Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 developer Sandfall Interactive took a bit of a tour through Japan in the aftermath of the game's release, sitting down to chat with several games veterans, with a particular emphasis on the lead creators of the RPGs that inspired the team. One of those veterans was Katsura Hashino, known for his work leading multiple entries in the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei series, and most recently as chief of the new Atlus group, Studio Zero, and its debut title Metaphor: ReFantazio. Hashino met Sandfall and played Clair Obscur himself, and had no shortage of praise for the game.
Speaking with Game Informer, Hashino says, "I actually had a chance to meet the team that created this game because they were visiting Japan. It was great meeting them. They gave me a copy of the game and I've been playing through it. I haven't gotten to the end, so it's hard to comment on it just yet, but of what I've seen, I've noticed there's a lot of careful love that's gone into it. It's very well made and crafted very deeply.
As interviewer Brian Shea noted, some RPG fans drew comparisons between Metaphor: ReFantazio and Clair Obscur, noting – and I'm holding back spoilers here – similarities in worldbuilding foundations and their handling of anxiety and grief.
Both games also demonstrate radically different but equally successful approaches to two core RPG elements: turn-based combat and class systems. Clair Obscur uses a reactive combat system where tightly timed inputs strengthen your attacks and repel or avoid enemy hits, while Metaphor iterates on the more classical press-turn combat system which encourages you to exploit enemy weaknesses to maximize your actions each turn, and which was refined by Shin Megami Tensei before Persona branched off. I wouldn't be surprised if we see an uptick in reactive turn-based games, even a minor one, as a side effect of Sandfall's success.
The archetypal class system in Metaphor was a notable departure from the Persona and SMT games, which typically feature a zillion customizable demons or Persona (outside spinoffs like Digital Devil Saga, which use something closer to bespoke classes) in place of defined jobs, at least for the main character. Clair Obscur, meanwhile, went for an open-face collection of skills which can be used to accentuate the skill tree of each party member.
Hashino has been sizing up the state and future of JRPGs, saying last year that while he isn't currently majorly involved in Persona, he does have ambitious plans to reinvent the "structure and presentation" of the genre with what he calls "JRPG 3.0." Clair Obscur was a gateway to JRPGs for a lot of people – at times, mistakenly hailed as the savior of a genre that didn't need saving – while the series Hashino's worked on have been pillars of the genre for decades. He's long specialized in a certain type of game, with even Metaphor clearly sharing DNA. It'll be interesting to see how much of that he carries forward in his next project.
