Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's Estelle Darnault is arguably the game's lead actor in the sense that she plays five majors roles across the French RPG, lending her voice and mocap skills to Sophie, Sciel, Aline, Alicia, and the entity at the centre of the story's existential crisis, The Paintress. But despite her voice being littered about the entire epic, she herself hasn't quite been able to nail the game's essential parrying.
For those who haven't been graced by Expedition 33 yet, the turn-based combat puts a lot of emphasis on Super Mario RPG-style, timing-based prompts. Pressing buttons at the right time might let you block an attack or altogether dodge it, though if you're really quick-thumbed, you can parry basically everything.
"I felt I was a person who was really patient," Darnault said in an interview with Behind The Voices. "I thought. But now, I discovered that I'm not really patient and I'm really, for the fights… f**k, I can't manage to parry… It's really hard, it's really, really hard for me. I need to work on my inner peace," she lamented.
Speaking on the process of making the game as a whole, Darnault said it was kind of bittersweet since, on one hand, she loved playing her characters, but one the other, she just wanted to enjoy the journey as any other player would, spoiler-free. "I'm really excited, but you know, I'm sad because I can’t discover the game as you [can] or as players [can] because I know everything. And I'm, like, really frustrated because I really wanted to leave this story and I can't," she added.
