The thing about video game genres that makes them a double-edged sword is that there’s fun and familiarity in “sticking to what the genre is known for,” while also being dangerous to never change up the formula.” Almost every genre has had to “grow” over the gaming generations, and that goes double for the teams making the titles, such as Atlus with JRPGS. Sure, when you see titles like Metaphor ReFantazio, which was a success on every level, you think that they’ve got things “locked down,” but its director isn’t so sure about that.
Katsura Hashino did an interview with Game Informer (which you needed a subscription to read), and the veteran leader admitted that Atlus needs to grow the JRPG genre in some way if they’re to reach even more people:
“More so than just latching onto a specific genre of game, we’re going back to how we can evolve our JRPG and what it looks like. For us, it’s coming to a turning point where we want to really take it to the next level in terms of how our JRPGs are. Of course, we want to retain our strengths, whether that be our narrative or elements that make us JRPGs.”
While he does want to keep the “core” of what the team does, Hashino admits that “accessibility” is a goal for them:
“With these changing times, we do feel the need to update our format and create games that would be more widely playable, not just within the JRPG realm, but something that would be easier, more accessible for a wider audience. We’re hoping to update our format with that in mind.”
While that may sound like a bad thing, especially with how good Metaphor ReFantazio was, alongside the recent Persona titles, changing things up in the first place is what helped save Atlus before. Then, if you look at groups like Capcom, they had a “niche” franchise in Monster Hunter, then did some “accessibility changes” to it, and its sales boomed. Perhaps that’s something we could see from this developer going forward, depending on what changes they make.
Source: PushSquare (via Game Informer)
