Today I googled the meaning of the song “Alicia” in Clair Obscur and it reminded me of my best friend who is no longer with me.
All the songs in the game have meanings. “Gustave” is another song that I lament about. It tells of how I feel about the important people in my life who are no longer with me.
This game has such intricate story. I know these characters are fictional. As the fox in Le Petite Prince says, “if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world… I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow.”
I recently started it.
Gameplay-wise, I find it bland at best: A world traversed entirely on rails, and JRPG-style combat with timed dodge/parry moves. These mechanics don’t excite me, but I’m still playing anyway, because…
As a work of art, I find it gorgeous. The operatic soundtrack, despite being a genre outside my usual preferences, is captivating. The voice acting is nuanced and immersive like I don’t think I’ve heard in any other game (so much that I can mostly overlook the terrible lip sync problems in the animation). A few of the facial expressions are… disarming. The environments are so beautiful that I sometimes find myself just staring at them for a while instead of advancing the story.
It’s too early to be sure I’ll stick with it, but I suspect that I will, just as I would a film that indulges the senses.
At first I was frustrated by the dodge parry mechanics but they grew on me. I usually don’t have very good reflexes but I kept at it and actually got pretty skilled to the point where I beat the extra bosses. The music is brilliant and the world is so beautiful and the voice acting is perfect. Such a magnificent game.
I was so proud when I could finally parry and beat Simon. Then his second phase wiped me and I noped right out of there.
I was the same until I really paid attention to the story and the music. It is beautifully written. I got this on gamepass and I bought Oblivion at the same time. I haven’t touched Oblivion since.
I think the “Terrible” lip sync is actually just french lip sync tbh
The music, story and art harmonizes in a way that caused me to sit and be sad for hours. The melancholy environment, the inevitability of death and the sorrow love eventually causes. It’s so fucking beautiful!
Just the start, losing Sophie to the gommage, the setting and music ties it all so damn well together. It’s beautiful and tremendously sad. The whole thing is such a masterpiece of what games can achieve. A game where the gameplay isn’t the best or groundbreaking, but combined with the art, music, tone and story, it flies up to one of the best games in recent years. If not more.
Remember everything you just said when you hit act 3.
I play games to relax and have fun. If a games has people crying, then I don’t think I would find that fun.
Art can serve several purposes. Your tastes are valid as a preference, but fun and escapism are only a small part of what games as an art form can provide. Would you critique a piece of visual art (for example, Guernica) by saying “this isn’t very fun”?
True, but it is what I want from a game, as I said, so I don’t think I would enjoy this one.
Tried playing it but hate the combat system, all the timing things in it to be precise. It’s a pitty because I really liked everything else but having to retry multiple times to beat one slightly stronger enemy just kills the game for me.
Try dodging over parrying. Much more forgiving. Not nearly as precise. You can dodge most attacks the first time just by waiting to see when the attack is going to hit/land after the windup. I’d say by the end, I was dodging about 80-90% of the attacks, even from things I had never seen before just because the wind-up system is fairly predictable. Once you get the hang of it, dodging is super easy.
If you have the PC version, you get download the rest parry mod.
The timing is not more difficult than Rlden Ring or other action RPG. You can try dodge. One you get pattern, then do parry. The easy mode also makes it easier to parry
