Metaphor: ReFantaziois a massive game, with plenty of activities to fill your time with for its 60-80 hour runtime. With how long it is, there are plenty of hidden details and Easter eggs included to keep you on the lookout for different references throughout your entire playthrough.
Since Metaphor: ReFantazio is an original IP, you might think that there are only so many different references and details it can hide, but Atlus' team of developers has treated this fantasy adventure as a celebration of their company’s successes throughout the years, while also injecting it with detailed and passionate world-building too.
As you might guess, the content here can be considered spoilers for the game, as far as the end of the story.
7Homo Tenta Are Humans Too
Dental Details
Some of the best enemy designs in Metaphor: ReFantazio are the horrifying humans. These unnerving creatures are inspired by the work of 16th-century Dutch painter Hieronymous Bosch, and they will almost always pose a challenge any time you run into them.
They usually stand out quite obviously from other monsters and enemies, but one exception to this are the Homo Tenta, or as you might more commonly refer to them as, the Wisdom Teeth. These cute tooth-looking monsters are some of the easier enemy encounters, and some of them don’t even fight you and will instead drop useful information about their environment, standing out from their more aggressive human counterparts.
6Persona Master
I Am Thou
There are plenty of references to Atlus' previous games within Metaphor: ReFantazio, but one of the most obvious is the Persona Master archetype. If you manage to get far enough in Junah’s bond, you’ll unlock the leveled up version of her starter archetype of the Masked Dancer, being the Persona Master.
Lending from many of the obvious pieces of iconographyfrom the Persona series, like the masks and the velvet room, this impressive archetype is a fantastic way to pay respect to Atlus' arguably most popular JRPG series.
5Who Are The Senate
Shady Side Characters
A set of characters that are easy to overlook when playing through the massive story of Metaphor: ReFantazio is the senate. Intermittently between different story sections, you’ll see this group of five officials meeting to discuss important decisions and events while hidden from the public eye.
Perhaps it was cut content, but aside from Forden, the other members of the Senate get surprisingly little attention during the main story. However, we can learn who they are by reading the Memorandum. Their members include: the princes of both Montario and Oceana, the general of the royal army, the head of the Crown Theocracy, and the head of the igniter consortium.
4Character Design Inspiration
Atlus' Unintentional Crossover
One recurring aspect that has made Atlus' recent JRPGs so recognizable is the fantastic signature style of character artwork that makes their games feel so distinct. However, with a similar style, this has led many fans of the company to notice that some characters from the fantasy title resemble characters from throughout Persona history.
Bardon is Dojima from Persona 4 but with Roussainte ears. The protagonist and Strohl both resemble the protagonists of Persona 3 and Persona 4, respectively, and some have even pointed out that Eupha and Basilio’s face shapes resemble Fuuka and Adachi from Persona 3 and 4.
3Devil Summoner & Soul Hacker
Shin Megami Tensei Spin Offs
The Persona series is not the only other Atlus franchise that is subtly acknowledged within Metaphor: ReFantazio. While Persona is a spin-off of the larger Shin Megami Tensei franchise (even though the connections between the two franchises grows more tenuous with each new Persona game), a series that is more openly connected to Shin Megami Tensei is the Devil Summoner series.
To add another layer of separation, the Devil Summoner subseries has its own subseries with the Soul Hacker games. Both Devil Summoner and Soul Hacker are archetypes you can unlock in Metaphor: ReFantazio by upgrading the Summoner and Seeker archetypes, respectively.
2Tribal Differences
What Makes Them Stand Out
One of the best aspects of Metaphor: ReFantazio is the strong world-building, and a prime example of this arethe different tribes that populate the country of Euchronia. While there are some obvious details that separate the tribes, others are more subtle and hidden behind text-logs or obscure dialogue.
For example, the roussainte are the most athletic tribe, and this is why they’re most often found to be working in physically demanding jobs like the military. Also, while the ishkia and eugief are the two rarest tribes, the ishkia have a much better social standing thanks to having a more ‘standard’ appearance, but the eugief are more discriminated against since they stand out so much from the other tribes.
1The Mysterious Voice’s Identity
Her Majesty?
One of the biggest mysteries throughout Metaphor: ReFantazio is the identity of the mysterious voice that addresses the party members when they unlock the powers of their archetypes. While it’s never really stated outright, by the end, it’s quite simple to surmise her identity if you’re paying attention.
After learning thatMore is actually the former kingand, therefore, the protagonist’s father, he is shown to directly communicate with the same mysterious voice and makes reference to her being his dead eldan wife, and by extension, the protagonist’s mother. In spite of her identity being relatively clear, exactly how she is able to speak to More and the party members is left ambiguous.
