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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
21 Plays18 days ago
Join Dave and Jake as they pack their bags and set out for the greatest expedition in history in this week's episode!
MINOR SPOILERS: Expedition 33 (Prologue, the landing, party member names)
Intro:
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 OST - The Manor
Outro:
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 OST - Gestral Summer Party
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Transcript
Casual Catch-up: Weather, Friends, and Puppies
00:00:00
Speaker
The
00:00:34
Speaker
How's it going everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake I'm joined by my co-host as always Dave. How's it going today Dave? Fucking fabulous. Excellent. is it This is more Wii than Woo right now you would say?
00:00:48
Speaker
Oh it's full on Wii my guy. it's a The weather has been nice, been able to see some friends recently, had a puppy play date this morning, was very cute.
Game Preview: Expedition 33 and Spoilers Alert
00:01:02
Speaker
Locally, life's going okay. That is good. Yeah, there's a lot going on right now that we're not going to talk about because we're catching up on older, older content.
00:01:13
Speaker
um But sometimes, you know, it requires patience when you cover a game because we want to make sure that every single listener has played Expedition 33.
00:01:25
Speaker
um And if you haven't played it yet, play it, pause, play it, beat the game, and then unpause. Welcome back. What did you think
Game Access: Subscriptions and Sales
00:01:36
Speaker
of the game? Yeah, exactly.
00:01:39
Speaker
Is it still free on Game Pass for people? Because that is where I played it and checked out. That's a great question. i have a spreadsheet for this. I will check real quick. It is bookmarked.
00:01:50
Speaker
In general, I'm going to say again, as Jake and I have been touting for a very long time, If you're somebody who is interested in games or trying out other games, you don't always have to buy stuff at full price. You can wait for a sale.
00:02:05
Speaker
A lot of game services will have free games. um What was it? The Epic store yeah had like two free games cycling for a while. They still do that. I still do it. Yeah. I just haven't checked that client in a while.
00:02:20
Speaker
Game Pass is not free, but it is inexpensive per month to access a library of games and you can cancel your subscription. Um, but it's been nice to check out some titles that I don't want to pay pull full price for, but I want to check out. And if I enjoy it, I can play it.
00:02:39
Speaker
Exactly. And some of those games like, um, so first to answer the question, it is still on game pass. Um, so that is a great option. You can, uh, re up, play it for a month.
Gaming Excitement: Game Pass and Silksong
00:02:50
Speaker
Um, But oh, also Silksong is apparently on Game Pass. I didn't even check that. That makes a lot. I did get that news, but i was like, there's no way I'm not putting this in my library because I will play it again.
00:03:02
Speaker
I bought it after it was done crashing in the Steam store. um Funnily enough, when that was happening, we had somebody in our group. He took a screenshot of like it being installed we're like what the fuck yeah but he basically went through gog or some other service to activate a steam game um that's funny because yeah the thing that was down was the uh the checkout the actual payment processing so if you had a key you could activate that would probably work
00:03:35
Speaker
um But yeah, Expedition 33. ah Definitely check it out there. um We'll get into talking about the game as obviously, but at this point, people probably have heard that it's good and nothing I'm going to say is going to disagree with that.
00:03:53
Speaker
um So yeah, well we're we're going to cover enough time has passed that was added to game pass back in April. You know, so we've given you time to beat the game.
Setting the Scene: France-like World and Character Issues
00:04:02
Speaker
um We're just going to talk full spoilers.
00:04:06
Speaker
Yes, please.
00:04:10
Speaker
Hello, it is me from the future. As it turns out, we actually didn't spoil all that much in this episode. So ignore what previous me said. and This is going to be a spoiler light episode. We'll talk about some of the character names, but that's not a not a big deal.
00:04:27
Speaker
um And we'll talk about some of the theming. But otherwise, if you haven't played the game, stick around. You will be sold on it by the time this is done.
00:04:38
Speaker
That is life. Just going to bring up my notes here. ah So to open ah the setting, the Expedition 33, you will Um, this is not France, but it might as well be.
00:04:54
Speaker
a lot of French stuff going on here. And that's why I didn't like the game. Exactly. Immediately just go back on what I just said and be like, and you should boycott it, actually.
00:05:08
Speaker
Did you see how i was feeling? We, we, we. No, no, no Very woo. It's very woo about the game.
Mystery and Mortality: A Countdown to Humanity's End
00:05:15
Speaker
um But the premise and hopefully people when they played it through the first time, ah i honestly think this is one of those games where it's really nice to not really know anything about it going into it because like the world building is very good.
00:05:30
Speaker
It's very choice. um But you're introduced to Gustav, who is having some relationship troubles um because there are reasons for that. i don i don't know we need to go into a great amount of detail, but he's broken up with a person that he's interested in um because, ah well, she doesn't want to have kids.
00:05:54
Speaker
He wants to have kids. um Which is, by the way, good grounds to break up. Yes. Yeah. Because you should be on the same page about that shit. And if you're not, don't concede either way. Exactly. Right. That's not something you want to ah just be like, OK, I guess. about Resents kids for life.
00:06:13
Speaker
aha Although that wouldn't be that long because um she is coming up on her final days Um, as the, uh, there's a giant monolith across the sea. They're basically in Paris.
00:06:26
Speaker
There's like more or less an Eiffel tower. That's a little, little crooked, but it's basically fantasy Paris. Um, and, there's a giant monolith across the sea with the number 34 on it.
00:06:39
Speaker
on it And over the course of the prologue, you know, spend some time with the people who Gustav cares about. Um, but this person who he was interested in, um dies as go mage again slow there's a there's very subtle indicators that this is a french game um which means to scrub or erase that's what that word means um and uh the uh 34 was the number that was up there is replaced with 33 and what's happening in this universe is every year
00:07:15
Speaker
the uh this giant um it's somebody's fetish very huge uh woman uh named the paintress who's like a goddess uh it's kind of presumed based off of her power level um will decrement this number she'll like erase it and write a new one and um that a year will pass and everyone who is that age will die
00:07:41
Speaker
And they started like at a pretty reasonable number. i started at 100. um But by the time that the game takes place, ah we're down to 34.
00:07:52
Speaker
And then after the prologue, 33.
Character Depth and Gameplay Mechanics
00:07:54
Speaker
How did you feel about what was going on there? You mean with the initial stuff? Yeah, like the prologue, the opening, this kind of world building in this not France.
00:08:04
Speaker
I liked it because they made it just interesting enough to kind of want to keep poking forward to see what's going on, because they do throw a lot of terminology at you and you're like,
00:08:18
Speaker
I just got here. I don't know what's happening. um You can get a vague sense of some things for sure. Yeah. But you basically know that the numbers are going to keep going down and more and more people will die. People will have shorter lifespans and they're trying to have that not happen yeah yeah um so yeah i was definitely invested at the point of the prologue um you do get a good bit to explore around talk with some other characters and you have like a really well detailed cut scene of what's going on so you become emotionally invested as well pretty early yeah and i really like how they approached it personally
00:09:02
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I do agree that they they use some of those in-universe terms like gommage. um Weird. ah yeah Well, that one I know because of TF2 and the spy.
00:09:17
Speaker
But they... Don't to me, at least I don't think that they over explain things. The characters aren't like, oh, you just woke up from ma coma and I'm going to explain this entire situation.
00:09:29
Speaker
Instead, they give you enough to kind of intuit that there was a falling out between Gustav
Expedition 33 Begins: Ship Journey and Challenges
00:09:34
Speaker
and his his love interest. And there's this little girl. um, named, uh, my L that is, uh, very sassy and, uh, basically uses that to like kind of pull him out of some isolationist depression so that he'll actually attend this, uh, this party.
00:09:54
Speaker
Um, But they don't go out of their way to be like, there's no, no, there's no like voiceover saying, and every year, everyone who is that age dies. They let you intuit that through the story and just like the, um the reactions of your friends, uh, Gustav's friends.
00:10:15
Speaker
Um, As you're talking to people, there's this sort of like a a little bit of fatalistic. Some people are just um drunk. Other people are off fornicating in like the side of rooms of buildings and things like that.
00:10:31
Speaker
It's just like it's very clearly that they're all dealing with. um something eminently bad about to happen in their own way. um But the game's not just like, here's your Star Wars scrawl to explain everything that's going on. This is a good point to let everybody know that this is not a triple A game.
00:10:54
Speaker
Yeah. Because they don't over the top explain things to you like you're a stupid child. um Yeah, it's definitely there's like 33 employees, right? With the dog. I think that
Unique Combat Mechanics in RPG
00:11:06
Speaker
was the the factoid.
00:11:07
Speaker
um So not a massive studio. um it started off very basic. If you saw some of like the skill up, uh, skill up did a documentary on it, but there's, if you look at like the early demos for like what the game was looking like, it's come a long way by the time it got to its playable state. Um, uh, and they clearly made some good design decisions away from, uh, what was included in the early demos, but like,
00:11:35
Speaker
You could convince me it was a AAA game in a lot of ways. Yeah. Visually, it is very good. Like, very good. Yeah.
00:11:47
Speaker
And I know Jake and I will talk a lot about, like... do games need to be a certain level of graphical fidelity to be playable? No, we both say no. There's so many indie games and other things, even games that are like dated and still classics.
00:12:02
Speaker
Like, would it look better if it was they updated the graphics? Sure. Right. But it's it's not going to take away from the core experience.
00:12:13
Speaker
But as an add bonus, this game is really gorgeous. It's so beautiful. Yeah. But yeah, that's the that is the opening and the prologue, the effect when people are gommaged as they basically like evaporate into flower petals, um which was very interesting. I wasn't sure what to expect ah going into that.
00:12:34
Speaker
um But it seems to be part of the the power of the paintress. um And one thing that's really interesting, and I do think that games, all games should do this, is like introduce your questions.
00:12:47
Speaker
um Align the player expectations like with those in character questions. So people are they want to figure out what's going on um and then set them off ah to potentially find the answers to that.
00:13:01
Speaker
And you have no idea who the paintress is and like why she is doing this countdown that ultimately will erase humanity. Right. Um, as you know, at the, uh, after the prologue, everyone who is 34 is dead in a year. Everyone who's 33 will be dead, et cetera, et cetera. Right. So, um,
00:13:25
Speaker
It's there's enough questions about what's going on in the world that when they set out on the expedition, which is the that's in the name, actually, that's in the title of the game. ah But it is customary for people to have the option to set out um in their last year of ah time before they are gommaged.
00:13:45
Speaker
So in the case of Expedition 33, once 33 happens, ah which showed up on the monolith. They got all their ships ready and stuff like that. And everyone who is going to um die in a year sets out.
00:14:00
Speaker
Plus Mayel, who's like 19, I think, something like that. 16. 16, okay. I couldn't remember. There's math involved, and so I i lost it. um But she sets out early, which Gustav is not the biggest fan of...
00:14:16
Speaker
um She's basically like a little sister to him. Exactly. yeah um she Her upbringing was like a a troubled one. She's like an adopted a child. and ah She like was in different houses and things like that. There's even a line in the game. Their relationship is is like excellent.
00:14:36
Speaker
But there's like a line in the game where she's like, you know I'm not sure whether you're like my father or my brother, but it doesn't matter. like I absolutely... um you know, we're family.
00:14:47
Speaker
And it's it's perfect. um The characters are excellent in this game, by the way. Like the ways that they interact with each other and the voice actors did a tremendous job um Little factoid. and My L is voiced by Jennifer English.
00:15:05
Speaker
Who is that? Shadowheart from Baldur's Gate 3. A little indie number on the side. Fun factoid. Gustav. Do you know who he's voiced by?
00:15:15
Speaker
I do not. um The same guy who plays Daredevil on Marvel's Daredevil on Netflix. That's funny. Yeah. um Yeah, they do an excellent job.
00:15:27
Speaker
And the writing is the writing is quite good. I saw a um ah YouTube comment around ah people were talking about the characters and it was like ah it was a cut scene where people were interacting. it might be the very first cut scene in the game where like Gustav and Mayel are talking And Gustav is you know like throwing rocks into the ocean, essentially.
00:15:50
Speaker
And he has a ah robotic left arm, like a replacement arm, um which is where a lot of his combat utility comes in. We can talk about the actual gameplay in a second here.
00:16:01
Speaker
But Mael's like, you know if you try with your other arm, you may actually be able to hit the paintress, kind of like throwing across this this ocean. um And ah he responds in this kind of like not defeatist, but ultimately comes to this thing is like, well, if I'm useless today, um i'll I'll save my use usefulness and be useful tomorrow or something like that.
00:16:25
Speaker
And the dialogue is just very good in this game. And I think that my L. is well written as kind of this coming of age person who is not really allowed to be a child because the world is ending.
00:16:39
Speaker
um And the adults are people who are just like thrust into adulthood because everyone older than them is gone.
Legacy and Teamwork: Past Expeditions
00:16:48
Speaker
um And you really i don't know. It's such a it's such a potent like place um to to have those characters in the story.
00:16:57
Speaker
um But yeah, it's, it's the whole thing is very dire stakes, but the whole point of the expeditions is like, cause these characters don't know what's going on either. They just know the paintress paints a new number.
00:17:13
Speaker
ah People disappear. They're like Hey, that's fucking sucks. Yeah. So the expeditions were created to go and to explore and to stop this. Um,
00:17:24
Speaker
So basically they are on an island away from the mainland where the paintress is. Yeah. So they kind of set out on these expeditions to explore and then along the way try and leave information for the next expeditions. Right.
00:17:44
Speaker
If they don't succeed. Right. So as you're going through, you get to see, you get kind of more ah color of the world, more details from the perspective of these other people who were on previous expeditions.
00:17:59
Speaker
Yeah. And it's actually like there's some sort of um communal effort in the expeditions as well, because the way we describe them, you could you could believe that it's just like, oh, yeah each expedition just send a bunch fighters out and they've all failed to like kill the paintress. And so that would be an OK game direction. But um they actually went a much better angle, which is there's not necessarily an expert expectation that each expedition
00:18:29
Speaker
is going to be the ultimately successful one. um And so they've sent out expeditions that specifically focused on climbing. And those expeditions are the reason that as you're going through the levels, there's all of these like emplacements that you can climb up, all these hooks and things like that in the wall ah that you can climb up because they literally are spending their time not necessarily getting to the paintress,
00:18:55
Speaker
but making sure that the expeditions that follow them have the best chance to traverse and get where they need to go. um And this is kind of a recurring theme with ah so many of the previous expeditions. You'll find like expeditioner journals and ah things that have been set up for your use um where they're literally just spending their time for those that come after. And that's actually a line in the game. That's one of their um expedition phrases like for those that come after.
00:19:24
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And um Gustav, when you are writing in your journal, which he'll kind of like recap what just happened in the story. um i He says that at the end of it, it's like for those who come after.
00:19:38
Speaker
um And it's increasingly powerful. It's just I think part of that is just like.
Exploring Lore and History
00:19:46
Speaker
I don't know, there's something very strong about coming to grips with your own mortality.
00:19:51
Speaker
And having the opportunity to kind of just like rage against the thing that's going to kill you or be like, I can set some of the building blocks so that someone else might be successful where I know that we won't be.
00:20:06
Speaker
Yeah. Because like, let's say i was terminally ill. This is not going to great analogy by any means. Right. Um, But like obviously I could use my time for something productive for somebody else because my time is literally hardcapped.
00:20:24
Speaker
um Or I could be very defeatist and be like, hey. I'm kind of like dead in this amount of time. i don't want to. Go and do things because what's the point?
00:20:39
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Mm hmm. And it's a it's, I don't know. Like I said, I found it particularly strong. But by the time Expedition 33 is happening, um a lot of these prior expeditions, I'm not good at math. 77 expeditions? They've...
00:21:00
Speaker
sixty seven okay there you go ah old off by ten air um the they've they've really done a lot of work ah to improve your traversal options and um in the world here.
00:21:16
Speaker
And there is also, like as far as the world building, there there is ah mention of some sort of cataclysm or something that happened that broke the world. And that's why Lumiere is separate from everything else um that's going on.
00:21:29
Speaker
But it's happened long enough in the past. And again, generations are being wiped out. um that increasingly there's less knowledge about what happened in like the old ages.
00:21:42
Speaker
um And the first expedition is actually called Expedition Zero.
New Characters and Plot Twists
00:21:47
Speaker
won't mention that now because it might get confusing otherwise if we bring it up later. Yeah. But ah so how did the after setting off, you know, they're all on their their ships.
00:21:58
Speaker
um How did that first landing go Just sit down, have a nice feast. Yeah. um Get ready to go. So pretty much like as they landed, um this old guy shows up.
00:22:13
Speaker
hmm. if that didn't like flick off something your brain of like, oh, that's weird. Mm hmm. It is weird because everybody who's older than that certain age has been gommage. So the question is, who is this person?
00:22:27
Speaker
Why are they older than everybody else? ah And also, why does he like kill 90% of the people immediately? Yeah. um Because like their whole plan is to land, set up camp, start you know following the path of previous expeditions and trying to get close to the paintress, gather information, all this stuff.
00:22:47
Speaker
And immediately, it just goes to shit. and So much shit. um So people are like scattering. um You see a lot of the expeditioners die.
00:22:58
Speaker
And then you as Gustav kind of... thankfully are able to get away unscathed and you're basically trying to go through and be like Anybody here? Uh-huh. Yeah. um Which is where the game kind of like kicks in for tutorials. Like this is where it becomes more playable as a game.
00:23:22
Speaker
I do want to mention for this old guy, though. He aura farms so hard in this cutscene where he wipes people out. It's literally like they amplify everything. It's like it's silent and he walks with a cane.
00:23:35
Speaker
And whenever like the cane gets to the ground, like the reverberation of... um And also, whenever you're facing somebody and they approach you slowly, that's a bad sign.
00:23:46
Speaker
but Also, like the repetitive intonations in that can also be kind of perceived as like a grandfather clock going back and forth, which often a parallel for like...
00:24:01
Speaker
death is coming or like your time is coming to an end yeah i like so little little cute nuance there yeah um but yeah you get the so ahead combat tutorial at a point when you come across a Necron.
00:24:19
Speaker
So combat, I think, is mean, mean, obviously the story and everything else about the game.
In-depth Combat System Discussion
00:24:25
Speaker
But combat is something that is, i think, uniquely engaging for an RPG. Yeah. And I don't get that a lot.
00:24:33
Speaker
One of the reasons I've kind of steered away from RPGs outside of just the length But basically when it's your turn, you have a certain number of pips ah you can use for actions.
00:24:48
Speaker
ah Your standard attack will not consume any pips, but each time you hit an enemy, you'll gain a pip. Right. but Your special actions will consume those pips to do something more exciting than a a standard attack.
00:25:02
Speaker
And also, if you dodge or parry attacks, you will also get a pip. Right. And learning the timings of things for being able to dodge or to parry becomes pretty important throughout the game um because a lot of times like enemies or bosses more specifically will hit very hard so learning how to mitigate that through parries or dodging becomes very useful yeah So having that type of active engagement for when you're being attacked, kind of like if you think of old Paper Mario, it's like, oh, this is when I block, right?
00:25:42
Speaker
But it's that to a whole nother degree. And also your special attacks, I think all of them, will basically have a little animation of a little cursor kind of going around a diamond really quick.
00:25:56
Speaker
And there's one section of the diamond that's lit up differently. And basically, if you hit the button at that time, Or times, it might come up multiple times. Right. That will give you a better attack.
00:26:10
Speaker
Again, it's a quick time. Similar to Paper Mario. Yeah. oh But having even just those small interactions, I think, makes it a lot more engaging.
00:26:20
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Because you can min-max a lot more just by hitting those timings. Yeah, it's something that's unique to this game. You mentioned like those defensive options. Parrying is a lot better than dodging, although you have more dodge frames than parry frames.
00:26:36
Speaker
um and i There was there's one particular boss, which we'll get to ah that I did actually use dodging against. But otherwise, I was trying to parry everything, successful or not. um And if I recall correctly, i don't think you get AP off of dodging unless you equip a particular...
00:26:54
Speaker
um I never dodged so I don't know yeah um i can really off the period it was one of the extra advantages for pairing because I think like there's a ah color of Lumina or not color of Lumina the Lumina they They're just called Lumina, I think.
00:27:10
Speaker
They gave you that effect. Picto, thank you. Yeah, Picto is what I'm thinking of. This guy didn't play the game. Didn't play the game. It's been a while, actually. but um But just having those defensive options, like even without parrying, and if you parry all of the attacks that an enemy does, you'll counterattack also, which you can build a character to be particularly strong at.
00:27:31
Speaker
um Literally just the defensive options are enough to get you through 90% the fights in the game. There's a little bit of cheese. There's some stuff you can encounter where the defensive options really aren't there.
00:27:45
Speaker
Or you might be in a boss fight that's more of like a tempo fight or something like that. um And you can't like dodge or parry everything. But generally... If you're really, really good at the defensive game, your offensive capabilities almost don't matter.
00:28:00
Speaker
It's just I mean, obviously, if your offense sucks, it'll take longer to take an enemy or a boss down. um But being able to get to that point, damage or not, is really through those defensive options.
00:28:13
Speaker
Yeah. So I think learning those timings for enemies becomes pretty key. Absolutely. You're like, how would I even know the timings? Ah, there are audio cues. Uh-huh.
00:28:24
Speaker
There also is like a visual cue, too. Might take a little bit to get into the swing of things. But again, it makes it much more active. Yeah. Whereas when I grew up with RPGs, it's just...
00:28:37
Speaker
Attack use a special attack. Mm hmm. Yeah, they're using it and then like that's your whole turn type thing. The thing I think of was the um I think it was Final Fantasy eight is the one with the gun blades.
00:28:52
Speaker
um There's this mechanic in that game where it's like you make the attack and if you hit a button at the the very moment that the gun blade is swinging, you'll shoot and do extra damage.
00:29:03
Speaker
And so much in this game as far as like the timing of your special attacks and things like that. um is just the future of that
Character Customization through Pictos
00:29:12
Speaker
mechanic. It really is just so evolved.
00:29:15
Speaker
um Because ah each of these special attacks that Dave was describing, like they have those quick time events where you're like timing your inputs. um But it's not the same thing. like ah There's like ah one of the characters Lunei has like a lightning strike attack and it's kind of this slower tap tap tap because you're like drawing the energy together and then you drop it.
00:29:40
Speaker
um Whereas other attacks, if you're attacking like really rapidly with a sword, ah like a rapier or something like that, like my L would use, then um it might be like so tap to tap.
00:29:52
Speaker
Right. And so you literally as the player get better at hitting these combos as you're using them, like hitting the quick time events. And so there is skill expression in this turn based combat game um to a degree that traditional turn based games really don't ask of you.
00:30:10
Speaker
Yeah. And you might be saying, hey, hey, Jake and Dave, don't ever use our first names again when addressing us. But it's like, hey, what if I'm really bad at these timings?
00:30:23
Speaker
and Well, sucks no good there are these things called Pictos that Jake alluded to, which you will kind of find throughout the game from defeating enemies, exploring.
00:30:35
Speaker
ah But it's basically something you can slot on a character to give a certain, basically, if you imagine a passive ability, like, Hey, whenever these conditions are met, this thing happens.
00:30:46
Speaker
Right. ah So you can find things to make dodging and parrying easier. You can find things to change your attack style. Right. ah We didn't mention this yet, but everybody has ranged attack option.
00:31:01
Speaker
where you can literally hold left trigger aim to where you want to throw your projectile and throw it um and enemies a lot of them will have weak points that you can hit for bonus damage so it's worth learning how to do that occasionally yeah certain builds are specifically round gun yeah um but what's nice about the pictos is Over time, you get these color of Lumina, which I would just call like level up points or something. Yeah.
00:31:32
Speaker
Even though level up separate. But essentially, you can keep equipping your characters with more and more of these passive abilities. So they can really just get better over time.
00:31:45
Speaker
Or maybe you're hitting a wall and you're like this one mechanic is really fucking me up. I'm always being poisoned or slept. Oh, I can equip something to help deal with that, help mitigate.
00:31:56
Speaker
Yeah. So it always feels very flexible for your options, um where if you have a certain weakness, whether in your build or your gameplay style, where you can kind of like shake it up and...
00:32:09
Speaker
approach things a different way or level up grind and come back you're like i have 10 more things slotted what you gonna do uh-huh yeah i don't know if i've ever played a game where like the conventional level ups felt as inconsequential as they did here compared to the progression system in the pictos like the everything that you're describing again this is i'm comparing this to final fantasy and i mean this well, they kind of remind me of the materia from Final Fantasy VII where like you equip it, you level it up, you can max it out and then like reset it to like grow another one.
00:32:47
Speaker
In this case, you don't do that. um If you max out a Pictou, which is just using it for like a certain number of fights, I think it's four, six, something like that. um Then you learn that Pictou and like each character has I think four active slots for Pikto. Oh, it depends on how much how many resources. Yeah, ah three.
00:33:07
Speaker
three Three active slots. That's right. um But once you've learned it, then you can equip the passive from that Pikto. Because a Pikto is both like a stat boost and then the actual effect that Dave was describing.
00:33:20
Speaker
And that passive part can be fill that capacity that you're expanding with Color of Lumina um for any character. And so sometimes you find one that's really awesome, and you're just like, I wish everyone could have this. Absolutely, you can.
00:33:33
Speaker
You just have to learn it and then equip it to everybody. um And the other thing I'd mentioned to what you said, as far as like the progression, Grinding for power is so good in this game. Like if you're if you're encountering things that are very difficult, there's pretty much always an option to rank up your party, like to get to get everybody a little bit more powerful to make it easier.
00:34:01
Speaker
And like I took this to extremes at the the end of the game before I was done, where i was just farming color of Lumina. And I was just like, what if you had all of the passives? And it wasn't literally all of them, but there are tremendous quantity of different like defensive offensive types.
00:34:17
Speaker
And my characters were just like PhDs in ah the number of active effects they had going on and synergizing and interacting with by the end of the game. And I also do want to say that another cool thing about the combat system is any of the characters in your party do not play the same.
00:34:39
Speaker
sure Everybody has a different weapon. ah You can have different weapons within a given character. Uh, so let's say for my L she uses rapiers.
00:34:49
Speaker
hmm. Each rapier you get is going to have a different ability associated with it. Right. So as you level it up, the weapons can hit different tiers, which unlock new abilities for that weapon, which helps shape your build.
00:35:04
Speaker
Maybe you're like, oh, this one helps me add burn stacks. I want to kind of lean into that. You could level up that weapon and use that. Right. And then kind of shape your build around it. Um, But my else thing is stance based.
00:35:18
Speaker
and So after she doesn't attack, it'll put her in certain stance and then those stances can be used for the bonus or consumed by something else. um So being mindful of that, if you remember.
00:35:32
Speaker
going to forget the name of the character from Slay the Spire. Oh, I'm not super familiar with the Spire, unfortunately. don't have that many hours. But there is a ah character like that that is also stance based.
00:35:44
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:35:46
Speaker
Lunay is a magic caster. Yeah. So her basic attacks are pretty much never going to be good, but she can do a lot of cool things with spells. So depending on what spells you've unlocked and equipped, she could play more defensively.
00:36:02
Speaker
She could play more utility. She could play pure damage, right? Yes. um She's good at all of them, I will say. I am i am a Lune. I don't know if simp is the correct word. the word Okay, it is simp.
00:36:17
Speaker
Definitely for the combat capabilities. She was just, for so much of the game, the core of my composition, and I was just like... The rest of the team are here to support you and in turn you are going to empower them to incredible ends.
00:36:32
Speaker
Yeah. For me, one of my big ones was seal or CL CL. Yeah. And her whole thing is like putting Card stacks on people mm-hmm and the end of the tarot person. Yeah Astrologist and again that stuff can be consumed by other abilities for bonus effects a lot of time It can be like bonus damage. So like early when I got her and was using that stuff was Destroying enemies. i'm like, okay all the damage is going to this lady. She can be my damage.
00:37:04
Speaker
Yeah later on though I unlocked some other abilities and I found some other characters who were better at damage. I'm like, okay, I'll put you on damage and seal. going to put you on utility and she can do some really dumb stuff to help out your team.
00:37:19
Speaker
Yeah. Like she can heal. She can be like, oh, it's your turn now. Or she can also at a point, uh, give your teammate more pips to use, make sure they have enough for when it's their turn to be able to cast their special abilities.
00:37:34
Speaker
Yeah. Um, And there's just so many interactions with that. It's just at any point in the game, it never feels like, oh, I have to be playing this character this way. I have to do this one thing.
00:37:46
Speaker
Yeah. No. Explore. Fuck around. ah There's so many things you can do that you find works. Pretty much everybody I've talked to been like, oh, I didn't do it that way. I did it this way.
00:37:57
Speaker
ahha So stuff like that in games is always very good for... people to be able to have novel experiences and it's not the no shade to Sekiro.
00:38:08
Speaker
It's not just everybody's playing the exact same way, you know, right? Sekiro, you wouldn't you wouldn't say that it has like excellent build crafting. You might be able to change your strategy up a little bit, but this game is about build crafting synergy.
Open World Exploration and Quests
00:38:22
Speaker
um We haven't talked about the fact like weapons and skills may have elements and certain enemies could be resistant or completely immune or absorb. uh, even particular elements. you've played Pokemon, I feel that that's a good basis for the elemental interactions.
00:38:38
Speaker
Yeah. And a lot of this is like, you might just be, is this is just a JRPG. This all just sounds like a JRPG. And functionally, as far as some of that depth, it really is. Um, but it's made in France. So it's a FRPG.
00:38:51
Speaker
So there you go. Um, we call it a frog. i'm funny yeah ah for burger Um, ah The last thing I'd say on and and on skill building is also like there's as you're progressing your characters. This is the this is the main reason to level up your characters. The stats, they're fine, but you're building out the skill trees and some of these skill trees like really enable a lot of what Dave was saying where it's like, oh, these pips, these skills that I'm unlocking, they're very support oriented or they're very aggressive.
00:39:23
Speaker
They may have higher or lower action point costs or energy. I can't remember exactly what it's called. um And so you can almost do this like sort of like deck building esque thing where you're like, oh, I got to think about the energy economy.
00:39:38
Speaker
Right. It's useless for this character to have a ah bunch of skills that all cost nine energy and nothing to build that. So instead, you're like, OK, no, there's got to be there's got to be an ebb and flow, right? We're going to be building up these resources and we're going to be transferring them. We're going to be spending them on these characters.
00:39:55
Speaker
um eventually you unlock things called a gradient attacks and gradient charge which are very powerful basically special skills and the charge is spread across the entire team so if one person cashes that in nobody else is using that charge bar and so you're like okay these characters going to be better at building gradient and then this is going to be my spender and going defensive option and I think it's very impressive that they accomplished this but literally any character can be your team support right um like Dave was talking about Mayel the community has basically decided that she is ah tremendous damage dealer yeah she has a lot of potential but at the same time i had I had Mayel I had a build for her that was very defensive oriented and she was like I'm going to be shielding the entire party like constantly um
00:40:54
Speaker
And shield is very strong in this game. It just completely mitigates an incoming damage source um for a certain number of charges. And... That's very strong, right? Like I can't say that that's a bad build. it can literally win you fights.
00:41:10
Speaker
So so much of this is just find a path forward and set up the party however you want. I created so many or several, I'll say builds that I think like our friend group would consider heresy because I was taking like their nuke character and then turning them into like a debuff support or something like that.
00:41:33
Speaker
um ah We can mention, we'll talk about Gustav and Verso and stuff like that. um But ah Verso, for the final fight of the game, I gave him a hammer and a saw.
00:41:48
Speaker
And I was just like, your one job is to make sure that that person hits me like 40% as hard as he usually would. I'm going to do my part to try to make sure that not that many hits get through.
00:42:02
Speaker
But the only way that we're winning this fight is if you can stall him. And so many other people are like, Verso is my Nova character. Verso is the person hitting me 20 times or whatever.
00:42:13
Speaker
ah love that. I love when games let you have that flexibility. Yeah. Yeah. And I want to move past the combat stuff, but it's very good.
00:42:24
Speaker
It is really good. um And also the game's map opens up pretty big. um Basically, as you're going between areas, ah you're kind of moving around on a map.
00:42:39
Speaker
So if you see an enemy out in the wild air quotes, you can go up and be like, I want to fight you. Right. And if you don't want to fight them, you're like, I'm not going to run in that direction. I'm going to go around and do something else. There are no random encounters.
00:42:51
Speaker
Yeah. It is nice to be able to explore and opt in because there are a lot of things to find where it's this is a difficult area. I need to come back or, oh, I did not know that was there. And then you find something cool that your party can use.
00:43:06
Speaker
um So it feels very good to explore and to go back to places. But I always like that in games. So, oh, yeah. Let me move around and explore and do stuff.
00:43:19
Speaker
It's also something that's like... We've talked about Dark Souls a bunch. um There was always this sort of incentive to, hey, if you could, you don't now have to be able to fight things in the really hard area.
00:43:30
Speaker
But if you could just like get a couple pickups there, this could be really, really nice for you where you're at. You're not going to fight anything. But if you could run through and grab those pickups, this game has that as well. Like frozen. I will say because of like Dark Souls, I have gotten so good.
00:43:47
Speaker
i'm i'm the best actually the best there's ever been um of just like learning how to move around and to like pick some stuff up and like except i might fuck up i might die but i'm not gonna lose anything because i'm still gonna keep that item right exactly essentially doing like naked death runs and i'm just like i'm gonna go grab all these things and then there's like 10 enemies be like you didn't deal with us you're like Alright, I surrender. Uh-huh. then you respawn with all your loot.
00:44:12
Speaker
Yeah, which you can't do in this game, unfortunately. You do have to reload, but it's not permadeath. Yeah. um No. and ah Story-wise, do you want to touch on any of that major stuff? Yeah, I think we should at least mention it. I don't think we have to go in-depth for, you know, all of the characters and all the things that happen because there's a lot.
00:44:34
Speaker
um You could be... i would I would even say, i would go out on a limb and say that this is actually a character-driven RPG. There are big plot things happening, but honestly, once you achieve those big plot things, increasingly it becomes clear that this is a character-driven RPG.
00:44:53
Speaker
right It's about the people behind the things happening, just as much as about the things that happen themselves. That's what I'm saying by that. Also, I want to keep this one thing non-spoilery because...
00:45:07
Speaker
There is a twist M. Night Shyamalan style. Okay. But this is for the people who were dishonest when they didn't pause the episode. People didn't actually play it. um But yeah, like the direction that the game's story ah ends up going in, I was not expecting.
00:45:27
Speaker
Oh, yeah. i definitely had some theories along the way because they will kind of give you some breadcrumbs of stuff. But again, without more context, you can kind of really attribute that to any number of theories.
00:45:41
Speaker
Right. And again, I like that mystery part where I'm trying to piece something together. i could kind of be on the right trail. Right.
00:45:53
Speaker
But for what a story ends up being, had no idea it going there. But it was really cool. um Spoiler for anybody else who has listened to previous episodes, ah they use a trope that I love in storytelling.
00:46:10
Speaker
That's not a spoiler. know this is tough. So we did say it was full spoilers. I'm fine if we want to like... Double back and edit that out or I just I don't think we'll have time to go over everything. that's that's fair. It becomes a lot.
00:46:29
Speaker
It doesn't become a lot. um But I do want to mention like so much of what happens in the story is there's layers.
00:46:40
Speaker
ah to the characters and what's going on. And um even if the gameplay wasn't super engaging, and it is, but if it wasn't, um I would find myself finishing this game just because of what's happening with the people yeah and ah where they're going, their relationships.
00:47:00
Speaker
um I have a lot of notes. I can actually just read like these, ah like these um I guess themes I was saying i wanted to touch on for the story, but like discovery, which we talked about disaster, which we talked about doubt.
00:47:16
Speaker
We didn't talk about that too much, but very early on in the game, the game almost ends with when you have one playable character. um But friendship, rebirth, loss and existentialism and like that's excellent, right? This is not just a um
00:47:36
Speaker
It is not a straightforward... It's not a Neil Druckmann. Yeah. um It's not even like... They subvert things very well to be like, okay, there are reasons that the world is the way that it is.
00:47:52
Speaker
And if you expected a quick resolution on your heroic journey, it's not going to happen that way. um I am fine. They do a really good job of like...
00:48:07
Speaker
They are telling the story and there's lots of different characters involved and they all have their own place in the story and their own stuff going on. Like it is the characters are very well fleshed out and I think they're all interesting.
Artistic Elements and Soundtrack Impact
00:48:22
Speaker
Songs one. There's one that I never used in my party. I don't care about them at all. i know who it is. This is the most discriminated against character. But there is a shame because this person actually also has a very unique mechanic and I think can be quite powerful.
00:48:40
Speaker
um I won't talk around it without... I'm going to they just joined the party way too late for me to care. I already had my group and I was like, we're not we're not dipping our toes in that.
00:48:53
Speaker
That's funny. um ah People who play the game will get it. But yeah, good character, good ah good design. People have different reasons also to be on the expedition. So it's kind of interesting to...
00:49:05
Speaker
to explore that. Obviously, they're working together for the common goal of saving the world from the paintress. But like their motivations for being there differ um from like always press forward to we need to understand what's going on to I'm here because you're here like um and man, this story is just like I am readying gut punches for each of these people to make sure that things stay engaging.
00:49:32
Speaker
um I also want to make sure we're not painting painting this whole thing as it's like a very in-depth, heavy story. Yeah, no it is.
00:49:43
Speaker
But it is also broken up a lot by character interactions. And throughout the game, you will encounter these creatures called gesturals.
00:49:55
Speaker
Yeah. They are the lighthearted, most lighthearted part of the game. um They're very silly, dumb, straightforward.
00:50:06
Speaker
They like to fight to solve things. And I don't think I've ever had an interaction with one where I was like, this guy kind of sucks. I'm always like, hey, they're always very, very entertaining.
00:50:20
Speaker
Yeah. And they're not just comic relief. Right. There is a lot of that in the game, though, which I think helps because it's like that was a gut punch, but also that was hilarious. well like Where did that come from?
00:50:32
Speaker
And gestals are a big part of that. um It has to be a roller coaster, not just a slide. Exactly. it is not just a slide.
00:50:43
Speaker
um That's definitely true. um But um yeah, it's it's difficult. like There's so many things that happen in the game that we're just not going to cover. But...
00:50:54
Speaker
by but We haven't talked about the locales. The locales are awesome. Part of that, I think, is because, you know, there is this um broken nature to the world and you're learning about, you know, what the the paintress is capable of and things like that.
00:51:09
Speaker
But there's in universe justification to like have an underwater area where people are just running on the floor of the ocean and they can just breathe fine but it just looks awesome um and other places where like reality is basically coming apart or physics don't seem to uh fully work um due to like the nature of like their magic system and the uh lumina and things like that um like lunae she flies everywhere she just does that she just hovers
00:51:42
Speaker
makes her the best character to just run around with for open world exploration. You can switch between characters in the but the open any time you're not. in combat really um and everybody has like they're running footsteps except for lunae yep so if you want to just like listen to the music a little bit more you could do that um i do think that like there's some like wind sounds but they're not nearly as noticeable as the uh the footsteps if you're if you're learning um
00:52:13
Speaker
And also you probably want to just listen to the music. Uh, I wouldn't check out the OST if you haven't played it, but, um, after you do, there's like over a hundred songs there. It's like, it's some crazy number of hours, like seven, nine hours, some nonsense.
00:52:27
Speaker
And they really range from like, this is like a serviceable theme to like, Holy shit. This is like a beautiful arranged piece of music with vocals. Exactly. Um,
00:52:40
Speaker
but it's it's It was really very... Again, I went in not knowing too much about the game, but it was already at the point that a lot of my friends had already played it and checked it out.
00:52:51
Speaker
And they're like, hey, this game's really good. I'm like, everybody keeps saying that. ah Maybe I'll eventually check it out. And then when I did, I'm like, why didn't you guys tell me how good it was? Why didn't you pin me down, force me to install it? Type thing.
00:53:05
Speaker
um Because it really... Subverted a lot of expectations. I didn't have so much, but it it was very pleasantly surprising. And oh yeah, it's incredibly well well received.
00:53:18
Speaker
I was going to say for the while we're talking about the music as far as like how I personally rate this like. I think you could easily say it's the best soundtrack since near. And I was going to say when you started talking, i was like, I wonder if near is going to come into this because I was also a banger.
00:53:35
Speaker
And to be completely honest, I mean, there were some tracks I really, really like from near that are like, like ascendant, essentially. But I actually think there are more tracks in this particular OSD. I haven't done a side by side comparison, you know, so there is could be some recency bias here.
00:53:50
Speaker
But like there are just a lot of tracks in this where I could just listen to them um where I don't remember as many distinct bangers in near. um It's just some of the some of the the tracks that you really think of when you think of near are just that good.
Replayability and Side Quests
00:54:05
Speaker
um So for consistency, I actually kind of think that the the OST for this is even harder to be.
00:54:12
Speaker
um And it's all and ah diverse as well. Like there's orchestral songs. There's like electronica. They've got some like drum and bass in there. Like French disco.
00:54:25
Speaker
Yeah. Water from the ground is hilarious. Yeah. um So, I mean, absolutely. If you don't listen to the soundtrack by that point, when we get to the Game of the Year awards, you'll hear some of it then. Yeah.
00:54:44
Speaker
To that end, I would be very surprised if it was not a nominee but like did not take it yeah because i mean again i have the bias of playing it and enjoying it um but also just being online i haven't heard anything that's been as well received and kind of just came out of left field and took the world by storm as this game Yeah.
00:55:12
Speaker
Yeah. And it's always a good sign and heartwarming when an independent studio just shows up and they're like, they just drop this on the table. You're like, oh, my God. Right.
00:55:24
Speaker
Because it also puts more. strain on triple who will always like tease about stuff but you tend the more games you play and the longer you've been doing this the more you start to see of like the same type of thing yeah or a lot of recycling of ideas and it's it's nice to get a breath of fresh air every once in a while oh yeah Yeah, it's a... I agree 100%.
00:55:55
Speaker
Like, so many of the ideas in this... Obviously, it's a unique IP, right? This is the only game in the clear, obscure series. um But it really doesn't take from... i described comparisons for, like, old games and things like that and things that it's built off of. And I'm sure that, you know, you could maybe grab some things from, like, Persona or JRPGs in general or whatever.
00:56:17
Speaker
But it really did its own thing with them. And... um That's the gripe we generally have against AAAs, right? As they sacrifice originality on the altar of ah consistency or sustainability or whatever.
00:56:33
Speaker
And are just like, we don't want to try a new shiny, maybe thing. Let me put in this flourish of detail. Every single enemy you face has a different move set.
00:56:47
Speaker
Yeah. And that to me is one of the marks of like, oh, we actually give a shit. Yeah. Versus like you're going to have small, medium and large enemies. Small enemies will do this.
00:56:57
Speaker
Medium enemies will do this. Large enemies will do this. Yeah, no, it's it's very incredible. Part of me is just like. I still just want to talk about all of the things that I'm not going to talk about because they would be in spoiler territory because I just want to like gush and talk about this game.
00:57:15
Speaker
But I can I can I can hold myself back. That is a good sign for the game, though. um I have played games where like I tapered off towards the end. And ah this game has, as Dave mentioned, like there's the open world map and there's the traversal and things like that.
00:57:30
Speaker
um And I did get to the point where I was like, OK, I'm starting to get. I have to do the main story now. I've done too many side things. I've got ah um've got to push this a little bit. But I did just about every single thing in this game. This is available right now. I'm sure they're going to have DLC. um And I enjoyed myself for dang near the entire thing, ah including the self-imposed grinding where i was like, Color Illumina, though.
00:57:55
Speaker
I'm going to be taking that and pushing those numbers really, really, really high.
Conclusion and Recommendations
00:58:00
Speaker
So my characters can be absolutely busted. um and i just beat the game that's fair uh this is one i should provide some advice for the people who haven't actually played this i received the advice to push the main story rather than doing all of the side stuff um Once I reached kind of like a midpoint in the game and something big happens and you'll you'll you'll probably know when you're like, OK, this is approaching what I think is the ending.
00:58:36
Speaker
The game can continue or you can continue to play um with like a reloaded save at the end of the game. So you'll know, right. You're not going to get like locked out or something like that.
00:58:47
Speaker
If you do all of the side stuff and you keep ranking you keep making people powerful, um the end of the game story will be an absolute cakewalk.
00:58:58
Speaker
Like, you will miss voice lines. um ah You will not see moves happen. Because you'll just the be a god stepping on the earth and eviscerating everything in front of you.
00:59:13
Speaker
um That's the power level differential that I was experiencing. And I actually streamed ah the ending to the game and when when ah in Discord when I was playing.
00:59:24
Speaker
And I was like, i think that I'm missing a lot. And I was. so So if you get to that point and like... beat the main story and you're like, I'm still itching for a little bit more.
00:59:38
Speaker
There are definitely other places you can ah go to and explore. If you're like, I just need more fights. Yeah, they're there. Yeah, they absolutely are. And they're more difficult than the ending, like by far.
00:59:50
Speaker
um So do what Dave did, push the story and then do the side stuff. I was given that recommendation and I didn't follow it and I probably should have. But yeah,
01:00:02
Speaker
good. It's good game. Yeah, it is. It is very good. It is currently my game of the year contender. Now, I haven't played Silksong, so maybe it's just like the best thing. Oh, shit.
01:00:14
Speaker
Oh, this is going to be hard. you You forgot that Silksong came out this year. I did. i did. Yeah. I think it came out since before... No, last episode. Yeah, it was was like right before. Yeah. yeah Yeah.
01:00:28
Speaker
So honestly, i love Silksong. It is more Hollow Knight for me. Yeah. But that's what I do not think that it should take game of the year at this point.
01:00:39
Speaker
Right. I will say it is. So good. Yeah. she getting win It can win awards, right? Like we're not. But having not played it yet. Expedition 33 is just an absolute breath of fresh air.
01:00:54
Speaker
And yeah, play it. It really makes you feel like Spider-Man. no that's the one thing I would say the game doesn't really do. There's not too much feeling like Spider-Man, but that's okay.
01:01:08
Speaker
We'll forgive it. It has plenty of water. So that's nice. But thank you for listening. Enjoy your expedition when you go on it. If you have feedback on this episode, our socials are down in the description.
01:01:21
Speaker
And as always, we'll you in the next one. Have a good night.
01:02:12
Speaker
you