"A turn-based RPG that parries you straight into grief"
About
You lead Expedition 33, a group of adventurers traveling through a Belle Époque-inspired world to confront the Paintress, a deity whose artistic creations bring death and destruction. Combat encounters blend turn-based structure with real-time execution, requiring you to time your actions and reactions during battles while managing your party's positioning and abilities. Between fights, you explore handcrafted environments, uncover the expedition's backstory, and develop relationships with your companions.
Verdict
Expedition 33 fuses turn-based combat with real-time parries and dodges into something that demands your full attention every single turn, then wraps it in a Belle Époque world and a soundtrack that does half the emotional lifting. The story falters in its third act and the missing quest journal makes exploring this world more tedious than it should be, but the whole thing lands harder than almost anything else this generation.
You'll like it if …
- +you want every turn to demand active parry and dodge timing rather than passive menu input
- +learning a boss moveset like a duel appeals more than min-maxing stats
- +a grief-driven story and a soundtrack carrying the emotion matter more to you than mechanical depth
You'll dislike it if …
- −you want a build system that stays central instead of becoming optional once you master parries
- −you replay games for systems, and a story that ends cleanly leaves you done
- −you want consistent quest tracking and map markers to guide exploration
Breakdown
- +Active parry and dodge timing layered onto turn-based structure keeps you locked in every turn instead of waiting passively
- +Learning a boss's moveset feels like a duel rather than a stat check
- −Mastering the parry makes the elaborate build system feel optional
- +Build variety and synergies reward players who want to break the system on the highest difficulty
- +Self-imposed challenges like single-character parry-only runs on max difficulty give the systems real legs beyond the base campaign
- −Fifty euros for 40 hours of story, though side content and challenge runs stretch that past 100
- +Intro earns tears in thirty minutes and establishes a meditation on grief that uses mechanics to mean something
- −Third act unravels and the big twist divides players hard
- −Worldbuilding runs thin under the spectacle
- +Belle Époque art direction turns every area into something you'd stop and stare at
- +Environments feel hand-sculpted rather than asset-flipped
- +Soundtrack carries the emotional weight and does the heavy lifting across scenes
- −Stiff character animation in cutscenes
- +Animations are smooth and presentation rarely drops a frame of intent
- −Missing quest journal and map markers are a genuine design oversight that makes exploring tedious
- −Scattered platform issues like inconsistent Linux audio
score
