Too new to call. It scores 56 today, and a Keeper needs 85. Staying power is a quarter of the score, and it only came out October 22, so there is little to go on yet. The critics are on its side: 86 on Metacritic, tied for 16th of the 50 games we scored. We'll score it again as the numbers settle.
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Where the 56 comes from
Critics23/40
Critic score 86. A 70 earns nothing and a 98 earns all 40 points.
Audience15/20
Audience score 89. A 60 earns nothing and a 98 earns all 20 points.
Track record9/15
Lancarse built it for Square Enix as a console rebuild of the mobile RPG Brave Exvius, and it is the first Final Fantasy done in the HD-2D style.
Staying power9/25
Two weeks after launch it had 5,398 Steam reviews, which a review-count tracker turns into a rough 108K to 216K Steam copies.
One short email when something new makes the list: an album to play, a game to buy, a film to watch, a book to read, tech worth buying, a thing that lasts. Nothing else.
How the score works
Albums, games, films, shows and books
Critics, 40. The published aggregate from Metacritic, OpenCritic, Album of the Year or Rotten Tomatoes. For books, Book Marks grades every major review rave, positive, mixed or pan; we read those as 100, 75, 50 and 25 and take the average. Almost everything reviewed lands between 70 and 98, so a 70 earns nothing and a 98 earns all 40.
Audience, 20. What people who paid for it say, from user scores, Steam reviews and, for books, the Goodreads average times 20. A 60 earns nothing and a 98 earns all 20.
Track record, 15. Whether the people who made it have made things that lasted before. Debuts start lower on purpose.
Staying power, 25. What happens after launch week: chart runs, players who stick around, renewals, sales that keep going, prize shortlists.
A Keeper is our bet on what lasts. Some releases show it right away: the reviews, the players and the people behind them all point the same way, the way they did for Elden Ring. For albums, games, films, shows and books, 85 or above is a Keeper and 75 to 84 is worth your time. Things and tech need 80. We score everything again as time goes by, and a Keeper that fades loses the label. Nobody pays to be here or pays for a score. Every score links to where its numbers came from. Each one has a link to find it on Amazon, and as an Amazon Associate, Keepers earns from qualifying purchases.
