Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has flashy, thrilling battles, however one of the best factor about them is how one can twist the sport’s many techniques to your benefit. The turn-based RPG fight may really feel acquainted, but it surely presents a whole lot of methods to customise your method to battles as a way to do completely devastating quantities of harm.
In Expedition 33, you play as a bunch of Expeditioners who purpose to destroy The Paintress, a mysterious being that erases everybody of a sure age yearly. In battles, you may have as much as three of your celebration collaborating in a struggle, and may all of them die, you may name in your teammates who’re in reserve to try to end off the enemies.
To indicate you the way deep the rabbit gap can go in customizing your group, right here’s my method to constructing out only one character, the fencer Maelle. Each character can equip three “Pictos,” which supply passive buffs like providing you with the defense-boosting Shell standing in the beginning of a struggle. However after you win a couple of fights with a Pictos geared up, different characters can additionally equip the Pictos as a “Lumina” through the use of “Lumina Factors,” which you accumulate by way of leveling up and through the use of a useful resource yow will discover within the sport.
Picture: Kepler Interactive
Once you combine and match Pictos and Luminas to stack complimentary bonuses, issues actually get going. For my model of Maelle, I set a mixture of Pictos and Luminas that would let her deal probably huge quantities of harm, particularly if a fortunate crucial hit and a coin-flip 200 p.c injury buff went by way of. However as a counterbalance to Maelle’s big energy, among the Pictos and Luminas additionally elevated the quantity of harm she obtained, so I added defensive ones that helped her higher stand up to hits.
In battle, every character additionally has a singular mechanic that, when used correctly, enables you to make their assaults simpler. Maelle, for instance, depends on completely different “stances” that you may shift into: an offensive stance that will increase the injury you give but in addition the injury you obtain, a defensive stance that reduces the injury you’re taking, and a “virtuous” stance that does 200 p.c injury however will be more durable to arrange.
With Maelle, you may transfer into the completely different stances primarily based on which of your six completely different “abilities” you utilize in battle — and like with Pictos and Luminas, these are additionally customizable and have their very own traits and potential synergies.
It may be so much to handle, and the sport usually helps in battles by including a bit of sparkle to recommend a transfer in your present state of affairs. However even inside the first few hours of the sport, I used to be in a position to grasp the potential of what was attainable with the battle system. And with Maelle, once I nailed the mix of organising the correct stance and a fortunate break from my Pictos and Luminas, I usually might completely demolish my foes by dealing hundreds of factors of harm. (A late-game Pictos that permit me exceed 9,999 factors of harm in a single hit was significantly welcome.)
That’s simply my method with one character; every of the opposite celebration members has their very own playstyles to experiment with and potential abilities to make use of. Your geared up weapons are a component to think about, too. The sport shines when everybody’s skills and abilities line up completely for a collection of explosive hits, and it’s particularly satisfying when issues come collectively to soften down a difficult boss’s well being bar.
I undoubtedly didn’t use Expedition 33’s battle system, which makes issues simple to experiment with, to its fullest. As soon as I discovered a mixture of characters and abilities that I favored, I not often deviated from them. However I’ve plenty of concepts on learn how to attempt issues otherwise for a tough mode run — I’m certain there are much more methods to utterly break the sport.