Alastor

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is absolutely blowing me away so far, at the risk of overhyping I think it's already a GOTY contender just based of the last few hours. I could go on about the amazing Nier like soundtrack that suits the game's tone perfectly, or the deep and engaging combat that both asks you to be able to parry attacks and has potential for inter party ability combos but I think it's the premise and tone of the game that really gets you first. The prologue was pretty horrifying in how it portrayed the 'Gommage', an event where upon reaching the age matching the number on a giant monolith out at sea (in this case, 33) a God called the Paintress awakes and takes your life, making you basically die on the spot, and this is their depressing way of life. This is where you come in, as one of a number of Expeditions that sail out from the Island to find a way to stop it.

What I like so far is how clearly the Gommage has affected the cast, not only is there a somewhat ensemble cast (big news for BG3/FF16 fans) meaning the voice acting is not only good but the facial animations are really good too, there's a scene where I swore for a split second the main character Gustave let his facade drop a bit and he showed how much the Gommage is really hurting him. (He's voiced by Charlie Cox aka Daredevil and for some reason the only voice actor I haven't seen a peep from in behind the scenes footage, what gives?) But yeah, very similar vibes to the Pilgrimage in FFX so far.

Aight' so far Expedition 33 is French as fuck and I'm here for it, I just had a fight against a big headed mime and parried all his attacks and countered him to break, this is really fun so far.

Well the PC community will take care of that sooner or later, I have to contend people trying to tell me it's 'the time of day' or just implying I'm being a hater. It's still a very nice looking game otherwise.

I did my first Oblivion gate today in the remaster and it was as fun as I remember, but I have to be honest I kept going back and forth mentally today on how much of the full game I am actually going to play. It's no doubt a good remaster (although the almost washed out fields in comparison to the 360 version hits me like a ton of bricks every time I leave a city or cave) of a good game but I'm for sure not going to, or have have the time to play it for a couple hundred hours again, at least not anytime soon.

I will probably close all Oblivion Gates I actually see, do all main guilds and daedric shrines, do the DLC but I dunno' about beyond that. Also, despite what I said before, this combat after a few hours is really not very good, 200 hours of charge attacks and parrying probably aint it. We'll see how much I can integrate spellcasting into the mix I guess, but if you're not sneak attacking and using the bow I feel like you're probably playing yourself.

The fact that Expedition 33 is out in a few hours isn't helping either.

This remaster face lift is nice but I'm pretty sure Skyrim still looks nicer. 🤔