Aggregators sit at 91 and 92
Our labelled consensus score is 91, matching Metacritic’s PC metascore; OpenCritic’s 2025 PC average sits at 92.
Sandfall Interactive’s Belle Époque JRPG launched 24 April 2025 and became one of the year’s most-reviewed PC games. The aggregate is sky-high. Individual outlets are not unanimous — which is the interesting part.
What the outlets scored
| Outlet | Score | Takeaway |
|---|---|---|
| PC Gamer | 70 | World and cast shine; real-time parry layer frustrates |
| Metacritic PC | 91 | Aggregate of scored critic reviews |
| OpenCritic (PC 2025) | 92 | #2 on 2025 PC leaderboard at check |
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s gorgeously realized world is let down by its emphasis on combat, marred by a few fatal stumbles.
Justin Wagner, PC Gamer — 70/100
The split
PC Gamer’s Justin Wagner loved the vibe — Andy Serkis and Jennifer English in the cast, a Paintress premise he calls hard to explain concisely — but argues the mandatory dodge/parry layer turns fights into “trial-and-error rote memorization” that drowns the turn-based builds. He finished relieved.
That 70 sits more than twenty points under the Metacritic blob. When an aggregate is 91 and a major PC outlet is 70, the honest roundup says: expect a stylish, relatively short JRPG (~20 hours in Wagner’s review) whose real-time defence demands will either thrill you or exhaust you.
Consensus
Buy if the critical majority’s praise for world, score and presentation matches what you want from a French Persona-adjacent RPG. Wait (or watch a combat vod) if permadeath-adjacent parry timing is a deal-breaker — PC Gamer already filed that dissent.
Sources checked 15 Oct 2026: Metacritic via Steam, OpenCritic browse, PC Gamer review (23 Apr 2025).
