#gommage

Alt: Sam is an expeditioner in Expedition 33?

Whumptober 2025 - Day 02

Supposedly the music director was some dude on SoundCloud that the game’s director approached!? The score indubitably elevates the already great story to even more emotional heights, like with any great JRPG. Mournful pianos, riveting battle ballads and jazz?? Like this shit has everything.

But at the end of the day, this is a game, so how’s the gameplay? It takes a tried and true JRPG formula and throws in a Sekiro-like parrying mechanic that rewards precision and accuracy. It helps that countering and parrying feel AMAZING to pull off and there’s enough variation that you constantly feel like you’re learning how to get better. The build-crafting is also insane. The picto/lumina system is really innovative and allows nearly endless build-variety with little-to-no farming required. I’m not really a min/maxer but this game made it easy to dive into that sort of play style. To take down the optional super-boss, I had to make the most of the game’s systems and I was able to do it with just Verso in my party.

Speaking of that optional boss, it’s insane how much story, lore and content is hidden behind the scenes, away from the main plot. For an “indie” game I was easily able to squeeze more playtime out of this than say, Spider-Man 2. And that boss is partially why I made this post because wow. I haven’t had such a fulfilling time taking a boss down since Messer in SoTE or Erlang in Wukong. Tough as nails but ultimately surmountable. It helped that he was essentially a Dark Souls reference made manifest lmao.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 🥀

Portrait of Sophie, the first character who broke my heart 💔

Here's the time-lapse:

Do not copy, retrace or use my art without my consent!