Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 director's first experience playing a JRPG was getting stuck on Final Fantasy 8's first boss because he and his brother "couldn’t read"

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"The only thing we knew how to do was just auto-attack, which is really bad"

Final Fantasy 8 Remastered
(Image credit: Square)

Long before Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 director Guillaume Broche was humbled by the success of the J'RPG, he was humbled in a somewhat different way by one of its biggest inspirations – namely, the first boss of Final Fantasy 8.

Over the past 12 months, Broche hasn't been shy in naming heaps of the JRPGs that have helped shape Clair Obscur, from the stunning UI of Persona to the vibes of Final Fantasy. In a new interview with The Washington Post, however, he digs into how Final Fantasy 8, his first JRPG, shaped what came after. He was just as taken with the character art and romantic tone as the rest of us were, sure, but struggling with the combat arguably left the biggest impression, as he could "barely read" at the time.

“It came out at a time when my brother and I could barely read,” Broche explains. “So we have very fond memories struggling against the first boss. We couldn’t beat him because we couldn’t read, as the only thing we knew how to do was just auto-attack, which is really bad.”

Iain Harris
Iain Harris
News Editor, Games

I joined GamesRadar+ in May 2022 following stints at PCGamesN and PocketGamer.Biz, with some freelance for Kotaku UK, RockPaperShotgun, and VG24/7 thrown in for good measure. When I'm not running the news team on the games side, you'll find me putting News Editor duties to one side to play the hottest JRPG of 20 years ago or pillaging the depths of Final Fantasy 14 for a swanky new cloak – the more colourful, the better.

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