There is no such thing as a perfect game, although some certainly deserve a 10/10 rating. The director of last year’s breakout hit knows this very well.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 deserves every bit of praise it has received. It is a beautiful, imaginative adventure full of memorable characters, and its ending rips out your heart before grinding it into paint-fine pulp. Even so, we would hesitate to call it perfect.
In a recent interview with the Konbini YouTube channel, creative director Guillaume Broche explained that, among his many inspirations, he was also drawn to games with clear and obvious flaws. He jokingly recalled the infamous Devil May Cry scene in which Dante screams in anguish.
“I should’ve been the one to fill your dark soul with light!”
According to Broche, it is precisely these unusual, not entirely polished elements that can give a game its soul. His theory is that games with a little jank and a little weirdness are more interesting than games that try to conceal or repair every imperfection.
“I think these games are really endearing. You see their flaws and think to yourself, yeah, it’s lame, but I don’t care. It is part of the character’s flaws, and that is what makes them what they are. You are not looking for a perfect game. A perfect game is boring anyway.”
“Games that try to be perfect, that try to fix all their flaws, are usually just really boring. My theory is that it is just like people. People who try to be perfect are boring because they have no personality. People who embrace their slightly weird side are the interesting ones in the end.” Broche explained.
For Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, he cited the deliberately irritating minigames as an example. The team already knew during development that some of them would annoy players, but it considered that frustration part of the joke.
“We knew when we were making them that it was going to be unbearable and that people were going to lose it, but that is part of the fun. We thought it was funny. It is imperfect, but whatever, we are putting it in anyway.”
Broche also admitted that the game includes numerous design choices that make little sense from an external or business perspective. Before launch, many doubted whether action-game mechanics built around dodging and parrying could work when combined with a turn-based RPG structure.
“Before we released the game, we heard a lot: you are making a game that mixes the challenging aspects of an action game, dodging and parrying, with turn-based gameplay. No one is going to like it.” Broche said.
We liked it a great deal, but we are both RPG fans and parry fanatics, so Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 felt almost custom-built for us. Broche is still honest about the fact that many of its elements should probably never have been made under conventional business logic.
Source: PC Gamer
