When Ipreviewed Metaphor: ReFantazio earlier this year, I left with a sense of what I felt the game would be like, already theorising how it might tie into other Atlus titles and how it might use the fantasy setting as more than just an aesthetic. But after rolling credits, I realise I was very wrong.
We all guess at where plots may go in games, shows, and books. It’s just part of our nature to try to foresee what might happen. Sometimes we’re right, but more often than not, we’re wrong. I shouldn’t be surprised then that I was very wrong about Metaphor, but part of me wishes that I had been just alittleright, and the twists away from my expectations left me thinking, what if I had been?
This article contains major spoilers forMetaphor: ReFantazio.
I left my preview with two main theories. First, I convinced myself that Metaphor would lay it on thick in referencing fairy stories and folk tales, emphasising the studio’s pivot to a fantasy setting. Secondly, and one I was less sure of, I thought that the world of Metaphor would be a parallel world to that of the Persona series joined through the book the protagonist carries and there would somehow be some crossover between the two eventually.
Happy Ever Atlus
Let’s get into the fairytale aspect. I noticed a few indicators that made me believe there could be ongoing references to well known folklore. There were seemingly obvious ones, like the prince being in a perpetual sleep after a curse, much like Sleeping Beauty, or the party being able to view him via a mirror, much like the magic mirrors of Beauty & the Beast or Snow White.
Then there were plenty of little loose threads you could weave into this theory. Fairies (and how some people can’t see them), music being the first form of magic, and even the idea of ‘igniters’ being needed to use magic, similar to wands. There were a few things I could easily pair with different retellings of fairy tales, after all there are so many iterations of old fables that you’re able to find evidence almost anywhere to support an idea if you dig deep enough.
Then there were ideas where I knew deep inside that I was grasping at straws, but I couldn’t help but attempt to see parallels between the game and known fiction. Homo Gorleo has apples, is this to do with Snow White? Is Homo Fulquilo’s weird little black bird-man hybrid appearance some reference to the Sing a Song of Sixpence nursery rhyme, or Maleficient’s ravens?
Turns out they’re not. While there may be some winks to well-known fantasy tales, such as the cursed sleep (I mean, it literally had brambles too), the bosses I was so focused on trying to find clues in are actually something different, and more interesting.They’re based on well-known artworks.
I love the art references, and knowing this while taking into account Metaphor’s visual aesthetic in the menus with paint textures, it makes me question if there are more art references throughout the game that we just haven’t noticed yet. However, I also wish there had been the fairy tale link I had been hoping for, even if it wasn’t as prevalent as I initially thought it would be.
Final call for spoilers.
Fantasy Becomes Reality
Let’s talk about how I thought it would link to Persona. Metaphor’s protagonist carries around a fantasy novel that describes what most people would interpret to be our modern day world, with people in suits with briefcases working in tall glass towers, albeit a far more perfect reality than our world is. I found the idea of inverting what fantasy is fascinating, this concept that in a fantasy setting, our modern world is seen as the fantasy felt clever and fresh.
We could debate what Persona entails for some time, but I’m just going to go ahead and label it as ‘magic’. There’s some fantastical element there with persona summoning, weird demons, strange locations, but it’s basically magic. Now you have Metaphor, another world with magic. These two worlds could be co-existing alongside one another and somehow there might be a window between the two.
I felt the book was proof of this, evidence that someone had seen, or been to, that other world. Perhaps the human monstrosities appearing out of nowhere were somehow people warped and transformed when accidentally moving from the real world to fantasy world. Perhaps the Persona ‘magic’ as we know it somehow originated in this fantasy world?
It felt like a solid theory until it wasn’t. It all came crumbling down when I visited the Dragon Temple in Metaphor. That’s when you get your Planet of the Apes moment of ‘Oh, this was Persona real world all along’ as you witness the ruins of Shinjuku and are told it’s an ancient civilisation. Colleagues of mine saw this coming a mile off from early marketing, but I was so convinced that Shin Megami Tensei filled the spot of post-apocalyptic modern world that Atlus wouldn’t rehash it again. I was wrong, yet again.
All of those things that made it seem like it certainly couldn’t be the real world – fantastical new races, magic, and monsters – are all explained away. We discover that all nine tribes in Metaphor are all descendants of the original human race, and that any of them are capable of turning into the human monsters we face in battle. Magic (more specifically ‘magla’) and where it comes from is detailed, and I guess monsters are evolved versions of other beasts, or perhaps demon variations just like those from Persona or SMT.
I didn’t see this end result coming, and you have to applaud Atlus for that. I thoroughly enjoyed Metaphor’s narrative, andI said as much in my review, but I can’t help wondering what could have happened if the plot had gone a different way.
Aside from the obvious fan-service of being able to have Persona and Metaphor crossover in real time somehow, I wonder if it would have been more interesting to have a more unique background to explore for this fantasy world rather than have it rooted in the same universe as that of Persona/SMT.
Given the success of Metaphor, there’s no way Atlus won’t return to it, and regardless of wondering what could have been, I’m eager to see more of what this world has to offer. There is plenty left to still dig into when it comes to both the past, present, and future of this new setting and why things are the way they are. Maybe there’s even room for some more fairy tale references in the post-apocalypse.
