Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 feels like a love letter to JRPGs—and that's because it pretty much is. Director Guillaume Broche has a long-lasting history with the genre, including an ill-fated attempt to play Final Fantasy 8 before he and his brother could actually read.
That's per a recent interview with The Washington Post, wherein Guillaume recounts some of his earliest gaming memories: "[FF8] came out at a time where my brother and I could barely read." Guillaume is, fittingly, 33 years old—which would've made him around 7 at the time. That does indeed put him within developmental striking distance of being able to barely read the reams of text in your average RPG.
