The best game like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is Metaphor: ReFantazio, the fantasy RPG from the team behind Persona, followed by Sea of Stars and Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster. The 17 others below cover every part of what makes it special, from timed hits and parries inside turn-based battles to stories about doomed journeys, mortality and the people left behind.
We ranked these 20 games on how closely each delivers what people love about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which Sandfall Interactive calls “reactive turn-based”: battles where you dodge, parry and aim in real time, a small party on a final mission, and a world that looks like nothing else. Critical reception decides the close calls. We left out games that share only its difficulty, and the few action games here earn their spot with a story or a parry that truly compares. Every entry lists the platforms it is on, checked against Steam, the console stores and the publishers’ own pages in November 2026. Every PS4 game here also runs on PS5, and every Xbox One game on Xbox Series X|S, through backward compatibility. Still playing Expedition 33 itself? Our Clair Obscur hub has every guide, from how to parry attacks to how long it takes to beat.
20. Octopath Traveler 0
Platforms: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, Switch 2 and PC (released December 4, 2025).
Square Enix’s newest HD-2D game is here for the way it builds a fight, not for any timing test. Its Break and Boost system has you hunt for an enemy’s weaknesses, shatter its guard, then spend saved-up points on one huge turn, a rhythm of setup and payoff that will feel familiar if you have ever hoarded AP for a single big skill. The story also starts from loss: its Steam page sums it up as “restoration and retribution,” and you rebuild your hometown in a town-building mode between battles. You create your own lead and field a party of up to eight, which is a very different kind of game from Sandfall’s tight cast, and that is why it sits at the bottom of our list.
19. NieR:Automata
Platforms: PS4 and PC (released 2017), Xbox One (2018) and Nintendo Switch (The End of YoRHa Edition, 2022).
There are no turns here, so NieR:Automata earns its place with its story and its pedigree. Sandfall’s director has named NieR among the action games behind Expedition 33’s real-time side. You play androids 2B, 9S and A2 in a war against machines on an abandoned Earth, dodging and slashing through fights that mix melee and ranged attacks. What it shares with Expedition 33 is the way it keeps recasting what you thought you knew, across several playthroughs and endings, until a simple war story turns into something much sadder. If the final acts and the soundtrack of Expedition 33 stayed with you for weeks, this is the next game we recommend.
18. The Banner Saga
Platforms: PC and Mac (released January 2014), PS4 and Xbox One (January 2016) and Nintendo Switch (May 2018). Banner Saga 2 and 3 continue the story.
Stoic’s Viking saga has the closest mood to Expedition 33’s opening: a small group marching across a dying land with little hope of seeing the end. Its hand-drawn art looks like a classic animated film, and its Steam page makes the promise plain: “Not everyone will survive, but they will be remembered.” You lead a caravan over frozen mountains, manage its supplies, make hard calls on the road and fight turn-based battles on a grid, with more than 25 playable characters. Those battles are closer to chess than to parrying, so it ranks low, but few games make you feel the cost of a journey quite like this one.
17. Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance
Platforms: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC (released June 2024).
Atlus’s darkest RPG shows how much tension turn-based combat can hold without a single timed input. Its Press Turn system rewards hitting a weakness with extra actions and punishes a bad guess by taking them away, so one careless move can lose you a fight. You battle through a decimated Tokyo in a war between angels and demons, recruit hundreds of those demons, and work through what its Steam page calls “conflicting and tragic choices.” Like Expedition 33, it is happy to be hard on you, and it pays off players who build a team around skill synergies instead of grinding levels.
16. Deltarune
Platforms: PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, PC and Mac (released June 2025). Chapters 1 and 2 are free.
Toby Fox’s chapter-based RPG comes at reactive combat from another direction. You pick commands from a classic turn-based menu, then steer a tiny heart through enemy attacks in real time, in what its Steam page calls “creative bullet-dodging based battles inspired by games like Touhou and Chrono Trigger.” It is the same idea as Expedition 33’s dodges: your reflexes decide how much a turn costs you. You can spare enemies instead of defeating them, and the tone is funnier and stranger, but the friendships at its center land hard. With two free chapters, it is the easiest way on this list to test whether real-time defense is what you actually love.
15. Lies of P
Platforms: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC and Mac (released September 2023).
If the look of Lumière is what hooked you, Lies of P is the other big RPG that truly looks the part. Neowiz’s soulslike turns Pinocchio into a dark fairy tale in the city of Krat, “a place soaked in the style of the Belle Epoque era,” per its Steam page, the same period Expedition 33 draws on. It is real-time action rather than turns, but its best fights come down to the same skill: learning a boss’s rhythm and guarding at the last instant, since perfect guards can break an enemy’s weapon. You also keep choosing whether to tell the truth or lie, which gives its story a quiet hook of its own.
14. Chained Echoes
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC, Mac and Linux (released December 2022).
Like Expedition 33, Chained Echoes shows what a small team can do against the JRPG giants: this 16-bit-style RPG was built by one developer, Matthias Linda, under the name Umami Tiger. Its turn-based battles are fast, enemies are visible on the map, and an Overdrive gauge rewards you for keeping the party’s actions in a sweet spot, which keeps every turn active in a way plain menu-picking never does. The story is a war across three kingdoms with more betrayal than the pixel art suggests, and you can fight on foot or in a piloted Mech. Its Steam page lists 30 to 40 hours of play, and the 2025 Ashes of Elrant expansion adds more.
13. The Legend of Dragoon
Platforms: PS5 and PS4, through the PlayStation Store and PlayStation Plus Premium. It first came out on PS1 in 2000 in North America.
Sony’s cult PS1 RPG was doing timed turn-based combat decades before Expedition 33 made it fashionable. Its Addition system turns each attack into a string of timed button presses, and landing the full sequence is the difference between a scratch and a heavy hit. PlayStation’s page highlights the other hook: Dart and his companions can “transform into Dragoons and unleash extraordinary powers.” The low-poly look and slow pacing show their age, so this is more of a history lesson than a modern rival. Still, it is a fun one, and it shows that the idea at the heart of Sandfall’s battles has roots a long way back.
12. Final Fantasy Resonance
Platforms: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, Switch 2 and PC (released October 2026).
The newest game on this list is the first Final Fantasy made in HD-2D, and it is as classic as turn-based RPGs get in 2026. Square Enix built its battles around exploiting weaknesses to stagger enemies, which hands you extra turns and sets up big Resonance attacks, a loop that suits anyone who enjoyed breaking bosses in Expedition 33. Visions, echoes of older Final Fantasy heroes, fight beside your party, and our guides to the best party and the best Visions show how deep that customization runs. There is no parrying, so it ranks below the timed-hit games, but its dramatic camera work makes each fight feel like an event. Our Final Fantasy hub has the rest, including how long it takes to beat.
11. Super Mario RPG
Platforms: Nintendo Switch (released November 2023), a remake of the 1996 Super NES original.
For many people, this is where timed hits began. Nintendo’s page says to “press the A Button at the right time for a satisfying dose of extra damage or a helpful guard,” and that one line is an ancestor of every parry in Expedition 33. The remake adds a Chain system, which boosts your stats when you keep landing Action Commands, and Triple Moves that change with your party of three. It is much lighter and shorter than Sandfall’s game, with jokes in place of grief. On Switch, though, it is the friendliest way to get the timing into your thumbs.
10. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
Platforms: PS5 (released February 2024), PC (January 2025), and Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2 (June 2026).
Sandfall’s director lists Final Fantasy first among the JRPGs his team loves, and Rebirth is the series’ biggest modern take on a party on the road. Its fights run in real time with a command layer on top: you control one hero, block and dodge as attacks come in, and spend a charged gauge on abilities for anyone in your party. What ties it to Expedition 33 is the journey, as Cloud and his friends leave Midgar and cross a vast world with a growing sense of what it is going to cost them. Its open-world side activities are a long way from Sandfall’s tighter focus, but the party’s bonds hit just as hard. Our Final Fantasy hub covers the series’ newest games.
9. Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Platforms: Nintendo Switch (released July 2022).
No other game here comes closer to Expedition 33’s central idea of a life with a countdown on it. Soldiers of the warring nations of Keves and Agnus live just 10 years, and Noah and Mio, whose duty as off-seers is to ferry “the souls of fallen soldiers back to their Queen,” set out with four companions to learn why. It is the Gommage from the other side: young people who know exactly how much time they have left, deciding what to do with it. The combat is real-time, built on positioning, class swaps and chain attacks rather than reflexes, which keeps it out of our top five. For the feeling of a doomed group fighting for a future they may never see, though, only Final Fantasy X rivals it.
8. Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter
Platforms: PS5, Nintendo Switch and PC (released September 2025). Trails in the Sky 2nd Chapter followed in September 2026 on PS5, Nintendo Switch, Switch 2 and PC.
Falcom’s remake rethinks turn-based combat from the other end. Its Steam page offers “the choice of traditional turn-based combat or all-new, real-time action combat,” so you can knock down weak enemies in real time and drop into command battles when a fight deserves it. That mix of action and turns is the same appeal as Expedition 33, though Trails asks for far less precision. Estelle Bright and her adoptive brother Joshua start as junior bracers doing small jobs and end up unraveling a conspiracy against their kingdom, and Falcom’s slow-burning story pays off big if you stay for the sequel. If you loved the warmth between Expedition 33’s characters, you will like these two.
7. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
Platforms: Nintendo Switch (released May 2024), a remake of the 2004 GameCube game.
Nintendo’s page promises “timing-based attacks” that “impress the audience in a theatrical twist on turn-based RPG combat,” and this is the funniest cousin Expedition 33 has. Every attack and block has a timing window, and a Superguard pressed at the last moment takes no damage and hits back, which is a parry by any other name. Battles happen on a literal stage with a crowd reacting to your performance, and the papercraft art gives it a look nothing else has. Its story is far sillier than Sandfall’s, but the feeling of beating a hard boss through timing alone is the same.
6. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
Platforms: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and PC (released January 2024).
RGG Studio’s crime saga is one of the few turn-based RPGs that can match Expedition 33 for big feelings. Its Steam page describes Kazuma Kiryu as “a broken man facing down his last days,” and his story, told beside new hero Ichiban Kasuga’s, is about what a person does with the time left. Battles are turn-based, but you move around the arena, shove enemies into each other and the scenery, and press guard at the right moment to cut the damage you take. Bonds with your party also unlock combo attacks, a lot like the relationship levels you raise at camp in Expedition 33. Its huge side content and goofy jobs make it a very different package, but the ending will hit you the same way.
5. Persona 5 Royal
Platforms: PS4 (released March 2020), then PS5, PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch (October 2022).
Sandfall’s director has praised Persona for “its awesome UI, rhythm, and dynamic camera,” and you can see the debt in every Expedition 33 menu. Turn-based battles here move fast, with weakness hits that knock enemies down, baton passes that hand an extra turn to an ally, and All-Out Attacks to finish the job. The real link is style: slashing red-and-black menus and a jazzy score make picking a command feel like a stunt. You lead the Phantom Thieves of Hearts through a year in Tokyo, splitting your days between school, friendships and heists, and those friendships strengthen your party the way camp talks do in Expedition 33. It has no timed defense and it is much longer, but nothing better shows where Sandfall’s swagger came from. Our Persona hub covers the series.
4. Lost Odyssey
Platforms: Xbox 360 (released February 2008), sold digitally on the Xbox store and playable on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S through backward compatibility.
Sandfall’s director names this Mistwalker RPG among the games his team loves, and the connection is easy to see. Its Aim Ring system adds a real-time test to every turn-based attack: hold a trigger, let go as two rings line up, and the hit lands harder with an added effect. It comes from Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi’s studio, with Nobuo Uematsu’s music behind a story about Kaim, an immortal who has lost his memories. As they return, you read short stories called A Thousand Years of Dreams, written by novelist Kiyoshi Shigematsu, that rank among the most moving writing about grief in games. The only thing holding it back is that it has never left Xbox.
3. Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster
Platforms: PS4 (released May 2015), PC (May 2016), Nintendo Switch and Xbox One (April 2019), and Nintendo Switch 2 (July 2026).
No game on this list comes closer to the shape of Expedition 33’s story. Tidus, a blitzball star, joins the young summoner Yuna on her pilgrimage to save the world of Spira from Sin, an endless cycle of destruction, and what that journey really costs, and who has already accepted the price, comes out slowly along the road. It is the same mix of a beautiful, melancholy world, a party walking toward a sacrifice, and an ending that stays with you. The battles have no timing tests, only a turn order you can read ahead and a party you can swap mid-fight, so the fun here is planning rather than reflexes. This remaster also includes Final Fantasy X-2, a much lighter sequel, for one price.
2. Sea of Stars
Platforms: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC (released August 2023), plus Nintendo Switch 2 (June 2026).
If the timing is why you loved Expedition 33’s fights, play this next. Sabotage Studio’s store page says it straight: “Pressing the action button in sync with the animations increases damage output while reducing incoming damage.” On top of that sit multi-character combos and a “locks” system, where hitting a charging enemy with the right damage types weakens its big attack, which scratches the same itch as shooting weak points with free aim. There are no random encounters and no separate battle screens, and you can swim, climb and jump through its world, so exploring feels as free as it does on Expedition 33’s Continent. Its pixel art is gorgeous in a very different way and its story of two Children of the Solstice is lighter. Free updates have added local co-op for up to three players and the Throes of the Watchmaker expansion.
1. Metaphor: ReFantazio
Platforms: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S and PC (released October 2024), plus Nintendo Switch 2 (November 12, 2026).
The best game like Expedition 33 comes from “the creative minds behind Persona 3, 4, and 5,” as its Steam page puts it, the series Sandfall’s director credits for the look and rhythm of his own battles. Metaphor is set in a fractured fantasy kingdom where a murdered king’s will throws the throne open to a public vote, and its story is about people fighting their own anxiety, a theme as adult as anything in Sandfall’s game. Combat offers what Atlus calls “dynamic turn-based with a blend of real-time combat”: you strike enemies in the field with an action attack to stun them, then finish hard fights in turn-based battles where smart play earns extra actions and mistakes cost them. That switch between reflexes and planning is the hook both games share, and its Archetype system lets you rebuild each party member the way Pictos reshape an Expeditioner.
It also has the closest sense of style to Sandfall’s game, with award-winning art direction, striking menus and a road-trip structure, as your “gauntlet runner” carries the party to faraway towns and dungeons. It has no parry, which is the one place Sea of Stars beats it. For everything else, from the party you grow attached to the world you remember, nothing else on this list comes as close. Our Metaphor ReFantazio hub covers it, including how long it takes to beat, which Switch 2 edition to buy and how it runs on Switch 2.
Games Like Clair Obscur Expedition 33 by Platform
- PS5: Metaphor: ReFantazio, Sea of Stars, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Final Fantasy Resonance, Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, Lies of P, Deltarune, Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance, Octopath Traveler 0 and The Legend of Dragoon all have PS5 versions, and every PS4 game above runs on PS5 too.
- Xbox: Metaphor: ReFantazio, Sea of Stars, Persona 5 Royal, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Final Fantasy Resonance, Chained Echoes, Lies of P, Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance and Octopath Traveler 0 are on Xbox Series X|S. Final Fantasy X/X-2, NieR:Automata and The Banner Saga run there from Xbox One, and Lost Odyssey runs on Xbox One and Series X|S from Xbox 360.
- Nintendo Switch and Switch 2: Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and Super Mario RPG are Switch exclusives, joined by Sea of Stars, Persona 5 Royal, Final Fantasy X/X-2, Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, Final Fantasy Resonance, Chained Echoes, Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance, Deltarune, Octopath Traveler 0, NieR:Automata and The Banner Saga. Metaphor: ReFantazio, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Sea of Stars, Final Fantasy X/X-2, Final Fantasy Resonance, Deltarune and Octopath Traveler 0 have Switch 2 versions.
- PC: every game on this list except Lost Odyssey, The Legend of Dragoon, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.
- Mobile: nothing on this list is on iPhone or Android. Honkai: Star Rail, a free-to-play turn-based RPG, is the closest thing we can point you to there, though it has no timed parries.
Games With Combat Like Clair Obscur Expedition 33
If it is the battles you want more of, go by the skill you enjoyed most. For timed hits and blocks inside a turn-based fight, start with Sea of Stars, then Lost Odyssey’s Aim Rings, Paper Mario’s Superguards, Super Mario RPG’s Action Commands and The Legend of Dragoon’s Additions. For dodging in real time between your turns, Deltarune is the most direct match. If you only care about the parry itself, Lies of P is built around it, and FromSoftware’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (PS4, Xbox One and PC), which is not on the list because it has no party or turns, is the purest parry game we know.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the closest game to Clair Obscur Expedition 33? Metaphor: ReFantazio is the closest overall, with turn-based battles, a real-time layer, and a style and story that match it. For the combat alone it is Sea of Stars, and for the story it is Final Fantasy X.
What are the best games like Clair Obscur Expedition 33 on PS5? Metaphor: ReFantazio, Sea of Stars and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth are the best with PS5 versions. Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster and Persona 5 Royal are PS4 games that run on PS5 through backward compatibility.
What are the best games like Clair Obscur Expedition 33 on Switch? Sea of Stars, Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster and Persona 5 Royal are the best multi-platform picks, and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and Super Mario RPG are the best games you can only play on a Nintendo system. Metaphor: ReFantazio is on Switch 2 but not the original Switch.
Are there games like Clair Obscur Expedition 33 for Android? Not really. No game on this list has an Android version. Honkai: Star Rail is the closest free turn-based RPG on Android and iPhone, but it has no real-time dodging or parrying.
What game has a story like Clair Obscur Expedition 33? Final Fantasy X and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 come closest, since both follow a group of young people who know their time is limited. Lost Odyssey is the pick for writing about memory and grief, and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is about a hero facing his last days.
What games inspired Clair Obscur Expedition 33? Sandfall director Guillaume Broche has named Final Fantasy, the Tales series, Lost Odyssey and Persona as JRPGs his team loves, with the Souls series, Devil May Cry and NieR among the action games behind its real-time side.