Spoilers for some Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 secret bosses below.
A Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 player may have just set a new record for “Longest Boss Fight” after defeating the Duollistes in an 8-hour slog with over 10,000 parries. While this encounter can take many Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 fans a long time to master, this gamer spent a truly impressive amount of time battling this boss.
Parrying in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is one of the most important and challenging skills gamers must learn. While dodging can allow players to avoid damage more easily, mastering the art of the parry allows them to perform devastating counterattacks that can turn the tide of battle.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Is What Happens When a Final Fantasy Story Doesn’t Pull Its Punches
Unlike many Final Fantasy games, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 commits to the narrative beats that are the toughest to swallow.
Expedition 33 Player Beats Duollistes In 8-Hour ‘War of Attrition’
However, one fan took the mastery of parrying in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 to another level. A Redditor and E33 player fittingly named Recordbreaks recently shared a screenshot of their victory readout after fighting the Duollistes, the new boss in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s Thank You Update DLC. While they were far from the first to defeat this boss, there was a rather important distinction from most gamers’ attempts: they spent eight hours whittling it down, nailing over 10,000 parries in the process.
According to Recordbreaks’ testimony, everyone except Verso died before the end of phase 1, meaning most of the battle was a 1v1 between him and the boss. They used his Angel Eyes Gradient Skill, combined with the Healing Counter, Healing Parry, and Defensive Mode Luminas in Expedition 33 to stay in the fight while slowly damaging him with an otherwise underleveled Verso. They called the battle a “war of attrition,” as their Verso had about 13,000 health, and each hit from the Duollistes dealt about 3,000 damage, which they were able to heal back up through successful parries, counters, and jumps.
Now, to put these numbers further into perspective, this battle took approximately 482 minutes, even including the one 5-10 minute break Recordbreaks took to get some snacks. That’s a total of 28,956 seconds from start to finish. With 10,545 parries in total, this means Recordbreaks landed an average of 2.7 parries per second, or close to 165 parries per minute, for as long as a full-time shift at most places of employment. Considering Duollistes can chain up to 17 strikes in some of its combos, there was certainly no shortage of attacks to parry during the battle.
Needless to say, with over 300 comments and nearly 5,000 upvotes on the Reddit post in less than a week, Recordbreaks’ fellow E33 fans were more than impressed by their feat of stubborn determination. Many players pointed out that it would have been faster for them to spend a few hours farming Colour of Luminas in Expedition 33 and then come back to the boss with stronger characters. Recordbreaks agreed but, after several hours of parrying, realized that their sheer willpower and spite demanded them to see it through to the end. Their hand was evidently twitching by the end, prompting others to warn that the real final boss could be Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, to which Recordbreaks responded, “Is that something I can parry?”
Who Is the Hardest Boss in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33?
Interestingly enough, though Recordbreaks has officially beaten the DLC’s secret boss, they have yet to conquer the one from the original game: Simon. The Expedition 0 member is lauded as the hardest boss in the game – even more so than Duollistes. If his 18-hit combo wasn’t tough enough to manage, his ability to remove downed party members from the battlefield and his phase three team wipe abilities make him particularly devastating to the unprepared. And if he somehow wasn’t enough, Simon the Divergent Star is an even harder version of the boss from the Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 DLC, available at the Endless Tower for those who seek the ultimate challenge.
Sandfall Interactive is setting Clair Obscur up to be a brand-new RPG franchise, and Expedition 33 was a staggeringly successful flagship game. No doubt whatever the studio produces next will be full of even more horrifyingly difficult boss fights.
- Released
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April 24, 2025
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence
- Developer(s)
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Sandfall Interactive
- Publisher(s)
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Kepler Interactive
