Summary
Some of the best stories begin with a bloody mystery, prompting the question of who committed the crime and why, but notMetaphor: ReFantazio. Columbo style, it straight up shows us the murder in the opening scene and we know exactly why the deed was done. Louis kills the King because he wants the crown, and in doing so sets the stakes, posing the question of who will inherit the throne in this turbulent world rife with racism, conflicting politics, and, oh yeah, giant freakish human attacks.
As far as the race for the crown goes, there’s a surprise. The King used Royal Magic so that after death, his giant rocky face appears in the sky — think the moon from Majora’s Mask — and declares that the next king will be decided by the people. Whoever has the most support from the populace by the Day of the Hero shall rule next. A big win for democracy. Thus begins the contest for who will become king, all while you and your fairy friend try to lift the curse on the prince that the world believes is dead. Oh, and you have to regularly defeat those giant freaky human monsters I mentioned earlier, too.
While the world of Metaphor is asking who will be the next king, Atlus fans have long been asking what Metaphor actually is? Is it a Persona game? Is it not? As I was about a third of the way through playing I realised the best way to explain it: it’s the Dragon Age to Persona’s Mass Effect.
Metaphor is the fantasy equivalent of Persona’s modern setting. There’s a lot of shared DNA between the two, in style, visuals, mechanics, and so on. So much will feel familiar and yet it’s not quite the same; in fact, Metaphor even offers some improvements.
For example, you still have rank-up events with your followers and friends where you receive a varying number of points depending on the responses you choose during dialogue. However, unlike Persona, youcan’tfail these rank-up events. The differing points simply give you more MAG (a currency to unlock new Archetypes and skills). It removes the stress of answering with the most efficient responses or even potentially locking yourself out of completed relationships, character backstories, and the companion benefits and improvements that come with it.
Like many fans, I was unsure what to make ofMetaphor’s decision to avoid romance. But after playing it, I get it. Romance would not have added to the story here, only making sense as fan service that may have detracted from the story the game seeks to tell.
For the most part, the narrative versus gameplay template is the same, too. You’ll have a certain number of days to do whatever you want with a looming deadline for a specific task, which is generally a dungeon followed by a boss, after which you rinse and repeat with a new deadline and a new task. In those free days, you can choose what you do, such as bonding with followers or undertaking optional dungeons and quests. It’s all very familiar, and yet, it feelsbetter.
Metaphor isn’t just based in one city. You travel the nation, unlocking new locations and sights as you go. As a result, things feel more exciting and fresh. Your base of operations isn’t just one small room, it’s a whole ship that offers a range of activities when you’re locked into travelling. You’re not looking at the same cityscape every day off or traversing the same optional dungeon with the same visuals. Though there is a similar ebb and flow as deadlines loom and pass, it didn’t feel sluggish at any point, and overall Metaphor is better paced than any Persona game has ever been as a result.
There’s a specific dungeon where you have to gain access onto an airship. It gave me immediate flashbacks to Shido’s Ship Palace in Persona 5, and not in a good way. I think I groaned aloud at the prospect. As much as I love Persona 5, it had its low points and Shido’s Ship was particularly tiresome. To my absolute delight, Metaphor’s airship dungeon was nothing like that chaos, instead offering a short stealth section and sequence of challenging boss battles that must be completed within three turns.
While battles are turn-based still with a familiar elemental wheel, you don’t have a supply of personas to summon here. Each character has an Archetype (a job role, such as Healer, Knight, Warrior, etc) with set skills they can learn. You learn more skills as you level and will unlock higher tiers of each Archetype branch as you progress, as well as opening up brand new Archetypes through the narrative and side content.
You can inherit skills across Archetypes, so for example on the Protagonist I levelled Healer to get Medi, but then I could switch back to Seeker and equip Medi for that. With the wealth of Archetypes available and the seemingly endless combination of skill inheritance, on top ofthe different party compositions you can play around with, the Archetype system provides incredible depth to the combat system. It constantly allows you to finetune your setup for any given situation, especially when you factor in equipment traits too.
The diversity in boss battles also offers a welcome challenge that encourages you to dig deep into the Archetype system for solutions. Have fun dealing with the optional boss that charms everyone in your party and does a fire attack of 9,999 damage each time. Unsurprising for most Atlus fans, you’ll find the difficulty is fairly steady until the end section where suddenly you’re questioning your own ability and scrambling for items like never before.
The difficulty spike will likely be an annoyance for some, but the saving grace is that the extended difficulty options means you can set it right down to Storyteller if you get tired of retrying the same battle ten times in a row. That way, if your party dies, you can just revive them. No one will be prevented from experiencing the full game.
It’s as though the team were told to dial the style up to 11 in Metaphor. No Atlus game has ever looked or soundedthisgood. The menus feature paint-textures and striking graphics, the post-battle scenes are the epitome of cool, it has a soundtrack that slaps, and of course, we’ve got the gorgeous graphics and animated cutscenes we’ve come to appreciate from Atlus. It’s delicious.
Like most Atlus games, Metaphor is very narrative heavy and best appreciated personally, so you should enjoy the surprises, twists, and turns first hand without me spoiling it for you. The fact I don’t want to speak to it much should convey how great it is, because I don’t want to ruin a single moment. There are a couple of things you might sus out a bit beforehand, but there is undoubtedly more you won’t anticipate at all.
Much like the gameplay, the story is well-paced so you never feel as though you’re trawling through a boring part. I found myself battling with wanting to race to the next deadline to find out what happens, while also wanting to make the most of my free days to experience the side content and get to know my followers more. It was all too easy to fall in love with the world and its characters.
When you’re throwing so many characters into the mix, it’s easy to fall into overused stereotypes or lacklustre backgrounds, yet that didn’t happen here. I maxed out every follower and each one had an interesting and unique story to tell. I especially fell in love with two Scouse characters, but again, I’ll let you experience them for yourselves.
There are eight races in Metaphor, each with its own stigmas and issues, and this helps to create such a diverse cast. The racial tensions between the eight tribes are inextricably linked with the world’s politics, and as such, both feature as a large part of the storyline. Though Metaphor doesn’t shy away from some shock and awe with cruel hangings, slurs, and constant racism, Atlus could have gone further in how much it explored these issues.
For a game that gives politics and racism so much weight, it could have afforded to give both a little more depth. It’s not that it felt hollow or flat, as I said, the narrative and characters as a whole were great, but it could have gone justa bitfurther in exploring the world it was presenting to us. I wanted more history about why there are racial tensions. I wanted a deeper look into the contrast between the church and the pagans and their beliefs. In some ways, it felt like Atlus played it a smidge safe here, as if possibly too afraid to draw parallels between this fantasy world and our real world issues, keeping everything vague to avoid connections forming.
Much like the eternal Dragon Age vs Mass Effect debate of ‘which is better’, Atlus fans can look forward to finding themselves arguing the same points between Persona and Metaphor. I personally fell more in love with Metaphor, and that’s pretty significant for someone with several Persona tattoos. Whatever side of the debate you fall on, the fact we’re even having it goes to show that Metaphor stands shoulder to shoulder with the prestige of Persona.
Metaphor: ReFantazio is a new peak for Atlus. It takes so much of what was great about Persona, refines it, and throws that powder into an exciting fantasy setting with incredible lore, well-developed characters, and a fresh new battle system. The undeniable appeal and quality of Metaphor leaves me confident we’ll be seeing a lot more from this series, as there’s no way Atlus could leave this as a one and done deal. The people need more, and if I have to build a giant rock face in the sky to declare that, then so be it.
