Clair Obscur: Expedition 33has been out for a little over a month now, and the game has become the envy of the industry in a lot of ways. The game is currentlythe best-reviewed game of 2025, it has sold over 3.3 million copies (despite being on Xbox Game Pass), and its passionate success story, having been made by a core team of around 30 people at Sandfall Interactive, is resonating with a lot of players. Its unique turn-based combat, haunting story, stellar soundtrack, and gorgeous visuals have impressed virtually everyone.
Clair Obscurwas inspired by a lot of JRPGs from the late 90s and early 2000s, likeFinal Fantasy 10,Lost Odyssey, andThe Legend of Dragoon,with the game’s director, Guillaume Broche, recently callingPersona 5"the best game in the world.“The game doesn’t do much"new,“but the way it combines elements of so many great titles together to create something wholly powerful is almost unprecedented. I have played everyFinal Fantasygame, and whileI don’t think Square Enix should copyClair Obscurfully,there’s one massive thingClair Obscurdoes better than anyFFtitle.
Expedition 33 Gives Consistently Useful Items
You Don’t Get Potions 30 Hours In, Unlike FF
Clair Obscurmanages to give its players 30 hours (or up to 60-ish for 100% completion) of straight game withno time wasted. There are no pointless fetch quests. The areas have some interesting side paths and are a visual treat, but none of them outstay their welcome, and probably best of all, the game’s exploration of those areas is consistently rewarded from the prologue all the way until the credits roll.
Even 50 hours in, you will still pick up useful Pictos, new weapons, Colors of Lumina to get more Lumina Points, and Recoats to respec characters if you want to trydifferent party builds. Additionally,virtually every area inClair Obscurcan be returned to at any time, except for the Prologue section, which makes the consistently useful items even more noticeable.
Who needs to loot a chest with two hi-potions when you have access to powerful white magic heals or megalixers?
Clair Obscurrewards players for exploration with meaningful rewards that are always useful. In contrast,almost everyFinal Fantasyhas quite a few near-useless itemsthat can be picked up from anywhere from the start of the game to its challenging post-game content. Personally, outside the beginning areas inFinal Fantasygames, I hardly ever found myself looking at any items I picked up. Who needs to loot a chest with two hi-potions when you have access to powerful white magic heals or megalixers?
Expedition 33’s rewarding explorationreminds me more ofThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the KingdomandElden RingthanFinal Fantasy. While the “item system” ofExpedition 33is limited to just three items, they’re all useful, too, and see consistent upgrades throughout the game. Everything inExpedition 33feels like it has a place, unlike several questionable items that feel like they’re there just to fill up game space in mostFinal Fantasygames.
Final Fantasy Could Learn From Expedition 33
Inspirations For The Games That Come After
Final Fantasyhas struggled with its identity.FF16andFF7 Rebirthboth underperformed, according to Square Enix. While there are several factors for that, including the PlayStation 5 console exclusivity for their launches,Square Enix might need to take inspiration fromClair Obscurin the future for how it approaches items and provides a more rewarding experience, if exploration is a big part of future games.Final Fantasyshould still do something new with that inspiration and not just try to emulateClair Obscur’s formula, butClair Obscuris a perfect example of how to do exploration and items correctly.
FF16actually had a good approach to items, in my opinion, butthe game’s lack of consistent difficulty made them almost obsolete.FF7 Rebirth’s items can be useful in a pinch, but much like other games in the series, they get pushed to the side halfway through. Thegame’s hard mode disables items entirely. As a New Game Plus mode, Hard Mode players have also already experienced most, if not all, that the game has to offer, leading to less emphasis on exploration and no access to items at all despite them being littered across the game.
Clair Obscurtook a lot of great aspects from theFinal Fantasyseries and created a new identity with them and other great JRPGs.Final Fantasyis in a sort of"soul-searching"phase right now, at least with the mainline series. Hopefully, after the massive success ofClair Obscur: Expedition 33,Final Fantasycomes full circle and takes inspiration from its approach to items and their usefulness to do something special in its next game.
