Metaphor: ReFantazio Review

What is gaming, if not a brief fantasy, allowing us to escape from our humdrum life for just a little while?

It’s a means of playing the role of a larger-than-life character, and if you’re playing a JRPG, you’ll often get to use the power of friendship to fight God before the closing credits, which is always a blast.

Fantasy can come in many forms, but if asked, many of us would immediately imagine a world of dragons, pixies, and magic almost by default.As a long-term fan of ATLUS games, I would never have expected the developers of Persona fame to tackle an out-and-out fantasy epic such as this. Yet, here we are in the era of Metaphor: ReFantazio.

A game that boldly and unashamedly leans into medieval fantasy RPG tropes we know and love and then gives it the quintessential ATLUS treatment to somehow reinvent the wheel and make this tried and tested approach to fantasy storytelling feel fresh, new, and exciting.

For those expecting fantasy Persona, that’s exactly what you’re getting, but even if it does feel very familiar, Metaphor: ReFantazio manages to stand on its own two feet as a franchise that seems destined for more than just a one-off outing.To discover how this new title achieves this, stick around for our Metaphor: ReFantazio review.

Delicious Little Breadcrumbs

Metaphor’s opening hours are exactly what you would expect of a game under the ATLUS umbrella. It’s a slow, methodically designed showpiece, complete with snappy cutaways, animations, and outstanding anime-inspired cutscenes that invite you into the enthralling world that will slowly reveal itself to you.

It’s the sign of a developer truly confident in their product when they have the nerve to make the first few hours consist of little other than world-building exposition, as the action is pretty light, to begin with.

However, this is undoubtedly to the benefit of the game and the player, as you are allowed to slowly immerse yourself in this new fantasy setting, understand the motives of the major movers and shakers, and gradually indoctrinate yourself into the wealth of systems, and mechanics drip-fed to you over the game’s run.

It’s the ATLUS way, and it ensures a phenomenally paced narrative, and deep systems that never threaten to overwhelm the player. Essentially offering a trail of breadcrumbs for you to follow as you lose yourself in the majesty and grandeur of this epic adventure.

To give some context, Metaphor is a fantasy JRPG in the most traditional sense, moving away from the real-world meets surrealism approach of Persona for something more in line with Final Fantasy, complete with monsters, dragons, magic, and crystals.

In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if ATLUS saw the success of Final Fantasy XVI’s Game of Thrones-adjacent narrative and opted to take a stab at it themselves to cut off a piece of that pie for themselves.

You can even see ties to Final Fantasy through the map-traversal system and the Sky Runners and Gauntlet Runners, which feel like a love letter to the airships of Final Fantasy XII. But I digress.

In this title, you play a young Elda boy, a tribe much vilified in a world full of injustice, prejudice, and inequality, and you have one noble goal: save the Prince. But naturally, you’ll find yourself embroiled in a palace coup, and going toe-to-toe with the King Elect, Louis, among others.

The game does a staggeringly good job of endearing you to those closest to you while offering villains that are easy to hate but complex enough that you can see how they came to be the way that they are.

This ability to empathize with the bad guy is always a sign of great writing, but the game makes sure you always get that satisfying payoff of being able to deal with vigilante justice in a bid for a better tomorrow.

It’s a medieval fantasy setting that isn’t afraid to embrace the cliché and the downright stupid but equally manages to maintain the same grown-up, mature themes we have come to expect from ALTUS titles down the years.

The game can be as low-brow as seeing our party pooped out of a giant Sandworm, and then follow it up with a harrowing tale of a mother who couldn’t accept the death of their baby.It’s a balancing act that Persona has managed with aplomb over the years, and Metaphor taps into this with equal grace and finesse.

Tribal Warfare

This grace and finesse also extend to the title’s overall presentation, which retains the snappy animations, overlays, and visual effects of its predecessors but trades the too-cool-for-school vibe of old for a more grandiose and fantastical style that really lends itself to this magical world.

Despite perhaps never pushing the boat out to try and offer visuals that make you feel like you are on the bleeding edge of what’s possible with the current hardware.

Metaphor does enough through bombastic cut-scenes, outstanding camera-work, and slick design to enrapture the senses, and present a world that feels otherworldly yet believable through the extension of disbelief.

I think the best example of this is the ability to create so many tribes and belief systems within this world that often don’t directly affect the player but can be felt through the general unease the game places on the player through the palpable disdain and tribalism every NPC exhibits.

Effectively holding a mirror up to our world today and forcing many of us to feel what it’s like on the other side of the coin. A metaphor, if you will.

Yet ironically, despite this central theme of systematic racism and classism, rarely have I seen so many nationalities represented in a single game.

I can’t speak for the Japanese vocal performances, but I can say that the English content is superb, offering outstanding performances with various different dialects from all over the UK and mainland Europe.

Louis’ Cronies spoke in a Scouse accent. Martira had a wealth of Scottish dialects, and I even heard the bold, lilting brogue of my own Northern Ireland represented, which was a rare and peculiar treat.

From a narrative perspective and from a presentational standpoint, it’s a title that sticks the landing, as the game leaves no stone unturned, and no small detail up to chance.

But this would all be for naught had the gameplay not been equally polished. Yet, you’d be a fool to think that ATLUS would offer anything less than stellar JRPG action.

Fresh Yet Familiar

The main thing we should make clear about the gameplay of Metaphor is that it’s a stone’s throw away from Persona in pretty much every department as far as gameplay is concerned, which will appease as many as it will upset.

But this is far from a case of leaning into fantasy and phoning in the rest, as the gameplay builds upon and tweaks the Persona framework to provide something fresh and new.

The biggest change is probably the fact that you won’t be creature-taming and splicing together monsters this time around. Instead, you’ll have Metaphor’s quirky take on the traditional RPG class system, which feels like a fitting nod to Final Fantasy’s Jobs system.

Players will be able to unlock and refine various archetypes as they make their case for the throne. Allowing you to take on traditional roles like a healer, mage, Knight and many more.

It’s a change that makes things much more accessible and streamline, but also much more free-form, as all party members can specialize and study skills as they choose, with the option to double down on certain Archetypes, borrow set skills from one another and come together for powerful synthesis attacks.

It’s a combat system that feels less like a war of attrition where grinding will get you everywhere, and more like a tactical turn-based affair where the battle can be won or lost based on your preparation before the battle even begins. A change that is a welcome one for those who burned themselves out in Mementos many moons ago.

The ability to use formations to exercise damage control, the variety of igniters present to refine your builds, and the specialist nature of each Archetype make each battle a puzzle to solve, but equally, free-form enough that various tactics and play styles are accommodated.

The action in battle is great, but the exploration outside of battle also feels tangibly different, as you are no longer sneaking around corners and getting the jump on unsuspecting enemies.

Instead, you’ll be able to use traditional melee attacks to take out fodder enemies and stun foes, adding a welcome, albeit very simplistic, hack and slash feel to proceedings.

It’s a mechanic that pales in comparison to titles that refine and perfect their hack-and-slash mechanics, but much like VATS in the Fallout series, having the choice of manual or turn-based combat is a welcome addition—even if it is a little shallow and clunky in practice.

The combat is fun, deep, and familiar to ATLUS veterans, but the calendar and life sim system will make players feel most at home. With each passing day in this world, you’ll be counting down the days until a new king is crowned and the prince’s curse takes hold of him forever.

The stakes are high, and every day counts, but there’s always room for a spot of procrastination here and there. Saving the world can wait until you’re done learning to cook a fancy new dish and reading the last chapter of your book. You know, unless the deadline creeps up on you.

You’ll also be able to build bonds with the core characters, which is Metaphor’s answer to confidants and social links. You’ll be able to raise your various core stats called Royal Virtues, and you’ll have ample side quests to partake in, bounties to hunt down, and dungeons to crawl.But unlike Persona, this isn’t a Waifu Simulator, as the life sim mechanics all feel attuned to the world around you.

The Burden Of Being A Goody-Two-Shoes

This brings us rather nearly to the characters, and perhaps is my only true criticism of metaphor as a whole. Aside from exceptions to the rule, such as Heismay, the game has a real inability to write complex good guys. As with most characters, the player will form bonds that feel one-dimensional and, generally, quite safe from a narrative standpoint.

I can see exactly what the game is trying to do in each instance. But in most cases, it’s little more than expanding on a stereotypical character trope and taking it to its natural conclusion.

Take Hulkenberg as a prime example. For all the world, it felt like this character was being presented as a vague imitation of Lae’zel from Baldur’s Gate 3.

A no-nonsense lady warrior with a point to prove. But in the end, they just felt like a shallow stereotype at times, as did many others, never breaking out of that initial box we pigeonholed them into.

This extends to the protagonist, as even with a fully voice-acted role, they never managed to stand out as anything more than a placeholder for the player to project themselves upon.

Their design simply doesn’t have the same cool factor as Joker, for example, and there are just not enough standout features or bite to the character to make them feel like the badass JRPG hero you want them to be.

This is only further accentuated by the fact that decisions matter far less than in other ATLUS titles. Of course, the upside is that you’ll no longer feel the need to save scum your way encounters like you did in classroom pop quizzes in Persona 5.

But equally, aside from some minor MAG rewards, there’s no real incentive to think about your actions or choices, which leads to a rather placid main character that lacks that star power to keep you rooting for them.

But the flipside is that the game knows how to create evil characters, with a blend of silly, surreal, and downright detestable characters who all have understandable motives and fit into the plot seamlessly.

It’s a story that almost suffers from the richness of its world, as eventually, the JRPG prophecy has to be fulfilled, and the goodies need to triumph over evil.But the reality is that it’s the complex sociopolitical issues of this world, the frequent conflicts, and the abundance of lore that make this game so appealing.

This usually means you’ll do an aggressive eye roll when a party member manages to undo these deep-rooted issues armed with nothing other than good intentions and the power of friendship. But hey, I suppose it wouldn’t be a JRPG otherwise.

Closing Comments:

Metaphor: ReFantazio is a masterfully crafted JRPG that seamlessly takes all that was excellent about the Persona series and weaves a fantasy tale like no other. It’s a tale with layers and levels that is wonderfully paced, offering a wealth of familiar mechanics and systems. But crucially, Metaphor is more than just Fantasy Persona, as it carves out a unique identity for itself with a fully realized world, interesting characters, and fun new additions that tweak and galvanize the tried and tested ATLUS formula. Metaphor: ReFantazio is a Magla-fuelled medieval fantasy masterpiece bursting with style, flair, and charm, and it’s a nailed-on contender for Game of the Year. Watch this space.