Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 update 1.4 is now live, bringing some highly requested quality-of-life features to what's already a stellar, very French JRPG.
The update headliner is "Battle Retry," a quick and easy way to redo a lost battle. I'm a tiny bit disappointed that developer Sandfall Interactive has only added Battle Retry as an option after defeat, whereas fellow JRPG Metaphor: ReFantazio let you retry a battle at any point if you wanted to improve your performance (and I think Expedition 33's perfectionistic parries are crying out for the same), but the option will still save players a lot of time.
"A new pop-up window appears after defeat, giving you the option to quickly retry the battle," the patch notes clarify. This is something I instinctively reached for during Expedition 33, and I want it in every single JRPG going forward, as it just cuts down on load times and runbacks. It needs to be optional, because you might need to adjust your party after a defeat, but it's a godsend when you're raring to go.
The Pictos and Lumina menu has also been updated to show Lumina costs right alongside Pictos "for better planning," which speaks to my buildcrafting heart.
During the initial Expedition 33 launch rush, I noticed a lot of content creators complaining about the audio balance between exploration and combat, so update 1.4's addition of separate volume sliders for the two ought to be music to their ears.
The two combat-related changes in the update raised my eyebrow. "Lune's 'Thermal Transfer' skill will no longer grant an extra turn without meeting the Stain consumption requirements," for starters, seemingly addressing a bug introduced in a previous update.
Here's the real kicker: immortality has been removed. More specifically, "Characters will no longer gain immortality when using the Second Chance Pictos combined with Healing Boon and Protecting Death."
Second Chance lets you revive with full health one once per battle, Protecting Death gives allies stacks of Shell when the equipping character dies, and Healing Boon grants 15% healing whenever you apply a buff. My best guess is that, together, these abilities were somehow overflowing or otherwise glitching out health bars, giving players immortality instead of really good medical insurance. I used all of these in my Expert playthrough and, let me tell you, I was definitely still killable, so perhaps this was a post-launch bug as well.
