Ever since its launch on April 24, the gaming world has been buzzing continuous about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. The French RPG was immediately hailed as a generational masterpiece upon launch, profitable gamers over with its trendy visuals and spectacular fight. It’s most placing high quality, although, is its emotional storytelling. Clair Obscur tells a shifting story about collective grief as an expedition units out to avoid wasting humanity from an annual plague that threats to wipe out each final individual on Earth. It’s a loaded story about shifting ahead within the face of ache that has drawn out gallons of tears from gamers, little question.
But that wasn’t the one sport to launch on April 24 — nor was it even the one RPG about preventing for a greater future launched that day. It shared a launch date with The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, the newest sport from the workforce behind Danganronpa. One half visible novel, one half techniques sport, The Hundred Line is extremely formidable in its personal proper because of its 100 endings throughout a gargantuan runtime. It’s not solely one of many yr’s greatest, but it surely’s additionally an ideal praise to Clair Obscur. Both RPGs cowl comparable thematic territory in very alternative ways which might be each indebted to online game historical past. If your Clair Obscur playthrough is beginning to wind down, The Hundred Line is the right chaser. I’d even go so far as to argue that it’s the true principal course.
Fighting for the longer term
The two video games could not sound comparable on paper, however they’re extra related than they appear at a look. Both are about humanity’s impending dying as a timer ticks down and one group’s combat to avoid wasting the world. In Clair Obscur, the battle comes from the Paintress, a mystical being who seems yearly to color a quantity within the sky. When she does, it triggers an occasion referred to as the Gommage, the place everybody whose age is above the present quantity dies. The quantity ticks down with every year, so an expedition is distributed out to try to put an finish to the Paintress every year earlier than everyone seems to be inevitably killed.
The Hundred Line‘s impending disaster is more shrouded in mystery. When the story begins, we learn that a group of students has been assembled at a school and chosen to defend a weapon housed within it from alien invaders. The group is told that the weapon will destroy the world if it gets into the wrong hands and they must protect it for a full 100 days. That only scratches the surface of what’s actually occurring, because the story performs out like a number of seasons of a TV present stuffed with twists and cliffhangers. Think of it like an anime model of Lost. Without getting too within the weeds, humanity is on the same path to destruction and the scholars solely have a lot time to vary that.
Too Kyo Games
Though each premises are extremely bleak, every RPG is hopeful in its personal method. They aren’t about succumbing to despair as inevitability approaches, however discovering the need to proceed the combat for a greater future. And each do this by wielding the language of video games in intelligent methods. For Clair Obscur, that concept comes by way of in its ode to basic RPGs. By drawing on a historical past of party-driven video games about assembling a crew of misfit heroes, Sandfall Interactive speaks to the significance of collective motion to push ahead in instances of ache. The crew members aren’t simply battle companions, however a useful assist system that’s stronger collectively. Successfully parrying an enormous enemy assault as a celebration triggers a devastating counter. When the energetic occasion falls in battle, the remaining ones are available in for backup fairly than sitting on their thumbs like so many different RPGs. And when a battle is received, a button on display screen proclaims, “We continue,” driving dwelling the concept the workforce is one singular unit.
The Hundred Line is relatively excessive idea in its method. Its grand trick is that it doesn’t simply happen throughout 100 days because it initially claims to. That preliminary run nearly acts as an elongated introduction to the precise hook. Let’s simply say that issues go a little bit south by the top of the primary 100 days which sends the as soon as peppy group into despair. Failure appears imminent as the scholars anticipate their very own Gommage of types. When issues are their bleakest, gamers are hit with a tantalizing query: What if you happen to may change all of it? What would you do in a different way if you happen to had one other 100 days? That opens up the true sport, through which gamers return by way of the story and search for divergent factors within the timeline that would change that ending.
What’s so good right here is that The Hundred Line leans into online game language to present gamers the opportunity of hope. The fateful 100th day is framed as an “ending” and the one you get after your first run may be the “bad” one. For seasoned players, that’s instantly tangible. I understand how a number of endings perform in video games and know that getting a very good one is completely inside my energy. I simply must be keen to maintain at it and work out what I can do to get the ending that I would like. We don’t get a redo in actual life, however video games can fulfill that fantasy. The Hundred Line offers gamers the facility to show again the clock and see precisely how their actions can form the inevitable. I don’t really feel down once I hit a foul ending: There are actually 100 ways in which this factor can go.
As completely different as these two video games are, that concept unites them. They are each about individuals dealing with down hopelessness as mass extinction looms and being decided sufficient to combat as many instances because it takes. Sacrifice is central to each tales, too. In Clair Obscur, gamers uncover logs left behind from each earlier occasion that has died to get Expedition 33 the place it’s right this moment. The Hundred Line is much more express about that theme, as characters can sacrifice their lives in its tactical battles to drag off a devastating assault and supercharge the workforce’s power meter so everybody else can hit their very own large strikes. Death is framed a steppingstone in each video games, a noble sacrifice that the dwelling can use to their benefit. It’s not an ending, however fairly one essential motion in a collective effort that’s constructed on braveness.
Sandfall Interactive
Though Clair Obscur has been applauded for its emotionally gripping story, I discover simply as a lot energy — if no more — in The Hundred Line. Through all of its foolish one-liners and tomato-headed heroes, there’s a powerful message to be discovered about our energy to cease the inevitable. It is achievable by way of numerous selections that may change historical past even once we don’t understand they’re leaving a mark within the second. It solely is smart to discover that by way of a digital select your individual journey novel the place any end result feels doable.
So, when you’re executed with Clair Obscur, contemplate leaping proper into The Hundred Line. You’ll discover a wealthy continuation of its themes that play with the language of video games much more. Neither sport will save our personal world, however they may make you’re feeling rather less hopeless on this dire second.