I tried to find a thread yesterday, but search returned just a few scattered posts in different game industry related threads, so I wanted to start one to see if anyone else played this game and what their impressions were.
To me, it's hand down the best told and best story in a video game I've encountered so far.
Without going in too much spoilers, the way that this game makes you feel, the choices you have to make, especially around the ending, it's incredibly cool, impactful, heartbreaking and just generally very well done.
The art, jesus, it's so well done, so varied, amazingly creative and pops off the screen. Animations, voices, world building, characters all just top notch shit.
And then we come to my second favorite quality, besides the story, which is the OST.
Oh, yeah, and the gameplay is pretty great, fun, challenging, again, just well done, smart and engaging.
I'm honestly blown away, and if anyone else is in the club, please let me know.
Mainly, I want to know your thoughts on the ending, which one did you choose and why?
Love the idea, story and basically everything about this game but the combat. I really dislike the combat. Turn based QTE with a horribly visualized parry "window". I tried. Really did. But can't do it
I think is an exceptional game for the visuals, the music, and basically everything related to the arts and presentation. The storytelling also is quite good. The combat is ok but nothing exceptional. The QTE, expecially the parry, is an overpowered "win more/lose more" where if you are good with it can totally trivialize the strategic aspect of the game. Also, the balance is all over the place.
That being said, here is my hot take. My personal really unpopular opinion is, that the story itself is not that great, and doesn't hold to a cold shower. Without going into spoilers, the story hinges on holding as facts a lot of things that don't hold up to proper scrutiny, and regularly the characters ignore to dig into them as their life depends on it (not spoiler, it does). Also. while the storytelling is great, it clearly does the heavy lifting for the story itself, "cheating" in various ways including by showing a specific point of view to try and make you ignore all of his plot holes.
As for your last question, only thing i'm gonna say to avoid spoilers is: "Back to the piano mines with you, monster!".
It's one of the best games I've ever played, and the best game I've played this year. Love the characters and story and combat and the overall world of the game. It consistently elicited strong emotions from me - from making me tear up to making me laugh out loud - so I was always invested and entertained. 10/10 game from me, highly recommend.
On November 14 2025 19:30 Dekalinder wrote: That being said, here is my hot take. My personal really unpopular opinion is, that the story itself is not that great, and doesn't hold to a cold shower. Without going into spoilers, the story hinges on holding as facts a lot of things that don't hold up to proper scrutiny, and regularly the characters ignore to dig into them as their life depends on it (not spoiler, it does). Also. while the storytelling is great, it clearly does the heavy lifting for the story itself, "cheating" in various ways including by showing a specific point of view to try and make you ignore all of his plot holes.
Absolutely love the game, and I don't disagree at all. I'm just happy to enjoy everything about it without applying said cold shower.
I re-watched Inception the other day -- in theatres no less! -- and it feels very much the same way. If you apply a truly critical lens, facets of the story no longer add up... but there's really no need or value in doing so, so I will simply enjoy it as-is. :0)
Mainly, I want to know your thoughts on the ending, which one did you choose and why? + Show Spoiler +
Sided with Maelle because she felt like the real protagonist and I was most emotionally connected with her. I never got over Gustave's death and Verso felt like a usurper into the story. I didn't jive with him.
had so much fun palying this game. the story is great, the mechanic is great, the progress is great... and the OST is the best I ever listen too since ever, nothing come close.
On November 14 2025 19:30 Dekalinder wrote: I think is an exceptional game for the visuals, the music, and basically everything related to the arts and presentation. The storytelling also is quite good. The combat is ok but nothing exceptional. The QTE, expecially the parry, is an overpowered "win more/lose more" where if you are good with it can totally trivialize the strategic aspect of the game. Also, the balance is all over the place.
That being said, here is my hot take. My personal really unpopular opinion is, that the story itself is not that great, and doesn't hold to a cold shower. Without going into spoilers, the story hinges on holding as facts a lot of things that don't hold up to proper scrutiny, and regularly the characters ignore to dig into them as their life depends on it (not spoiler, it does). Also. while the storytelling is great, it clearly does the heavy lifting for the story itself, "cheating" in various ways including by showing a specific point of view to try and make you ignore all of his plot holes.
As for your last question, only thing i'm gonna say to avoid spoilers is: "Back to the piano mines with you, monster!".
I think you are spot on. The combat is too reliant on QTE but I liked how OP you can make some of the combos are, and fitted for a wider audience. Certainly don't have as much depth compared to a more traditional jrpg. But some of the moments were absolutely epic, the music and the sound effect are done perfectly.
Story-wise, I didn't like the pacing of the last few chapters, a lot of plot just came out of nowhere and not well fleshed out. I actually put the game on hold and watched my partner finished it. But the characters are very like able.
Funny enough I finished death stranding2 a week after, lots of weird moments. And as crazy as Kojima is, after finishing the game you kinda know Kojima is conveyjng a message through the game.
To go over some of the comments without quoting each one, my thoughts:
1. Combat
Perhaps because I was new to this style, haven't tried or been interested in JRPG or generally this kind of storytelling and esthetic, but the combat was fine to me, the characters had enough diversity in play-style, there were enough mechanics and interactions between them and the enemies for the combat not to really become stale to me
Parrying was mostly too stressful to me so I decided to dodge what I can and count on having more firepower / Survivability then to rely on it
The overall feel of it, along with the atmosphere and character design, both visually and mechanically are cool enough that I don't foresee this becoming an issue for me, it works fine, it's fun, numbers go brrrr
2. Story
I'm not sure at what point, given the age of the game are we allowed or should go in to spoilers, which makes discussing "plot holes" a very big problem, but from my perspective, and I guess we can take it to spoiler tag or DM's I don't see where these holes are, I played the game a few times over now and it seems very much cohesive, logical and especially after you do all the extra context everything fits into place neatly.
I guess it all boils down to the ending, so I'm not sure if we should say fuck it and go ahead and discuss it, let me know.
On November 18 2025 00:02 Jankisa wrote: To go over some of the comments without quoting each one, my thoughts:
1. Combat
Perhaps because I was new to this style, haven't tried or been interested in JRPG or generally this kind of storytelling and esthetic, but the combat was fine to me, the characters had enough diversity in play-style, there were enough mechanics and interactions between them and the enemies for the combat not to really become stale to me
Parrying was mostly too stressful to me so I decided to dodge what I can and count on having more firepower / Survivability then to rely on it
The overall feel of it, along with the atmosphere and character design, both visually and mechanically are cool enough that I don't foresee this becoming an issue for me, it works fine, it's fun, numbers go brrrr
2. Story
I'm not sure at what point, given the age of the game are we allowed or should go in to spoilers, which makes discussing "plot holes" a very big problem, but from my perspective, and I guess we can take it to spoiler tag or DM's I don't see where these holes are, I played the game a few times over now and it seems very much cohesive, logical and especially after you do all the extra context everything fits into place neatly.
I guess it all boils down to the ending, so I'm not sure if we should say fuck it and go ahead and discuss it, let me know.
Biggest plot hole is right at the start of the game.
The whole correlation between the paintress and the gommage is based on her writing the exact number of the maxim age of the people she can "protect". The whole setup is full of ??? There is no reason for it being based on age instead of number of people. There is no explaining why it happens always once per year at the exact same date. Why she insist of writing the number before the gommage instead of after. Or like, writing a few words? It's not like they don't do the exact same later in the game. Could have sent a letter maybe, if she really tried. Then we get into why noone ask Verso for explaination when he clearly knows almost everything. Why they trust him and kept him in the party even after he lied the whole of act 2. Why Maelle is apparently so devastated by Gustave death to hate Renoir to death, but it takes 5 second for her to forgive Verso for not saving him.
I haven't played too many JRPGs, especially not the modern ones, so I'm not sure how the trends are. However, I do enjoy the combat in the sense that it's a lot about characters supporting each other and setting up attack for others and so on. It goes nicely along with the expedition theme.
Story wise I think there are definitely moments where I went "Why didn't they do this & that", but overall it's a really well done rollercoaster. In terms of pacing I did struggle quite a bit with + Show Spoiler +
Gestral Village and Esquite part, it's a bit too much of the silliness in one sequence. It does get back on track after that though.
On November 18 2025 00:02 Jankisa wrote: To go over some of the comments without quoting each one, my thoughts:
1. Combat
Perhaps because I was new to this style, haven't tried or been interested in JRPG or generally this kind of storytelling and esthetic, but the combat was fine to me, the characters had enough diversity in play-style, there were enough mechanics and interactions between them and the enemies for the combat not to really become stale to me
Parrying was mostly too stressful to me so I decided to dodge what I can and count on having more firepower / Survivability then to rely on it
The overall feel of it, along with the atmosphere and character design, both visually and mechanically are cool enough that I don't foresee this becoming an issue for me, it works fine, it's fun, numbers go brrrr
2. Story
I'm not sure at what point, given the age of the game are we allowed or should go in to spoilers, which makes discussing "plot holes" a very big problem, but from my perspective, and I guess we can take it to spoiler tag or DM's I don't see where these holes are, I played the game a few times over now and it seems very much cohesive, logical and especially after you do all the extra context everything fits into place neatly.
I guess it all boils down to the ending, so I'm not sure if we should say fuck it and go ahead and discuss it, let me know.
Biggest plot hole is right at the start of the game.
The whole correlation between the paintress and the gommage is based on her writing the exact number of the maxim age of the people she can "protect". The whole setup is full of ??? There is no reason for it being based on age instead of number of people. There is no explaining why it happens always once per year at the exact same date. Why she insist of writing the number before the gommage instead of after. Or like, writing a few words? It's not like they don't do the exact same later in the game. Could have sent a letter maybe, if she really tried. Then we get into why noone ask Verso for explaination when he clearly knows almost everything. Why they trust him and kept him in the party even after he lied the whole of act 2. Why Maelle is apparently so devastated by Gustave death to hate Renoir to death, but it takes 5 second for her to forgive Verso for not saving him.
I mean, sure, that's fair, but to me it's just a part of the world building and "it just is" category, it was a cool concept, they went with it, it seemed like they decided on that and started painting around it and it turned out great, at least to me.
It's kind of like a beautiful movie, like Lord of the Rings, why didn't Gandalf get up on one of the eagles fly over to Mordor and drop the ring into the fire, well, because we wouldn't have the rest of the story around it.
It might be a personal preference, but sometimes in art I think it's OK to ignore things like that because it makes the overall experience more enjoyable, but that might be just me.
It's very rare that a game makes you think about things, I have thousands upon thousands of hours of Dota, Starcraft and even Baldurs Gate, and sure, there are tear jerkers and great characters, but to me this story was enthralling, fun, interesting, engaging and beautifully told and in the end it really made me think about my life and lives of others I knew who lost themselves in escapism and were using vices to run away from their problems, it made me terrified of making the choice I had at the end of the first play through siding with Maelle and going back and doing all the extra stuff, and when I finally decided to go back and finish the game again I choose Verso and was really content with how much more wholesome, still very sad, but satisfying of an ending it had.
I think that's very rare so I try not to nitpick the details along the way too much.
I enjoyed 100%ing the game, but don't think I will replay it later. Combat wasn't to my liking, having to figure out when to parry with each new mob you encounter is just annoying. Bosses having 20-hit combos that all have different parry timing is just stupid. Thankfully the devs realised this and gave us the 1-shot Maelle build to ignore all of that. The story was ok but I don't really understand why everyone is raving about it. I think it just goes to show that most games have a super basic or non-existing story and as soon as a game adds the least amount of story depth, it gets praised to the high heavens because of it.
On November 18 2025 18:53 Laurens wrote: I enjoyed 100%ing the game, but don't think I will replay it later. Combat wasn't to my liking, having to figure out when to parry with each new mob you encounter is just annoying. Bosses having 20-hit combos that all have different parry timing is just stupid. Thankfully the devs realised this and gave us the 1-shot Maelle build to ignore all of that. The story was ok but I don't really understand why everyone is raving about it. I think it just goes to show that most games have a super basic or non-existing story and as soon as a game adds the least amount of story depth, it gets praised to the high heavens because of it.
Well I mean what are the other contenders for story really? Because most games played are either "yearly" releases (Cod, Battlefield, Assassins Creed,...) or "old games (League, Dota, CS2, Starcraft, AoE) That leaves like 20 other relevant games released this year and 6 of them actually have a decent story:
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Death Stranding 2: On the Beach Donkey Kong Bananza Hades 2 Hollow Knight: Silksong Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
The last time I was seriously impressed by a game's story was Horizon Zero Dawn. I remember being super excited by all the datapoints I came across, just to learn more about the world and the story. Expedition 33 didn't come close for me.
Let me be clear that I still think E33 is a good game, and a nice story. Just, not as perfect as many would lead you to believe. Horizon Zero Dawn as said above had a tighter story, even if maybe less emotionally impactfull. In my opinion depend wholy on how you get you dopamine hit, brain activity vs emotional impact. I like both in a healty mix so I tend to be disappointed a lot
On November 18 2025 00:02 Jankisa wrote: To go over some of the comments without quoting each one, my thoughts:
1. Combat
Perhaps because I was new to this style, haven't tried or been interested in JRPG or generally this kind of storytelling and esthetic, but the combat was fine to me, the characters had enough diversity in play-style, there were enough mechanics and interactions between them and the enemies for the combat not to really become stale to me
Parrying was mostly too stressful to me so I decided to dodge what I can and count on having more firepower / Survivability then to rely on it
The overall feel of it, along with the atmosphere and character design, both visually and mechanically are cool enough that I don't foresee this becoming an issue for me, it works fine, it's fun, numbers go brrrr
2. Story
I'm not sure at what point, given the age of the game are we allowed or should go in to spoilers, which makes discussing "plot holes" a very big problem, but from my perspective, and I guess we can take it to spoiler tag or DM's I don't see where these holes are, I played the game a few times over now and it seems very much cohesive, logical and especially after you do all the extra context everything fits into place neatly.
I guess it all boils down to the ending, so I'm not sure if we should say fuck it and go ahead and discuss it, let me know.
Biggest plot hole is right at the start of the game.
The whole correlation between the paintress and the gommage is based on her writing the exact number of the maxim age of the people she can "protect". The whole setup is full of ??? There is no reason for it being based on age instead of number of people. There is no explaining why it happens always once per year at the exact same date. Why she insist of writing the number before the gommage instead of after. Or like, writing a few words? It's not like they don't do the exact same later in the game. Could have sent a letter maybe, if she really tried. Then we get into why noone ask Verso for explaination when he clearly knows almost everything. Why they trust him and kept him in the party even after he lied the whole of act 2. Why Maelle is apparently so devastated by Gustave death to hate Renoir to death, but it takes 5 second for her to forgive Verso for not saving him.
The entire game takes place inside of a shared fantasy dreamscape that's the collection of multiple characters' interpretation of events. I have zero issue accepting the concept of the paintress as a standin for the mother and the gommage as an analogy for forgetting / accepting loss / whatever. The paintress doesn't strike me as a conscious entity present in that world, so much as an aspect of the mother left behind from that memory/world's creation as it struggles to protect.
To be fair, I never actually completed the game. I got stuck at the hardest boss in the game because I didn't learn to parry the final form's string of attacks, but still I greatly enjoyed the atmosphere they created and the concepts they were working with. It's hard to accept 'PLOT HOLE' when we're apparently running around in the imagination of a whole family of creatives. That leaves you loads and loads of narrative space for things like, well, Esquie.
The story hooked me and the world is super interesting - my only real beef is that there were parts of the game (dancer's challenge, looking at you) that I had to lower quality settings to get a more stable framerate to consistently parry. That's kind of an issue when 'parry' is 90% of any given fight.
On November 19 2025 06:03 Dekalinder wrote: Let me be clear that I still think E33 is a good game, and a nice story. Just, not as perfect as many would lead you to believe. Horizon Zero Dawn as said above had a tighter story, even if maybe less emotionally impactfull. In my opinion depend wholy on how you get you dopamine hit, brain activity vs emotional impact. I like both in a healty mix so I tend to be disappointed a lot
I found it's story much more enjoyable than Horizon Zero Dawn or basically anything I played since forever, despite not being extremly surprised by the big Twist, there was so much foreshadowing, something like that was just bound to happen. Some stuff in it just made the ending choice very, very obvious to me + Show Spoiler +
Maelle just reviving the others and their reactions to it made me absolutely certain that these aren't actual people and Verso is right
and that soured it a bit for me.
Sound and Atmosphere of this game just felt like something special.
I didn't 100% it because I had no interest in perfecting my parries or experimenting/googling the most broken builds just to go up against the super bosses but I did what felt like a decent amount of optional/3d act content, which sadly made the final story bit a total joke (whiteout using any of the really broken stuff), imho some sort of scaling was badly needed there... Just totally obliterating anything on the way to the final boss felt earned/decent but then also obliterating it like it's absolutely nothing didn't feel good.
Iirc it's the only game since BG3 that I actually finnished, usually I lose interest in games much earlier these days.
On November 19 2025 06:03 Dekalinder wrote: Let me be clear that I still think E33 is a good game, and a nice story. Just, not as perfect as many would lead you to believe. Horizon Zero Dawn as said above had a tighter story, even if maybe less emotionally impactfull. In my opinion depend wholy on how you get you dopamine hit, brain activity vs emotional impact. I like both in a healty mix so I tend to be disappointed a lot
I found it's story much more enjoyable than Horizon Zero Dawn or basically anything I played since forever, despite not being extremly surprised by the big Twist, there was so much foreshadowing, something like that was just bound to happen. Some stuff in it just made the ending choice very, very obvious to me + Show Spoiler +
Maelle just reviving the others and their reactions to it made me absolutely certain that these aren't actual people and Verso is right
and that soured it a bit for me.
Sound and Atmosphere of this game just felt like something special.
I didn't 100% it because I had no interest in perfecting my parries or experimenting/googling the most broken builds just to go up against the super bosses but I did what felt like a decent amount of optional/3d act content, which sadly made the final story bit a total joke (whiteout using any of the really broken stuff), imho some sort of scaling was badly needed there... Just totally obliterating anything on the way to the final boss felt earned/decent but then also obliterating it like it's absolutely nothing didn't feel good.
Iirc it's the only game since BG3 that I actually finnished, usually I lose interest in games much earlier these days.
Yeah, same here with the Bg3, I played the shit out of that game, as an comparison, the story there is much more detailed, bigger, choices are more impactful and I still vastly prefer E33 story for the emotional impact and "making you think" peace.
Since I did my first play-through on expeditioner by the time I did the game on Expert I had some favorite builds that could deal with everything so the frustration part never kicked in for me.
I didn't mind this part too much, because regardless of that my interpretation is that these were real "beings", a piece of Verso who painted the world in the first place is in every one of them, I mean, Monoco is his dog, Esquie is his plush toy, they have their "personalities" if you will.
In the end, I choose Verso every time, yes, it's kind of fucked up but everyone had a good run and it's not like they are 100 % full living beings, while Maelle on the outside is and this is killing her, so it makes more sense.
You can nitpick any story. Expedition 33's overall story is unique in the way where pretty much none of the nitpicks matter, as soon as you think about it outside the box + Show Spoiler +
read: outside the canvas
What brings this one above the fold is that this is a game with phenomenal world building, amazing, relatable and likeable characters, a lot of heart and a lot of heavy hitting moments - as well as absolute frikkin' bombshells dropped at the end of every part.
The way the game made me care about the characters, their struggles and their fate, is something I will be endlessly praising. The only game that has done this to me is FF14's best expansions, but you have to spend hundreds of hours to even get there. Expedition 33 provided me a very similar experience but manages to do it much quicker.
And it also manages to be funny in the right way. Something almost no game of this type has ever been able to do.
I can't wait to see what Sandfall Interactive does next, they are currently the only studio in the world whose game I would pre-order.
Video Game stories are best viewed through a different lens in the same way other mediums of communicating a fictional story are viewed from a different perspective. One does not attempt to compare how the plot progresses in a full length novel to the plot progression in a 22.5 minute series episode.
Both SC1 and SC2 do a great job telling stories that fit well within the campaign whose job is to teach players the basics of RTS.
On November 19 2025 23:13 abuse wrote: You can nitpick any story. Expedition 33's overall story is unique in the way where pretty much none of the nitpicks matter, as soon as you think about it outside the box + Show Spoiler +
read: outside the canvas
i agree. Thomas Sowell's great quote about being perfect doing nothing applies.
“The beauty of doing nothing is that you can do it perfectly. Only when you do something is it almost impossible to do it without mistakes. Therefore people who are contributing nothing to society, except their constant criticisms, can feel both intellectually and morally superior.”
E33 is an excellent game that I enjoyed very much. I 100%'d the game so I can shed some light on some of the misconceptions that people in this thread have:
1. Parrying is not required. There have been multiple challenge playthroughs where players don't parry or dodge at all, and purely let the stats run the game. And it works! I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding with some players where if a game has a parry mechanic that it is necessary to use it all the time. That is not the case. You don't have to parry in Elden Ring (hell, people have done entire playthroughs of that game where they only walk and attack!), but the perception is that you do. Similarly, you don't have to parry in E33, but that perception exists. If you build sufficiently for defense, you don't need to rely on parry/dodge.
I never thought there were plot holes in the game. You're SUPPOSED to think of Verso as this shifty, untrustworthy usurper of Gustave's role. The framing of the game, just like Metaphor: ReFantazio, is built such that you develop affinity for all the characters and races in the game first, and then later expand the scope to the real world and force you to choose between them. Is reality inherently more valuable than fantasy? There is no clear answer, which is why both endings are sad. Sometimes you have to do the hard thing with no payoff. By the time Maelle confronts Verso about whether he had the ability to save Gustave, she had already awakened as Alicia, so her personal horizons have broadened significantly. The fact that you the player still held a grudge against Verso speaks more to your bias than a story failing. Verso admitting that he could have saved Gustave and chose not to, and Maelle not getting mad about it, is a reflection of her experience as Alicia, where she is capable of understanding his reasoning, even if she doesn't agree with it.
3. The pacing. There are a few superbosses in the game, and the game lets you become extremely powerful. I wasn't aware that you could keep playing after finishing the story, and in hindsight, I should have completed the main story first before becoming too strong as to trivialize it. Sandfall has introduced some game options (such as capping your damage at 99,999 or 999,999) that you can employ in case you made the same choice, but I can't vouch for these, as they were introduced in an update that released after I was done with the game.
Personally I thought that the music was fantastic, and the story surrounding the development was really one of incredibly fortunate coincidences. The voice acting and motion capture are top notch, the emotional beats are spot on. The game lets you break it if you want, but it's not required. The post-launch support has been far beyond what I would have expected for a standalone game. A definite lightning in a bottle title.
EPT
