First review for Persona devs' new JRPG Metaphor: ReFantazio gives it the exact same score as Persona 5 Royal and confirms it’s at least 80 hours long

Another meaty JRPG for an absolutely stacked 2024

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The very first review ofMetaphor: ReFantaziois in, and it’s glowing. Long-running Japanese magazine Famitsu has awarded the upcoming JRPG a 37/40. That’s the exact same score it gave Persona 5 Royal back in 2019, so it looks like the Persona veterans behind it all are keeping up their impressive pedigree.

Famitsu assigns four reviewers to each game it scores, and those reviewers all assign scores from 1 to 10 which are then added together for the final review verdict. AsGematsu reports(thanks to the Japanese summary fromRyokutya2089), the Metaphor: ReFantazio scores were 9/9/10/9, for a final total of 37/40. (The magazine also reviewed the Silent Hill 2 remake in this issue, which received 8/9/9/9 scores for a final tally of 35/40.)

Persona 5 Royal received the exact same 9/9/10/9 score back in 2019, asPersona Central reportedat the time. That is, notably, somewhat less than the rating for the original 2016 release of Persona 5 (10/10/10/9, or 39/40), but still stronger than the reviews the magazine offered to the previous PS2 games, Persona 4 (8/9/8/8, or 33/40) and Persona 3 (9/8/8/8, or 33/40).

In any case, a 37/40 is high praise indeed from Famitsu, which tends to be pretty stingy with perfect scores. Only eight games have received 40/40s in the past decade, and just one of those - Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth - launched in 2024.

The Famitsu review also corroborates the length of Metaphor: ReFantazio. The devsclocked it at a similar length to Persona 5, and that estimate appears to hold up. Gematsu’s translation notes that “it takes about 80 hours to clear the story, or 100 hours with side activities.” I’m not sure I can survive yet another 2024 RPG with a triple-digit hour count, but for this one I’m willing to try.

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Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He’s been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.

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