RPGs are weird, man. It feels like nowadays every turn-based RPG is trying to either be Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, I mean, it's no one's fault in the last decade we've largely focused in on what we want out of a turn-based experience: even the really unique ones are more about building on a pre-made set of fundamentals.

As someone who's a bigger fan of weird mechanics, I've always been harder to sell RPGs to- a lot of them tend to just be people saying "bro the story is worth it" but be padded with 60 hours of boring menus. Like, why didn't anyone tell me how fun Press Turns were? Like I'm not saying that RPG stories are bad, but like a belligerent child I need to have my RPG wrapped in something more to my button mashy brain.

So imagine my surprise when I try out Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. In short it's the most JRPG game to not have been made in Japan- a beautiful story set in a picturesque world. But it's also one of the most mechanically fun experiences I've had in this genre.

Title: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Developer: Sandfall Interactive

Publisher: Kepler Interactive, Bandai Namco Entertainment (Asia)

Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5

Love, Grief And Fantasy

Expedition 33 has the strongest opening for an RPG I've seen since Yakuza 7. It's a beautiful setpiece, showing off the world of Lumiere, a Belle Epoque world with a tragic quirk: Every year, The Paintress kills off everyone of a certain age, counting down from 100. In response, every year Lumiere sends soldiers that are next in line in an attempt to kill The Paintress, and you're playing as the next batch, a group of 33 year olds.

Despite all this setup there's surprisingly little exposition for anything going on. The opening act of the game is just a tragic scene, as Gustave watches the love of his life accept that today's the day she gets killed. For the rest of the game, you see that these characters aren't just grieving loved ones, they're grieving life itself.

With a setup like this I fully expected every character to constantly be screaming about avenging their mothers or husbands, but instead Expedition 33 drops melodrama in favor of melancholy. The game seems just as much about finding life in the face of death, as it goes to great lengths to show you that despite being a crew full of people reckoning with their last year alive, they still have things they do. Gustave's a nerdy engineer. Lune is an overly book-smart girl who loves fairy tales.

Verso might be the best example of this- at times he feels less like a character and more like voice actor Ben Starr's internet persona simply re-injected into a video game.

It's not just the characters, but the world too: despite being on a mission to defeat death, once you hit the continent it explodes in beauty. There's the mechanical Gestrals, coral forests on land, and even fun sidequests. I don't think it's tonally dissonant to have Gustave and gang get sidetracked on their life-saving mission: I think it's exactly the point. Life can continue even when you know your days are up.

Wesh Mon Gars Bien Ou Quoi?

The best thing about how beautiful the setting of Clair Obscur Expedition 33 is is that it's not just covering up less enthralling gameplay. Expedition 33 has an amazingly unique flavor of turn based combat that's not just centered around a gimmick: well, not one, anyways.

Weirdly enough, if I had to describe it Expedition 33's turn based system feels like a more fleshed out Honkai Star Rail. Every single character you control plays completely different from the last, usually having some sort of resource and cashout system, as well as a big branching skill tree that further lets you decide how you want them to play.

Lune, the mage, for example stores Elemental Stains every time she casts a spell, and each of her spells can trigger additional effects if you have the correct stains stored up. Meanwhile, Verso literally just has a Devil May Cry style meter, with his moves improving as long as he is constantly scoring hits and never getting hit in turn.

This also works with the Lumina system- I'm not joking when I say it's Honkai Star Rail Lightcones but better in every way. These boost stats and give passive abilities, and once you master one you can equip the passive ability independent of the Picto it came from. Holding 3 Pictos and a theoretically unlimited (each Lumina costs Lumina points) gives you so many outes for synergies.

In one instance, I had a build that prioritized burning- Maelle needs enemies to be on fire to maximize her stance mechanic, so she had a passive that ignited enemies if she shot at them. The follow up? Shooting also enhances your next regular or skill attack. The end result was Expedition 33 being turn based the same way YuGiOh is turn based: that only means you have a period of time where your opponent can't really do anything to stop you.

Watch Me Parry Like Daigo

Oh, right, I should probably talk about how defense works. Despite being a turn based game, you'll need to dodge or parry your way through encounters. Dodging is the safer option, with your character getting more invincibility frames, while parrying has a big reward: parry every hit in an attack and get a free counter.

This expands further down the line once you unlock jumping and Gradient Counters, but the bones are there: pay attention during these fights. The game will occasionally give you hints- saying if an attack is going to be slow or fast as hints on how many times you'll need to parry or dodge it. But ultimately repetition is your best friend- I've attempted bosses multiple times with the sole intent of just learning some parry timings, expecting to be able to no-hit every encounter.

Naturally, the game has a counter for this: Expedition 33 is not afraid to hit you with the dirty mixup: attacks that might start the same way, then follow up differently. It's the most engaged I've felt in a turn based RPG, and it's absolutely enthralling.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Verdict

As someone thirsting for the new and the sincere, Clair Obscur Expedition 33 is everything I've wanted and more out of an RPG. It's bold and wonderful and dripping with a certain je na sais quox. It oozes love in every orifice, from its beautifully melancholy story to its intense mechanical combat.

Its biggest gripes are all nitpicks at best- the tutorial sequences are actually the worst way to learn the mechanics, since they do the mobile game style freezing so you never actually experience parry timing until your next fight. There's also the overworld stuff itself- it's not bad per se, but the game can make it feel extra hard to get off the main story path at times.

Still, once you see how Expedition 33 plays with its own systems, it's hard to not be totally enraptured by its gameplay. This could well be the best RPG this year, if not one of the best games overall. Pick this one up.

• Presentation: 10/10
• Gameplay: 9/10
• Content: 9/10

Final Score: 9.5/10

Game reviewed on PS5. Review code provided by Bandai Namco Entertainment SEA, the game's distributor for Asia