Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a modern take on the classic JRPG formula that's stunned with its gorgeous visuals and obvious tribute to the turn-based Final Fantasy titles of old. But those aren't the only inspirations French developer Sandfall Interactive is citing. The game also owes a major debt to From Software's big hitters and even takes a page from deckbuilding games.
Speaking to GamesRadar+ in an interview at the Game Developers Conference, producer and studio co-founder François Meurisse says that "Final Fantasy 10" and "the earlier ones on PlayStation, like 7, 8, and 9," were some of the biggest inspirations for Expedition 33.
"Those are big childhood games for Guillaume [Broche], our game director," Meurisse contniues. "He wanted to have like kind of feeling that he imagined would have remained in modern Final Fantasy-like games, if they had kept doing turn-based stuff. But he mixed also lots of different inspirations. Definitely Final Fantasy and JRPGs are the preeminent gameplay heritage we have. The defense system is more inspired by Sekiro and From Software games. It has this kind of rhythm element and a more real-time component in it. More skill-based."
Those From Software inspirations were pretty obvious in my hands-on time with Expedition 33, and I found myself pretty surprised with just how demanding the game's action-based defense elements can be. Enemy attacks tend to have the same sort of tricky, off-rhythm patterns you'd expect from a Souls boss, and the combo of classic turn-based battles with action elements far more demanding than you'd see in, say, a Mario RPG creates a pretty unique combat system.
"There are also lots of different smaller inspirations," Meurisse adds. "For example, the idea of having action points for skills in the battles is more inspired by deckbuilding games than having the usual like magic points scores or mana in RPGs." That inspiration is equally plain to see in the ways special attacks can synergize between your party members to create uniquely powerful results.
None of this is to say that Expedition 33 is fully derivative of other games – especially when it comes to its distinctive look. "The gameplay is is from a heritage of JRPGs, but from the very beginning, we wanted to make our own game with our own art inspiration," Meurisse says. "On the art style in particular, we didn't want to mimic Japanese games, making more stylized manga-like or anime-like graphics. We wanted to make some art direction that was based on our own influence. That's how we came up to do this early 20th century Belle Époque inspiration with art deco elements mixed with high fantasy. We had a few iteration on that to try to find our own uniqueness in the art, but it really helped us to build our own difference."
Here's hoping Expedition 33 is taking the right lessons from the best JRPGs out there to earn its own spot on the list.
