Board 8 > Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Topic 2

(+) Yeah! (+)

Please tell me I'm missing something in this Renoir fight

You miss one parry and your character is just gone forever? That's kind of ridiculous lol

I finished Visages last night. I love how that area looks from the Continent.

MZero posted...

Please tell me I'm missing something in this Renoir fight

You miss one parry and your character is just gone forever? That's kind of ridiculous lol

The game is definitely set up so that losing against a boss the first few times is expected unless you overlevel yourself. Even against randos you basically are gonna lose the first time until you get their patterns, because they're not recognizable or predictable at all on the first attempt.

colliding posted...

The game is definitely set up so that losing against a boss the first few times is expected unless you overlevel yourself. Even against randos you basically are gonna lose the first time until you get their patterns, because they're not recognizable or predictable at all on the first attempt.

I mean I haven't had much trouble up to this point but that attack seems rather broken

I did manage to win on my third or fourth attempt but luckily he only used it once and I parried it

Auto death monaco is so broken I love it

Patch came out and let's you adjust difficulty at flags once you hit act 3. You can change damage cap to 99,999 and increase enemy hp. Also let's you rematch the final super boss

I just hit act 3 and turned the game off. I can increase enemy HP if I'm already on expert?

I don't see that in my options. Is it new game plus only?

Finished Sirene and stopped for the night once I got inside the next area. Hoping to finish Act 2 tonight.

The patch is not up at least on ps5.

Turns out I was missing something Gradient Counter lol

Anyway I'm on Act 3 now

oh they put the patch notes on steam so I assumed it was out

Putting this here from the end of the last thread so I don't lose it. Haven't touched the game in a couple days, but Shine helpfully answered my question about the Maelle nuke build. This is obviously endgame-specific, for those who come after.

there's a few variations but the one I mostly used was along the lines of this basically triggering every attack boost possible on Maelle and then using Stendhal if it's a single enemy or Phantom Strike if it's multiple enemies. Most damage I ever got in a single turn was 75 million.

Build Check - The way this will work is Monoco will be first, he will cast portier crash to break all the enemies which will also mark them all, then skip his 2nd turn. Maelle will then cast guard down and shoot any flying enemies if present. She will then save 1 AP in order to finish with last chance. If no flying enemies, then use guard down followed by last chance straight away. Sciel will then use fortunes fury on Maelle and then intervention. Back to Maelle, she will kill all the enemies with phantom strike or stendhal. If any are remaining afterwards, then cast another phantom strike or stendhal as she should have enough AP.
Party Order - Monoco, Maelle, Sciel.

Monoco.
Weapon - Joyaro.
Skills - Chapelier Slash, Portier Crash.
Pictos - Any.
Lumina - Auto Death, Cheater, Energising Break, Energising Revive, Energising Start 1, Energising Turn, First Strike, Marking Break, Painted Power, Second Chance, Shielding Death.

Maelle.
Weapon - Sekarum.
Skills - Phantom Strike, Stendhal, Last Chance, Guard Down.
Pictos - Cheater, Second Chance.
Lumina - Aegis Revival, At Deaths Door, Augmented Aim, Augmented First Strike, Auto Death, Breaking Death, Burn Affinity, Burning Death, Confident Fighter, Critical Burn, Critical Moment, Critical Stun, Dead Energy 1, Energising Revive, Energising Start 1, Energising Turn, First Offensive, First Strike, Full Strength, Glass Canon, Greater Defenceless, Greater Powerful, Immaculate, In Media Res, Inverted Affinity, Last Stand Critical, Longer Powerful, Painted Power, Piercing Shot, Powered Attack, Powerful Revive, Powerful Shield, Rewarding Mark, Shield Affinity, Sniper, Solidifying, Solo Fighter, Stun Boost, Tainted, Teamwork, Warming Up.

Sciel.
Weapon - Any.
Skills - Fortunes Fury, Intervention.
Pictos - Any.
Lumina - Auto Death, Cheater, Energising Revive, Energising Turn, First Strike, Painted Power, Second Chance.

Just re-subscribed to Game Pass to download this. Excited to give it a shot after work and be hip with the kids.

wallmasterz posted...

Finished Sirene and stopped for the night once I got inside the next area. Hoping to finish Act 2 tonight.

That dungeon is incredibly long so temper your expectations.

ZaziGuado posted...

That dungeon is incredibly long so temper your expectations.

Seconding this. I did that entire dungeon, and what follows, on Sunday and it was a marathon slog that I'm fortunate I had enough time for.

Clearing up all the side quests in act 3 and this gross tete fight was so funny. Like bro you do not have to be doing all that please

I finished act 2 and made it into act 3. But yeah, it took 3.5 hours from where I started to getting back to camp at the start of act 3

And of course, roughly 45 minutes of that was cutscenes!

Does anyone know good ways to make money. I've had some shops opening up with picto upgrades I'm just way too broke to afford

In act 3

This is just advice I found, I cant vouch for it. either dark shores or golgra in the village if you can one shot her, dark shores is higher income, golgra is a rinse & repeat in quick succession (8k + 4k for the dupes)

you could also find some enemies anywhere near a flag, and just put auto death + death bomb on two of your party members.

_stingers_ posted...

picto upgrades I'm just way too broke to afford

Don't buy them unless you'll definitely use them.

hmm should I do some optional stuff before or after beating the game

I might just do it all after so I dont get silly overleveled

wallmasterz posted...

hmm should I do some optional stuff before or after beating the game

I might just do it all after so I dont get silly overleveled

End is pretty short and easy to begin with. Do side stuff after

I'm doing the side stuff first and I figure I'll just put an HP modifier challenge on for the final boss to make it interesting

Also fuck Clea holy shit. That took me like 20-30 tries. I only have 1 level 33 weapon on Verso and my guys were level 77. I feel like I should have done this later but that was painful. Very satisfying to finally beat though

The fact she has a move that can just blatantly remove a character from the map with no counterplay is so stupid. I just had to reset numerous times because if it hit Verso I couldn't do damage. The time I finally won it hit Monaco instead

I have beaten the game. Gonna need to let it sit for a bit but I think it was pretty good.

MZero posted...

I have beaten the game. Gonna need to let it sit for a bit but I think it was pretty good.

Both endings?

Aecioo posted...

Both endings?

Yup

I originally chose Maelle thinking that would be the "good" ending, but it sure didn't seem that way. So then I chose Verso and... that's not really a good ending either! Of course, it goes with the theme of the game that neither ending would be good (Life keeps forcing cruel choices and all) but the problem I have is that neither feels like a good resolution to the story.

The problem with Verso's ending is we spent all the whole game in the "fake" world and in the end it just gets erased. The difference between this and something like FFX is that even though the "fake" world gets erased, we've been in Spira the whole time and we get a good outcome for the world we've gotten attached to. Another thing is that it's basically a "the villain wins" ending, like if Seymour won in FFX, and Act 3 is pretty much pointless because it turned out the same as if we did nothing after the end of Act 2. It could have been more impactful if they explored the "real" world more but as is I don't really give a hoot about it.

I guess Maelle's ending is a better outcome for most of characters I cared about, but Maelle is dying and Verso is miserable. It also doesn't really seem in character for her to keep Verso trapped in there like that. Either way the framing makes it pretty impossible to feel good about that route.

I like the concept of the story but I feel like the execution was kind of iffy down the stretch. Great gameplay, characters, atmosphere, music, and pretty much everything else though! Hopefully the success of this game shows that there's still a market for turn-based RPGs (even if they do incorporate some action elements). I could do without the parries and dodging myself but beggars can't be choosers

Also gimme a darn mini map imo

Beat painted love...just have to figure out Simon and I'm done

Well I'll probably try to get the platinum actually...I think I need to do new game plus to get a song I missed in the part where you control Alicia in the manor

I also rolled credits last night.

Verso is the good ending and I think a very fitting conclusion to the story being told. It's a story about grief and how individuals cope with it. Ideally we want to be able to continue living and but dwelling. Live in honor of those were lost rather than live in mourning of them. Maelle ending provides a hollowness and maybe it's not a coincidence that those from reality begin to have their faces hollow out the longer they resist leaving.

All in all I think they stuck the landing and this is a very worthy GOTY contender. I don't think the game needs a direct sequel, but a spiritual successor that expands on the brilliant foundation laid will be heavily anticipated. I'm also very eager for the television adaptation to see how it translates.

_stingers_ posted...

Well I'll probably try to get the platinum actually...I think I need to do new game plus to get a song I missed in the part where you control Alicia in the manor

I don't think that's the case. Fairly certain the only one you can "miss" is the mime fight in the prologue, but you can still get it later in Act 3. Every manor record can be found in the current time

ZaziGuado posted...

I also rolled credits last night.

Verso is the good ending and I think a very fitting conclusion to the story being told. It's a story about grief and how individuals cope with it. Ideally we want to be able to continue living and but dwelling. Live in honor of those were lost rather than live in mourning of them. Maelle ending provides a hollowness and maybe it's not a coincidence that those from reality begin to have their faces hollow out the longer they resist leaving.

All in all I think they stuck the landing and this is a very worthy GOTY contender. I don't think the game needs a direct sequel, but a spiritual successor that expands on the brilliant foundation laid will be heavily anticipated. I'm also very eager for the television adaptation to see how it translates.

Sequel should be writers and painters and whatever else (musicians?) focused. They don't need to have any of the same characters, just use expedition 33 as basically a prologue setting up what these people are capable of and bring us into the "real" world and whatever conflict is enough to burn down a families house

ZaziGuado posted...

Verso is the good ending and I think a very fitting conclusion to the story being told. It's a story about grief and how individuals cope with it. Ideally we want to be able to continue living and but dwelling. Live in honor of those were lost rather than live in mourning of them. Maelle ending provides a hollowness and maybe it's not a coincidence that those from reality begin to have their faces hollow out the longer they resist leaving.

No way is Verso the good ending. The only people it's "good" for are Maelle and Verso, at best. You're murdering Lune, Sciel, etc. and committing genocide against everyone in the world.

Aecioo posted...

Sequel should be writers and painters and whatever else (musicians?) focused. They don't need to have any of the same characters, just use expedition 33 as basically a prologue setting up what these people are capable of and bring us into the "real" world and whatever conflict is enough to burn down a families house

I think this would retroactively improve my opinion of the ending if it turns out well. The problem I have now is I just don't care enough about that world or its inhabitants

MacArrowny posted...

No way is Verso the good ending. The only people it's "good" for are Maelle and Verso, at best. You're murdering Lune, Sciel, etc. and committing genocide against everyone in the world.

Both endings are bad, but Verso is definitely the better one. Guess it depends on what you consider real, and if you believe the painted world is just as real as outside, then sure it's worse.

but they're not real >_>

MacArrowny posted...

No way is Verso the good ending. The only people it's "good" for are Maelle and Verso, at best. You're murdering Lune, Sciel, etc. and committing genocide against everyone in the world.

It depends on how you evaluate reality versus the Canvas. I don't consider it "murder" for the Canvas world to fade away. Knowing the reality of the situation, my read is that there's an understanding by all characters within the Canvas that this would have been their eventual fate. I'm also of the opinion that there's no real "bad guy" in this story when you pull back from it all. Like I said, it's a story of grief and how individuals handle it differently. In the end it's a good ending for the entire Dessendre family who are the reason for the entire existence of the plot. It's not clear what would have happened when Maelle eventually died inside the Canvas, but I can't imagine it's a net positive for everyone inside it.

I'm definitely interested by any potential expounding upon the writers versus painters scenario and would welcome any supplemental material involving what is happening there.

Clair Obscur 2: Pilgrimage 69

I found an interesting bug. If you have auto death and shielded death (gives shields on death to your teammates), on your first slot in battle (I'm using Monaco for it) and then verso on your second slot with Chevalam (that has the effect that your character cannot be healed or shielded), Verso will still get the shields from the auto death. Interestingly, if Verso is in the first slot instead, he doesn't get the shields.

Yeah, I didn't fully get how Chevalam worked. In Media Res would give him his 3 shields (start with 3 shields, but halve the character's health), but by the point I had Chevalam, I was killing almost everything before they had a turn to act anyway.

I want to say Verso lost all 3 shields after getting hit once, but that could have been due to something else other than Chevalam. Also, he would lose all 3 shields when I attempted to give him more with Monoco.

It's useful because it lets you use shield affinity for another 30% damage boost.

ZaziGuado posted...

It depends on how you evaluate reality versus the Canvas. I don't consider it "murder" for the Canvas world to fade away. Knowing the reality of the situation, my read is that there's an understanding by all characters within the Canvas that this would have been their eventual fate. I'm also of the opinion that there's no real "bad guy" in this story when you pull back from it all. Like I said, it's a story of grief and how individuals handle it differently. In the end it's a good ending for the entire Dessendre family who are the reason for the entire existence of the plot. It's not clear what would have happened when Maelle eventually died inside the Canvas, but I can't imagine it's a net positive for everyone inside it.

I don't really think much of the story is any good, but where it does have some value, I guess, is in posing that question to the player at the end of the game. It may be done unintentionally, but there is only one correct answer, and it highlights the absurdity of Mac's position.

Did I commit genocide on my Xbox when I uninstalled the game after I beat it? Are all of us genocidal maniacs for playing video games where you kill stuff? That would also mean that your party in this game is actively committing genocide of the Nevrons. What gives their lives more moral import than the Nevrons'?

The deeper you look at it, the more this unholy hybrid of a moral relativist crossed with a utilitarian worldview unravels into absurdity.

Of course, you could just skip all of that entirely and point out that Maelle is going to die at some point anyway and this world with her. Or I guess someone else could enter the canvas to succeed her, but that just brings us back to attempting to justify ritual human sacrifice to maintain it.

Aecioo posted...

but they're not real >_>

This isn't just directed at you because you're far from the only one to say this, but I genuinely do not understand this interpretation of the ending. My theory is that there are so many stories about "are AI people real" out there nowadays that people just slotted this game into the same type in their head - but I don't think anything in this game actually ever suggests that the people are "not real".

I think the biggest factor in any "are X characters real" debate is usually "do they have consciousness" (or maybe you'd disagree! that's just my view of the discussions generally) and AI stories tend to be like "ooooh are they conscious or not, you can't tell..." and deliberately make it hard to draw the line. But I don't think Clair Obscur does this. The world and characters are presented as fully conscious the entire time and we play an entire game with them, nothing ever suggests that maybe a painted world is "just code" (or magic code of some sort) or any reason to think they're not conscious.

As a parallel - Imagine if you played a game where the characters learned at the end that their world was created by Athena and Zeus because they mourned the loss of their child, and they're off in the Realm of the Gods making worlds. Would you think that means the world of the game was "not real"? I suspect you wouldn't, as plenty of stories use Greek Gods like that and no one ever feels it means "our characters aren't real because they're not the gods in their god-realm". Hell, in the *real world* we actually live in, plenty of people believe our world was created by a God in heaven, but they don't think that means we're "not real".

Again, if the game ever suggested (like AI stories) "you're just made of magic paint" "your thoughts were created by what color we use to paint your brain" etc etc, then there'd be room to really debate this, but I think there are very few reasons to see Lumiere as that sort of fake programmed world, so I think there's very little reason to conclude that Lune and Sophie and etc "aren't real". You could still argue that the painting ending is a natural conclusion to their lives because all things come to an end and etc, but not that its okay because they're not real. (Unless you truly believe they don't have a consciousness and we spent 40 hours watching fake emotions from them)

theawesomestevr posted...

I want to say Verso lost all 3 shields after getting hit once, but that could have been due to something else other than Chevalam.

I don't know about the second part with Monoco you mentioned, but the Shield Affinity picto gives you 30% extra damage while you have shields but you lose all of them when you get hit.

The Maelle ending literally shows her forcing Verso to do something he does not want to do. We have no idea how much these characters actually have control over what they're doing since it's shown multiple times the painters are changing them to their preferred image

theawesomestevr posted...

You first have to define what "consciousness" is. But even then, what gives it moral value, and why is their consciousness of equivalent or greater value than that of their painter?

Sure, that's a valid question - but I don't think it's one most people would be asking in, say, a story where a human's life is being weighed against the life of Apollo or whatever who created them. You could ask it in that case too but I don't think most people would default to the humans being "not real" or just saying its okay if they die because of it. There's a big discussion you could have about if my life is greater value than yours just because I created you, i.e. what does a child owe to their parent is a common question in real life, but I don't necessarily want to have that discussion because my point is people who just say "oh they're not real because we learned someone created them" are sidestepping that entire discussion altogether anyway. If someone wanted to debate that their lives are *worth less*, that's a totally different thing than just saying "they're not real" as if they're just code with no free will or consciousness.

And yes sometimes they can be repainted apparently, but to continue the analogy, if I learn that Athena decided to make Cassandra go live in a castle somewhere and never leave and only speak in song, sure, maybe Cassandra doesn't have free will now and has become a singer, but I still don't think most people would view that story as Cassandra "not being real" just because they know a God created her and gave her some role to fulfill. Maybe you would!

And anyway, assuming the devs intend us to just think "oh they were painted so they're not real", that would mean that act 3 contains multiple relationship scenes for Lune/Sciel with Verso and that the player is meant to know by now that they're "not real" and so it's all just nothing, just the same as AI coded to talk about missing their husband and parents and bla bla. And I really don't think that's what the devs intended because it would make all of those scenes pretty meaningless.

theawesomestevr posted...

You first have to define what "consciousness" is. But even then, what gives it moral value, and why is their consciousness of equivalent or greater value than that of their painter?

People, whether they believe in God, or gods, don't simultaneously believe their lives are of equal weight to that of their creator's (which is another problem with your analogy - people die, but immortal beings definitionally do not).

But even setting all that aside, these aren't autonomous consciousnesses (or whatever term you want to use). They clearly act and behave according to the way their painter made them to. Clea even repaints some of them, and they then act according to her purpose, so I would dispute the premise that these are essentially people in the first place.

By that standard, God wasn't committing mass murder when He flooded the world and wiped out its inhabitants. Which is an absurd take, IMO.

I should clarify that I use reality not in the sense that there is a real world and the Canvas is a fake world. It's moreso a universe to galaxy comparison. If the family itself is threatened, then so are the galaxies within the universe they exist in. It is implied there are multiple Canvases. Are we to judge the erasure of this one differently because they've been made aware of their reason for being? The last piece of "real" Verso is the only thing keeping the Canvas in existence and he is shown to be suffering by continuing to paint. Is it morally wrong to expect their creator to give himself to an afterlife of struggle and potential torture so that Maelle may continue to hide from her own?

Can the Painters create a taco thats so hot, they cant eat it?