4 ms·

Clair Obscur is going to be game of the year every year for the next decade.

by b473a 28d ago

sdenton4 28d ago
Which is too bad, because Blue Prince is the better game. :) I'm playing through Clair Obscur now. It's above average for aaa stuff. But there are way too many cut scenes, and dodge/parry mechanics continue to be tedious. And the story is fine, but isn't really grabbing me. Sigh. Blue Prince, on the other hand, is quite probably the best puzzle game I have ever played. My partner and I worked on it for months, and have a 50+ page Google doc of notes.
- bobson_dugnutt5 28d ago
  [dead]
- fooker 28d ago
  > worked on it for months, and have a 50+ page Google doc of notes. That sounds more like a part time job than a game. I'm curious if you play it for the mental challenge? I feel challenged enough at $dayjob that all I want from games is mindless relaxation.
  - sdenton4 28d ago
    To be sure, it was a couple few hours here and there, not at the scale of a job. Blue Prince is an example of what fills are calling 'notebook games' -- instead of giving you lots of qol stuff, you just use a notebook to keep notes. The act of writing and arranging your notes is actually quite immersive. It's also fun! Blue Prince has layers of puzzles and story... It's pretty reasonable to play to the credits, and not get into the depths of the post credits game; it's a very reasonable cutoff point for non-sickos.
  - glimshe 28d ago
    That's the beauty of Blue Prince. The core game doesn't require all of that. You can get to a satisfying ending with moderate puzzle solving. But after finishing the game, there are still hundreds of hours worth of optional puzzles left.
    - joshuamorton 27d ago
      Yeah blue prince is three games (I've played two of them and won't play the third). First, it's a really compelling roguelite puzzler where you explore and understand the house and it's mechanics. The puzzles are mostly small and straightforward (but not easy!). You can probably win this without taking notes. I found this part compelling and delightful. Then it's something else where you learn about the world. The puzzles are more complicated and need notebooks and notes to keep the loose threads tracked. This part for me became a slog by the end and I finished mostly to say that I had. Then its a third thing for sickos.
- 3eb7988a1663 28d ago
  I am "only" a dozen+ hours into Clair Obscur, and I am similarly not understanding the hype. Combat is too gimmicky and annoying. The story is tonally all over the place. It starts out very dark, and then the characters seemingly have no problems going on stupid side quests because they want to see some cute elves or something. Are you saving the world or not? The joke side quests work in your standard RPG because they take themselves less seriously. Your character is wielding an eight foot sword, the mage companion is a talking cat, and your boots are haunted by a long-dead Egyptian prince. Sure, go nuts if you want to play the mini-game at the circus belly-dancing competition to win the golden hat. Clair Obscur starts in such a bleak, breathing world that the characters not treating the situation deadly serious breaks my connection to the world, so I start to focus more on the mechanical annoyances.
- bigstrat2003 28d ago
  I liked Clair Obscur a lot, but I doubt very much if I will ever replay it. The necessity of being able to dodge to survive encounters really killed the fun of the gameplay for me.
glimshe 28d ago
Clair Obscur has great art (including music) but isn't a greater game underneath it. It's good but not exceptional. I can see the appeal for final fantasy fans, but I was underwhelmed. Someone else mentions Blue Prince here. I think that's a much better game relatively speaking, even if not having Clair Obscur's exceptional art.
DarmokTanagra 27d ago
[dead]
sph 27d ago
I'll eat my hat if we still talk about Clair Obscur in the next decade, like we might still be talking about Dark Souls (2011), for example, to this day. It is a good game in an era where big name studios only care to invest in live-service games, and even indies are starting to rehash the same tropes over and over. It is not a ground-breaking cornerstone of the arts, just an isle of respite among the greed; any food tastes good when you're starving.
- tstrimple 26d ago
  Clair Obscur was a far, far more memorable game for me and it's not even close. One actually has a story and characters to care about. The other is a masochism simulation.
  - sph 26d ago
    You liked it more, that’s fine, but the other literally spawned a new genre (soulslikes) Also masochism simulator is what people that have only heard about the game from social media call it.

Clair Obscur is going to be game of the year every year for the next decade.

by b473a 28d ago

Clair Obscur is going to be game of the year every year for the next decade.

Which is too bad, because Blue Prince is the better game. :) I'm playing through Clair Obscur now. It's above average for aaa stuff. But there are way too many cut scenes, and dodge/parry mechanics continue to be tedious. And the story is fine, but isn't really grabbing me. Sigh. Blue Prince, on the other hand, is quite probably the best puzzle game I have ever played. My partner and I worked on it for months, and have a 50+ page Google doc of notes.

bobson_dugnutt5 28d ago
[dead]
fooker 28d ago
> worked on it for months, and have a 50+ page Google doc of notes. That sounds more like a part time job than a game. I'm curious if you play it for the mental challenge? I feel challenged enough at $dayjob that all I want from games is mindless relaxation.
- sdenton4 28d ago
  To be sure, it was a couple few hours here and there, not at the scale of a job. Blue Prince is an example of what fills are calling 'notebook games' -- instead of giving you lots of qol stuff, you just use a notebook to keep notes. The act of writing and arranging your notes is actually quite immersive. It's also fun! Blue Prince has layers of puzzles and story... It's pretty reasonable to play to the credits, and not get into the depths of the post credits game; it's a very reasonable cutoff point for non-sickos.
- glimshe 28d ago
  That's the beauty of Blue Prince. The core game doesn't require all of that. You can get to a satisfying ending with moderate puzzle solving. But after finishing the game, there are still hundreds of hours worth of optional puzzles left.
  - joshuamorton 27d ago
    Yeah blue prince is three games (I've played two of them and won't play the third). First, it's a really compelling roguelite puzzler where you explore and understand the house and it's mechanics. The puzzles are mostly small and straightforward (but not easy!). You can probably win this without taking notes. I found this part compelling and delightful. Then it's something else where you learn about the world. The puzzles are more complicated and need notebooks and notes to keep the loose threads tracked. This part for me became a slog by the end and I finished mostly to say that I had. Then its a third thing for sickos.
3eb7988a1663 28d ago
I am "only" a dozen+ hours into Clair Obscur, and I am similarly not understanding the hype. Combat is too gimmicky and annoying. The story is tonally all over the place. It starts out very dark, and then the characters seemingly have no problems going on stupid side quests because they want to see some cute elves or something. Are you saving the world or not? The joke side quests work in your standard RPG because they take themselves less seriously. Your character is wielding an eight foot sword, the mage companion is a talking cat, and your boots are haunted by a long-dead Egyptian prince. Sure, go nuts if you want to play the mini-game at the circus belly-dancing competition to win the golden hat. Clair Obscur starts in such a bleak, breathing world that the characters not treating the situation deadly serious breaks my connection to the world, so I start to focus more on the mechanical annoyances.
bigstrat2003 28d ago
I liked Clair Obscur a lot, but I doubt very much if I will ever replay it. The necessity of being able to dodge to survive encounters really killed the fun of the gameplay for me.

glimshe 28d ago

Clair Obscur has great art (including music) but isn't a greater game underneath it. It's good but not exceptional. I can see the appeal for final fantasy fans, but I was underwhelmed. Someone else mentions Blue Prince here. I think that's a much better game relatively speaking, even if not having Clair Obscur's exceptional art.

DarmokTanagra 27d ago

[dead]

sph 27d ago

I'll eat my hat if we still talk about Clair Obscur in the next decade, like we might still be talking about Dark Souls (2011), for example, to this day. It is a good game in an era where big name studios only care to invest in live-service games, and even indies are starting to rehash the same tropes over and over. It is not a ground-breaking cornerstone of the arts, just an isle of respite among the greed; any food tastes good when you're starving.

tstrimple 26d ago
Clair Obscur was a far, far more memorable game for me and it's not even close. One actually has a story and characters to care about. The other is a masochism simulation.
- sph 26d ago
  You liked it more, that’s fine, but the other literally spawned a new genre (soulslikes) Also masochism simulator is what people that have only heard about the game from social media call it.