I found something in my feed that seems incredible. Persona 5 was voted the best RPG of all time by Famitsu readers. NieR: Automata came in 4th. Even the Witcher 3 made it on the list at 20th.
What a difference 11 years makes. In 2006 Famitsu voted Final Fantasy X as the best game (not just RPG) of all time. Here it slipped down to 12th place.
Now, there are some catches. Apparently only 2,295 people voted in the most recent survey. That's a small number for a large magazine like Famitsu. It is large enough to be statistically significant if marginally inaccurate, but I am in no mood to argue statistics on the internet.
The second catch is that there are a lot of modern games on here. Apparently 45% of those surveyed were in their 20s or younger. This could account for the tendency towards more modern games. Though I will note that Dragon Quest III (from 1988) came in 2nd place. Even in Famitsu's poll from 11 years ago in came in as the 3rd best game of all time. The Japanese absolutely love that game. (An aside: It's a pretty damn good RPG for an NES game.)
Well, anyway, enough of my knee jerk analysis. Here are the results:
- Persona 5
- Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation
- Chrono Trigger
- NieR: Automata
- Final Fantasy VII
- Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride
- Suikoden II
- NieR
- Persona 3
- Final Fantasy XV
- Xenoblade Chronicles
- Final Fantasy X
- Xenogears
- Persona 4: Golden
- Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen
- Final Fantasy VI
- EarthBound
- Final Fantasy IX
- Final Fantasy VIII
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
I'm glad to see Persona 3 so high. That game is underrated in the West, in my opinion. Final Fantasy VI and Earthbound also climbed up the lists from a number of years ago. Anyway, I found this interesting and thought I would share. I'd be curious to see if Persona 5 remained as popular in the future. It is a much more Japanese-centric game than the previous entries, but I think a recency bias might still play into effect.
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