Expedition 33 Hands on Preview

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Expedition 33 Hands on Preview An upcoming turn based roleplaying game with real time combat elements is coming out soon I got hands on to do a preview. Behind the scenes on the music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9fay-Ttmkg  ┃🔴 https://www.patreon.com/AngryCentaurGaming Substack https://substack.com/@acgreview  The ACG Best Gaming Podcast New Channel @Thebestgamingpodcast check it out Subscribe- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK9_x1DImhU-eolIay5rb2Q/?subconfirmation=1 Join the channel- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK9_x1DImhU-eolIay5rb2Q/join  ACG Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/ACGVids/  🕶 If you want to help out the channel you can buy a game on Epic use the ACG creator code KARAK-ACG ===========================================================  MORE REVIEWS Sniper Elite Resistance https://youtu.be/-wlwGNWqcSU Planet Coaster 2 https://youtu.be/0pJPcsqCuTs Still Wakes the Review https://youtu.be/qPs6aThTvPk Dragons Dogma 2 Review https://youtu.be/eKu3cwSuBYw   ============================================================  We also do the Best Gaming and Videogame Podcast each Friday 🎧Itunes https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/acg-the-best-gaming-podcast/id966781846 🎧ACG Reviews and Podcast on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/7ksaVxOmtaWDOYHvg4a4xK?si=8df0eae9bf6b4af7 🎩ACG Merch Store https://acg.creator-spring.com/ 🎩ACG Amazon Affiliate https://amzn.to/3cW7GQ0  Coverage includes ps4, PS5, XBox series X/s, Xbox one, pc, Switch, and digital storefronts like Steam, as well as companies like Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. Buy, wait for a sale, rent, or never touch it. The Patented Karak review system to see if a game is worth a buy upon release or if I recommend waiting

Transcript

00:00In the last few days, I've got to spend some time with a new game coming out, Expedition

00:0333.

00:05And if my time spent with the demos any indication, we're in for one hell of a ride, even if

00:09we don't understand like 50% of it.

00:11Developed by French studio Sandfall Interactive and published by Kepler, this turn-based RPG

00:16takes not only the turn-based stylings that you may expect, but adds in some real-time

00:21mechanics with an eerie French-inspired dark fantasy world, and then smash it all into

00:25a turn-based strategy title that also has real-time components.

00:29And that's precisely why this may be on the right track, because it's actually wrong to

00:32think of it as a mishmash.

00:34It's dropping on April 24th for PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox, and I got a chance

00:39to sit down with it and play many hours, so let's check it out.

00:42And now's the time I'd tell you to subscribe, but no, don't.

00:45Instead, go check out some smaller channels, channels you may have watched, and not hit

00:49the subscribe button, especially the way YouTube works, it always helps.

00:53Imagine waking up one day to see a number scrawled across the side of a giant mountain

00:57like some celestial death warrant.

00:59If it happens to match your age, tough luck, you're gonna die.

01:01That's a grim fate humanity suffers every year at the hands of an enigmatic force known

01:04as the Painteress, an eldritch executioner with a brush instead of a blade, and has the

01:09world at her beck and call.

01:10With every passing cycle, entire generations are wiped clean, like ink spilled on old parchment

01:15to be thrown away.

01:16And now, as the dreaded 33 shows up, one last desperate gamble set into motion, where an

01:21expedition goes out to try to destroy her.

01:24And this expedition is led by Gustav, played by no less than Charlie Cox from the Daredevil

01:30TV show.

01:31You join up with other characters, a mix of warriors and scholars and rogues, characters

01:35that are voiced by Jennifer Inglis, Kirstie Ryder, and Andy Serkis.

01:39Each of them carries on a reason to fight and help you out, and tries to defeat the

01:44Painteress before the inevitable 33 turns into, well, basically 32.

01:48Their odyssey is really no simple march.

01:51It starts out in the middle of the story, it spans across different haunted sea-like

01:54locations, drowned ruins, and landscapes that are all twisted into eerie reflections of

01:59many different fantasy settings and games overlapped on top of one another.

02:03And every bit of the world you explore sort of peels back that mystery of past failed

02:07expeditions and different stories about what's happened in the past, existential choices

02:12as well as the team's resolve and their understanding of one another and why they're

02:16fighting for this.

02:17Speaking of who's fighting, you are with Gustav, you take other characters with you,

02:21and you explore the world, which is actually surprisingly vertical.

02:24There's a lot of places where you're climbing up using grapple locations where other teams

02:29have used it to try to find new story elements or fight enemies.

02:33And fighting enemies is something you do a ton of in the demo and in the real game itself.

02:37When you jump into a battle, it's what you would expect.

02:40On the left, you have your character portraits, which say who goes first, who goes last, and

02:44then you have your turn-based battle system.

02:45When you're playing, you have to sort of figure out when it's gonna require a turn-based

02:49action where you can sit back and do nothing, and the next moment when it's gonna require

02:54you to press a button.

02:55It's about picking moves from a menu, as we've seen in all turn-based games, and then watching

02:59those numbers fly out, nailing a perfect parry or dodge when it's required of you by hitting

03:04that button exactly when the enemy attacks.

03:07There's even a free aim system in this that lets you actually aim a gun that zeroes in

03:11on enemy weak spots.

03:13So if you've ever wanted to snipe a demon's kneecaps, you can do that.

03:16Each character, no matter what they had or what they were doing, had an almost fiction

03:19built around them where it made you start to believe that the classes, or at least the

03:23character archetypes, made a ton of sense.

03:26Whenever you do something in a game, it costs action points, and while you gain one per

03:30turn, there's a lot of ways different characters can actually squeeze out extra AP, or you

03:35can get some from good parries or skill chains, specific maneuvers you choose.

03:40When you hit a button, one indicator on the screen quickly plays out, maybe something

03:43that people are accustomed to at times, but the way this game goes about it is distinctly

03:48different.

03:49You can also go into the actual settings of the game and at any time turn those on to

03:54automatic, so it'll handle it for you.

03:56There's also relics that function like the RPG's answer to pretty much wearable cheat

04:00codes.

04:01You equip one of them, and that'll give you a ton of stat points, and you find these around

04:04the game world.

04:05You stack the right ones together, and you can fine tune your party's play style.

04:08What I found with this was, when I experimented with the different characters, there were

04:12actually distinctly different ways to play the same character, not only depending on

04:16just your upgrade path, but also on the way you put points into the different attributes,

04:21like vitality, might, agility, defense, and luck, and they raise things like attack, power,

04:26speed, defensive abilities, and critical hit, respectively.

04:29This is the kind of combat system where every decision does feel like it matters, even if

04:32you don't really want to engage in the real time.

04:35It is something that, if you jump in there and use it, you get enough bonuses from doing

04:39it.

04:40It can be the difference between life and death, and it actually feels like something

04:43that works fairly well.

04:44There were a couple times where I felt like, why in the hell is this one system not actually

04:48asking me to enter a real time input?

04:51It's just, there were a couple skills that didn't do that, which seemed odd.

04:54Especially at the starting of the game, I was always wondering, okay, which one of these

04:56is going to require a button press, and which one isn't?

04:59And then once you sort of figure that out, it's not so bad.

05:01What I did like also is how each character, as I said before, has an almost class style

05:06feeling for it.

05:07For example, one character has offensive stances that they switch into, and it gives different

05:11bonuses.

05:12Another character casts spells, and while doing those, they gain something on their

05:15spirit called stains.

05:16It's almost like wounds for an old style D&D monk, which you can then use to power other

05:21moves, but they're elemental based, so you might actually end up getting a stain of flame

05:26on yourself by casting a flame spell, and to use it, you sort of burn that flame off,

05:31and you cast an ice spell with it, which may seem odd, but it almost feels like, in

05:35a way, to remove that heat from yourself, you create an even deeper cold feeling, and

05:41that's what you cast on the enemy.

05:42The main character was a more standard shoot shit, slash shit, magic attack shit, and

05:46then move on kind of character, but that actually solidified the gameplay group, where you have

05:50a character you can pretty much understand instantly, and you know exactly what's going

05:54on even when you add on different weapons and their skills, but the side ones were where

05:59the juice was.

06:00You can also switch and attack any character in the lineup that you're facing with some

06:04massive modifiers.

06:05For instance, floating characters can actually usually dodge up close attacks, completely

06:09meaning you have to plan out the magic attacks to hit them, while another character may be

06:13almost impervious to a particular element, things we've seen before, but when it's their

06:17turn to attack, you can basically dodge or parry, with parrying able for you to deliver

06:22massive bonus damage back to them.

06:25I can say that the input system for this did feel a little odd.

06:28That large box on the screen with an arrow on it, I thought, okay, I need to hit the

06:31button right when the box lights up, and the arrow sort of matches up with the countdown

06:36design, but that resulted in a number of misses.

06:39In fact, sometimes it would say perfect, regardless if I felt it was perfect or not.

06:43Now, the setting, as I said before, is equal parts, let's say, opulence and nightmare fuel

06:47feel, but not in that, oh, look, we're at an art museum kind of way, more like what

06:51would old French design colliding with elder gods horror feel like.

06:55Enemy design was the same way.

06:56It's all over the place.

06:58At first, it was like Stonehenge got pissed at those people trying to graffiti it, so

07:00the rock sprouted legs, bad attitudes, and tried to defeat you.

07:03And then the next, you'd be fighting a Pinocchio looking automaton, and then a foresty, rocky

07:09ogre.

07:10As I continued playing, I started to think I figured out why.

07:13We'll just have to see.

07:14With these worlds and these hubs, I would say it's one part almost Final Fantasy, another

07:18part undersea theme park.

07:20You'll move through an alien location that has warped Alice in Wonderland style motifs,

07:24and then ocean scenes where, as I said, water bubbles up into the sky.

07:28There's cracks in the ground.

07:29And one point in the game, there is a whale swimming or floating or flying above your

07:33head.

07:34It is this eclectic, ethereal feel to the fiction that ended up paying off dramatically,

07:39especially as I sort of looked around and said, you know what, these mysteries, these

07:43little bits of story I'm finding are pulling me forward in the demo, which I didn't quite

07:47think was going to happen.

07:54Now, the sound sphere is wide, almost distractingly so when you're playing, so especially when

08:19traipsing around in non-underwater underwater sections where ambient sounds, creature calls,

08:23and your own footsteps can become almost confusingly wide, like the center channel isn't necessarily

08:28doing all it needs to ground the character in that space.

08:31There's a lane here of effects, one on top of the other, that really delivers that otherworldly

08:36feeling.

08:37This also tightens up into a fine space when you go into combat with attacks, dodges, and

08:41blocks all centered pretty expertly.

08:43Also, this might be some of the best music I've heard in a demo ever.

08:47And I mean ever.

08:48The otherworldly melodies, they sort of resonate hand in hand with the visuals.

08:51You have angelic vocals fading into harmonies that sounds like they're almost from childlike

08:56instruments, things that you don't usually hear in games, especially this eclectic.

09:01The soundtrack so far is very off-kilter, something that you might expect from a number

09:06of games actually mixed into one.

09:08There are elements of titles like Fable, Final Fantasy, Kingsbird, and others.

09:13I've enjoyed the soundtrack a great deal, but I did have some concerns.

09:16First, when it comes to control, which is mouse-based movement systems or controllers,

09:21it sees you moving the mouse a huge amount before it makes an impact on the character's

09:24controls, which is what really matters in third-person, and it feels more clumsy than

09:28it needs to be.

09:29They had a warning, hey, we'd like you to play on gamepad, that feels the best in this

09:33game at least right now, and I jumped to it, but it still felt somewhat the same way.

09:37Also, the awful free-aim gun in the combat.

09:40I love the idea that you can do it, but it feels almost completely, 100% disconnected

09:45from everything else.

09:46The way you aim, the way it looks, even the way it animates, the game's worldview and

09:50batched story don't help that part of it, but also when you switch out to that free-aim,

09:55you're just sort of sitting there going like, why does this feel like nothing else in the

09:58title?

09:59Also, when it comes to the animation for movement, it's not only floaty, but also pretty rough,

10:03especially starting and stopping, which aids the feeling of these characters appearing

10:06on their own, almost like puppets, but it makes movement feel weirdly unresponsive on

10:11both the mouse and keyboard and on the controller.

10:14And there's no maps in exploring the areas, which can suck when everything looks like

10:17you drained 20 miles of the Pacific and you're walking around coral beds.

10:20Lastly, the game's atmosphere is very thick, and at times this means the world has a smudgy,

10:25smoky look.

10:26The game doesn't always put its unique and interesting visuals forward because of that

10:30look, it almost looks like the bloom is set way too high on it.

10:34And when you're playing the game, there are times where you realize this would look great

10:38if I could, you know, sort of see it all.

10:40The game also has an open world map.

10:42So this is harkening back to the RPG Days of Yore, where you go into a large open world

10:48map and you can explore.

10:49We've seen a ton of it and I got to run around in it.

10:51I like that overall, but at this time, I really haven't seen how that reflects the main game

10:56proper yet.

10:57So far, I think they're pretty close to nailing this.

10:59We'll just have to see if they can make it through to the very last days.

11:02If the preview is anything to go by though, Expedition 33 is shaping up to be something

11:06that's at least visually striking with some good gameplay chops, with possibly a couple

11:11misses.

11:12The turn-based and real-time elements does give everything a frantic feel almost that

11:16then is combined with the momentary relaxation of sitting back and just watching the turn-based

11:22combat happen.

11:23That to me is almost unsettling and in a good way, intriguing.

11:27I'm actually excited to see where this title goes.

11:31That's it for me.

11:32I'd love for you to subscribe, hit the patron button, jump on over there.

11:35We have awesome discussions in there, or you can just become a YouTube member or you can

11:39do none of those, and give this a thumbs up and leave a comment if you like these videos.

11:43Peace out.

11:4468.

11:45Elodie's expedition.

11:46You know, the commanders of every expedition.

11:55Expedition 68.

11:56Their boat was blown into the air by a storm.

11:59Lumiere lost sight of it, but assumed they crashed on the continent.

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