One tenacious player has managed to beat Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 on Expert difficulty without parrying or dodging a single hit. The feat highlights the RPG’s high degree of tactical flexibility, demonstrating that players can succeed even while actively avoiding some of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's core mechanics.
The all-hit run was accomplished by Ymfah, a YouTuber of 13 years known for memeable undertakings. The Korean content creator's list of achievements includes a ludicrous Cuphead-themed playthrough of Dark Souls 3, a comparably difficult gun-only challenge in Bloodborne, and a zero-equip load Skyrim run.
Ymfah Facetanks His Way Through Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's Expert Difficulty
The longtime YouTuber has now added an all-hit playthrough of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 to his ever-growing list of gaming feats. Making matters even more impressive, the run was completed on the RPG's highest, Expert difficulty. The game's own description of this setting, which significantly ups enemy damage and health, states that "mastering Dodges and Parries is required," a notion that Ymfah successfully dispelled by facetanking his way through an entire Expert playthrough, though not without some hiccups.
An All-Hit Run of Clair Obscur Requires Turning Every Character Into a Tank
In order to triumph in these maximally challenging circumstances, the YouTuber opted for the most intuitive build strategy relative to the self-imposed limitation of not being able to parry or dodge a single attack. This included ignoring the conventional party member-specific wisdom and just focusing on raising the Vitality attribute of all Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 characters. The reasoning behind this approach was simple: more health equals greater survivability, with a no-dodge/parry run thus making Vitality by far the most important attribute, especially given how hard bosses hit.
Another strategy the player used was to fine-tune his character builds toward filling the enemies' Break bars as often as possible. In a normal playthrough, this mechanic only consistently comes into play during prolonged boss battles featuring opponents with enough health for it to come up naturally. However, an all-hit run greatly benefits from a setup that makes enemies miss turns as often as possible, even if that means prioritizing their Break bar over damage at every opportunity.
The introductory segment of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 immediately posed a unique challenge to this run due to its built-in dodge tutorial. After some tinkering, Ymfah realized that he could disable the game's tutorials and proceed without immediately failing the run. The focus then shifted to turning every character into a tank, effectively applying existing theory-crafted facetank builds and pushing them to their absolute limits. Ultimately, while Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 incorporates real-time action elements as much as the turn-based nature of its combat allows, Ymfah's feat proves that the game was designed with enough tactical flexibility in mind that even this fundamental element of its combat can be completely ignored.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 92 /100 Critics Rec: 97%
- Released
- April 24, 2025
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Sandfall Interactive
- Publisher(s)
- Kepler Interactive
WHERE TO PLAY
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
- Genre(s)
- Turn-Based RPG, JRPG, Fantasy
