r/JRPG • u/Marinebiologist_0 • Apr 27 '25

News Clair Obscur has achieved the highest concurrent player rate ever for a JRPG on Steam.

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Incredible numbers, this doesn't even include the Xbox Gamepass player count. The last time I remember a JRPG getting this level of attention was Persona 5 and NieR Automata in 2017. It'll be interesting to see how massive Persona 6 will be, if it launches day 1 on all major platforms.

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6

u/aarontsuru Apr 27 '25

Have we ALL forgotten the crazy hype for Metaphor Refantazio already?

4

u/Qonas Apr 27 '25

Metaphor is a much better game.

6

u/aarontsuru Apr 27 '25

It's subjective. Everyone likes what they like! I just find it funny with all the discourse how everyone forgot the hype around last year's GOTY for many publications.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '25

Judging from my own circle so it doesn't mean much but Clair Obscur is drawing in different people then Metaphor did

2

u/aarontsuru Apr 27 '25

Sure! Same for all these popular turn-based games. I’m sure Balder’s Gate 3 brought in a different range of players too. No game’s fan base is a monolith, right?

2

u/Qonas Apr 27 '25

I feel like the mandatory action-prompts are drawing in more action fans than normal. I don't jive with the combat system at all yet the popularity of the game is huge; I can only assume that means it tapped into the Soulslike crowd or something, and that's why there's little-to-no mentioning of Metaphor.

10

u/shadowwingnut Apr 27 '25

Metaphor at its core was anime based. There's a group that is never, ever touching it.

This may not have hit the Souls like crowd but it did hit a group that has been lost in turn based gaming the last 10+ years

2

u/Terribletylenol Apr 27 '25

This makes a lot more sense.

There's no way a slight variation in turn-based combat is what drew in a bunch of people.

It's still pretty standard jrpg combat and from previews, it just looked like the slight variation that's been done before with games like Paper Mario.

That being said, I was pleasantly surprised and have found the timed presses more engaging than I expected to

Highly doubt normies saw the gameplay and thought it was anything like a typical action game.

2

u/dumpling-loverr Apr 28 '25

Yeah when I was playing Clair O. the combat is just like Infinite Wealth but without the positioning bundled with a persona stylized menu. Still a good game considering the inspirations.

2

u/aarontsuru Apr 27 '25

Same was said about Metaphor’s action attack to get the advantage system they utilized that’s similar to recent Trails games.

1

u/Madrical Apr 28 '25

I can only speak for myself but I haven't played a JRPG since Chrono Trigger and bought E33 day one because the combat system and world building both looked great. I am indeed a FromSoft fan but I don't see much of a parallel with them personally. It's just a very good game. I generally get massively turned off most JRPGs by their length. Even this game is pushing it for me, I'm about 15 hours in and still enjoying it but I can see myself getting bored sooner rather than later unless the story holds up.

0

u/ThrowawayBlank2023 May 01 '25

This wildly varies from your initial statement of "Metaphor is a better game" although I guess we can agree if we are talking about overall polish and budget. I say this as someone with Metaphor and E33 as two of my favourite games in the past few years, they're both absolutely incredible. I can set up some overall differences if you would like as someone who has fully played through both, optional content and all:

Metaphor has the best UI I've ever seen in a game, incredible presentation overall, great soundtrack, fun combat, amazing and unforgettable characters... truly a gem of a game, my hardest critique would probably be the optional content like dungeons and superbosses, there was a point where most of it was just reskinned content and overall not really interesting to do, but I don't care much because every other part of the game was incredible.

E33 funnily enough has optional content as one of it's strongest points, I felt myself transported back to the days where a JRPG universe like FFX had a plethora of hidden secrets, fun side content and unique superbosses to explore and enjoy. The story is phenomenal and in my opinion vastly better than Metaphor's, however the character/companion questlines absolutely pale in comparison to Metaphor's, I think this is also where the devs cut some corners when compared to the larger narrative which is amazing. They're just very different and excel at different things while still being incredible games. Both have superb artstyles and soundtracks though.

You would be correct in your assumption that is a game that is attracting more "action RPG" fans and essentially working as a gateway game for them, but in my opinion that is positive, right? I've literally had people tell me that they are going to buy Metaphor because they loved E33 so much and didn't know JRPGs could be so fun, and Metaphor for some reason is one of the JRPGs that seems to look great to people who aren't too experienced with the genre.

If you set aside all the ignorant people online and dumb tribalistic sentiments towards games, I think E33 might be doing something great for the genres we love, because a lot of people are having an incredible game ignite their curiosity towards an entire genre :)

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u/SummerIlsaBeauty Apr 28 '25

Not even close