Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (PS5, XSX, PC)

[Andalusian girls]

it is aggressively French in the lightly annoying but grudgingly impressed manner they refuse to use 'chiaroscuro' like the the rest of the world for the term. English? Chiaroscuro. German? Chiaroscuro. Tagalog? Chiaroscuro. French? putain de merde we're translating it into French and making it clair-obscur.

but yes it is a very famous term in art and film, you've likely encountered it (as chiaroscuro) at some point. it's the technique of using the contrast between light and dark to affect a sense of 3-dimensional volume on a 2-dimensional plane, for compositional structuring, and to accentuate thematic messaging. to wit,



the figures emerge from the surrounding darkness to establish a rough compositional triangle while also mimicking depth, particular in the demon in the bottom left as his body fades from light into dark as it goes further back, but also in the central angel's left leg/torso/shoulder as he emerges from depth.



the contrast here used to strongly center the work's subject in the buxom young lady, her male companion mostly lost to darkness and the crone only half illuminated.



lastly, chiaroscuro is simply often beautiful, and here the subject seems to be coming out of the darkness itself, only his face illuminated, but his eyes shining out of a covering darkness they cannot escape (mimicking the thematic content of him, a law-abiding citizen, going to a mafia boss to ask him to murder the two boys who assaulted his daughter).

[Andalusian girls]

zip it up, zip it out, art history minor from Italy put to use, but why do we think the writers chose this technical art term to name their game?

[Gredival]

Spoiler: show

I would suppose it is because the canvas world is a shadow of the real world, a reflection in the mirror. And that's what the story of the game is all about: the real world vs the canvas. Using this art term/technique is a way to integrate the contrast with the plot being about art.

Light and dark are heavily used in other ways to portray contrast. The painted Dessendre family all has white hair, whereas the faded shadows who represent the real Dessendres are cast in black. The Nevrons who are incomplete are white. The Clair and Obscur enemies are opposites with opposite elemental affinity. Verso's skill set is light, whereas Maelle's is Void. Inverted status turns you black and white...

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[Koul]

Spoiler questions and one bit of insight that may have been obvious to some but I didn't catch it til watching a video.

Insight

Spoiler: show

Painted Monoco is Verso's dog. It's not directly called out in game from my understanding, but there is apparently a dog of the developers credited as Monoco, and some of the backstory heavily implied that he was loyal, Verso's best friend, etc.

Questions

Spoiler: show

Clea and Simon storyline kinda confused me. Clea seemed to berate her mother and sister for living in the canvas. But painted Clea (created by Aline I guess?) fell in love with Simon. Aline put Simon up to taking down real Renoir, but he couldn't do it, and got locked in Renoir's Drafts (by Renoir I assume). Then painted Clea fell into despair and decided to start painting Nevrons in mass? Is that how it went down? I gathered that Renoir created the Axons, but it wasn't clear what their inspiration was or their purpose. The first one, Visage, seemed to have a lot of personality to it while the other two were just kinda there, except for the 3rd one being tied to Alicia and helping her reach her potential.

Is it ever mentioned what happened with the skipped older expeditions? You've got expedition 84, 81, and 78 before you get to expedition 70 then have an expedition every year. Verso mentioned the earlier expeditions were more search and rescue because they didn't know what was going on, but seems odd for that to go on for 14 years before yearly expeditions came into play.

Spoiler: show

Painted Clea fell in love with Simon, they both were on Expedition 0. Real world Clea went into the painted world to help Renoir force Aline out of the painted world, she painted over Clea and made painted Clea a Nevron making machine which drove Simon mad. Nevrons are the reason why Chroma isn't returning to Aline. With the Chroma drought, Aline would eventually be forced out of the painting. That's what Clea did when she said she went in there to help the war in Renoirs favor

Nevrons were Cleas creations and then the Axons were Renoirs paintings of his family. Visages = Verso. The lifeless doll was Alicia, Sirene is Aline and then Clea's was destroyed by another expedition

Most of the older expeditions were reconnaissance or just explorers as I don't think they had a word for the gommage yet since people died of natural causes before they could get gommaged. Or if people did get gommage'd, society at the time figured they just disappeared out of society.

[Celeras]

Spoiler: show

It's also kind of the main point when you fight painted Clea, and learn that real Clea painted over her (and was apparently the only person with the skill to do something like that). You see flashes of the original Clea cracking through in the eyes IIRC, and that plus Verso being there is the main reason that fight ends the way it does

[BWYuko]

Thirty-three days ago, we released Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

Since then, we’ve sold 3.3 million copies.

Seriously. As of today.
We couldn’t make that up.

Another entry on the long list of surreal moments that your support has made real.

Thank you ALL.

[Mayareira]

Aaaah, Lune..

[Tyrath]

Last achievement I need before NG+ is the Gestral games. I skipped volleyball.

Holy shit this is worse than the Tifa crunches/pull-ups.

Tifa pull-ups were fine. I still never finished Tifa crunches so I can't co-sign lol

[Meresgi]

So finally moved and settled in and apparently this game is impossible to find a physical copy of?! lol...was looking for it on PS5, I know can download digital but I love having physical copies so guess have to wait for a restock

[Gredival]

Buy digital, collectors set, and get a used disc to put in the steel book later.

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[Andalusian girls]

VINDICATION GOOD/BAD DORKS (saith the game's lead writer)

[Tyrath]

She told me I can decide good or bad though

Checkmate.

[Andalusian girls]

i've decided that you are a big bully :[

[Tyrath]

<3

[Gredival]

Life keeps forcing hard choices.

[NotGreyheim]

Picked this up today. Haven't touched the rest of the thread yet to avoid spoilers. I didn't even make it through the prologue before the onion ninjas got me...

Spoiler: show

And then the beginning of the expedition snapped me right out of it...

[Tyrath]

Welcome. Keep us updated on your progress. I already fully finished it so I am living vicariously through others' playthroughs

[NotGreyheim]

I forced myself to put it down for now, as it's almost 1am. But I got to the part where

Spoiler: show

You're about to eat your gun (so to speak) and Lune shows up. I'm currently inbetween that and getting to the Indigo Tree. I ran into a dude who I think was guarding a bridge? Anyway, the game was like "Hey, that guy's tough, so maybe don't do this", but I was like "Psh" and attacked it anyway. It one-shot Gustave and Lune both for 290 each.

I'm normally pretty good with parrying in FromSoft games, but the attacks in CO:E33 are a lot harder to read so far. Hopefully it's just a matter of practice, but I feel like the cues are a lot more subtle.

[Tyrath]

It will definitely take some practice, there's so much enemy and attack variety. If it's the one I am thinking of, he shouldn't be toooo bad if you get a couple levels.

[chazzyphizzle]

I forced myself to put it down for now, as it's almost 1am. But I got to the part where

Spoiler: show

You're about to eat your gun (so to speak) and Lune shows up. I'm currently inbetween that and getting to the Indigo Tree. I ran into a dude who I think was guarding a bridge? Anyway, the game was like "Hey, that guy's tough, so maybe don't do this", but I was like "Psh" and attacked it anyway. It one-shot Gustave and Lune both for 290 each.

I'm normally pretty good with parrying in FromSoft games, but the attacks in CO:E33 are a lot harder to read so far. Hopefully it's just a matter of practice, but I feel like the cues are a lot more subtle.

almost all attacks have sound cues as well, they are super helpful to use