Suddenly it all makes sense: The director of the turn-based RPG with combat that plays like an action game, Clair Obscur, is also a hardcore Devil May Cry player.
GamesRadar was snooping through Guillaume Broche's Reddit account—where he once made a post looking for voice actors—and found a YouTube video of him defeating Vergil in Devil May Cry 5 and taking zero damage. "Had another go at Vergil after 6 months, what do you all think about this run?" the post's title reads.
Clicking through to Broche's YouTube channel reveals that he's actually just really good at DMC 5. There's nothing on there but five videos of him flawlessly killing bosses using parries and dodges like it's nothing. In one video, he uses Dante's Royal Guard style to block and parry his way through the final boss fight, earning a perfect SSS score.
In the description he wrote that "Royal Guard is life," in case it wasn't clear that this man loves parries.
That he would go on to infuse turn-based combat with action game sensibilities sure isn't surprising when you see all this. Once you've been bit by the parry bug, whether it's through games like Sekiro or DMC, you can't go back: that's just science. I'm no game designer, but I think it would only be natural for you to take that passion and share it with the world by making an entire game that rewards you for anticipating enemy attacks.
I like to think that Broche would still approve of the player who beat Clair Obscur without parrying or dodging a single time though. The other half of the game is a robust RPG. It supports tons of different builds that can make you feel like you're breaking it, which is exactly what you have to do if you want to circumvent one of its main combat mechanics. Broche strikes me as the kind of person who would appreciate the level of knowledge and effort it takes to pull that off.
