I will try not to spoiler in this final post game review of clair obscur.
basically act 2 sees some insane twists, then act 3 unlocks which has one final true “ending” which is also pretty crazy.
but then before ending it seems like act 3 unlocks huge portions of the map to where it feels there is as much (optional) content as the main story had, which involved very few sidequests, and act 3 has tons. you dont have to do them, and in fact, if you do, and then try to finish the boss, you’ll have trivialized and ruined the fight. so it’s a weird decision to me, gameplay and story flow wise.
I’m the type to finish the main story and do side quests as needed or afterwards, so it works out for me. there’s a lot of good items and a ng+ to encourage you to finish 100% of everything, so I’m doing that.
I will upwardly revise my former rating which is rare. combat still the weakest part of the game, but gets more interesting and the power spikes are truly enjoyable.
This game though, I couldnt shake the feeling it reminded me a lot of final fantasy 8 somehow. The developers said they were inspired by X, but it feels more 8 to me. not even just the combat - which has its own version of timing inputs and limit breaks, or the picto system being extremely similar to the guardian buffs in 8 - its also the characters. dark, brooding, traumatized main hero who uses a gun and a sword, his team consists of all chicks who have various degrees of love interest in him, the way the bad guy story plays out and all the themes there - even the twist at the end felt very ff8. Which is cool because that’s one of my favorite final fantasy games. i just dont think it aged well, and it comes out at times in this game.
one other thing - on the topic of people online making a big whiny fuss about it winning GOTY. It absolutely deserves it, and anyone that seriously claims otherwise simply doesn’t know what they are talking about.
One thing that really stood out to me is looking at the player completion rate of the trophies on PSN. Deep, deep parts of the game still had 55+% of players getting the trophies, which tells me the majority of people that bought the game not only played it, not only finished it, but played the fuck out of it. That is one measure of a really great game I always look at. It’s not my favorite GOTY ever but I completely understand why it won, only other argument I could make is battlefield 6 due to the production quality alone but it doesn’t have a good story and is largely recycling the same shit for the last 15 years.
maelle delulu ending because she made a strong case. her real life sucked, her family didnt really see her as anything other than a pawn. let her live a fantasy if it isn’t hurting anyone. it’s an extremely bleak implication to verso’s situation though
Not just Verso’s situation. Basically bleak for her whole family. She’s gonna die in there, which would ust perpetuate the rest of her family’s pain. Not unsurprisingly, I chose Verso’s ending. Gotta move on no matter how hard. Either way, they didn’t make it easy and it’s definitely a choice that sticks with you
maelle delulu ending because she made a strong case. her real life sucked, her family didnt really see her as anything other than a pawn. let her live a fantasy if it isn’t hurting anyone. it’s an extremely bleak implication to verso’s situation though
having seen how it played out after i chose - I think i choose the same again. the thing is, we don’t really know the circumstances surrounding the irl death of verso, which was caused by some vaguely referenced factional war by the “writers” vs the “painters” (who this family is). Maybe there’s some larger story but we just don’t know. the entire family and maelle aka alicia seems to blame herself for verso dying, but we don’t know. The entire world existing for the sake of family / marital issues (the references to renoir and aline fighting for so long inside verso’s canvas, plus their seeming willingness to let her go back in as maelle, seems to suggest they do see her as some puzzle piece to a larger equation and less as a daughter) leads me to not take very much sympathy for the family, whos motives are unclear, and probably self serving - and my gut instinct was to just let maelle/alicia do what she wants. I didnt expect that the ghost of verso would be subjugated to some seeming slavery in his role afterward, and I know he wanted to die, which tugged at me a lot. You should let the dead rest if they wish. It was a very complicated ending and a lot of the later side content makes it more complicated. I don’t know if they’re trying to set up a sequel but they could. clea seems like a manipulative person.
I don’t have a PS5 and have no idea how one would apply this, but as my kid recently tried to jailbreak/mod an Xbox 360 (was temporarily successful, then it bricked), this is pretty interesting:
lmao @ hardware level keys. this is like the moon landing for the emulator community. it seems secure as fuck til something like this happens. they never learned their lesson from ps3. I guess we’ll now see a rushed ps6 release that suddenly breaks backwards compatability.
Disco Elysium
Skyrim
Split Fiction
Metal Gear Solid
Journey
Final Fantasy II
Hollow Knight
Balatro
Mario Kart World
Breath of the Wild (2nd play through)
Donkey Kong Bananza
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Final Fantasy III
Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy V
Bioshock
Final Fantasy VI
Bloodborne
Dragon Quest III (2D-HD)
Inside
Ghost of Tsushima
Chrono Trigger
Metroid Dread
Final Fantasy VII
The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
Hard to pick a favorite, but Skyrim had the most hours.
Rolled credits on Hades 2 today. Excellent game, worthy follow up to the original. What kind of sickness do I have that Eris and Nemesis are waifu material to me?
