I loved playingPersona 5 Royalon mySteam Deck, because it allowed me to do other stuff during its longer cutscenes and tendency for exposition. WhilePersona 5didn’t have that much voice acting, even in the main story, Royal added a lot more voice lines. That meant that I didn’t have to read everything – I could prop my Steam Deck up against something and have a snack while letting the lines play out automatically, or quickly check my emails to see if anything important had arrived in my inbox. It felt more like I was watching a micro-movie than reading a novel.
I liked that P5R had so much voice acting. While some of the English VA sounds stunted and awkward, even after Royal’s fixes, it adds a lot of characterisation to the game’s cast. Ann could easily be read as haughty and standoffish at first, but the voice acting does some heavy lifting in the opening hours by making her more nuanced and complex. Ryuji could feel overly brash and confident, but his vocal performance helps to convey some of his own insecurities. Good voice acting has obvious value.
Metaphor: ReFantaziohas good voice acting, but much less of it. I’m also playingMetaphor: ReFantazioon the Steam Deck, but there are far fewer chances for me to put the handheld down and give my eyes a break. There are notably fewer voiced lines inAtlus’newest release, so much so that I’d say the majority of content is unvoiced so far. I almost regret picking the English audio option, considering I hear so much of it and the Japanese voice acting is arguably more authentic.
I don’t feel as strongly about Metaphor’s voice acting as I do about Persona 5 Royal’s. I’m pretty sure that’s mostly because Metaphor’s actors have had much less time to grow on me. I want to praise the voice actors’ performances, but the game has offered much less of it to enjoy.
In P5R, my companions talked nearlytoomuch – in dungeons, they’d talk in circles, reiterating things I already knew. But in Metaphor, the social links and side quests are pretty much entirely lacking in voice acting, and these are the two times I most want to hear my characters speaking to me – it’s hard to feel like I’m getting that much closer to them when all I’m hearing are truncated barks.
This is particularly important when you start meeting some of Metaphor’s more eccentric characters – a lot of that humour falls flat without effective performances.
Perhaps this feels particularly jarring because I’m coming fresh off my first meaningful stab at getting into the Persona games. All I have to go on with my first-hand knowledge of Atlus games is Persona 5 Royal. It’s true that most JRPGs, especially those that are this long, aren’t fully voice acted, if they are at all. But it also seems like a strange move to leave so much of this new game unvoiced when it’s already been proven that fans wantmoreof it.
Metaphor: ReFantazio
WHERE TO PLAY
From the creative minds behind Persona 3, 4, and 5 comes Metaphor: ReFantazio, a unique fantasy world, where your protagonist will journey alongside his fairy companion, Gallica, to lift the curse from the kingdom’s lost prince.Control your destiny, face your fears, and awaken magical Archetype powers that lie dormant in your heart. By awakening to an Archetype, you will unlock the power to channel and combine the abilities of unique job classes. Strengthen your bonds and build your party to take down powerful foes and discover the kingdom’s true nature.
