If there's one in-game area Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 players have had trouble with, it's the Gestral Beaches and their accompanying challenges – challenges Sandfall Interactive lead and game director Guillaume Broche admits are his own doing.
Discussing the already infamous minigames in a recent interview with Xavier "MisterMV" Dang on YouTube, Broche explains that it was actually beloved JRPG Final Fantasy 10 that inspired him to implement challenges like climbing, platforming, racing, and, perhaps most unforgettably, volleyball. Much like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Final Fantasy 10 features minigames, such as chocobo racing and lightning bolt dodging.
For those lucky enough not to be acquainted with chocobo racing, it's a minigame in which players ride chocobos (big bird-like mounts) in under a certain amount of time while dealing with different obstacles. To obtain one of the rewards, as Broche recalls, racers have to get a time of less than 0:00. As he describes, minigames like chocobo racing and lightning dodging in Final Fantasy 10 are "ultra hard" and "a little clunky," but they're also "cool."
That's why the director says he "personally insisted" on including the notoriously difficult Gestral Beach challenges in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. It's safe to say they're proving to be just as frustrating as Final Fantasy 10's Chocobo races and The Lightning Dodger side quest were, with fans taking to online posts on forums like Reddit and even Steam to share their frustrations. "I was stuck on beach volleyball for like 45 mins," writes one.
"It's not just hard," rants another player, "it's unfair and broken af." Elsewhere, someone calls the Gestral Beach challenges "quite possibly the most fucked thing I've ever seen in a game before." It sounds like the minigames largely elicit reactions similar to those sparked by Final Fantasy 10's own – but even then, some people still can't seem to get enough of them: "Wait, people disliked the minigames? I did them all and enjoyed them all!"
Playing the new RPG yourself? Here are our best Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 tips to read if diving in.
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