JRPG Tourists and the Whitewashing of a Genre: The Expedition 33 Problem
Jesus, watching The Game Awards has always been a test of endurance. We all know it is just hours of glorified ad space with the occasional trophy tossed in to keep up appearances. But last night felt different. Seeing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 sweep the board with nine awards didn’t feel like a win for the underdog. It had the same vibes of the entire tech industry chugging the GenAI Kool-Aid.
I’ll be honest with you. I actually have the game sitting in my Steam library right now. It is installed. It is ready to go. But I can’t be arsed to click play. I have zero issue with derivative works in principle. I’ll probably get around to playing it in five years when the noise dies down. My problem isn't the game itself. My problem is the media narrative surrounding it.
The GenAI Parallel:
The comparison to GenAI fits perfectly, and I don't just mean that scandal where the devs left "placeholder" AI art in the game. I mean the hype cycle itself. This sweep feels exactly like the tech industry trying to convince us that Generative AI is the "future" when we all know it is just regurgitated stolen data.
The media and the awards committee decided months ago that this game was "The One." They are pushing this "AA Saviour" narrative because everyone is sick of AAA flops. They picked the safest, most marketable product to do it. It is manufactured hype for a product that is effectively a collage of better things.
Whitewashing the Genre:
The most nauseating part of this media circus is the "JRPG Saviour" complex on display. You have critics who have spent fifteen years mocking JRPGs for being "too anime" or "too tropey" suddenly losing their minds over this game.
Why? Because Expedition 33 gentrifies the genre. It strips away the colour, the spiky hair, and the cultural quirks. It replaces them with a grey, Western "Prestige TV" filter. The media loves JRPG mechanics like turn-based combat and melodrama. They just hate the Japanese identity attached to them.
They act as if JRPGs haven't been dealing with mature themes for decades. We had Persona 3 tackling suicide and Xenogears dealing with deicide and psychology twenty years ago. But the hypocrisy goes deeper.
They look at Final Fantasy IX and see chibi characters and a monkey tail. We see a story that grapples with existential dread, the inevitability of death, and the terror of realising you were manufactured as a weapon of war. Vivi asking if he will "stop moving" when he dies is more heart-wrenching than any motion-captured monologue, but because he is a cartoon black mage, the media treats it like a fairy tale.
Go back to Suikoden II. On the surface, it is vibrant 2D sprites. Underneath? It is a brutal deconstruction of war, betrayal, and the use of child soldiers. It forces you to watch your friends die in meaningless border skirmishes and questions if peace is worth the blood required to forge it.
Even Dragon Quest V, the grandfather of the genre, hides brutal realities behind colourful art. It isn't just a fun adventure; it is a life simulator about slavery, losing your parents, and spending a decade doing hard labour in a quarry while the world forgets you. It is tragic and human, but because it looks like Dragon Ball, the "Prestige" crowd won't touch it.
Look at the Like a Dragon (Yakuza) series. It has everything these critics claim to want. It has mature storytelling, deep characters, and realism. But it will never sweeps the awards like this. Why? Because it’s unapologetically Japanese. It has karaoke, weird humour, and heart. To the Western media elite, that makes it "niche." But when a Western studio copies the homework and makes it look like Game of Thrones, it is considered 'High Art'.
Sheep Herding and "Innovation":
New to the genre and you enjoyed the game? Cool, now you got plenty more options. The problem is that, because the media is playing this up as the second coming, you have a herd of sheep who have never touched a JRPG in their lives acting like Expedition 33 invented the wheel.
They praise the "revolutionary reactive combat," completely ignorant that Shadow Hearts did the Judgement Ring back in 2001 and Lost Odyssey perfected the Aim Ring in 2007. They praise the "deep skill system," not realising it is a direct copy of Final Fantasy IX. Even the premise of humanity trapped behind walls by a giant entity is just Attack on Titan with a fresh coat of paint.
And don't get me started on the music. The composer is openly "inspired" by NieR, but this goes beyond inspiration. The tracks use a made-up "Chaos Language" just like Keiichi Okabe did. The difference is that Okabe used it to convey a long running world where history had dissolved. Here, it is just aesthetic wallpaper. It is shallow mimicry being praised by people who wouldn't know unique sound design if it hit them in the face.
Babies' First Existential Crisis:
Now look at the breathless praise for the story. You have influencers and journalists proclaiming this the most profound exploration of grief in gaming history. They are fainting over the reveal that the Paintress, Aline, serves as a grieving mother rather than an evil deity. She created the Canvas to preserve her dead son, Verso, while her husband Renoir tries to erase the false reality to wake them up.
This reaction exposes just how uncultured these tourists actually are. They think they have discovered the peak of emotional storytelling because the grieving mother is played by a Western actress and the world uses a grey, sombre palette. It shows just how little they have actually read or played. They ignore decades of Japanese storytelling because they cannot get past the anime aesthetics.
The hypocrisy of calling this an "Indie" title is laughable. You have a cast featuring Charlie Cox, Andy Serkis, and Ben Starr. This is a Hollywood production wearing an "Indie" trench coat to lower expectations while dazzling critics with production value. Even worse, those big stars are just the voices. The actual physical performance and motion capture were done by French actors like Maxence Cazorla, who remain largely invisible in the marketing. They literally pasted a Hollywood voice over a French performance to make it palatable for Western audiences.
If you looked past the Japanese aesthetics you despise so much, you would realise Final Fantasy X perfected this concept decades ago.
The media calls Expedition 33’s twist heartbreaking? Tidus realising he is a dream of the Fayth hits much harder. He existed as a memory summoned by a grieving civilisation to keep their dead city alive. That reveal served as a genuine tragedy rather than a cheap shock. You watched a protagonist choose to end his own existence to save the world after high-fiving his abusive father and fading into the Farplane.
Final Fantasy X earned its tears through world-building and raw character work. It didn't need Andy Serkis or a "Prestige TV" filter to sell the weight of grief. But because Tidus wears bright shorts and laughs awkwardly in one scene, the critics dismiss it. Yet when a French studio rehashes the same concept with A-list celebrities and a desaturated art style, it suddenly becomes "High Art". I suppose it only counts as storytelling when you scrub the soul out and replace it with a movie script.
✅ The Verdict
Let me be crystal clear. I have zero issue with Expedition 33 being derivative. Every great game stands on the shoulders of giants. If a studio wants to remix Final Fantasy, Lost Odyssey, and NieR into a new package, I am usually the first in line to play it.
My problem lies entirely with the disgusting narrative surrounding it. The media and the vocal fanbase are engaging in willful cultural blindness. They are not just praising a video game. They are actively celebrating the erasure of the culture that built this genre. They cheer for Expedition 33 because it validates their specific prejudice. It tells them that they were right to look down on "anime games" all these years and that the genre only becomes "legitimate" when you strip away the Japanese identity and paste a Hollywood voice cast over it.
This is why I am sticking to my backlog. I would rather boot up Shadow Hearts again. That game had actual soul. You had Yuri Hyuga, voiced by Hiroki Takahashi (Jonouchi from Yugioh), and you felt that raw, punk energy. It was rude and weird. It did not give a toss if you found the vampire wrestlers "cringe". It was authentic.
Expedition 33 feels like the total opposite. It is a product manufactured for JRPG tourists who want the depth of the genre without the "embarrassment" of the culture that created it. It is a sanitised safe space for critics who think Persona is childish until you desaturate the colours and hire Andy Serkis.
I have no doubt the game is competent. I will probably play it in a few years when the noise dies down. But right now I am not validating a media circus that treats Japanese culture like a stain that needs scrubbing out. The industry can keep its "Game of the Year". I am not drinking the Kool-Aid.