Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, in my humble opinion, deserves the laurels it got—it’s a gorgeous, inventive, personality-filled romp with an ending that rips your heart out and stomps it into a pulp fine enough for use in paint. But I’d hesitate to call it ‘perfect’, mostly because I don’t believe in perfection as a concept, but also because there were a few moments where it lost me—like those freaking mimes. Hate those guys.
Anyway, in a recent interview with the YouTube channel Konbini, creative director Guillaume Broche says that—among a lot of other inspirations—he was inspired by games with clear and glaring imperfections, jokingly referencing the infamous Devil May Cry scene where Dante screams: “I should’ve been the one to fill your dark soul with light!”
“I think these games are really endearing,” says Broche. “You see their flaws and think to yourself, ‘yeah, it’s lame, but I don’t care. It’s part of the character’s flaws, and that’s what makes them’. You’re not looking for a perfect game. A perfect game is boring anyway.”
As a matter of fact, Broche has a theory of perfection that games with a bit of jank are better than games that try to cover them up: “Games that try to be perfect, that try to fix all their flaws—they’re usually just really boring.”