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:
While he does want to keep the “core” of what the team does, Hashino admits that “accessibility” is a goal for them:
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...
