Although I've long made peace with the notion that JRPGs can be made by developers outside of Japan, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 might be the first I've played that doesn't just seek to emulate but strike out with its own unique vision built on the genre's rich foundations.
From the first arresting visual of an impossibly fractured Eiffel Tower, Montpellier-based Sandfall Interactive's debut title is quintessentially French in its Belle Epoque style in a world of perpetual yet beautiful decay. But it also imagines an alternative timeline of what Final Fantasy 16 might have been if it didn't sacrifice the series' traditions in the name of high fidelity and maturity, or rather if Xbox 360 cult classic Lost Odyssey got the chance to have a sequel. Ironically, the theme is almost the opposite to Mistwalker's exploration of immortality. Instead, the lives of the people of Lumiere are literally numbered as, each year, a mysterious god-like figure known as the Paintress paints on a distant monolith a number that instantly snuffs out everyone of that age.
