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[COLUMN] Clair Obscur Didn’t Save Turn-Based Combat, Because Turn-Based Combat Didn’t Need Saving | by Marty Sliva
🕑 Added 2025-04-29 14:00:59 +0000 UTC
I’m only seven or so hours into Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, but I’m absolutely loving it so far. The prologue does an amazing job of introducing the setting, the characters, and the stakes of your adventure, leading to propulsion when you finally set off into the world. Said world is undeniably gorgeous, delivering a great sense of style with its magical realism. And the fantastic score has already joined South of Midnight as some of my favorite video game music of 2025.
But apart from all of that, the aspect of Expedition 33 that’s getting the most attention seems to be its turn-based battle system, which blends tactical decision making with a Final Fantasy X-esque emphasis on turn order, all of which is sprinkled with the reactive timing of button presses to bolster your attacks, dodges, and parries, similar to what’s found in Mario’s various RPG outings. All of this is presented with a style that draws a lot of comparison to the Persona franchise, and what we’re left with is a combat system that I’ve seen a ton of folks online proclaim to be a savior for the classic turn-based JRPG formula.
The thing is, for as great as Expedition 33’s battles are, turn-based combat doesn’t need saving, because it’s thriving. And if you’ve somehow missed the excellent recent examples and evolutions of the formula, then you’re probably just not looking hard enough.
I’ve loved a good RPG battle system for about as long as I’ve loved games themselves. Growing up on the SNES and PS1, I can’t count the number of JRPGs that I found myself lost in for hundreds of hours at a time. The 16-bit generation gave me Chrono Trigger, EarthBound, Super Mario RPG, Breath of Fire, and Final Fantasy, while that PS1 delivered even more Final Fantasy alongside the likes of Parasite Eve, Xenogears, Grandia, and so many more.
Though JRPGs fell out of the spotlight for a bit, there were still games like Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, and the Dragon Quest franchise to carry the torch through the darkness. And we eventually made it through to today, which I personally consider to be another golden age of JRPGs.
And that’s the thing that’s confusing me whenever I hear someone say that Expedition 33 is bringing back the lost art of the turn-based battle system. Because unless you’re solely focused on mainline Final Fantasy games, it feels like those kinds of battles are absolutely thriving across games of all shapes and sizes.
Atlus is a prime example of a developer and publisher who has never stopped championing this kind of combat in games. Over the past decade, we’ve seen Persona grow from a relatively niche franchise to a legitimate event series, with Person 5 propelling things to the next level. Just last year we got Persona 3 Reload, and there are rumblings of a Persona 4 remake (Rewind?) headed our way alongside the inevitable Persona 6. Shin Megami Tensei V got strong reviews, and we also had Metaphor: ReFantazio gobbling up awards last fall, which just might have the most stylish take on turn-based combat I’ve ever seen.
But it’s not just Persona and Persona-adjacent games that are doing it. The last two mainline Like a Dragon games have adopted a turn-based battle system that brought a breath of fresh air to the brawler. Over at Square Enix, we’ve seen the likes of Octopath Traveler, Live-a-Live, and the Dragon Quest HD remakes add a new coat of paint to the classic forms of combat. And just last week we got The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, a new tactical RPG from Kazutaka Kodaka and Kotaro Uchikoshi, the creators of Danganronpa and Zero Escape, respectively. I’m only a few hours into that one, but I’ve been absolutely loving it and I wish I had a secret 8th or 9th day of the week that I could just devote to getting lost in it.
Then there’s Nintendo, who have no shortage of turn-based games as pillars of their lineup. Pokemon is obviously the big one here, and I’ll be curious to see how combat evolves in the next mainline game for Switch 2 that’s sure outcome after Legends Z-A. There’s Fire Emblem, which gained new heights of popularity thanks to the success of Three Houses. Mario RPGs keep trucking along, most recently with the The Thousand-Year Door remake alongside Mario and Luigi Brothership. And though not quite turn based, Monolith entered rarefied atmosphere following Xenoblade Chronicles 3 on Switch.
And of course, it’s not just big-budget games that still evolve the turn-based formula. Sea of Stars, Chained Echoes, In Stars and Time, and Bug Fables all put their own spin on it, with new games that do the same popping up all the time, most recently Threads of Time.
The future is bright as hell for fans of turn-based combat. There’s a good chance we see Persona 6 and Dragon Quest XII this year. The Trails/Legends of Heroes saga keeps trucking along. A month doesn’t go by without the return of a classic JRPG franchise, including Lunar, Suikoden, Grandia, Saga Frontier, and Breath of Fire. Sure, in a perfect world we’d be able to play Skies of Arcadia on modern hardware, but even that seems like more of a reality now than it did a decade ago thanks to the genre regaining popularity again.
So yeah, that’s why I’m not entirely sure where the whole “Expedition 33 is saving the JRPG formula” thing is coming from. Sure, its presence at Xbox showcases, realistic visuals, and Hollywood cast present it to a segment of the audience that might otherwise ignore the more anime-styled nature of many of the aforementioned games. But you can’t look at the list of games above and just ignore the critical and commercial acclaim they’ve gotten over the past few years.
Honestly, it feels like the main reason this narrative exists is solely pointed at mainline Final Fantasy games. It’s no secret that the series have pivoted away from turn-based combat over the past decade, especially with the likes of XIV, XV, XVI, and the VII Remake trilogy. But the series has always ebbed and flowed with the times, morphing from fantasy, to sci-fi, to more realistic settings. Final Fantasy is a vessel for wherever its creators at the time want to fill it with. Sometimes that resonates with an audience stronger than others, but in my opinion, it’s always been that way.
Will Square look at the success of Expedition 33 and make some changes to Final Fantasy going forward? Honestly, I doubt it. I’d bet that Final Fantasy XVII is well into production right now, and while it might be some kind of return to a more classic form of combat, I don’t imagine that this game will impact that one way or another.
I don’t want any of this to take away from how much I’m enjoying Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, or how stoked I am to see its immediately critical and commercial success. It’s the kind of game I love to play, and I hope it leads to more passionate folks making projects like this. But for me, being a good game is more important than being some kind of savior of a genre that didn’t need saving.
Comments
Kirk Schneider
I think turn based combat is one of those game mechanics that used to dominate gaming because of hardware limitations. Turn based combat simulates action that would be hard or impossible to do with limited memory, screen real estate, and 2D graphics. Now that 3D action RPGs have matured (in design and in reduced constraints from hardware) you need to do more to justify the format of navigating menus and trading blows. Persona and many of the other modern games you listed have put in the work to make it engaging and to keep it moving at a good pace. So it can definitely still work. But the traditional turn based format common in 90s and early 2000s games is often hard to go back to and isn't going to dominate like it once did.
Lil' Cass
Agreed Marty, well done: great article!❤😄
William Alexander
Marty’s columns are getting tighter (in a good way). I’m enjoying seeing his voice develop
Ryallen
I have so many opinions about SQEX and their insistence that turn based games aren't popular anymore but I'll leave it for an article that's actually about them rather than the turn based genre in general. But they have been back for quite some time, the issue is that Atlus has been king of that particular mountain for years now. A big issue that I see a lot of people have with turn based games is that you're just pushing buttons and waiting for stuff to happen. My response to that is that if that's all you're doing, you're not playing a good turn based game. If you don't need to think about your moves, if you can just mash the attack button and win, you either need to play on a harder difficulty or you need to play something that doesn't demand just the bare minimum from you. I think that line of thinking is why E33 implemented action commands, because that stigma still pervades in the genre so giving the player stuff to do during attacks will keep them invested.
