A non-RPG player plays Expedition 33 for the first time: 1st entry (Possible spoilers of the beginning)

Context: I'm playing E33 for the first time despite that I had a horrible experience with RPGs and fans for years. More context here. To avoid taking the risk of getting into spoilers, I won't read any comment until I finish this adventure.

So the past October 21st I started playing this adventure. I thought it would be interesting for a fan to share this experience because I've read a couple of times that people who don't like RPGs ended up loving this one. I'm playing in the Expedition Mode (which I assume it's the normal difficulty) and in performance mode because I love my frames.

I've played 3 hours, and the highest compliment I can give to this game is that these 3 hours felt very short, in a good way. Usually games have to get the player's attention as fast as possible (easy example: Hi-Fi Rush does that wonderfully), but unfortunately most games don't do that. Most games demand the player to grind 30 hours before they get into "the best part", and my question was why not do that in the first minutes? I had that issue with Xenoblade, Final Fantasy VII, Kingdom Hearts, Starfield, etc. Probably the most cartoonish example is the first minute of The World ends with you, because the main character is a jerk, and you're supposed to root for this guy. I lasted 15 minutes into that game and I never touched it again.

In comparison, Expedition 33 not only starts very fast, but it also doesn't have pacing issues. Instead of getting into the adventure after 5 hours of gameplay, you start straight away. This was surprising and particularly refreshing. If this was a Monolith Soft game, it would take 10 hours before you go into the expedition. Speaking of which, the beach scene was surprising. I love the fact that it doesn't sugarcoat it and it shows lots of deaths that affects Gustave's motivation. And the next scene, the one with the gun, was also shocking in a good way. Usually you'd see this type of scene right at the end, but nope. I like the fact that the main character changes his mood due to the events instead of becoming a one-dimensional character. After all, for every action, there's a reaction, and showing this reaction is important to show what Gustave is feeling.

Speaking of the characters, I really like how they interact each other. In Lumiere, everyone has different opinions and feelings about the Paintreesse, they don't agree to the main character just because he's the main character. His sister didn't want him to go into the expedition, and showing these thoughts makes the characters more believable. I also like how Gustave is mostly incapable of finishing his sentences. These character traits make the characters believable in a way that you connect to them. They don't talk like RPG walking tropes, they talk like actual people. Those who arrived to the scene where Gustave wanted to go after Maelle even though Lune wanted to follow the protocol know what I mean.

About the game: This is like Persona 5, which is neat, because that game was very approachable to me. You have the option to shoot enemies, but it's only viable when you shoot at the weak points, which is cool. Instead of using mana, it has something called "PA" (since it's spanish, I assume it's "AP" in english), and it's very practical when you wanna use certain abilities in a specific order. Most of the fights have been easy with the exception of a green lancer with a black hole in their face. It took me 10 tries, but I killed them. The dodge/parry system is refreshing, it reminds me of Thousand Year Door in a good way. Thanks to that system, you don't have to press the same button in a brainless way over and over again, which was something that annoyed me about, say, Child of Light and Final Fantasy among other games.

So far it's pretty neat. The only problems I have are three details: For some ridiculous reason, when you go to the overworld, your characters look gigantic, the trees look like bushes and it doesn't match the art direction of the game. It's a bit annoying when something that you start to like ended up showing these quirks in contrast. The second reason is that, despite having platforms, the jumping mechanic is not very good. There were lots of areas where I was jumping to a place expecting the character to go there, but nope.

The third issue is that, despite I'm playing on the PS5 in 1080p in 16:9, the cutscenes have a different aspect ratio (I think it's 21:9) and with less frames per second. I don't know what the game gains from doing that because you can put these cutscenes in 16:9 and I also don't know if these cutscenes are rendered or pre-rendered, but at least it's a very small issue.

Overall, I'm liking E33, but I still haven't got to a part that made me click. I'm saying this because, as soon as I say I love a rpg, the game in question starts to get worse. For example, many years ago I said that I was liking Xenoblade 1, but as soon I got to the second half, I lost interest in the story. If a story makes me feel emotionally numb, I'm not going to root for the characters. Fortunately I didn't have that issue with E33, but I still have my shield ready in case something happens that hinders my experience. I love the cutscenes of the game because it doesn't take 30 minutes to explain that the memoirs of someone are, in fact, the memoirs of someone. It's well paced, it goes back to different scenes without losing track of the main story (mainly to complement the characters) and, so far, it feels short but good, which is more than I could say about the rest of RPGs.

For those interested, I'm right at the water level, the one that looks like a region from Monster Hunter World. I rescued Maelle, I met a Goomba with a helmet, I challenged them into a duel, I won and I upgraded my weapons. According to my PS5, I got 19% of the main story, which means that I could finish it in 4 days or a week, which is perfectly fine to me. Not every game has to last forever and no game is good enough to justify 90 hours of grinding to unlock the last cutscene.

So far I don't have a favorite character. I don't want to fall into the trap of liking someone and then getting to a scene where said character does something fundamentally wrong.

My favorite scene so far was the gun scene. Yeah, that one.

Next time I get a little far, I'll share my experience here. Take care everyone!