If there’s one game that’s been almost universally praised this year, it’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. It won critical acclaim for its deep turn-based battle system; its characters and storytelling are beloved by fans; and now it’s the most nominated game in the history of The Game Awards.
What’s proven fascinating since the game’s release is the adoration of the game’s turn-based combat. It’s a battle style that, until now, appeared to have fallen out of fashion, mostly reserved instead for nostalgic pixel art games or Japan-centric games like Atlus’s Persona series (excluding more western takes like the DnD-focused Baldur’s Gate 3). Even Square Enix, generally considered the leaders of the Japanese RPG genre, have gradually moved towards action games instead with Final Fantasy.
Expedition 33, however, has proved there’s still an appetite for games with turn-based combat and realistic graphics, the last of which was Lost Odyssey on the Xbox 360. Rewind to that game’s release, though, and it was a different story.
Sakaguchi was courted by Microsoft (following a reported fall out with Sony boss Ken Kutaragi), leading to the Xbox 360 having its own games to rival those of Square Enix on PlayStation. Yet while the 360 proved popular globally and Lost Odyssey was received well, a sequel was never made and it remains something of a cult classic played by a core group of JRPG fans.
One of those was Guillaume Broche, who would later become creative director for Expedition 33 at Sandfall Interactive.
“For me, Lost Odyssey was the last grand turn-based RPG adventure with realistic graphics,” he tells me, reminiscing about the game. “Its themes were very heavy and very well handled - it’s the last game that made me cry.”
