Finished Clair Obscur in ~26 hours. Did most of it, except for the danger zones.
Yeah, that train does go a bit off the rails in the second half of Act 3, and I don't think the ending choice works. Until that moment, it was a fairly solid 8.5 or even 9, but I have to knock it down a peg to an 8.
It should have ended at the Paintress as a solid homage plot to Final Fantasy X, which this is clearly heavily inspired on (I had guessed sometime before that the people in Painted Lumiere weren't "real", just like Dream Zanarkand). But then the writers went like "dude, what if Inception?" and family drama took over hard over this world and characters I've spent hours playing with.
I feel the ending would only have worked if there was strong evidence that the people within it were just AI NPCs or projections like Mal in Inception (which in turn would make the beginning pointless and emotionally manipulative since, surprise, it's all fake grief and suffering. I know, all fiction works are 'fake', but you get the gist).
Because otherwise why would you risk the chance of genocide over the potential suffering of a manipulative asshole and ending the escapism of a now traumatized for life girl who might or might not overdose in another painting in the future anyway?
