Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has flashy, thrilling battles, however the perfect 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 so that you could do completely devastating quantities of injury.
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 possibly can have as much as three of your occasion taking part in a combat, and may all of them die, you possibly can name in your teammates who’re in reserve to try to end off the enemies.
To indicate you ways deep the rabbit gap can go in customizing your crew, 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 at the beginning of a combat. However after you win a number 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 you’ll find within the sport.
Picture: Kepler Interactive
While you combine and match Pictos and Luminas to stack complimentary bonuses, issues actually get going. For my model of Maelle, I set a mix of Pictos and Luminas that might let her deal probably huge quantities of injury, particularly if a fortunate important hit and a coin-flip 200 % harm buff went by way of. However as a counterbalance to Maelle’s big energy, a few of the Pictos and Luminas additionally elevated the quantity of injury she obtained, so I added defensive ones that helped her higher face up to hits.
In battle, every character additionally has a singular mechanic that, when used correctly, allows you to make their assaults more practical. Maelle, for instance, depends on completely different “stances” that you would be able to shift into: an offensive stance that will increase the harm you give but in addition the harm you obtain, a defensive stance that reduces the harm you are taking, and a “virtuous” stance that does 200 % harm however could be tougher to arrange.
With Maelle, you possibly can transfer into the completely different stances based mostly on which of your six completely different “expertise” you employ in battle — and like with Pictos and Luminas, these are additionally customizable and have their very own traits and potential synergies.
It may be loads to handle, and the sport usually helps in battles by including a bit sparkle to counsel a transfer to 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 doable with the battle system. And with Maelle, after I nailed the mix of establishing the fitting stance and a fortunate break from my Pictos and Luminas, I commonly may completely demolish my foes by dealing 1000’s of factors of injury. (A late-game Pictos that permit me exceed 9,999 factors of injury in a single hit was notably welcome.)
That’s simply my method with one character; every of the opposite occasion members has their very own playstyles to experiment with and potential expertise to make use of. Your geared up weapons are a component to contemplate, too. The sport shines when everybody’s skills and expertise line up completely for a sequence of explosive hits, and it’s particularly satisfying when issues come collectively to soften down a tough boss’s well being bar.
I positively didn’t use Expedition 33’s battle system, which makes issues simple to experiment with, to its fullest. As soon as I discovered a mix of characters and expertise that I appreciated, I hardly ever deviated from them. However I’ve a lot of concepts on easy methods to strive issues in a different way for a tough mode run — I’m positive there are much more methods to completely break the sport.
