Three hours with Sandfall's striking RPG.
Clair Obscur is not a JRPG, but developer Sandfall Interactive has certainly been taking its cue from some of the greats—Final Fantasy, for sure, but Persona even more so. This stylish, confident RPG, with its strikingly strange locations and flashy turn-based battles, really should be right up my alley, but after three hours of it I instead find myself ambivalent.
The preview drops me into Clair Obscur after the prologue, with a quick, spliced-together cutscene trying to catch me up. If you’re not in the know, Clair Obscur is kinda like a fantastical French Logan’s Run inspired by La Belle Époque. Every year, the people of Lumiere get closer to extinction, as a strange entity known as the Paintress conjures up a new number, and then everyone that age dies. She’s counting down.
Expedition 33 is the latest group of suicidal heroes who have volunteered to put a stop to the Paintress. All of those who came before failed. And as the demo begins, it’s clear to see why. No sooner than the expedition has arrived an old man shows up—a shock to people who haven’t seen wrinkles before—and promptly massacres most of the group.
As one of the few survivors, Gustave, my future looks bleak. Indeed, I’m about to take my own life, when I encounter another survivor, my friend Lune. Together we decide to search for anyone else who might still be alive, and try to complete the expedition—unlikely as that sounds.
The Continent, the home of the Paintress, is a vibrant place, and despite the bloody piles of corpses and extremely aggressive monsters, it’s teeming with life and colour. Unfortunately it’s also painfully oversaturated and moving through it gives me a light headache, such is the potency of the horrible motion blur. Turning it off does nothing.
I run through the corridors of this alien forest in a mostly linear fashion, with occasional detours when junctions indicate I might find some loot nestled at the end of the path. New weapons, currency used to upgrade said weapons and Pictos, which offer up bonuses or new abilities, like making my gun cause fire damage. Occasionally I’ll climb some cliffs or scramble up a magical rope, but Clair Obscur keeps exploration simple—at least at this early point. It’s basic, but the setting is exotic enough to make wandering around it enjoyable, if you can stomach the intense motion blur.
Leaving the forest, I find myself in a JRPG-style overworld map, which appears to offer a bit more freedom. It’s considerably more open than the dungeon-like corridors you’ll spend most of your time navigating, and you can go off on a jaunt instead of rushing straight to your objective. Which is what I do, and why I’m immediately crushed by a monster in a dungeon that was clearly too high level for me. The “Danger” warning should have been a hint.
With that crushing defeat behind me, I head towards the next area: a stunning ocean floor in the middle of the land. Coral reefs, fish, shipwrecks—everything you’d expect to find, but not on dry land. There are bubbles, thermal vents, floating creatures—it’s a real headscratcher, and it makes me excited for the other weird places Clair Obscur is going to send us. This is also where I find Maelle, another survivor, finally completing the trio.
Aggressively stylish
The fights were what I was most excited to get stuck into, and Clair Obscur is full of them. Instead of a utilitarian combat interface, Clair Obscur’s exudes cool—not quite to the degree of Persona or Metaphor, but certainly close. The fun cinematic flourishes, meanwhile, call to mind the flash and spectacle of modern Final Fantasy. It’s no slouch mechanically, either, and even tries to weave the timing and precision of real-time combat into these turn-based brawls.
Every expedition member has a gun, for instance, which can be freely aimed—perfect for taking shots at enemy weak points. Like skills, these consume AP, while a regular attack nets you more. This creates a pleasant flow, where you’re earning and spending AP. All your skills feel like they’re part of this flow, too, giving each battle a compelling rhythm.
Gustave’s combat style is all about building up charges until he can unleash an electrical overcharge attack that wipes out a huge chunk of enemy health. Lune, meanwhile, is more magically inclined, conjuring elemental spells that leave elemental stains on enemies, which can be consumed by other spells for extra damage. So her fire attack, Immolation, will do more damage if you’ve previously cast Ice Lance, since it consumes the ice stain. Flow is even more important for Maelle’s duelist style, since you’ll be chaining combat stances and trying to stop your flow from being broken so you can score some extra damage.
It looks great, the mechanics are great, I should dig this. But I don’t. It all comes down to the real-time stuff, which is so much more overt than it is in Persona. Every attack can be dodged and parried (and some can be jumped), and it feels like Clair Obscur expects you to nail this nearly every time. Enemies hit hard, and with very limited healing—at least at this point—taking damage isn’t something you can just shrug off.
But I really struggled to nail the timing. It often feels like enemy attacks are specifically designed to catch you out, like it looks like a giant fist is going to come crashing down on you, so you dodge, only to discover that the monster is still just winding up. Lots of attacks force you to dodge or parry multiple times, too, and in the case of a parry, missing one means that you won’t be able to hit them back.
I don’t enjoy constantly needing to worry about perfecting my timing every enemy turn, and while I might be more than happy to do this in, say, Elden Ring, when I start playing a turn-based game my brain subtly changes—focusing more on planning and tactics than split-second reaction speeds. It’s just a bit too jarring and, while I love attacking, I’m miserable whenever I have to defend. On paper it all sounds great, but in practice, it just ain’t for me.
There is some light quick-time stuff in the attacking phase too, it’s worth noting, which can net you some extra damage. But this usually amounts to hitting A at the right time, and it’s a lot more forgiving. You usually have a couple of seconds, and while the goal is to hit the button at a specific moment for a “perfect” attack, there’s a larger window for simply succeeding.
I reckon I’m going to need more time to get to grips with the character-building side of things, too. In just three hours, I’m able to upgrade my attributes and gain new abilities many times, but it’s hard to figure out an optimal build. With Gustave, for instance, I assumed that might would be worth focusing on, since it increases damage, but (like Elden Ring) weapons are also connected to specific attributes, and in Gustave’s case none of them had an affinity for might. And while Lune might fall into the mage category, none of the attributes really scream “magic user”. With more Pictos and weapons, I hope I’ll end up having a clearer picture of the best way forward.
I want to like Clair Obscur a lot more than I actually do. It ticks a lot of boxes, but I’m just not vibing with it. Three hours ain’t much, though, so I’m holding out hope that the combat will eventually click, as there’s some great potential here.
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