Publishers: Atlus, Sega
Developer: Studio Zero
Platforms: Playstation 4, Playstation 5 (Reviewed for), Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Microsoft Windows
Alrighty, hardcore RPG fans. Time to out myself as a filthy casual: of the Atlus titles, I'm pretty sure I've only played the Persona games from 3-5 (plus Persona 5 Strikers). So, no Shin Megami Tensei, none of the super early Persona titles, no other Atlus titles that have been lost to time. Therefore, I'm coming to Metaphor ReFantazio with purely modern expectations. From what I understand, this game takes influence from a much wider Atlus lexicon than just the modern stuff, so when I inevitably miss something, just know that it's because of that. Now, with all that being said, here's my two cents on Metaphor ReFantazio: It's good...not as good as people seem to think, and definitely not as good as even the weakest of the modern Persona games...but still good and worth your time! So, start improving your tolerance, put on your best fake British accent, and let's get down to business!
How's that for some tonal whiplash?
Yes, I'd say the world is the weakest aspect of the game by a considerable margin. This world is made up of various fantasy races in a hierarchy. On top of the food chain are the Clemar, a race of horned people (like the Qunari from Dragon Age, but like ten times less badass). On the bottom are the Elda: a human-like race of people spat on and persecuted by literally everyone in the world presumably because of some perceived slight too far back in history for anyone to remember (hmm...). And in the middle...by which I mean just barely above the bottom...are literally all the other races. There are furry-bait people, part bird people, people with 3 eyes, people with pale skin and face marks, people who are secretly lolis that use illusion magic to hide their appearances (because of course a JRPG had to have some of those), teeny-tiny bat people, and elves. Literally every race other than the Clemar seems to be despised and persecuted in the most cartoonishly over-the-top ways imaginable. It's not as ridiculous as the world of Final Fantasy XVI, thankfully, but it's not much better. FFXVI goes for a growly-voiced "racism is bad", while Metaphor opts for "uwu wacism is bad." Both are ridiculous, but at least the edginess of FFXVI can be kind of funny rather than just boring and toothless. But I'm going off on a tangent here, one that is casting my opinion of Metaphor in a more negative light than I'm intending. The big difference between these two fantasy worlds I've been talking about is that eventually, it becomes apparent that Metaphor actually isn't trying to say too much. There are some bits and pieces of philosophy going on here, but it becomes pretty clear that its head isn't up its ass. Rather, the toothless edge of the world is meant to be a backdrop through which to spout the usual JRPG kumbaya nonsense. I know that likely made it sound like I hated this fact, but it actually made the whole thing more digestible.
But anyway, at the start of Metaphor, the situation is this: many years ago, the only prince of the kingdom was attacked and rendered bedridden by a curse. And now, an ambitious Clemar general named Louis has just killed the king with the intent to seize power for himself. You play as a young Elda man who was best friends with the prince in childhood. Together with a fairy named Gallica, you set out on a mission to rendezvous with the resistance effort to assassinate Louis on the day of the king's funeral in order to secure the prince's place on the throne and break the curse, since it was apparently Louis who cast the curse in the first place. However, right as the killing blow is about to be landed, a giant monolith of the king's face appears in the sky and starts speaking to the population. The voice tells the world that the king's almighty magic is now in effect, and the throne will now go to whoever happens to be the most popular choice in the eyes of the people by a specified date. Furthermore, anyone who tries to harm one of the handful of most popular candidates will be restrained by magic chains. So, the king has essentially made the kingdom a temporary democracy. Naturally, the assassination attempt fails, and eventually our hero decides to make a bid for the throne in the name of the prince. Together with a rogue's gallery of squad mates, he travels the kingdom competing in a competition to earn the people's favor. However, if you remember, he's a member of the most despised race in this entire world. And that's not his only roadblock. At the top of the polls is this world's pope, who has a stranglehold on the competition because of his heavy involvement in policy under the king. And in second place is none other than Louis himself, who openly declares his intent to seize power by force and to send the military after everyone who stands against him (one might say, "the enemy within") once he's coronated. These top two have a decisive lead, and all the while, a vicious monster threat looms over the land, a threat so terrifying that the very name of these monsters strikes fear into the hearts of the bravest warriors: "humans." And no, despite the title of the game, that's not a metaphor. These aren't humans like us, that's just what these fever dream nightmarish creations happen to be called. From there, we have our story and concept!
The cat is out of the bag now: With the exceptions of Louis and a pair of other late-game characters, I couldn't possibly have been more bored with the available friends. They're all about as one-note as possible, and many of them don't really have any arcs to speak of. Every relationship with just about every character goes exactly the same. The characters wonder aloud whether or not they're a good enough noble/knight/singer/scientist, you'll give them one bit of encouragement, they'll stop doubting themselves, rinse and repeat a couple times, and there you go. I legitimately found myself skipping through the dialogue in the later relationship episodes because I couldn't imagine anything I wanted to do less than talk to them. What could be more boring than watching Strohl boo-hooing about how he might not be a good enough noble for the eighth time, for example. The exceptions to this rule, as I said, are Louis and a pair of characters. Louis, for his part, is a well-spoken, charismatic idealist that manages to have this likable air about him that makes the cold brutality of his words and actions stick out more. And that pair of characters aren't something I can talk about for fear of spoilers, but in my humble opinion, they're some of the best characters Atlus has ever made.
Making things even more boring is something that really shouldn't be a problem...and it isn't....not really...but it's just interesting. This game, despite being the only one in the Atlus catalog where the characters are all adults, has no romantic subplots. Game full of kids? Atlus says that's ok! Game full of kids where they can romance grown women including their teacher? Okie Dokie, Atlus says! Game full of adults? Suddenly Atlus has taken a vow of celibacy! Like I said, this isn't really a problem. It does, however, make character relationships even more vapid than they already were because there's just that much less to do...and it's still pretty interesting that Atlus can't bring itself to include a romantic subplot if it doesn't involve two kids and/or one kid and a female pedophile.
I haven't made a point of saying this in reviews for past titles from this group, but it bears finally saying now: nobody is as committed to absolute banality in dialogue as they are. This is always a problem, but this is the first time the problem has really stuck out. The amount of completely pointless blabbering over the smallest things is staggering. Do we really need to have five characters in a row comment on the fact that we've secured one of the x number of keys to unlock door y? It's truly maddening sometimes! Just like with the character relationships, having a lot of dialogue isn't a problem. Having people run their mouths just to fill space, however, is. Yahtzee Croshaw's review of one of the Attack on Titan games comes to mind, where he described the dialogue as follows:
Character 1: I want to do my best
Character 2: I want to do my best, too!!!
Maybe next time, Atlus can relegate this banality to the little bits of banter that play as you're exploring without having it interrupt everything.
The last thing I'll say on the story front is that it gets truly weak towards the end with a massive over-reliance on two-second plot twists. First it's like "this guy did this thing," then it's like "no, this other guy did this thing," then it's like "wait, neither of them did this thing and instead it was this one character for whom it makes no sense who did this thing" and then it's like "oooh but the character feels really really bad and isn't evil", to give you an idea of the amount of plot twists in just a single hour towards the end. It's unfortunately one of the hallmarks of almost anything with an anime art style: complete insecurity to just tell a story and this desperate, obsessive need to pull meaningless twists that make no sense (Scarlet Nexus comes to mind). It would be one thing if there were some space between the twists, but these all happen one after the other, so literally nothing you ever learn about anything matters in the end. And by far the worst twist of all is one that had me rolling my eyes like nothing else...and I wish I could spoil it, but if I even remotely hinted it it, you'd be able to guess, so I won't. It's just the height of JRPG story cowardice. I'm thinking I might have to create a new Dishonorable Mention in this year's GOTY list to explain why it's so stupid and how it completely invalidates everything the game seems to want to do.
I understand that I've done basically nothing but BIGTIME crap on the story in Metaphor, but it's worth reminding you, dear reader, that I said the highs are pretty high. Those highs pretty much single-handedly kept me coming back when I was at my most bored with the story.
I'm not going to take any points off for the following bit of rambling, but I have to say it: why is tolerance a thing you need to increase? I don't mean that in a "lol, woke!" kind of way. I mean our hero is a member of the most trod-upon race, and his entire vision is to create a world where all the tribes are treated equally and everyone skips through flower fields hand-in-hand. He'd probably tell Adolf Hitler that he doesn't judge him, because Hitler has a dream, and our hero also has a dream, so they're more alike than they think. The man is tolerant to a fault, if anything! The social stat system is always a little bit laughable given how it implies our protagonists always start out as complete idiots, but to give Persona 5 as an example, kindness was one of the stats. Our hero starts out with a zero in kindness, but it doesn't clash with the realities of the plot because there's always some degree of self-preservation involved with every heart he and the phantom thieves steal. Here, though, the game just acts like we're supposed to believe this guy needs even more wide-eyed naivety than he already has! It isn't a super big deal or anything, but it's a thing that came to mind while writing this. Anyway, moving on.
The final use of a given slot can only be used during the day, and that's embarking on missions (whether main or side ones). That's pretty self-explanatory: you'll do this either to progress the story or to earn rewards such as items and money. If it's a main story mission, you'll make as much progress in the story dungeon as possible before retiring for the day. If it's a side mission, you'll embark on a short day-or-so long journey to the relevant location, complete the quest, then return to the most recent city. As you likely noticed in that last sentence, most side missions require at least a day of travel to even get to the dungeon, so how does that play out? Well, while you're aboard your vehicle, you'll choose to pass the time mostly by hanging out with one of your party members to increase a royal virtue. There are also certain beats in a character relationship that can only be advanced while you're in transit, so doing side missions is crucial to getting to see everything. You'll do the same during the night slot if the trip is long enough to warrant such a stop. As for the side missions themselves, they're not very interesting, but they're inoffensive and typically pretty quick to finish. And for the first time in Atlus history, the dungeons for said missions aren't procedurally generated, so that's progress! I mean, they're largely the same dungeons with enemy placement and rooms switched around like it's Dragon Age II, so it's basically just a version of procedural generation that half-heartedly proposes to you because maybe you'll finally shut up about it...but it's still progress! And I have to say, there's some degree of progress in the story missions as well. While not all the objectives in a given story dungeon are good (and while few of these dungeons are interesting in the first place), there aren't nearly as many interruptions as there are in, say, Persona 5. There's exactly one time where your progress gets halted and you have to return to your current base of operations, and that happens before you even enter the relevant dungeon in the first place. So, in a given day, you're allowed to make as much progress as you can with no roadblocks whatsoever save for your own resources. I've been tough on Metaphor so far, but the lack of padding contrivances is actually something I appreciate. Sure, that means every story objective can be completed much more quickly and with less overall gravitas, but being able to move at my pace more than makes up for that.
Before I move on to combat, it's time to talk about the thing that I'm practically slamming my hands on the table and screaming "yes!" like Plankton above his ingredient machine over. In the Persona titles, you have no choice but to go through NG+ if you want to max out your social stats and character relationships. But in Metaphor, I'd say it's basically impossible not to see everything unless you're actively throwing time away. That is excellent, and I TRULY commend the team for this decision. This basically means that you will get all the gameplay benefits from every character before the credits roll, you will max out all royal virtues, and you will feel like you've risen all the way through the ranks! There are possibly some people who think that cheapens the time management aspect of the gameplay...and it probably does, but I'll take that over having to go through NG+ by design. Now, you're still going to have to do so in order to max out all of your character archetypes, but that's there for the true 100% completionists, not for people who just want to get all the stuff.
Other than the archetypes, combat works pretty much how you'd expect from an Atlus title with a couple notable exceptions. Both you and the enemy ranks have a set of "turn icons," one for each member of the party (except for the enemies, which can have more). You can use certain skills or gain certain randomly-activated abilities as the plot progresses to give you more turn icons, but more often than not you just have the four. This is standard, obviously, but if you miss an attack or hit an enemy with a type of attack they're immune to, you lose two turn icons, not just one. Like in other titles, your goal is to hit enemy weaknesses, but in this game, doing so doesn't "knock them down." The enemy will still move when it's their turn, but hitting a weakness or landing a critical hit simply reduces the turn icon by half, essentially granting you one extra turn. So, disregarding any circumstances that otherwise increase your turn icons, you can squeeze out as many as 8 turns out of a player phase if you're hitting weak points or critical hits regularly. This makes consistently doing these things even more important, as without a knocked down enemy side, you won't be launching "all out attacks" like in other titles. So you'll need as many turns as possible to make as much progress in a battle as you can. Outside of the turn-related stuff, there's the weather system. It's not too complicated, it's just that if the weather happens to be bad in a location, the enemies become much higher-leveled and everything becomes more of a challenge. Finally, if you're (I think) about 5 levels higher than an enemy, you can kill them in the overworld without starting a turn-based battle. This is another excellent quality of life improvement that I appreciate. This makes it so that there's a sizable realtime combat element that breaks things up from time-to-time. I could've done without the protagonist having to run his stupid mouth every time he swings his sword ("you're do-, let's g-, you're do-, now yo-, you're do-" if it takes a couple swings to kill something), but c'est la vie.
Unfortunately it's not all rainbows and sunshine. I've alluded to how Metaphor is kind of a standard fantasy JRPG already in this review, but it especially commits to that with a 25-level difficulty spike at the end because of persistent inclement weather as a plot point. And you know what else? It was only a 25-level spike because I was overleveled at the time. It would appear that the average level for that point was maybe around 40-45, while I was in the 50's. It wasn't too much of a hassle to grind up to nearly the right level because I completed the 4-dragon super boss quest that happens at the end, but it was a hassle to get through almost everything else. To be frank, I don't understand how this game is beatable on higher difficulties without meticulous study of everything and hours upon hours of grinding. That's not for me, but even on wimp mode things were a hassle even once I reached about the correct level. So there's this inescapable feeling of artificial difficulty and padding for no reason right at the finish line, which is a negative, sure...but then there's the final boss. Would you like to know how long it takes from the start of the final push to the end credits? About two and a half hours. There's the leadup level to the final boss. Then there's phase 1 of the boss. Then there's a couple long cutscenes with even more vapid, banal plot twists. Then there's boss phases two through fifteen-million, through which he becomes progressively more and more biblically accurate angels and demons (if you consider that a spoiler, you've clearly never played a JRPG in your life). Then there's a sizable epilogue that seems to forget some of the game's themes. I guess that tangent was more about the last hours as a whole than about the finale, but the he makes up so much of that time that it's practically one and the same. It got to the point that I was ready to commit a murder if I heard "sacrifice yourself to the new age" one more time...and then it happened ten trillion more times, so please don't look in my back yard. So, there are plenty of exceptional quality of life features to be found in gameplay, but they do feel kind of moot when the game still has two and a half hours where you can't save...I'm old, I can't afford to stay up as far past my bedtime as Metaphor made me stay to complete it!
Let us review:
Poor worldbuilding and story - 1.0
Lame characters - 1.0
Late-game combat woes - 0.5
Technical woes - 0.2
The final score for Metaphor: ReFantazio is...
7.3/10 - Good
Decent effort, Studio Zero, decent effort
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