Expedition 33

The Disaster Expedition

(Mild spoilers ahead if you care about that, I don’t go into major detail)

I don’t think it would be possible for this game to live up to it’s hype. Its won basically every award and has near universal praise, heralded as the new bar for RPGs. Unfortunately, my experience with Expedition 33 wasn’t as nice as everyone elses. Honestly, I’m a little surprised because I almost exclusively play JRPGs, which this game is so blatantly inspired by, so it should be right up my alley. But instead of a love letter to the genre all I really got was some nice words in a pretty, otherwise empty, package.

Knocking off the positives, the game is beautiful. Like seriously incredible to look at. The world has a wide variety of areas all of which is ripe with detail, a lot of time can be spent simply looking around at the world and taking it all in. They verge right up against the line of how much visual effect you can get away with and never quite cross it, ensuring that you’re never overstimulated and maintains this absolute scale and level of awe in your surroundings. I’m a big fan of the amount of color that’s used, in particular the gestral village which is full of these vibrant reds that really pop out.

Additionally the soundtrack is quite good too. While I don’t love it as much as most people, I appreciate what they’re going for and I think it fits the atmosphere appropriately. The Nier influence is a little apparent here, while I’m pretty sure they didn’t invent their own language the French vocals do create a similar vibe to one at times (I do know French so it’s not just lack of experience with the language). The battle tracks are diverse and well put together and the boss tracks can be seriously epic.

The battle system is quite fun although I found it tires me out after a while. While the visual flair really shines in these battles, I would’ve appreciated it if the animations weren’t so insanely long. Both in natural speed and due to an excessive usage of slow motion, every attack takes pretty much half a second at minimum to complete and considering that most mobs only have 2 or 3 attacks this gets old fast. If they had to get rid of either of them I would prefer the slow motion but I also think that the attacks don’t have to be as telegraphed as they are. Parrying is not particularly difficult due to the excess of visual and audio queues so they could stand to speed things up a good amount. Additionally it’s really easy to get overpowered fast. While the game is very well balanced all the way through, I didn’t farm at all and only killed what was in my path, you do hit the damage cap really early on. This effectively ends up putting battles on a timer because you can only deal so much damage and at times this makes it drag due to the extremely slow nature. Turn based combat is already a killer for most people so slowing it down is a choice I don’t agree with. It didn’t kill my experience but I definitely felt it in the later hours of my binges.

And unfortunately I think that’s where my praise reaches an end, because I’m not a fan of much else in this game. While the environments are incredible I cannot say the same for the story. The story starts fairly strong, you set out on an expedition, your entire crew is obliterated by a mysterious old guy and then you continue on with your journey with the few other survivors. This on its own is completely fine and would be fairly serviceable albeit extremely generic, something the writers are certainly aware of so they decided to add their own flair.

About halfway through the game the real plot starts, this isn’t really an adventure story about saving the world but a family drama centered around how people cope with loss and the different shapes which grief can take on. Much more interesting, right? Well, unfortunately this is where the cracks in execution really start to take shape. This main plot is extremely heavy handed and not allowed adequate time to foster properly and thus, despite having all the right pieces, really fails to land in my opinion.

First off, Act 1 pretty much only exists to set up a bait and switch. While they do introduce Renoir (the mysterious old man) and draw the connection between him and Maelle, very VERY obviously, but then that’s really all they do. Most of the significance in Act 1 is based around ensuring that any player is able to draw the logical connection that she’s actually the girl following her around and therefore related in some degree to Renoir.

Act 1’s payoff comes at its end in which they reveal both the actual plot and actual protagonist of the game. In my opinion, if they wanted to maximize the impact of this switch then efforts should’ve been sufficiently focused towards developing character relations and worldbuilding. While there’s obviously worldbuilding happening by virtue of the player… exploring the world and interacting with its various creatures, the characters are another story. Now I know this is based on JRPGs and most JRPGs don’t allow their side characters to really flourish, and that’s perfectly alright. However, if you want to have impactful character related moments it is a requirement that you build them up on a proper foundation.

The members of Expedition 33 are weak, terribly weak. I think they’re plagued by what I call Marvel Dialogue Syndrome in that they only exist for the purpose of quipping and reacting to the events happening directly in front of them by explaining what they see. None of the characters have any personality and if they aren’t named Verso or Maelle do not contribute to the plot in any way at all. You’ll notice I didn’t include Gustav there, that’s because his only role is as a means of executing the switch from act 1 to 2. Gustav is built up as fairly personable and genuinely has a lot of great moments in the opening scenes. But the moment these moments are over he’s relegated to this shell of a character, I found it difficult to care about him because he too contracts Marvel Dialogue Syndrome. There’s some focus allocated towards his relationship with Maelle but it doesn’t feel natural and their chemistry is honestly weak. I could excuse if this happened with the other party members but Maelle is an Important Character and her interactions with the other members, and ESPECIALLY Gustav, are pivotal to her motivations as a character. If there’s any relationship that needs to be iron tight it’s this one and I just don’t think they managed it.

Maelle herself starts as a very strong character. She’s highly emotive, works her way into the story well, and has by far the most lines of dialogue throughout the entire story. Unfortunately after the switch her character becomes… inconsistent. At first it’s fine, she’s honestly the only person shaken up by the end of Act 1 which makes her lashing out at the other party members entirely reasonable. But after this… she just goes back to normal for the most part. She talks to Verso, who effectively completely and utterly replaces Gustav both in personality and role of protagonist, about how complicated family is and how she’s lost so many people and… that’s really it. Her dialogue from here on out starts to feel very similar and her behavior in the story doesn’t reflect how shaken up she supposedly is.

Verso has a lot of the same issues as Gustav except it’s worse because he’s actually important to the story now. There are a lot of problems in this story that could simply be solved by him telling the others about information they aren’t privy to. Instead, he comes along and basically acts as their therapist while uncharismatically quipping about one thing or another. That said, his early interactions with Renoir are pretty great. They talk to each other the way a feuding family really would, completely disregarding the people in their surroundings and bringing up trauma points we don’t yet know about and don’t bother to explain any of it. You can piece pretty much all of it together but it’s handled in a great manner.

Renoir is the real saving grace of the major characters. Knowing his position in the world he obviously doesn’t feel the need to explain himself to the expeditioners, but once you learn his story it all just makes sense. I actually think he’s the only rational thinker, he too is shrouded in grief but he knows that life doesn’t wait for those who mourn. Senseless escapism is a disrespect to those who you’re attempting to mourn, you refuse to accept their circumstances and chain them to the mortal plane as a desperate means of comfort for yourself and yourself only. Renoir understands the circumstances of his family all too well, and so he also knows that he has to be the voice of reason even if they don’t want to hear it. Approaching the end of the game is a little funny, because it’s not really a clash of ideals. Renoir is just right. It’s best for both the grievers and the one being grieved if you’re willing to let them go. So long as you carry on their memory will they be able to live on within you. It’s just hard to let go.

You could easily read what I just wrote and be confused as to why I said I didn’t care much for this game. I understand what it’s going for and on paper it’s quite good. The antagonist is extremely strong and the topics of grief are hard hitting. But it’s important to consider how this is all set up.

Acts 2 and 3 are where the wasted potential really starts to show. They make up the second half of the game and therefore have a lot of work to do in order to ensure that this new plot works out. The problem is that Act 2 just doesn’t work towards this at all. For all intents and purposes, you’re pretty much just doing the same thing you did in Act 1. There’s a new party member, who has what seems like less than 10 lines of dialogue. You do clash with Renoir, in which they once again ensure that you absolutely draw the connection between him, Maelle, and now Verso (there’s even dialogue to make it near impossible not to), and then… it’s just never elaborated on at all, at least until much later.

Once again I think the other party members are majorly wasted here. There’s a mandatory sequence where you have to speak to each of them at your camp and they get mad at you but that’s really about it. Verso doesn’t bother to explain anything regarding Renoir nor do they ask him to. Not even Maelle, who by this point should at the very least be questioning why it’s always her that’s deemed as special, doesn’t bother asking him for any information. Instead it’s the same old “family is complicated” and “grief is a difficult process” themes before you continue on with the original mission.

Once you reach the final location it feels like they suddenly remembered they still have to deliver the entire plot. So every event from this point on to Act 3 is essentially an info dump. First is another fight with Renoir in which he continues to beat around the bush, it’s less well done this time and a concrete reveal or more information would’ve been appreciated in my opinion, about the family dispute. Then you fight the Paintress who beats slightly less around the bush and delivers an absurd amount of information right before the fight begins, which you would presume is the final boss. But don’t worry, the info dumping doesn’t stop there because after that you’re treated to a quick interlude in which everything is explained in no uncertain terms in an extremely concise and yet somewhat baffling manner and then you’re thrust into Act 3.

Before I said that Act 2 and 3 were the second half of the game, that’s because Act 2 is about as long as Act 1 and Act 3 is about as long as the prologue to Act 1. Assuming you do none of the side content, Act 3 consists of a cutscene (no gameplay!) in which they assemble their troops to fight against Renoir, do an Avengers Endgame fight sequence, and run straight towards the final boss. That’s right, Act 3 is completely and utterly composed of a run in a straight line towards the boss. Almost every mob is taken care of by the game itself so you really can just book it without any consequence.

This entire sequence is just absurd to me. First of all, the infodumps. After an entire game of beating around the bush, but not in a productive way which develops the mystery but simply rehashing the same points over and over, they decide at the 11th hour that they need to explain everything all at once. Then, once that’s over, they don’t even let you prepare on your own terms for the final battle; they do it entirely in a cutscene. And THEN all that’s really left is to fight the final boss? I’m not sure if they ran out of budget or something but I just don’t understand how this is the climax they decided to go for. It’s so inorganic and rushed that any amount of rush you might get for the final battle is just wiped out in an instant because they’ve skipped the foreplay.

But what if you don’t want to do that? What if you decided to put off the final battle and explore some of the optional areas of the game first. Sadly, this is a grave mistake, because if you’re into completionism or simply just curious you will be trivializing the final boss fight. Because of the perfect level pacing that I mentioned way back at the start of the review, this means that the final boss is actually perfectly scaled to be a decent fight so long as you really do just book it for him ASAP. Otherwise the fight just becomes a complete joke.

Now on one hand I don’t think there’s too much that they really could’ve done to prevent this and also maintain their very tight and natural difficulty curve. However it is a major bummer to go through the entire game and along this curve and then right at the end shoot way above it just because you wanted to see what the game has to offer. I don’t think this game is all that difficult really, it lands really well in that sweet spot for the most part. I just think that this is one case where deviating from the curve might’ve benefitted them considering it’s the final battle and all.

The ending of the game is bittersweet. I think it’s handled really well and had the remainder of the story been executed with as much care it would’ve hit seriously hard. But that wasn’t the case for me and so I was left with some really conflicting emotions on the matter. On one hand, I felt that by making Renoir’s case so strong, the moral conflict at the end actually could be a difficult one. On the other, because I felt the characters were so weak, I was very heavily biased towards one ending over the other. I can see how this could be a legitimately difficult choice for some people and either outcome results in a spectacular ending. I chose Verso’s ending first which was a satisfying enough conclusion for me but Maelle’s really goes the extra mile. Everything about it is just so well done that it highlights the flaws in the rest of the game.

I think the run into the final act was killer for me. Something like that simply should not ever happen in a story driven game. I’m not saying I need constant exposition throughout the entire story, but there’s so much wasted potential here. The characters, despite overhearing and experiencing so much that they just don’t understand and have direct access to someone who clearly does, never bother to ask him about any of it once. Maelle, who is the key to the entire story by the way, has to wait for the story to fall into her hands before she’s willing to take action. She’s supposed to be a confident, impulsive, caring person that has a tendency to act before she thinks the consequences through, yet she doesn’t carry over any of those traits unless the story demands it. She doesn’t try to learn anything about Renoir despite her obvious connection to him, they even make contact with her in Act 1 and she doesn’t act on it in future encounters.

I think if you want the final conflict to work, you need the characters to work. And if you can’t get the characters to work you at the very least need Maelle and Gustav/Verso to work. You need some kind of appeal to emotion that makes you want to give in to escapism and stay put rather than make the rational choice. Maelle, and the paintress, are acting purely on emotion so you need the player to have formed some kind of deep emotional connection with the game to earn your impact. Instead, everything rushes past at lightspeed. I may have figured out Maelle’s connection to Renoir and Verso almost instantly, that doesn’t mean I care. You have to make me care and I think Expedition 33 simply doesn’t have the means to do so.

So in the end, I didn’t manage to care for Expedition 33. On paper this is a really strong game. The themes of grief and how sometimes you have to make decisions people cannot understand because you know it’s for their best are extremely well understood. The problems lie in the execution. The game doesn’t do enough to make me care about the characters, and yet it wants them to have touching moments. The plot doesn’t know how to pace itself which ruins any sort of climax. All of these elements come together to form a bottleneck which prevents the otherwise phenomenal ending from reaching its full potential. All of the pieces are there, I can see them so clearly, this game so easily can be great I know it, but instead it ended up as the Disaster Expedition.