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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u/KuttaFrmDa3 Apr 28 '25

There may actually be some truth to this lol, it seems the Japanese (what people in this sub call “anime”) tropes, writing style and character designs are the barrier to entry for the casual audience not the turn based combat. 

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u/Uro06 Apr 30 '25 edited Apr 30 '25

Yes this is it for me. I like round based RPGs but god damn it I just can not get into anything that has Anime level writing and dialogue. Even Clair Obscur is a stretch to me since one moment you are talking about deeply philoshical and "serious" stuff and the next moment you are fighting against a street lantern. But the writing and dialogue is still more "adulty" than most of the other stuff I've tried playing. This is also why I cant get into most Anime or even live action east asian movies. The characters always act and talk so absurd and over the top and animelike and just dont behave and talk like real people do. I would love to play more JRPGs for the combat, but I just can't get into everything else

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u/Setsuna_417 Apr 28 '25

While that may be true that the Japanese storytelling isnt for everyone, removing that wouldn't really make it a JRPG then. Not everything needs to be made for everyone, after all.

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u/KuttaFrmDa3 Apr 28 '25

I agree with u. I play these games for a reason, and if I wanted a western style game, I would just play one instead. I’m not saying I want them removed all I’m saying is that turn based combat has never been a barrier to entry for games. For example, games like Darkest Dungeon and Baldur’s Gate have each sold like 15 million plus copies. 

My issue is with people saying things like, “This should be the new standard for JRPGs,” without realising that a decent number of people playing this game won’t show up for the next Persona or Dragon Quest. There’s people on the gaming subreddit saying they don’t like JRPGs but enjoy this game, and I’m willing to bet that's because the game’s not actually Japanese.  

What I don’t want is a whole load of JRPGs being made for people who don’t like JRPGs. This sub might call it “cringe,” but the Japanese ("anime") tropes are part of the reason I play these games and I know there’re referred to as “anime tropes,” but the truth is that it’s just a Japanese style of writing characters and stories, and it can be found in more mediums than just anime. People who say they don’t like “anime tropes” usually mean they don’t like shonen anime tropes not tropes as a whole as many Japanese games, from Atelier to Metal Gear, feature them.

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u/CoomLord69 Apr 28 '25

Oh, absolutely. A lot of JRPG characters have very extreme, exaggerated personality tropes, or their personality revolves around having exactly one defining trait/fixation (usually games with romance and tons of characters are like this cough modern Fire Emblem) and I have no trouble seeing how that would turn people away lmao.