Favourite Expedition 33 character? *spoilers*

Here's a more positive E33 topic than the one about the ending.

Had a hard time picking the last two to put here but I went with the ones who are around the longest. Sorry Dessendres.

There's only one correct answer

SHINE_GET_64 posted...

There's only one correct answer

Is it Lune or Sciel?

I pick Lune because when you run with her as your main character while exploring, she floats and it's cool

of course I'm talking about Francois

who else has The Strongest Ice Attack Ever

Lune = Verso = Esquie > Gustave > Maelle > Monoco > Sciel

for the main 7

first three are all excellent in their own ways

if we counted both renoirs collectively as one I'd probably toss him a vote, but instead Esquie

Lune, Maelle, and Verso/Gustav had a great synergistic relationship when they took all three combat spots, but I found Sciel's specialized and long-game approach as well as Monoco's powerful but RNG heavy system to be more interesting on a per battle basis.

I give the nod to Monoco for his added versatility and being the most humorous of the six.

Mobilezoid posted...

I pick Lune because when you run with her as your main character while exploring, she floats and it's cool

she was always the main one i was controlling for sure. just feels better/smoother to float than sprint everywhere like a crazy person

Mobilezoid posted...

I pick Lune because when you run with her as your main character while exploring, she floats and it's cool

footstep sounds are just one of my favourite parts of video games, they're like super important for my immersion level i think.

i still voted lune but i never controlled her.

Lune (and I like that other people appreciated her floating), with Maelle a very close second

Pleasantly surprised Lune is doing so well, she's my personal fav but I expected Gustave/Verso/Maelle to be leading.

Dels posted...

footstep sounds are just one of my favourite parts of video games, they're like super important for my immersion level i think.

You would love Final Fantasy XIII

i do love ffxiii!

Wow I thought I was the only one who loved FFXIII footstep sounds.

But yeah, as soon as I knew Lune floated, I never controlled anyone else

Lune.

Maelle the Nuclear Child gets an honorable mention for how busted Stendahl is.

Surprised Sciel doesn't get more love. She was my favorite.

She's by far the least important of the initial 5 party members, and isn't the funny one like Monoco.

I always used Lune for traversal not because of the footsteps but because I didn't want to hear the panting.

I voted for Gustave but only because I was thinking about the playable characters. I'd take a bullet for Esquie.

ZaziGuado posted...

I always used Lune for traversal not because of the footsteps but because I didn't want to hear the panting.

Same (but also Lune was my favorite party member)

that being said, I'M THE FASTEST BALL

ZaziGuado posted...

I always used Lune for traversal not because of the footsteps but because I didn't want to hear the panting.

The panting was absolutely part of it, and so was the slight jerkiness when the character models ran into certain changes in elevation

banananor posted...

The panting was absolutely part of it, and so was the slight jerkiness when the character models ran into certain changes in elevation

This was it for me. I exclusively used Lune for traversal because running around the world with someone else sometimes led to some serious jank

I used Lune for the same reasons + more aesthetically pleasing to float at high speed than sprint. But in general she was my favourite character - credible portrayal of someone smart, reflective but a bit ill at ease. Gustave's a great protagonist in the early stages.

Just some loose thoughts off the dome

• Liked Sciel by the end - her VA, her camp scenes, all good
• Maelle's nightmares annoyed me, otherwise good
• Lune infuriated me and I despise the ground she doesn't walk on
• Monoco is a good loyal boy
• Esquie slightly too whimsical if that makes sense but mostly I liked his sweetness
• Gustave was a likeable hero and I'd rather he stayed the main character
• Verso's kind of a dick. Maybe not even kind of.

Monoco > Gustave > Sciel > Esquie > Maelle > Verso > Lune

XIII_Rocks posted...

Lune infuriated me and I despise the ground she doesn't walk on

Kinda curious.

MacArrowny posted...

She's by far the least important of the initial 5 party members, and isn't the funny one like Monoco.

But she is very funny though! I enjoyed her brand of humor.

That said, all of the characters are awesome in this game, a rarity for an RPG lik this.

I like Sciel's consistent empathy, she's very good with the other party members. But yeah she's easily the least relevant of the humans and doesn't have as much to latch onto herself. Still solid, but I'm not surprised she's last here with such a high bar.

XIII_Rocks posted...

Lune infuriated me and I despise the ground she doesn't walk on

I'm fascinated to hear more! I found her the most relatable character and was frequently thanking her for saying what I was thinking.

I mean since two of you asked but you're gonna be disappointed by the answer

Entirely petty gameplay shit that leaked into character judgement to the point hating her became a running gag. Boyf played before me while I was away for a month and apparently used her for DPS so I'm like ok cool I will too and Maelle was just so badly outshining her I was like "yeah sorry not worth it I'll keep using Maelle, useless knockoff Mantis". Call it a skill issue if you want, there are obviously effective ways to use her that I never needed to figure out, but she let me down too many times to have any affection. She's like the Meganium of Clair Obscur, which is about as nasty an insult as I can level at a character

Her and Sciel were Team Useless for a little while mid-game, then Sciel got promoted because of her excellent support moves and I figured out how to use her right

If you're looking for a rational character analysis look somewhere else this ain't the place. But like, shut up Lune. I picked the right ending.

The semi gradual shift of Maelle becoming the main protagonist and then best overall fighter combined with her character development had me locked in on her as the best.

Sciel was a background character the whole game as was Monoco, but Sciel paled in comparison to Monocos late game usability.

Esquie just a travel tool, though lovable for sure.

Lune and Verso were my second and third favorites. Well rounded story and battle power arcs.

Battle Power:
Maelle >> Monoco > Lune > Verso >> Sciel

Story:
Maelle > Verso >> Lune > Monoco >> Sciel

junk_funk posted...

Battle Power:
Maelle >> Monoco > Lune > Verso >> Sciel

Story:
Maelle > Verso >> Lune > Monoco >> Sciel

Verso carried most of the game for me lol

Voted Lune

I also want to say that Sophie made a great impact during the little screen time she had. She was perfectly written and portrayed during that opening sequence. The way her and Gustave's complicated relationship was presented was excellent and an excellent showing of the different ways people could react to this tragic circumstance. Her character is the main reason the prologue is so powerful.

XIII_Rocks posted...

Her and Sciel were Team Useless for a little while mid-game

Sciel was consistently my most useful contributor overall. Maelle had the alpha strike because I ran her with the weapon that starts her in virtuous, but it wasn't until late in the game that she was good for more than just cracking one skull per battle.

Lune is a bit harder to justify in the party, but I used her primarily for supportive purposes, and I found Verso's and Monoco's mechanics really awkward to handle, too. But even if you didn't like her mechanics, she was still an important contributor to the party in terms of presenting an attitude that would otherwise not be present.

I liked em all, but the story kind of shafts Lune and Sciel's character development.
I also didn't use them much once I got my final party going with Monoco Almighty smiting people, Verso starting on S Rank, and Maelle was my support putting defenceless and burn on everything going twice a turn.

ZaziGuado posted...

I also want to say that Sophie made a great impact during the little screen time she had. She was perfectly written and portrayed during that opening sequence. The way her and Gustave's complicated relationship was presented was excellent and an excellent showing of the different ways people could react to this tragic circumstance. Her character is the main reason the prologue is so powerful.

Agree that Sophie is great, the prologue being very powerful is one of the many reasons Verso's ending feels so cruel to me.

In terms of battling, by the endgame I was endlessly free aiming enemies with Verso, killing most of them before they got a shot in. Sciel was really useful for me in Act 2, I always picked her for solo fights, and I never used Monoco much but I'm not big on Blue Mages in general. I also found that Maelle needed someone to set her up with burning before she'd be useful (pre-Act 3 at least). They're all very usable though, Simon is the only fight in the game that you can't win by grinding alone.

And I hate to say something bad about Esquie but I did wish that he shut up sometimes when I was soaring around the map in Act 3. I'm trying to listen to the music, Esquie!

I did appreciate how the weapons could significantly mix up how any of the characters played

junk_funk posted...

Battle Power:
Maelle >> Monoco > Lune > Verso >> Sciel

I don't feel confident ranking the characters' relative power because I feel like any of them could be bonkers in the main game, and I didn't get to the toughest optional content

andylt posted...

and I never used Monoco much but I'm not big on Blue Mages in general.

Yeah, blue mages are nearly always broken, but in some games they're absolutely a 2nd-playthrough/follow-a-guide/turbo-completionist option. So as a general policy I avoid them on first playthroughs. Monaco was- sadly- relegated to spamming "OWowOWWW" during exploration

I could tell Verso was gonna be strong, but I didn't want to stress about parrying via the perfection mechanic so never used him. Plus, I didn't want to use him at the start due to the way he was introduced. There's even a fight or two that forces him into the party without warning, so that was funny. As an additional result, I think the 1v1 fight with monaco in camp was the fight i died the most on in the entire game. I did see youtube videos of verso free aim spam but never got it to work satisfyingly for me

I lucked into Maelle's overpowered (start in Virtuose stance) weapon early, so Maelle was an insane carry from then on. Even though it had already been nerfed/had lowish stats, it made every non-optional fight trivial in combination with stacking those "1.5x damage for first turn(s)" pictos, and the other two characters would just try to go first and buff/debuff. Maelle had the inverted condition for like 85% of my playthrough, ha

Lune was terribly strong in my early/mid game (high dps AoE slow is good, imagine that) and fell off at some point, but was still a strong debuffer/healer. Totally could have figured something out with her endgame skills but dps was already covered. Her stains mechanic was my favorite for sure, and every weapon seemed to put a completely different spin on it.

Sciel had a similar power curve. I liked her sun/moon mechanic just fine, but since most fights ended quickly I rarely got to flex with it.