What is the biggest JRPG in the world? For two decades, maybe more, that has been a question with a very easy answer: it's 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Final Fantasy. There are JRPGs that have been critically acclaimed, JRPGs that have sold by the barrel load, and JRPGs that have done both. Doesn't matter. Final Fantasy has long been the undisputed king. But when you look at the way 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Metaphor: ReFantazio has been critically acclaimed and sol🎀d by the barrel load, you start to think maybe Final Fantasy should start looking o𝐆ver its shoulder.
Metaphor is the first game in a completely new series, so I don't think Final Fantasy will surrender its crown so easily. Final Fantasy has a legacy behind it, is consistently popular, and has a nostalgic legacy with fans and a strong core of support in both its native Japan and in the West. Metaphor doing well does not sweep that away. But Metaphor is merely the leadoff hitter. Developer Atlus has a mighty contact hitter stepping up to the plate next in the form of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Persona 6.
Persona Helped Metaphor, Now Metaphor Will Help Persona
Persona has been around since 1996, but it wasn't until 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Persona 3 in 2006 that it achieved a breakthrough in popularity. Then in 2016 (2017 in the West) with 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Persona 5, it launched into another stratosphere. Since then it has gone from strength to strength, with word of mouth continuing to boost its stock, plus Royal and several of its spin-offs being very well received. Joker and the Phantom Thieves have continued to establish themselves as modern gaming icons, not least through an appearance in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
While purists don't always like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:comparisons acroꦦss the Shin🌠 Megami Tensei family, which inevitably all come back to Persona, Atlus leaned int💝o it h🙈eavily during Metaphor's marketing. While par♏t of the reason Metaphor has sold well is because JRPGs are popular, Atlus has earned respect, and it reviewed incredibly (we were not alone in giving it five stars), part of the reason is because it is 'like Persona'.
If a game that is 'like Persona' can sell so well (it hit one million sales faster than any other 🍸Atlus game, in mere days), then think how well a game that is 'actually Persona' can sell. We know little of Persona 6 yet, but it is on the horizon, and could w♉ell establish itself as the new biggest JRPG in the world when it does.
Final Fantasy Has A Legendary Legacy
What Persona doesn't have in its favour is what I call the 'grandma test'. I could ask my grandma what Final Fantasy is, and she'd know it was a video game. She doesn't have a preference between Aerith and Tifa, she doesn't care about Blitzball, and she couldn't beat a dungeon in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Final Fantasy 14 with all the Hi Potions in the world. But she u💟nderstands it's a video game, and that sort of mass awareness matters.
Of course, this is not the only way to measure how well known a game is outside of the industry at large. If you are a major Persona fan and frequently wear its merch on a visit to your grandma's house, or have a Persona tattoo she disapproves of, then she probably does know Persona. But neither your grandma nor mine is going to buy the next Final Fantasy or Persona, which brings me to the true crux of the gran🍒dma test.
There are several games my grandma would know because they are institutions. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Tomb Raider, Spyro, Sonic. Legendary gaming series that, like Final Fantasy, rose to popularity in the '90s. But they are cautionary tales. Tomb Raider is currently enduring the longest drought the series has known after Shadow of the Tomb Raider underperformed. Spyro's successful remastered trilogy has not led to new games and was the first Spyro game in a generation to sell well. Sonic has clawed its way back from the brink through a movie franchise and a back-to-basics approach in Mania and Frontiers, but spent a wꦇhile in the wilderness.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Final Fantasy 16 was pretty successful. It sold well enough, and was liked well enough. But is well enough, well, enough? Final Fantasy's producers have 168༒澳洲幸运5开奖网:openly spoken about d🌞isappointing numbers for 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the Final Fantasy 7 project, and in 2023's year of titanic games, FF16 was a bit of a sinking ship, nowhere near the levels of Zelda or 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Baldur's Gate. Final Fantasy and Persona are completely different series made by different studios and, while both being RPGs🙈, play in different ways with different audiences and different themes.
Persona's (and Metaphor's) success is not, and does not need to come at Final Fantasy's expense. It's not like it has been the only kid on the JRPG block all these years - 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dragon Quest, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Fire Emblem, Tales, Mana, the list goes on. But it has, in the West at least, always been the JRPG, not just a JRPG. Now maybe it's not. 16 was already a new direction with 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Game of Thrones-style Western fantasy influences (though Metaphor just did it better), but it will be fasci꧑nating to see how Persona builds on Metaphor, and what that all means for Final Fantasy.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网: Metaphor: ReFantazio
- Top Critic Avg: 93/100 Critics Rec: 98%
- Released
- October 11, 2024
- ESRB
- ♓ T For Teen // Blood, Langu🍃age, Mild Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol, Violence
- Developer(s)
- ✤ Studio Zer🌼o
- Publisher(s)
- Atlus
- Engine
- GFD
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