What can I say but this is one of those games that have a story that absolutely blew my mind. This is one of those games where you should just avoid spoilers as much as you can and just jump right in. The story is magnificient. The characters are actually fun. The music is awesome. And the fight itself, is absolutely fun and challenging.
Before I start, I should preface that Expedition 33 is a turn-based RPG. A turn-based RPG in 2025? How sacrilegious! But as for me, someone who enjoys turn-based RPG, Clair Obscur is a great game that heavily scratch my itch for turn-based RPG. But even as a turn-based RPG, it still felt like an action RPG. Why? First of all, the animation and turn taking between battles was so great that it did not feel like actions are being paused for me to choose my actions.
And secondly, Expedition 33 heavily uses the dodge / parry mechanic. Meaning, you can either dodge or parry your opponents and receive no damage, however strong the enemy is. All you need is to be good at timing. “Oh, then I can simply parry everything until the last boss and I don’t need to upgrade anything!” Yes, you certainly can, and there are some people who took on that challenge, but good luck. The animations when the enemy attacks are really, really good and they feel very immersive that it did not feel like I was taking turns each time. And they are devilishly clever at giving out misdirecting cues to make you f up your parries. And.. they did not feel like some cheap tricks when you fail.
So with that aside, how about the story? The story itself is, very, very awesome. I can put it among some of the great visual novel stories. The story is that good. I don’t know how I could review the story without accidentally spoiling, and this is one of the few that you definitely do NOT want any spoilers. If you’re itching for a damn good story, just stop reading now and play. But I can confirm that the story is… depressing.. to put it mildly.
The characters? They are fun! Yes, fun! And they all are actually very likeable. The voice acting is superb. Their personalities are great and very relateable. Maybe not enough to be waifu level.. well according to my taste anyways. But certainly Lune and even Sciel has some waifu potential.. yeah now that I think about it, I’m sure there are people who like Lune and Scielf as waifus. Okay, but all in all, once you finish the game, it’s hard to forget them characters.
The music is a masterpiece. When you are fighting the boss and the vocals came up… chef’s kiss. You can’t stop but feel very hyped up for the fights. And you can see how much love were put in this game. When you hear the song for the first time, it just felt… awesome. But after you finished the game and listen again, you start actually listening to the story and your mind goes .. “Ah! That’s it!“. There’s so much love put in the game and it definitely shows in every details of the game.
The only negative I can talk about this game is the mini game where you have to climb to the top by walking on planks and floating platforms.. that sucks please don’t do that again. So just skip them if you suck at them like me.
Yes, it’s a thumbs up for this game. Go play it bruh!