Expedition 33

[kurosagi01]

After finishing BoF4 I have made the start of the game myself now and the timing for parrying/dodging will take getting used to.
Although I was mildly spoiled for Act 1 by my partner I will say from my own experience I can see why it got so many people "interested" in trying the game.

The combat is FUN and refreshing, the graphics is beautiful and the french stick looking character models is refreshing to see in the "western" market, I would rather call it european since it is a european developed game, considering we have been bloated with a mixture of "realism" model and "fantasy/anime" models it is nice.

The soundtrack I knew I would love the soundtrack as the composer is a fan of some of my favourite games, I am hoping they release a physical soundtrack or even Vinyl for fans to purchase as I would love to add either to my collection.

 

[Princess Garnet]

After finishing BoF4 I have made the start of the game myself now and the timing for parrying/dodging will take getting used to.

It does take getting used to. Unfortunately, the indicators (or "tells" since there isn't any literal indicator) for when to dodge or parry are poor in my opinion. I would dodge when I think I had to, and would be way off, and some attacks have them waving a big item around in your face and it will look like it would be a hit, but it's not actually the hit, and then it comes after. I'm not a fan of that. So rather than trying to naturally react, you basically have to just be familiar with that type of gameplay or at least know the timing for that particular attack, which is learning through failure.

But it's at its worst in the beginning of the game, particular with side content. It gets better later, even if you are terrible at dodging and fail a lot (like me) because you can (more than) compensate with the JRPG half that starts to filter in later.

The combat is FUN and refreshing, the graphics is beautiful and the french stick looking character models is refreshing to see in the "western" market, I would rather call it european since it is a european developed game, considering we have been bloated with a mixture of "realism" model and "fantasy/anime" models it is nice.

My favorite JRPG, Final Fantasy IX, is Japanese made but "European/medieval fairy tale" in style. I would like more of those.

 

[kurosagi01]

It does take getting used to. Unfortunately, the indicators (or "tells" since there isn't any literal indicator) for when to dodge or parry are poor in my opinion. I would dodge when I think I had to, and would be way off, and some attacks have them waving a big item around in your face and it will look like it would be a hit, but it's not actually the hit, and then it comes after. I'm not a fan of that. So rather than trying to naturally react, you basically have to just be familiar with that type of gameplay or at least know the timing for that particular attack, which is learning through failure.

But it's at its worst in the beginning of the game, particular with side content. It gets better later, even if you are terrible at dodging and fail a lot (like me) because you can (more than) compensate with the JRPG half that starts to filter in later.

My favorite JRPG, Final Fantasy IX, is Japanese made but "European/medieval fairy tale" in style. I would like more of those.

The indicator is worse if you're sitting further away from your monitor, which I was as my partner wanted to watch me play. Can't imagine it being "easier" if you was playing it from a TV distance.

The beginning does feel epic though which is what I mean by it hooks you.

 

[Raffles]

I haven't played this yet, but it does look freakishly good for a first time studio, seemingly without much prior experience too.

I'd be fascinated to know more about the development, how much funding they got, how many people worked on the game total etc.

 

[Princess Garnet]

The indicator is worse if you're sitting further away from your monitor, which I was as my partner wanted to watch me play. Can't imagine it being "easier" if you was playing it from a TV distance.

There are no indicators for dodging/parrying, which is what I was referring to, not the attack prompts.

The attack prompts have their own mild frustration because of two things. One was what you mentioned, especially with all the visual noise/effects and camera angle changes going on. The other was that I was initially interpreting them as "press the button as soon as it becomes visible and before it goes away" because that's how I've been familiar with QTEs. I didn't notice the surrounding progress bar until later, so it was mildly frustrating trying to figure out why I was failing them. Once I figured that out, I was fine with it.

The dodges/parries are another story because there is no prompt. You have to work on visual and audio indicators (sometimes a small zoom in or zoom out in camera seems to occur right before as another clue). If you know when to dodge due to previous familiarity with an attack, the system feels fine, but if you're not familiar with them, I recall feeling some frustration because I felt like the game was giving poor and inconsistent tells.

 

[sepheronx]

I put the game down for a while. I was too much rushing it. I'm at end game and just doing side content first. It's how I always played my final fantasies since first one.

 

[kurosagi01]

There are no indicators for dodging/parrying, which is what I was referring to, not the attack prompts.

The attack prompts have their own mild frustration because of two things. One was what you mentioned, especially with all the visual noise/effects and camera angle changes going on. The other was that I was initially interpreting them as "press the button as soon as it becomes visible and before it goes away" because that's how I've been familiar with QTEs. I didn't notice the surrounding progress bar until later, so it was mildly frustrating trying to figure out why I was failing them. Once I figured that out, I was fine with it.

The dodges/parries are another story because there is no prompt. You have to work on visual and audio indicators (sometimes a small zoom in or zoom out in camera seems to occur right before as another clue). If you know when to dodge due to previous familiarity with an attack, the system feels fine, but if you're not familiar with them, I recall feeling some frustration because I felt like the game was giving poor and inconsistent tells.

By indicators for dodge/parry I obviously meant visually watching which is something you learn playing action games like soulsborne, black myth wukong, god of war etc.

 

[Princess Garnet]

I put the game down for a while. I was too much rushing it. I'm at end game and just doing side content first. It's how I always played my final fantasies since first one.

I did the same thing and I'll warn you now, although you're probably expecting this to some degree because it's the case in most JRPs, but the ending is trivialized if you are already powerful enough to be doing the end of game side content. While that's true in most JRPGs, it's way more true in this game.

 

[JustBenching]

Im just 6 hours in, the game is nice and all but it's one of those "open world corridor" games as I'd like to call them that I hate.

 

[londiste]

I haven't played this yet, but it does look freakishly good for a first time studio, seemingly without much prior experience too.

In the looks department - UE5 is doing its thing.

 

[Vayra86]

Im just 6 hours in, the game is nice and all but it's one of those "open world corridor" games as I'd like to call them that I hate.

Yeah the open character of the game is weird / feels out of place. Ignore it. Its worth it. Just follow the story, and follow up with the 'open' world locations you didn't visit yet... and be amazed how deep the rabbit hole goes.

 

[Princess Garnet]

Im just 6 hours in, the game is nice and all but it's one of those "open world corridor" games as I'd like to call them that I hate.

It's intentional. It's replicating the common world/layout structure of the JRPG genre, at least those of late 1990s/early 2000s (but I think many of them have more or less stayed that way since then?). It's not going to be a completely open world Western ARPG style of game, and I think it would have been far worse off for it if it was.

 

[kilo]

Questions (and obsevations) I still have about the game after NG+.

Spoiler: Everything is a spoiler really

Simon and Gustave are both missing their left arms. Is there a connection between them?

The four axons represent real Renoir's lessons for his family, right? The Alicia axon is the one you don't defeat at the Reacher, the Verso one is Visages, the Clea one is Sirène (despite painted Verso saying otherwise in act 3), and the dead one in old Lumiere is Aline. There's so many versions of the same characters, it's hard to follow a bit and not each version has the same motivation. Just like the four living family members, they have four versions of themselves, i.e. real versions, painted by Aline versions, painted by Renoir versions (axons), and the soul people (no Maelle soul, but a Verso soul).

In Maelle's dream in Act 1, there's a glimpse of Verso killing Maelle. What's the deal with that? Maybe a plot hole or just figured they changed it to a metaphor later on? The other scenes in her dream all came true except that one. (I played Maelle's ending first. I haven't played Verso's ending quite yet. Sorry if this is stupid and part of Verso's ending, I just thought about that now)

Edit: I checked my notes and realized another observation I had was when real people gommage, they have gold petals, but painted people have red and white petals. Could that be anything other than an art style choice?

Edit edit:

Verso doesn't see anyone special when Sirène mesmerizes the team right before there battle. Why? Wouldn't he see Julie or someone? In the friendship minigame he says that he would bring back one person, but doesn't say who. So who is it?

 

[Vayra86]

Questions (and obsevations) I still have about the game after NG+.

Spoiler: Everything is a spoiler really

Simon and Gustave are both missing their left arms. Is there a connection between them?

The four axons represent real Renoir's lessons for his family, right? The Alicia axon is the one you don't defeat at the Reacher, the Verso one is Visages, the Clea one is Sirène (despite painted Verso saying otherwise in act 3), and the dead one in old Lumiere is Aline. There's so many versions of the same characters, it's hard to follow a bit and not each version has the same motivation. Just like the four living family members, they have four versions of themselves, i.e. real versions, painted by Aline versions, painted by Renoir versions (axons), and the soul people (no Maelle soul, but a Verso soul).

In Maelle's dream in Act 1, there's a glimpse of Verso killing Maelle. What's the deal with that? Maybe a plot hole or just figured they changed it to a metaphor later on? The other scenes in her dream all came true except that one. (I played Maelle's ending first. I haven't played Verso's ending quite yet. Sorry if this is stupid and part of Verso's ending, I just thought about that now)

Edit: I checked my notes and realized another observation I had was when real people gommage, they have gold petals, but painted people have red and white petals. Could that be anything other than an art style choice?

Edit edit:

Verso doesn't see anyone special when Sirène mesmerizes the team right before there battle. Why? Wouldn't he see Julie or someone? In the friendship minigame he says that he would bring back one person, but doesn't say who. So who is it?

Huge SPOILER

Spoiler

n Maelle's dream in Act 1, there's a glimpse of Verso killing Maelle. What's the deal with that?

The final scene of the story is Verso making a fundamental choice which is your ending choice. One of them is 'killing' Maelle within the painting... and it essentially kills Maelle for real, its her only reason to live, she feels.

Verso plays a rather unique role I think as the one factor of reason and link to reality. However harsh it may be. That might be the reason he is not susceptible to Sirene.

 

[Frizz]

I'm currently near the end of Act 2.

My first impressions were not quite good at the start... here we go another Unreal Engine game which to me any game that uses this engine seems to fall within 6-8/10 for me and I don't generally finish it I rank these games a C-B listers aka Stalker 2, Rebirth etc.. and the older UE4 games.

I still gave it a good go I thought I'd at least pass a chapter or two.. boy oh boy I did NOT expect to be emotionally ruined in the first 15-20 minutes and then feel like I'm fighting for my life in the next 2 hours. This game did not capture me visually at first but once I got to know the characters and the story a bit more that was all it took. It reminds me of the classic JRPG's but unlike in those JRPGs this game can make you feel as hopeless as I did when playing Demon/Dark Souls where a perfectly timed parry and dodge is the only thing standing between you and death despite being fully geared for the expedition. The theme of death just haunts you while playing it's really unique. The survival/death theme makes combat super satisfying, every overpowered spell you manage to output becomes hope!

I also got framegen working through PureDark's Patreon and it runs butter smooth at 2x FG averaging 150-200FPS at 4K and 200-300 at 3x with the settings cracked to the fullest.

 

[Princess Garnet]

"Hauntingly beautiful" is a contrasting theme the game uses a lot going forward!

Also, don't read this if you haven't finished it as it will spoil things big time! This is in response to an older post.

Questions (and obsevations) I still have about the game after NG+.

Spoiler: Everything is a spoiler really

Simon and Gustave are both missing their left arms. Is there a connection between them?

The four axons represent real Renoir's lessons for his family, right? The Alicia axon is the one you don't defeat at the Reacher, the Verso one is Visages, the Clea one is Sirène (despite painted Verso saying otherwise in act 3), and the dead one in old Lumiere is Aline. There's so many versions of the same characters, it's hard to follow a bit and not each version has the same motivation. Just like the four living family members, they have four versions of themselves, i.e. real versions, painted by Aline versions, painted by Renoir versions (axons), and the soul people (no Maelle soul, but a Verso soul).

In Maelle's dream in Act 1, there's a glimpse of Verso killing Maelle. What's the deal with that? Maybe a plot hole or just figured they changed it to a metaphor later on? The other scenes in her dream all came true except that one. (I played Maelle's ending first. I haven't played Verso's ending quite yet. Sorry if this is stupid and part of Verso's ending, I just thought about that now)

Edit: I checked my notes and realized another observation I had was when real people gommage, they have gold petals, but painted people have red and white petals. Could that be anything other than an art style choice?

Edit edit:

Verso doesn't see anyone special when Sirène mesmerizes the team right before there battle. Why? Wouldn't he see Julie or someone? In the friendship minigame he says that he would bring back one person, but doesn't say who. So who is it?

Spoiler

There's no connection between Gustave and Simon. Simon was part of Expedition Zero with Verso. He ended up having a romantic relationship with painted Clea, and Renoir ended up corrupting his mind and banishing him. His missing arm is likely partly a homage to Dark Souls, and the in-game reason for it is not confirmed as far as I know, but there's two possible explanations. One is that he lost it in the battle with the felled axon in old Lumiere (which he was responsible for defeating), and the other is that he may have lost it later when Expedition 60 attacked him.

Yes, the four Axons represent the real family members (sans Renoir, as he made them so he didn't make one for himself).

I don't recall that part from the dream so I can't comment on that. If there's a "everything she sees eventually happens" theme, then... yeah, it may refer to Verso's ending.

I didn't particularly pick up on the differences in color petals when people fade, although I noticed there were those three colors (and that gold was rare). What you said sounds likely.

I'm not sure why you would expect Verso to see someone at the Sirene battle? (Am I overlooking something?) The "thing" at the two axons you fight is that someone wasn't "impacted" by the axon's particular theme/power. With Sirene, it was Lune who wasn't affected because she's more of a logical person and less of an emotional one. With the visages, it was Sciel who wasn't affected because she "doesn't wear a mask" and is honest about who she is, so she sees through that sort of stuff.

Not quite the same, but you may be recall how Aline (the Paintress) starts burning everyone at the end of the second act, and in response, Verso grabs Maelle's face. When he does, Aline stops burning everyone. This is because in reality, Verso died in the fire and Aline is grieving that (and probably partly blaming Alicia/Maelle), so she doesn't want him to burn but doesn't care about Alicia/Maelle.

If you want a much deeper theory on that... it's suspected that either Verso or Alicia may have been in contact with the writers, and were either a traitor or tricked, and the fire was the result of that. Alicia is a weaker painter than the rest, and you find her with a typewriter in the manor/her room. However, there's also a hidden room that has a typewriter in it, and you find a costume for Verso in it. It's suspected Verso was secretly using the room, perhaps to contact the writers. Whether Renoir/Alicia/Clea were aware of this (if it was even true) is unknown.

So yeah, the whole story is a complicated grieving process of the whole family, and the process largely occurs within this canvas that holds a remaining sliver of the real Verso's soul (which is who the little fading boy is).

I didn't do the beach content so I'm not sure about those story parts with Verso wanting to bring someone back.

 

[Vayra86]

I did the same thing and I'll warn you now, although you're probably expecting this to some degree because it's the case in most JRPs, but the ending is trivialized if you are already powerful enough to be doing the end of game side content. While that's true in most JRPGs, it's way more true in this game.

While true, there isnt that much in ng+ other than scaling is there?

 

[Rover4444]

Final Frenchtasy.

I'm sold.

 

[Princess Garnet]

While true, there isnt that much in ng+ other than scaling is there?

What I meant there was that if you do all of the optional act III side content before the end of the story, then you will end up many, many times (perhaps orders of magnitude would be a closer description?) more powerful than the content you are doing.

I think New Game+ is mostly just scaled up enemies, pictos, and weapons, yeah. There might be a few unique offerings of those things too.

 

[JustBenching]

Just finished ACT 2 and yeah

Spoiler

I knew it was going Zelda : link's awakening vibes.

 

[Princess Garnet]

Just finished ACT 2 and yeah

Spoiler

I knew it was going Zelda : link's awakening vibes.

Spoiler

I'm surprised how many people claim they were caught off guard by this and didn't see it coming.

As soon as I stepped into the world map (and again with Floating Waters) and saw the arrangement and set pieces of the game world, I was like "yeah, there's a good chance this place is superficial". And painting came to mind right away due to the vivid colors, the spam of fantasy set pieces and creatures, let alone the whole... Paintress. Even for a game world, it seemed quite suggestive. I also held the possibility that it was just how this game's world was (very abstract), but at the very least I was anticipating the possibility that there would be a plot twist that it was superficial. To me, it certainly didn't come out of nowhere because there's a lot of clues.

What tripped me up was figuring out the details beyond that. When I first saw Renoir, I thought "is he Gustave from the future?". I thought Alicia might be either Maelle in the future (I was close!) or even the real Paintress. I basically thought the expedition would discover something that changed their minds, and Gustave and Maelle switched sides, at least from the perspective of Lumiere.

I could understand people not caring for the plot twist. By definition, a plot changes the premise and some people may have preferred the original premise of "paintress is evil and you have to stop her to save the world". Plot twists can be divisive even when they aren't as much of a shake up, but in this game it's a pretty serious change of premise. But like it or not, I think the game did a job of hinting at it ahead of time so the possibility shouldn't have come out of nowhere.

 

[kilo]

Spoiler

I'm surprised how many people claim they were caught off guard by this and didn't see it coming.

As soon as I stepped into the world map (and again with Floating Waters) and saw the arrangement and set pieces of the game world, I was like "yeah, there's a good chance this place is superficial". And painting came to mind right away due to the vivid colors, the spam of fantasy set pieces and creatures, let alone the whole... Paintress. Even for a game world, it seemed quite suggestive. I also held the possibility that it was just how this game's world was (very abstract), but at the very least I was anticipating the possibility that there would be a plot twist that it was superficial. To me, it certainly didn't come out of nowhere because there's a lot of clues.

What tripped me up was figuring out the details beyond that. When I first saw Renoir, I thought "is he Gustave from the future?". I thought Alicia might be either Maelle in the future (I was close!) or even the real Paintress. I basically thought the expedition would discover something that changed their minds, and Gustave and Maelle switched sides, at least from the perspective of Lumiere.

I could understand people not caring for the plot twist. By definition, a plot changes the premise and some people may have preferred the original premise of "paintress is evil and you have to stop her to save the world". Plot twists can be divisive even when they aren't as much of a shake up, but in this game it's a pretty serious change of premise. But like it or not, I think the game did a job of hinting at it ahead of time so the possibility shouldn't have come out of nowhere.

Spoiler: Reply

I'm one of those people who didnt see it coming from a mile away. The closest i got was that the paintress was named Aline, she was the mom. The world theme from act two names the four family members if you listen closely.

The Alicia-Maelle connection, I didn't know what was going on. Other than Verso being protective and when he shields her in old lumière post boss fight, he calls Maelle "Alicia".

I also thought nevrons were like the reincarnated people who died and maybe verso was a reincarnated copy who didnt become a nevron or something. The white nevron you get wooden boards for threw me off a lot too since it didn't know it was becoming a nevron.

On second play through, it made so much sense. "Lets spill some ink" is what Maelle says before a fight. And of course almost every game mechanic is a nod to painting or art. Even gradient attacks/counters.

 

[Princess Garnet]

Spoiler: Reply

I'm one of those people who didnt see it coming from a mile away. The closest i got was that the paintress was named Aline, she was the mom. The world theme from act two names the four family members if you listen closely.

The Alicia-Maelle connection, I didn't know what was going on. Other than Verso being protective and when he shields her in old lumière post boss fight, he calls Maelle "Alicia".

I also thought nevrons were like the reincarnated people who died and maybe verso was a reincarnated copy who didnt become a nevron or something. The white nevron you get wooden boards for threw me off a lot too since it didn't know it was becoming a nevron.

On second play through, it made so much sense. "Lets spill some ink" is what Maelle says before a fight. And of course almost every game mechanic is a nod to painting or art. Even gradient attacks/counters.

Spoiler

Ah, yeah, there's always some people who won't see things (in other games, that will be me), so I apologize if that came off as critical to those who didn't see it.

I mostly meant to say that I was seeing a lot of people complain about it coming out of nowhere, but it did seem to me like the game did try and leave hints. It's just that the world is also intentionally abstract so maybe not everyone will see it, but I'd say that's good because it shouldn't be too obvious (some people actually say it was though). Then again, I'm a weirdo who defended who Necron in Final Fantasy IX as not truly coming out of nowhere too, so... feel free to ignore what I'm saying about it being easy to identify, haha.

Now whether people like that plot twist/premise change or not is another matter. Some people feel like a "world is superficial" premise equals "nothing matters" but I don't agree with that, so the plot twist worked for me.

I'm actually wanting more in universe lore explanations from later titles, like who are the writers. Maybe a sequel would take place in one of their worlds. I've seen people guessing that the painters world could be within the writers world, and while I'm not sure if I would find that a good idea, it shows how wild the possibilities are with something like this. But I'd like to find out more about the "real" world and the conflict between the writers and painters, maybe from the writers' side next time.

 

[Frizz]

Spoiler

Just finished the game, Verso's ending is obviously the Good End and the right way to end things in my opinion, the writers definitely meant for Maelle's ending to be the bad end where the cycle of grief would continue as she is immortal and her friends would continue to die over and over. Verso's decision forced her to face her reality. What a story I can see it's opened up a new world and her older sister seems very busy with other things, not surprised if the next game is focused on her instead of Maelle.

 

[JustBenching]

Game is good but man does it drag on at the later stages. Im 42 hours in without really doing a lot of exploration i think. The hardest difficulty is also hard and basically turn it into an action game more than a turn based, since timings on parrying are very narrow.

Also exploring outside the quest areas doesnt really offer much if anything in terms of story, you just find some big bad guys and get loot pretty much.

Music is insanely good and it turns some fights into epic battles (the first renoir fight is printed into my brain due to the music, insanely well made).

A combination of links awakening, nier automata and final fantasy is how id describe this game. Must play imo.

Eg1. Balancing really need work btw. 9999 dmg cap pre painted power for a single hit is silly, since some characters can get multiple hits in making the cap pointless.