The very first review of Metaphor: ReFantazio is 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. As Gematsu reports (thanks to the Japanese summary from Ryokutya2089), 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, as Persona Central reported at 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 devs clocked 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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