Technologies

Clair Obscur Expedition 33 Review: An Achingly Beautiful French Spin on the JRPG Formula

Sandfall Interactive weaves sharp, complex combat through an irresistible story about living in an age of death.

The Japanese RPG genre so venerates its icons, like the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series, that new games in its tradition replicate rather than innovate. It took a studio halfway around the world, in France, to make a JRPG that stands out of those titans’ shadows — one so starkly novel in its world and systems that it tells a story you don’t want to put down.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the debut game from French studio Sandfall Interactive, achieves a bundle of superlatives. From the writing to the worldbuilding to the combat to the music, it’s easy to find aspects that are individually excellent. But more importantly, they weave together into a cohesive and thematically potent game that tells a mature story with confidence and style, packing a certain (forgive me) je ne sais quoi that immersed me in a world of passion and loss.

Expedition 33’s story explores a fantasy land at the mercy of a super-powerful being, the Paintress, who has been culling humanity once a year for generations. On a certain day, the residents of seemingly the only city left, Lumière (a devastated Paris, overrun with rubble and vines), bittersweetly gather to bid their loved ones adieu. They watch as, far off in the distance, the Paintress lowers a glowing, omnivisible number by one. Slowly, anyone that age disappears into dust, and humanity’s age limit is reduced again.

Lumière resists by sending armed groups of volunteers over the ocean into the wilderness every year to defeat the Paintress — and though they’ve been so far unsuccessful, the tradition lives on, populated by desperate believers and older soldiers choosing to use their little time left to challenge fate.

Gathering a collection of plucky adventurers to take on God for the sake of the world is textbook JRPG, but the tones of most games in the genre oscillate between the puerile extremes of naive optimism and cynical nihilism. Sandfall Interactive’s story instead envisions characters embarking from a society fluent in despair and still taking action, channeling anxiety into a belief in resolute progress. Throughout the game, the main characters repeat their city’s mantras: «For those who come after,» and, «Tomorrow comes.» Earning meaning, even in a slowly constricting apocalypse.

Through the game’s commitment to its tone, its prism of beauties shines through. The plot, alternating between sublime wonder of a vibrant new land and brutal reckonings in a world without sympathies, is full of surprises. The music is tenderly emotional, with haunting piano and violin arranged by composer Lorien Testard and achingly, hauntingly beautiful singing by Alice Duport-Percier for an hours-long original soundtrack, as Expedition 33 producer François Meurisse told me.

The wild, friendly characters you meet, the stunningly gorgeous environments, dappled with light and shadow, the truly excellent English voice cast — the game is a symphony of well-executed elements that combine into something new.

That alchemy of novelty leads to a feeling that’s rare among JRPGS, let alone games as a whole: Frequently along the way, I truly didn’t know what to expect next. For gamers jaded by tropes and tradition, a game grappling with death in uncharted territory is like water in a desert.

All of which wouldn’t matter if the game wasn’t a riot to play.

Fighting against fate with soulslike turn-based combat

Unlike more open-ended RPGs such as this year’s Avowed and The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remaster or 2023’s excellent Baldur’s Gate 3, there isn’t any choice in how Expedition 33’s story goes — at least as far as I’ve experienced in a little over 20 hours of the game. Where you do get control is in the battle system, which provides some of the most interactive turn-based fights I’ve ever played.

That’s primarily due to the reactive capabilities built into the system. Players can press a button to dodge when enemies attack with a pretty generous window. Those with more confidence can try to parry attacks, and if done for the entire enemy combo, the character will counter for severe damage. It took me around a dozen hours to be confident enough in timing to successfully parry attacks, though you can reduce the difficulty or equip particular abilities to mitigate that. Later in the game, there are even more enemy attack mechanics.

The defense system was inspired by FromSoftware games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring, though there are also parts of the game inspired by Final Fantasy 10 and Persona 5, producer Meurisse told me. The latter is evident when switching between submenus in combat, which slightly shifts the camera view — «every button you click triggers some camera movement,» Meurisse said.

The cast of characters you gather isn’t large, but each has unique skills and their own distinct mechanic that functions almost like a turn-by-turn mini-game to ramp up damage potential. For protagonist Gustave, attacking builds up charges to unleash in a massive lightning attack; Lune the mage gets elemental «stains» after casting spells that can be spent to empower later spells; the fencer Maelle switches between stances every time she uses a skill.

Some other aspects are more conventional, with a range of status effects that can be applied to enemies like a damage-over-time burn, a slow or marking the enemy to take higher damage. But players can also, through guns or unspecified magic, shoot enemies to target weak points. Each shot costs AP, the resource used to also power spells and skills, so it takes some restraint not to gleefully fire off volleys.

Which is a lot to keep in mind already, but the Picto system escalates the complexity. Pictos are essentially bonus passive abilities that characters can equip up to three of at a time. After a handful of battles, they can unequip the PIcto and add its ability to their character, provided they have enough ability points to afford it. Juggling this budget is key to the late game and, incidentally, to breaking the combat altogether: Many of these Pictos offer bonus damage or effect if conditions are met, like they attack an enemy that already has a status effect. With scores of these Pictos picked up across the game, players can make builds and synergize between characters to rack up dizzying damage totals.

Mastering the deep combat and deeper Picto system is a joy for the RPG fan who loves diving into granular strategies, making short fights and long boss battles more engaging and interactive than most other JRPGs. It satisfies a crunchy part of the brain that delights in overclocking a system willingly ripe for abuse from the determined player. And it serves as both a distraction from and a harmony with the themes of the game — of companions soaked in a lifetime of death vainly endeavoring to stop it for «those who come after» until, inevitably, they’re cut down too.

Expedition 33’s dance with death and meaning

When I heard that a French game studio was taking on the venerable JRPG genre, I jokingly wondered how many berets, baguettes and mimes would make it in. Plenty, it turns out, as you can fight some surreal, optional and tough mime mini-bosses. Do so and claim ridiculous but chic outfits for the main characters wearing sunglasses, berets and long loaves of bread strapped to their backs like swords.

Expedition 33 embraces this oddness as a complement to its melancholy tone, and it’s all the richer for it. There’s something beyond the stereotypical French organ music and mimes that Sandfall Interactive admirably threw in — a desire to tell a story not just about a different world but how people muddle through its severe and unfair limits to reach some meaningful end anyway. In the absence of JRPG tropes like the plucky, annoying protagonist ticking off Joseph Campbell’s heroic checklist, Expedition 33 is populated with somber realists devoted to each other but expecting loss, all in dedication to a future they believe they won’t see.

Expedition 33 was partly inspired by a 2004 French novel called La Horde du Contrevent («The Horde of Counterwind»), Meurisse said, a cult classic telling the story of successive expeditions of people sent to find the origin of world-warping winds. Similarly, the Paintress ticking down humanity is an unknowable force at the world’s edge, and pushing back against her seems futile.

Over the course of the game, I discovered journals from previous years’ expeditions, each trying a new way to succeed where others failed, some ending humorously or ignobly, others in a grim blaze of glory. But I found their bodies regardless, locked in a final pose, bronzed in a strange process as begets all humans venturing beyond their city — a marker for those who follow, and hopefully, surpass.

The strange landscape beyond Lumière is forever changed by the Fracture, a calamity that happened a century ago before the Paintress started ticking down humanity’s clock. In its wake, islands float in the sky and antediluvian buildings meld into dirt and rock. With the light dappling through the trees or around airborne archipelagos, I frequently stopped to stare at the landscapes, as beautifully alien to me as to the characters of the game. I’ve racked up over a hundred screenshots, mostly of areas where I was struck with awe.

Clair Obscur Expedition 33 Screenshots: Beauty and Wonder in a World of Death

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In chatting with Meurisse, I asked him what was uniquely French about the game, and he listed the clothes and architecture inspired by France’s Belle Epoque era of the late 1800s and Art Deco stylings, which are featured in the gilded gold-and-black walls of the doomed buildings, long abandoned and entombed in the dirt beyond humanity’s reach. But there’s another perspective blended into Expedition 33 that is different and fresh — creating a world where its characters still bask in wonder even when swimming in death.

I did, too.

Expedition 33 will be celebrated for its many excellences, and deservedly so. But above all, it tells an adult story about what’s left for us when the future is ripped away bit by bit — and why it’s worth fighting against the inevitable anyway. You never know what wonder you’ll get to see before the end.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is available now on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X and S.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Friday, Sept. 19

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Sept. 19.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

I didn’t get off to a great start with today’s Mini Crossword, completely blanking on 1-Across. Thankfully, the other clues were easy, and that answer filled itself in. Need some help? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Cancel on plans at the last moment
Answer: FLAKE

6A clue: Shade of light purple
Answer: LILAC

7A clue: ___ acid (protein builder)
Answer: AMINO

8A clue: Sarcastic «Yeah, sure»
Answer: IBET

9A clue: Sardonic boss on «Parks and Recreation»
Answer: RON

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Stylish panache
Answer: FLAIR

2D clue: Party game that tests how low you can go
Answer: LIMBO

3D clue: Visitor from outer space
Answer: ALIEN

4D clue: Philosopher who posed the question «What can I know?»
Answer: KANT

5D clue: Environmentally friendly prefix
Answer: ECO

Technologies

Your Old Android Isn’t Dead. These Tweaks Can Bring It Back to Life

Clear space, optimize your battery and update the basics. These quick changes can make an old Android phone feel snappier.

You don’t need the latest Android flagship to get good performance.

Thanks to longer software support from brands like Google and Samsung, older models can still run smoothly, as long as you give them a little attention. Clearing out unused apps, updating your software and tweaking a few settings can breathe new life into a device that feels sluggish. These quick fixes can help your phone last longer and save you from spending on an early upgrade.

Before you start shopping for a replacement, try a few simple adjustments. You might be surprised by how much faster your phone feels once you free up space, optimize battery use and turn off background drains.

Whether you use a Samsung Galaxy, Motorola or OnePlus phone, chances are you can still improve battery life and overall speed without buying something new. Just remember that Android settings vary slightly from brand to brand, so the menus may look a little different depending on your phone.

Don’t miss any of CNET’s unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add us as a preferred Google source on Chrome.

Settings to improve your battery life

Living with a phone that has poor battery life can be infuriating, but there are some steps you can take to maximize each charge right from the very beginning:

1. Turn off auto screen brightness or adaptive brightness and set the brightness level slider to under 50%

The brighter your screen, the more battery power it uses.

To get to the setting, pull down the shortcut menu from the top of the screen and adjust the slider, if it’s there. Some phones may have a toggle for auto brightness in the shortcut panel; otherwise, you need to open the settings app and search for «brightness» to find the setting and turn it off.

2. Use Adaptive Battery and Battery Optimization

These features focus on learning how you use your phone, including which apps you use and when, and then optimizing the apps and the amount of battery they use.

Some Android phones have a dedicated Battery section in the Settings app, while other phones (looking at you, Samsung) bury these settings. It’s a little different for each phone. I recommend opening your settings and searching for «battery» to find the right screen. Your phone may also have an adaptive charging setting that can monitor how quickly your phone battery charges overnight to preserve its health.

Why you should use dark mode more often

Another way to improve battery life while also helping save your eyes is to use Android’s dedicated dark mode. Any Android phone running Android 10 or newer will have a dedicated dark mode option.

According to Google, dark mode not only reduces the strain that smartphone displays cause on our eyes but also improves battery life because it takes less power to display dark backgrounds on OLED displays (used in most flagship phones) than a white background.

Depending on which version of Android your phone is running, and what company made your phone, you may have to dig around the settings app to find a dark mode. If your phone runs Android 10 or newer, you’ll be able to turn on system-wide dark mode. If it runs Android 9, don’t despair. Plenty of apps have their own dark mode option in the settings that you can use, whether or not you have Android 10.

To turn it on dark mode, open the Settings app and search for Dark Mode, Dark Theme or even Night Mode (as Samsung likes to call it). I suggest using dark mode all the time, but if you’re not sure, you can always set dark mode to automatically turn on based on a schedule, say from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. every day, or allow it to automatically switch based on your location at sunset and sunrise.

Keep your home screen free of clutter

Planning to hit up the Google Play Store for a bunch of new Android apps? Be prepared for a lot of icon clutter on your home screen, which is where shortcuts land every time you install something.

If you don’t want that, there’s a simple way out of this: Long-press on an empty area of your home screen and tap Settings. Find the option labeled something along the lines of Add icon to Home Screen or Add new apps to Home Screen and turn it off.

Presto! No more icons on the home screen when you install new apps. You can still add shortcuts by dragging an app’s icon out of the app drawer, but they won’t appear on your home screen unless you want them to.

Read more: Best Android Phones You Can Buy in 2024

Set up Do Not Disturb so that you can better focus

If your phone routinely spends the night on your nightstand, you probably don’t want it beeping or buzzing every time there’s a call, message or Facebook alert — especially when you’re trying to sleep. Android offers a Do Not Disturb mode that will keep the phone more or less silent during designated hours. On some phones, this is referred to as the Downtime setting or even Quiet Time.

Head to Settings > Sounds (or Notifications), then look for Do Not Disturb or a similar name. If you can’t find it, search for it using the built-in search feature in your settings.

Using the feature, you can set up a range of hours when you want to turn off the digital noise. Don’t worry, any notifications you get while Do Not Disturb is turned on will still be waiting for you when you wake up. Also, you can typically make an exception that allows repeat callers and favorite contacts’ calls to go through. Turn that on. If someone is calling you in an emergency, odds are they are going to keep trying.

Always be prepared in case you lose your phone or it’s stolen

Is there anything worse than a lost or stolen phone? Only the knowledge that you could have tracked it down if you had turned on Google’s Find My Device feature.

To prepare for a successful recovery, here’s what you need to do: Open the Settings app and then search for Find My Device. It’s usually in the Security section of the Settings app.

If you have a Samsung device, you can use Samsung’s Find My Mobile service, which is found in Settings > Biometrics and security > Find My Mobile.

Once that’s enabled, you can head to android.com/find from any PC or mobile device and sign in to your account. Samsung users can visit findmymobile.samsung.com to find a lost phone.

If you have trouble setting any of this up, be sure to read our complete guide to finding a lost Android phone.

Assuming your phone is on and online, you should be able to see its location on a map. From there, you can make it ring, lock it, set a lock screen note to tell whoever has it how to get it back to you, or, worst-case scenario, remotely wipe the whole thing.

And always keep your phone up to date

As obvious as it may seem, a simple software update could fix bugs and other issues slowing down your Android device.

Before you download and install the latest software update, make sure your device is connected to Wi-Fi, or else this won’t work.

Now, open the Settings application and type in Update. You’ll then either see Software update or System update — choose either one. Then just download the software, wait for a few minutes and install it when it’s ready. Your Android device will reboot and install the latest software update available.

There’s a lot more to learn about a new phone. Here are the best ways to boost your cell signal, and here’s a flagship phone head-to-head comparison. Plus, check out CNET’s list of the best cases for your Samsung phone. More of an Apple fan? We have tips for boosting your iPhone’s performance, too.

Technologies

Your Pixel 10 Might Have Issues With Older Wireless Chargers

You might want to try taking the case off your phone in order to successfully charge it.

When Google introduced the Pixel 10 lineup in August, it became one of the first major Android phones to receive the Qi 2 wireless charging standard, which Google calls Pixelsnap. However, users noticed issues with wireless charging on the Pixel 10 almost immediately after its release.

Some people are having trouble charging their phone with the new Pixelsnap charger, and others are having issues with older wireless chargers, including Google’s own Pixel Stands. The bulk of the problems happen when a case is on the phone — whether it has the magnet array or not.

I own both the first and second generation Pixel Stands and both will charge my Pixel 10 Pro XL without an issue if there’s no case on it. However, when I add a case to my phone, the problems begin.

I have three cases for my phone, the Mous Super Thin Clear Case, the Magnetic Slim Case Fit by Grecazo, and a no-name soft TPU case. If my phone has any of those cases on and I attempt to charge it while it’s vertical, it starts to charge and then stops after a second or two, and keeps doing that.

I can fix this for the first-generation Pixel Stand by turning the phone horizontal, but it will still charge very slowly. I can’t seem to fix it at all for the Pixel Stand 2 — vertical, horizontal, it doesn’t charge.

Not everyone has this issue

The problem doesn’t seem to be universal. CNET editor Patrick Holland said he had no issues charging the Pixel 10 Pro during his time with it.

A Google spokesperson told me the Pixel 10 lineup is not optimized for older Qi wireless charging standards, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the phones won’t work with older wireless chargers.

Qi 2 is backwards-compatible with older standards, but the phone’s height and charging coil placement on both the phone and the charger are still factors. If you’re having problems, you might see if removing the case helps.

The prospect of potentially needing to replace your older wireless chargers with newer ones isn’t ideal, especially if you shelled out $80 for one or both of Google’s own Pixel Stands. Still, if you want the best wireless charging speed for your brand new Pixel 10 phone, it won’t be with wireless chargers that only support older Qi standards.