Clair Obscur is not a JRPG, but developer Sandfall Interactive has certainly been taking its cue from some of the greats—Final Fantasy, for sure, but Persona even more so. This stylish, confident RPG, with its strikingly strange locations and flashy turn-based battles, really should be right up my alley, but after three hours of it I instead find myself ambivalent.
The preview drops me into Clair Obscur after the prologue, with a quick, spliced-together cutscene trying to catch me up. If you're not in the know, Clair Obscur is kinda like a fantastical French Logan's Run inspired by La Belle Époque. Every year, the people of Lumiere get closer to extinction, as a strange entity known as the Paintress conjures up a new number, and then everyone that age dies. She's counting down.
