I really want to try this game but I am not quite sure.
I HATE (hate hate hate) twitch games. Games that you need to be super-fast on the button push at the exact right time to get anything done. This is the reason I don’t play Souls-like games. I want to but no way am I down for dying 30 times to advance one step because I can’t time a parry properly to within a millisecond and then string ten of those together back-to-back and then do that five times in one fight.
Clair Obscur seems like that. While not a FPS as such from what I have seen you still need microsecond accurate button pushes to avoid insta-death.
Does anyone here know? Can I lower difficulty or something to not have to do that?
Never heard of it, but you remind me of our Doper clairobscur from France (haven’t seen him around in a while). It’s French for chiaroscuro, the effect of light against dark.
Ya know…when I saw the game name there was something about it that was itching deep in my brain about that name. This is it! I remember that poster too. Thanks for helping solve that (to me) mystery.
I have not played it but (based on reviews/reading) there is a Story setting that disables QTEs and expands the length of the parry/dodge window so you can react to it rather than predict it. Also the usual less damage on hit, etc.
If you’re playing on PC, it sounds like a good game for Steam’s two hour return policy. Get in, fight a few fights and decide if it’s generous enough in its timing for you.
Just note this isn’t just a “PC game”, it’s also out on consoles (it was released on Xbox and Playstation the same day it released on PC). It went free on Game Pass when it released. I haven’t played it yet but it looks good and I like that they were inspired by the Final Fantasy and Persona games, and tried to make gameplay similar.
I plan to play it (since I won’t have to pay for it on Game Pass). Critics seem to love it, with most reviewers putting it in the 90s. One review called it “Perseauxna” (as in French Persona).
I’ve been playing it when I have time (maybe just played a few hours so far). My initial impressions are that it’s amazingly good. Fantastic aesthetic, voice acting, and story telling. I haven’t been subjected to a single bit of exposition from NPCs but I still have a pretty good idea of what the setting is.
As for the combat, it is nothing at all like a souls-like but I get the trepidation. To be honest I have not figured out the parry and dodge timing yet so, while I haven’t been dying, I have been losing a lot more health in each encounter than I would like. I did see a setting to automate the quicktime events and there are also difficulty settings, something many souls-like games don’t have.
The quicktime events I’ve seen so far haven’t really been the traditional style where you have a number of buttons to push in sequence as they appear on screen. Clair Obscure sometimes has you push a button at the correct time to give a boost to an attack, so far it’s just been one button, you know which attacks you need it for, and the timing is consistent. What I’m saying is that it is not about reacting, it’s just about timing and you can learn that easily enough. There’s also no great penalty for getting it wrong, you just don’t do quite as good an attack.
Parry and dodge timing has been more difficult to learn, but as I say, there are difficulty settings. The challenge with dodge and parry timing is that it’s not clear whether you’ve gone too early or too late.
There’s difficulty as well though isn’t there? It also says things like “[enemy] uses a slow attack” or “[enemy] uses a fast attack”, so you know in advance what sort of parry/dodge timing you will need.
I’m 5 hours in and I want to tell you: the QTE elements of battle can be set to “auto” where they complete for you. Any other QTE’s appear, if I’m understanding, to be able to be turned off.
You do need to dodge attacks by reacting quickly, but I hate that type of thing and I’m doing OK. I dodge a good amount of attacks and survive fairly well when I make mistakes. I have died a bit, but it autosaves massively generously, so I’m good.
Having played it a bit more, there’s definitely a souls-like element to the combat. The system basically tells you which of the enemy’s attacks is about to be performed so you are ready to dodge or parry the incoming attack in the sequence that you have learned through trial and error. I have pretty much only been dodging as it is easier. A “perfect dodge” has the same window as a parry, so you can start out dodging until you are consistently getting perfect dodges and then start parrying.
If you don’t like learning an enemy’s moves, then performing dodges in a sort of choreographed dance, then you might get frustrated with the combat. However, it is much more forgiving overall and the turn based element means that you always get a chance to mentally reset. The combat also takes place in a set space with the participants not being able to move so you don’t have the kind of frustrations you might get in a souls game where you can get stuck in the scenery or just have a bad time with movement and the camera. Also, in souls games you have to find times to attack the enemy, in this style of combat you just take turns, so if you’ve got your dodges and parries sorted you can kill an enemy in a consistent time frame.
When I was playing the prologue and getting the lay of the plot and setting, I thought to myself “This is the sort of story that would be in a film where everyone praises its ideas and departure from other sci-fi franchises… and then makes $200,000 on opening weekend”.
I’m only into the first part of the post title card game so can’t speak for the rest of it but I’m finding combat manageable so far. There’s a learning curve for when enemy attacks actually happen but I currently feel like I can do this on Default (and I’m not great at this stuff). If that gets too in the future, I’ll happily switch it down to Story because it’s a lovely experience so far regardless.
I reached the end of Act 1 this past weekend and it took about 11-12 hours to do so. I’m not quite as head-over-heels as the general population is, but it is a nice surprise. A new IP from a new development group(people who broke off of Ubisoft). Very impressive.
I am generally doing OK dodging, but I rarely risk anything by parrying. I have learned that:
You can easily learn the ability to gain 1 AP from dodging
You can even later learn the ability to gain 1 AP when you miss and get hit
The risk of parrying does, I think, not equal the reward. I’d rather dodge since the window is easier and I can earn AP from it or getting hit.
I’m a little confused about some healing abilities. I have one abilty that says “heals X% on 2-3 allies”, but when I use it, it almost always just heals 1 person. Is it based on the QT event whether it will heal everyone or not? Same happens if I cast “shell” on the team. It sometimes does 2 people, but not all 3 like I thought it was supposed to. At least not usually.
Between this and Metaphor Refantazio, it’s nice to seem some new Final Fantasy games since Square abandoned the core aspects of Final Fantasy a long time ago.
Seriously, Metaphor Refantazio could have released as a full Final Fantasy game, as could have Clair Obscur.
I shoiuld point out that is once per turn, while I guess parrying could earn you multiple AP for each parry…but the risk is too high for me since I suck at perfect timing. I’d say 50% of my dodges are perfect, which would have been a successful parry. That’s not good enough to justify it.
The parry timing is the same as the perfect dodge timing, so dodge until you can consistently get perfect dodges, then start parrying. The counter attack from parrying is very powerful.
I just read that one of the big advantages to a parry is it fills the Break Bar (gold bar under red health bar) much faster than anything else (it is enabled when you see a gold star at the end of the bar and then you have to use an attack skill which says it can do a break). This can stun your enemy as well as remove any defense (like the Mime’s wall which nerfs your damage).
I do find that wall or whatever annoying. I have several abilities that can break them, but the percentage chance of breaking is not high enough to to be consistent.
I’ve fought 2-3 mimes. Do they only give clothing/hairstyles?