9 Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 tips to take on the Paintress

Are you looking for some Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 tips to get started in this love letter to RPGs as a genre, taking a lot of inspiration from JRPGs past and present. While there's not too many ways to get completely lost, this is nevertheless a deep role-playing experience with lots of intertwining systems – from its battle mechanics to exploring an overworld map and dungeons. While simple at first, you'll quickly realize there's a lot of different builds you can work towards, even.

That is, after all, one of the reasons we loved the game so much in our Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 review. This is no mere imitation of our beloved RPG favorites of old, but a genuine next step that evolves and excites at just about every turn. For genre fans this is a must-play, and for those who aren't into RPGs? This could be the one to get you in. All the more important then for some tips to help you get started with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, so you don't miss out on getting hooked.

1. To parry, or not to parry? That is the question

For the most part, battles in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 are the turn-based fare you've come to know and love, whether that's old classics like Dragon Quest right the way through to Persona 5. The twist comes in adding timing elements, both to boost the power of your skills, and to dodge and parry enemy attacks. It's not the first RPG to do this, but so far it's the one that feels like it has the most fluid and responsive parry to date. Trading blows doesn't feel like just pressing a button, but pitting steel against steel like in Sekiro.

But, parrying isn't going to be for everyone. In fact, it's a skill check that may be frustrating for some. Enemies have different attack chains and combinations – and to get a counterattack you need to power every blow perfectly. If you struggle, then try dodging first. The window is more generous and will still negate damage, and you can even get a boost with a perfect dodge, allowing you to also note that you would have had the timing down for a parry.

Getting comfortable with enemy moves, and sometimes knowing which ones you're confident parrying and which ones to leave is vital. The timing feels tough but fair on Normal but, anecdotally, it seems far more generous on Story difficulty – though I only played that for a couple of hours to try it out. Currently, there's no separate difficulty slider for this.

2. Get the most out of combat

While Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's dodge and parry mechanics are available to all party members, there's plenty to set them apart too. Each one has their own set of systems that give you a unique path to using them, which is well worth getting to grips with for each. Gustave, for example, gets the option to boost his most powerful attack when his Overcharge meter reaches 10 hits – so nudging him towards using chain attacks rather than single-hitters is the priority. Likewise, Lune's elemental attacks can become boosted by using a spread of elements rather than focusing on just one type.

Essentially, every character is an engine you rev up each battle to get them to dish out a lot more damage once you get going than when you start. Abilities even have synergies cross-party, as well. One skill may allow you to build up and then release AP to other party members to jump-start their attacks. Or, for example, Lune's fire attacks can allow Maelle to more easily enter her damage-boosting Virtuos stance.

You also don't want to forget about Free Aim. Especially early on, shooting weak points by spending a single pip of AP can give you big damage advantages, or stop enemies from building up to heavy-hitting attacks. Keep in mind that these also remove enemy shields, so an enemy with three shields can be easily popped if you blast away, opening them up to big damage.

3. Learn the right skills first

Each characters' skill tree reflects how unique they are to play as in battle, usually starting you somewhat central with the option to upgrade in multiple directions, earning one skill point per level up. These do come quick and fast, but even so it's worth keeping in mind which strong moves you want to prioritize heading towards to make the most of them.

To a degree it's a matter of taste, but I recommend keeping in mind how each character works with their unique mechanics to achieve balance – at least early on before you're able to nudge things forward via other gear. Maelle, for example, is all about switching stances. So try to make sure you have some decent skills to make use of each stance so you don't end up in a stance without anything useful that makes use of being in that stance. Before long, you'll also want to make sure you have some skills that use around 8-9 AP for their strongest attacks, allowing you to release all the energy you build in battle.

4. Use the best pictos

Pictos are stat-boosting bits of gear that also grant special abilities. 'Learn' them by clearing five battles, and you can even spend lumina to continue to use those pictos abilities even when unequipped (and simultaneously with other party members). Max lumina increases as characters level up, but can also be increased further via collectibles.

There are loads of synergies to keep in mind, and that's where pictos truly shine. Free aim gun attacks, for example, can be greatly boosted to apply things like burn or mark to increase damage for little cost. Combine those skills with others that, for instance, allow you to do more critical hits on burned or marked enemies? Now you're cooking.

In general, though, I recommend veering towards pictos that grant constant bonuses rather than one-and-done (though ones that help in a pinch if you drop below a certain amount of health can be very helpful). With that said, Energizing Start, which boosts AP at the start of battle, is great for stacking the odds in your favor early on. I also developed an explosive Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 XP farming strategy using easy to get pictos you might want to check out.

5. Arrange and level-up your stats

Each time you level up, you get three points to put into each of your party member's stats: Vitality, Might, Agility, Defense, and Luck. Next to these attributes in the menu are total values (including additions from equipment) for Health, Attack Power, Speed, Defense (yes, two Defense values), and Critical Rate. You'd be forgiven for thinking, therefore, that the stats on the left simply correlate to the ones on the right. That's not actually the case.

A hard to see light yellow indicates that while Vitality simply increases Health, and Might just affects Attack Power; Agility increases Speed and Defense; Defense increases Defense and Critical Rate; and Luck increases Critical Rate and Speed. On top of that, Attack Power will be boosted depending on the ranking value for the party member's weapon like in Dark Souls.

In my experience, all values are important to have fairly high, but Health and Might seem to get big enough boosts from other gear so you don't need to stress about them too much. Most of my character's Health and Might were around 10 to 20 points below their others by the end of the game. Lack Speed, though, and enemies can act multiple times, and lack Defense and missing parries can devastate you against stronger foes. I actually found Luck, often one I overlook in RPGs, a big bonus here – where I quickly aimed to get it to around 33%-50% or more with pictos boosts. Many skills have extra effects that activate on criticals, such as guaranteeing double damage or dealing extra strikes.

6. Are there relationship mechanics or social links?

The answer is yes… sort of. You unlock them beginning in Act 2 by speaking to party members at camp, then having short conversations with them. They don't just give more narrative to each party member, but can eventually unlock new skills too. Unlike social links in, say, Metaphor ReFantazio, there's no need to slowly work through them. You can do as many as you like in one camp night. Nor does there seem to be a relationship ranking other than progressing a level after each event.

So far it appears these just unlock slowly as the game progresses. However, it should be noted you won't be able to finish off these character quests and relationships until Act 3, when the full overworld is unlocked. For most party members, finishing off their quest involves some unique mechanics like prompting you to do an optional dungeon or boss fight. Some are even harder than the final bits in the main quest, so go prepared.

7. How do you get the boat, to fly, and other overworld traversal methods?

There's plenty of tantalizing parts of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's overworld, even if a lot of the optional areas may kick your butt early on. But traversal modes aren't something you need to worry much about as they're all introduced as part of the story bar one single addition that's available in Act 3. For that one, just progress Esquie's character quest at camp. With that cleared, I got the achievement that he was fully upgraded, so it seems that's all you need to do to unlock all the traversal methods in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

8. What's up with the manor, and how to open the manor doors

Early on in the story you're taken through a mysterious wooden door to a manor with many locked doors. You can't open them from that side, however. Just like how Gustave and company entered the manor through a TARDIS-like door in the middle of a dungeon, more of those are scattered around to find. Some are in main questline dungeons, others are in optional ones, including late game in Act 3.

Entering these for the first time deposits you in a new room in the manor. You may briefly become confused as to how to progress. In most cases, turning around and opening the door you came through will reveal it opens up to the main part of the manor you know, and leaving through the main entrance returns you to where you entered that time. Each room often hides collectibles you can find by interacting with the environment and sometimes jumping around, such as costumes and records. Just looking around the space can also reveal some extra information about the inhabitants and the world of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 without drawing explicit attention to it, so give it a look.

9. How long is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 really?

The developers Sandfall Interactive have estimated around 30 hours to beat the main story, and 30 more for additional content. To hit credits with only a couple of side dungeons on the way, it took me just over 25 hours. I do game faster than these estimates usually, so I would say 30 hours is fair.

I'm still working my way through side content, though an additional 30 hours does seem quite high. With that said, at least one extra dungeon took me a little under 2 hours and had important narrative content, so it may very well add up once you take strategizing for some really tough optional bosses into account. There's also a New Game+, which promises a more challenging second go around with additional content, so there's plenty of game in here.

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