2 hours ago
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We don’t just observe art; we have a relationship with it. Whether it’s music, paintings or movies, the artist does their bit – but it’s the involvement of our own psyche that completes the circle. This is even more true for games, because we don’t sit for 100 hours in front of the Mona Lisa.
Relationships with art change over time. I appreciated animation more when I was a younger man. I appreciate jazz much more today. I find the Mona Lisa alluring or boring depending on what mood I am in.
This made playing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 a fascinating prospect, because it is a game about art and our attempts to capture what we love in painting. At least I think that’s what it’s about. It’s complicated, as is my evolving relationship with the game. When I started playing it, I was bedazzled by its beauty – just like I was when I spotted my wife walking across an office nearly 30 years ago, lit by what seemed to be her own personal shaft of sunlight, like Glenn Close in The Natural. (RIP Robert Redford.)
The characters are jaw-droppingly gorgeous, visually and aurally, with some of the best voice acting I have ever heard and a score that takes your breath away. I didn’t really understand the plot much at first; there’s something vaguely Logan’s Run about it, with people getting scrubbed from existence by someone (something?) called the Paintress when they reach a certain age. Each year a hardy band sets off on an expedition to find and defeat her, saving the next trance of humanity from disappearing into dust and rose petals.
But I wasn’t too bothered by the plot because I was in love with how it looked and sounded, and sometimes it takes a while to understand your object of desire. There were other aspects I fell headlong in love with: a turn-based RPG lives or dies by the combat system and this has a dazzling (if initially confusing) array of moves, skills, counters and parries. But as I progressed and got to know it, the relationship deepened, and the combat system became glorious. It was so satisfying it made me forgive the mercifully rare but utterly shambolic attempts at platforming sections, which were so bad I wondered whether they were supposed to be a pastiche of the original Tomb Raider.
Anyway, we ignore faults in those we love, don’t we?
I spent way too much time with Expedition 33. I am a pretty pants player, and I like to grind a fair bit to make boss battles easier. The internet tells me that the game takes 30 hours to play. It took me more than 50 to get to the last boss, because I did something I rarely do with games these days: I played it at the default difficulty instead of easy story mode. The gameplay was so rewarding that I didn’t mind losing battles multiple times: learning the idiosyncratic timing of each battle became a reward in itself, like learning how to volley a football.
As the days passed, though, I started to get irritated. There are no level maps, so you don’t know whether a path is a quick detour or a long, pointless waste of time. I got grumpy that the plot showed no signs of getting any less abstruse, with dialogue that was veering towards the pretentious (“Painting isn’t about verisimilitude, it’s about essence” – come on, man!). But I was committed to this game, for better for worse, in sickness and in health.
Then something happened that ruined everything.
After finally defeating the Paintress in a boss fight that took 30 minutes, the game … crashed.
Crashed. Booted me out to the title screen. I can’t remember the last time that happened to me with an Xbox game. I went online and found out this is a bug that many people have experienced. As far as I am aware, there isn’t even an update patch on Xbox Series S, and this game has been out since April. In relationship terms, my coitus was unforgivably interruptused. You simply cannot release a game with a bug that shatters you at the last moment like this.
I found out you could work around this bug by pausing as soon as you get to the cutscene, but that means missing the cutscene. The cutscene when you defeat the final boss, the gamer’s ultimate reward.
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It got worse.
After I skipped the cutscene I discovered that the game wasn’t even finished. After a plot twist that could only get more ludicrous if I understood it, there is a whole new third act.
When I tried to carry on, I just felt resentment. Resentment at the time I had spent in my relationship with this game. Time I could have spent in other relationships.
What had started as something new and beautiful had been tainted. Things I thought were cool (such as the friendship-building between characters that unlocks bigger and better moves) now seemed pedantic and clunky. The trust was gone. Could I really be arsed with another long, difficult boss battle if it was going to crash at the end?
I’m not saying I am getting a divorce from Expedition 33. But I do think we need some time apart before I commit again.
