully metafictional turn. It feels a little "DO YOU SEE? YOU'RE PLAYING A VIDEOGAME" which I always find a bit insulting, even when it's well-intended. It's strange that the game spends so much time and care setting up the stakes of life and death for the characters, only to reveal that they live in a world where life and death are mutable. Meanwhile, the only real death that has occurred in the story has occurred somewhere else, to a character we never except via a projection of someone else's memories of him. It's weird and frustating!

SPOILERS:

Completed it last night. Not sure if I found it as frustrating as you. You're right, there was definitely going to be a "twist", likely metafictional, and I'm not sure quite how you pull off a reveal like that without a big, slightly overwhelming exposition dump at the end. I actually got to the end of Act 2 about a week ago when I was really tired; then I played the epilogue through last night, so I was a bit confused by a few things: "Why am I fighting Renoir again? Didn't I just kill the Paintress? How is the Curator also Renoir? Who painted the painting, Verso or the Paintress? What's Clea got to do with all this?" etc, but I'm guessing it does all make sense - it was just explained so quickly. Another thing I found interesting was the moral decision you make at the end. I was Team Renoir pretty much all the way, so for most of the epilogue I was screaming at the TV saying "Just destroy the painting!", which (of course) is what the game wants you to do. Sadly, because my Maelle was so OP and I'd barely used Verso, I chose her and got the "bad" ending.

Yeah if you don't like parrying or turn-based mechanics then it's iffy. My advice is to watch a Let's Play, and see if at any point you start thinking "you know what, this looks fun, I want to try it"

I know you can fast travel between flags *within* a region, but what about between? There's at least one tough fight early in that I gave up on in the first region, but I'm at the Gestral Village now and that's a lot of backtracking.

There's no fast travel on the world map, but you will get this game's equivalent of an FF airship not too much farther in, which makes getting around the map significantly faster.

Something that I'm tickled by is how much goofy whimsy there is in such a mournful and dying world.

However, the lack of a mini map is really straining my ability and willingness to explore.

God I want this game in my veins.

Stumbled onto Sciel being kinda of a lynchpin for getting past the act 1 final boss (took probably half a dozen tries): because of how inconsistent I still am with dodging (I'm getting better, but it can still be a problem), my party was really badly beat up for the second phase of the boss, but Sciel's group heal kept me topped up to breeze through the fight.

Beat this last night, and while the ending clawed things back a little the act 3 story still sullies my impressions of the first two this of the narrative. I choose the Maelle ending and it's dark af -- I'm going to try to do the Verso ending today if I feel up to going 3 rounds with daddy again, though I suppose I could start doing more side quests to make the fight easier.

FYI Leee: You'll need to load a previous save if you want to see the second ending. (The game autosaves after Verso enters the portal so you might be able to load that save to skip the Renoir fights)

Also congrats!

Thanks for the tip, crut! Saved me a bunch of time!

I completed this, then tried to do most of the post-game tidying-up but hit a wall. I was either doing super-easy early-game optional levels I'd missed that were barely worth fighting, or I was attempting to do practically impossible stages where event he grunt would one-shot me on first go. I've no idea how anyone is expected to do those levels

only playing this now. really enjoying it. some of the dodging felt incredibly hard at the start but getting the hang of it. patience is the key i guess.

one minor annoyance is it always leaves you facing a diff direction after the sort of arena is generated for a battle, can be hard to work out where you are sometimes. i seem to be levelling up absolutely loads after initially thinking it was quite difficult.

only other thing is the language structure and functionality of items/power-ups seems quite opaque and annoying. i still don't really know what each thing is and some of the explanations are dire, like had to google a lot and even then not so easy. it reminds me of linguistically bad government policy.

Yeah these are common gripes. I'd have thought they'd have fixed these by now as they're fairly frequent annoyances in an otherwise excellent game

Pretty hooked on this now. I forgot how much fun turn-based combat can be, and the dodging is a bit more like guitar hero or a dancing game the more you get used to it. I also like how tho some battles are tricky, it's quite arcade in terms of letting you try again and no extended consequences of one party member dying in a fight.

Also like how it changes up the environment so much, makes you realise how a lot of games are sort of one note.

Definitely still some stuff I don't understand but learning as I go along.

It took me a good way through the game to fully understand how the buff system works. I think that's partly down to the made-up terminology they use which clouds it a level more than it needs to

Yeah it's a real maze of words and they are explained terribly. Even when you Google them it's quite hard to understand, just feels like could have been an easier way to design and explain the same features.

It took me so long to wrap my head around Pictos and Lumina and how they worked. They could have called them Skill Gems and Skills or something. Also the UI for equipping them is so terrible.

Yes, yes and yes.

It's been a while since I played the game, but basically-speaking Lumina are "evolved" Pictos. You use the Pictos until they become Lumina. And (IIRC) Lumina are more like latent buffs that can be equipped in a slightly different way. It is confusing and as zchrys says, it's really not obvious from the UI how it all works.

no extended consequences of one party member dying in a fight.

I think dead members get less xp?

The UI isn't terribly intuitive but now I've gotten used to it and don't mind too much, but my remaining gripe is that when you create lumina sets (and this feature vhas been a lifesaver, as I have different loadouts for bosses, regular mobs, and petanks), and then you equip new ones, the game doesn't mark which ones are new, so updating the set becomes a bit of a gamble (i.e. I'm always a little scared that I've left some out).

DL, for post game leveling you can grind for both levels and weapon upgrade materials at the Dark Shores, which is just south of Spring Meadows and is the place where the expedition landed and got massacred.

It's been a while since I played the game, but basically-speaking Lumina are "evolved" Pictos. You use the Pictos until they become Lumina. And (IIRC) Lumina are more like latent buffs that can be equipped in a slightly different way. It is confusing and as zchrys says, it's really not obvious from the UI how it all works.

Yeah like it doesn't ruin the game cos the game is good but it is sort of annoying as doesn't seem it would have been hard to fix. It's not helped also by the whole opening two hours not actually letting you use half of this shit and constantly referring to the fact you can use it in "camp", but camp is not the flags you rest it, it's a special bigger camp. It actually reminds me so much of like badly designed government services I've worked on. I would assume most games do a little user research also which would have easily showed this, but conscious it's a smaller budget game maybe.

All that aside, I really like the game once you get into it.

The developer is also made up of people who didn't have a lot of experience working on games prior to this, so there's a lot of little things that could've been done better.

Is it? I know that the core group are ex-Ubisoft people. Either way, it's an astounding thing to have be your first game.

I think the core was like two Ubi guys, and I don't think either of them were especially senior. Beyond them, the people who worked in the production side of the game had thin resumes when it came to making games, like the lead writer never had anything *published* before, and the composer didn't have any published music either and just posted his video game soundtrack inspired music to his SoundCloud.

so addicted to this now. forgot how much fun turn-based stuff can be. still probably missing some obvious shit in the combat but feel i have a better grasp now. some of the bosses are properly difficult in that 'one more go' elden ring kind of way. managed to beat the 'dualliste' tonight but it was hard.

i am using maelle, sciel and verso. i didn't really get verso at first and thought he was crap but then i realised a lot of his abilities are cumulative and scale up crazily through a longer battle.

with sciel, i feel i have a decent handle on her abilities. do i fully understand them? maybe like 80%, even after reading about how they work. but enough to do big damage. there really are so many intersecting abilities/stats in this game, makes it fun but i am at peace with not studying them too deeply.

at the moment i am basically never parrying, just dodging. but i have been wondering if i should try parrying more.

the dodging reminds me of guitar hero or those dancing games on ps1 or something.

I recently saw a video of somebody playing on a DDR pad, so that's apt

It's taken me basically the entire game but I'm finally parrying with some regularity.

I've started doing it a tiny bit tho not much. I'm now facing Renoir which is quite difficult, might wait until the weekend as the boss fights consume a lot of time.

Parrying is quite rewarding. I found it was all about getting a bit of momentum with the timing so I drew back my index finger and smashed the R1 just at the right moment. I got pretty good at it, although I also developed someting of an RSI in the process.

Maelle is so OP. Not using her is hard mode. I used Maelle, Lune and Sciel for most of the game. And like LocalGarda thought Verso was crap. I also found Monoco two complicated, but by the end I'd started experimenting with those guys and realised they were pretty good in fact

Verso is really good I think, I only thought crap at the very start but he does absolutely huge damage with some of his spells and they're quite simple.

Monoco definitely feels too complicated at this stage for me.

It's just a matter of getting your head around the mechanics as they're all different-but-the-same. Ultimately they're all about marking your opponent and then following up with the correct corresponding attack. I thought Verso was overcomplicated too, but like you say it's fine once you get your head around it

the stuff i find easy with him is the ability that does more damage the more damage he has taken. also the cumulative one that builds each time you use it. those alone are massively powerful. in general there's a sense with this game that i could be studying all the different intersections of weapon/character/ability etc but i am tending to just go with some simple tactics that make sense and accept that i might be missing deeper, more powerful ones. similarly when adding skills there's a bit too much choice in the huge trees of possibilities.

i think the game would be a teeny bit better with slightly less choice as it's quite noisy, but that's a minor complaint.

like there have been some moments where i have to remind myself this is a game, i am not at work, don't need to be processing deep layers of info

As a rule with turn-based RPGs optimising your build strategy if you're playing on the hardest mode

I missed out "only matters" somewhere in that sentence, then missed out the follow up sentence about being a sad case who always tries to optimise my team builds anyway

i definitely do it, just not to the nth degree, but i know some people love it. my brother is going to fucking love this game, lol, he lives for that stuff in games.

i think the game would be a teeny bit better with slightly less choice as it's quite noisy, but that's a minor complaint.

This is a complaint I have with a lot of current games rn, I will say.

Generally speaking, it's great to be able to have all these different ways to customise your character, equip hundreds of combnations of weapons and buffs and to be able to find a different playstyle each time you go through. I think this works quite well in, say, Elden Ring, where you wouldn't be expected to use everything, rather you're better off picking a build and only using items that will complement it.

But I was saying on the Death Stranding thread, that in that game you're constantly being given more and more stuff to use. No sooner have you been granted a particular kind of grenade than another one gets given to you - usually before you've had a chance to even try it out. And soon enough it either becomes "noise", or it starts becoming a bit too easy because of the sheer amount of technology on your side.

A lot of the weapons in Clair Obscur are a bit meh, the sense of getting a cool thing for beating a difficult boss is a bit askew. Elden Ring or The Witcher always felt like it was genuinely possible for a new thing you find to be mega useful or powerful.

I really don't like it in games when there are hundreds of different applicable buffs but they're all a variant of "Gives you 2% extra fire damage and -1% less stamina" or what have you. That's not a buff, that's just padding.

Yeah there's a lot of that in Clair Obscur. A lot of looking at a thing and going "oh well, maybe" and not using it. Especially as the game goes on and you have a system that's loosely working to get you through.

I've equipped Verso with the weapon that lets him take another turn after doing a basic attack and making him machine gun/debuffer, as well as breaking.

I'd love to use Lune more but I'm not great at juggling her stains, and right now I've been trying to tackle Clea and I absolutely need consistent burst damage, and so she's been riding the bench.

And speaking of parrying:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eN7zNzBZMYE

I also use that weapon for Verso. It's extremely useful being able to take two turns.

I am at the monolith now.

I used Luna as my healer for most of the game

I also feel that canonical Luna is the leader of the party and should be present

I don't really have any one healer, I used the healing tints with whoever has a good opportunity to use one or a bad opportunity to cause damage.

I seldom use healing skills, almost never. I have no frame of reference to other people's setup but I reckon mine is aimed towards ending battles quickly.

I also have that skill where when one person dies everyone else returns to full health, and everyone has it equipped. It makes it extremely hard to kill the party.

Yeah this it's one of those games where action economy is pared down so that spending a turn not dealing damage has a real opportunity cost, and which is why Sciel has a permanent spot in my lineup with her Grim Harvest skill (damage plus group heal).

I beat the Flying Manor! Toughest boss fight so far, and if not for Silksong, this wouldn't been the hardest thing I've ever been able to beat (though of course I know that there are even harder ones left).

Beat the second Renoir last night. I went off and levelled up a bit and picked specific skills to help me, and as tends to happen when you do that got it on the second or third go. I couldn't for the life of me get the timing right on those annoying vanishing attacks he does but the time I beat him he never did one.

Came p close to beating the Paintress on first go but then decided had played enough for one evening.