Spearheaded by a trio of veteran developers best known for their outstanding work on the Persona series, Metaphor: ReFantazio is the dawn of a brand new IP from Atlus. In its structure and mechanics, it feels comfortingly familiar, but in its fantastical setting and bold style — both in terms of visuals and audio — it breaks new ground in brilliantly memorable ways.
Right off the bat, Metaphor boasts one of the strongest overarching narratives that the Japanese developer has ever authored. Where the Persona games often let their deeply endearing characters all but carry the central plot, Metaphor crafts a tightly-knit tale that involves political machinations, racial tensions, religious corruption, and consistently creative worldbuilding.
In opting for a fantasy setting, it almost feels like Atlus is able to unleash a level of creativity that we haven’t seen from the company in decades. While there’s no doubt that the title borrows from established concepts and themes of existing works, it manages to meld something unique — a game that’ll stay with you long after the credits roll. And in an era when so many modern RPGs either struggle to stand out, or are satisfied with simply riding the coattails of genre classics, that’s incredibly high praise.
A cursed prince is the crux of Metaphor’s story, and your wide-eyed protagonist is tasked with being the would-be king’s saviour. The game opens as you approach the foreboding capital city of Grand Trad, your only goal being to meet up with a contact in the kingdom’s military. Needless to say, proceedings don’t necessarily go to plan, and before you know it, you’re tangled up in the title’s narrative hook: the royal tournament.
Essentially, the late king’s final wish sees thousands of potential successors compete for the throne. Much like Persona, Metaphor operates on an in-game calendar system, which gives you several months to establish yourself as the leading candidate, all in the name of your curse-stricken prince. You travel the land via a beautifully drawn map, partaking in contests of brains and brawn at key locations with your rivals, all while attempting to win the people’s favour.
Again, Persona is the closest comparison with regards to structure. Each time you arrive at a fresh destination, you’re introduced to new characters and story beats across a number of in-game days — by which time a threat to the local populace is unearthed, and you’re the hero in waiting. It’s pretty formulaic stuff, but you’re given ample amounts of free time in between the introduction of your current task and its looming deadline.
Metaphor shines during these player-driven sections. There are monster bounties to cash in on, optional dungeons to rummage through, and, of course, allies to converse with. Free days are broken down into afternoons and nights, and you’re obviously encouraged to spend your limited time wisely. But if that sounds stressful, know that the game does an impressive job of making everything feel streamlined and accessible; it’s a tightly designed experience where various systems feed back into others, ensuring that there’s always something to work towards.
For example, ‘Followers’ are a collection of your closest allies, from party members to secondary characters. Spending quality time with them gives you access to a growing list of useful perks — benefits like reduced shop prices and enhanced combat commands. But a Follower’s true worth is found in the Archetypes (read: character classes) that they unlock, with more powerful incarnations saved for more serious relationships.
Archetypes are the lynchpin of Metaphor’s gameplay progression. Our protagonists can assume the form of hulking heroic entities in battle, granting them destructive magics and abilities so that they can go toe-to-toe with the kingdom’s most dangerous creatures. While your party members do have statistical preferences — the stoic knight Hulkenberg, for instance, is primarily built to withstand damage — you’re still free to have any ally channel any Archetype.
Naturally, there’s a lot of potential for party-based experimentation. Tanks, damage-dealers, healers, spellcasters — it’s your standard RPG job system, but it’s brilliantly woven into the rest of the game’s mechanical tapestry and its worldbuilding. Levelling up your Archetypes and pushing towards a specific party balance is always rewarding — especially since skills can eventually be transferred between Archetypes, allowing for yet more customisation.
That brings us neatly to the turn-based combat, which takes cues from both Persona and the broader Shin Megami Tensei franchise. Atlus’ trademark weakness system, in which you exploit enemy vulnerabilities in order to gain additional turns, remains at the heart of battle — but generally speaking, fights are more strategically paced than what you’ll find elsewhere.
The title’s bestiary isn’t particularly large — in fact, enemy types can grow quite repetitive as the adventure wears on — but your foes are well-defined in their behaviours and characteristics, in a way that’s somewhat reminiscent of older Final Fantasy games. Take Goborns, for example — cruel monsters that fly into a frenzy should they spy a party member wielding any kind of magic-based weaponry. Or the bird-like Cockatrice, which is capable of one-shotting allies who aren’t buffed by a defensive spell.
What we’re saying is that there’s much more to combat than just striking elemental weaknesses; there are a lot of details to take into account, and that factors into both your chosen equipment and Archetypes. Indeed, Metaphor can be a brutally unforgiving RPG even on its normal difficulty setting; enemies can be downright ruthless if you’re caught underprepared, harkening back to the hardcore days of Shin Megami Tensei 3 and the like.
That kind of demanding difficulty curve keeps Metaphor engaging throughout; its combat system is constantly giving you something new to consider. It’s worth mentioning, however, that if you’re playing for the story first and foremost, there are easier difficulties to play around with — and those options are always welcome when there can be such a fine line between enjoyment and frustration.
The boss battles, by the way, are clear highlights. We’re talking unique and surprising mechanics that demand your attention, showcasing the best parts of Metaphor’s combat design. You get the impression that Atlus wants each fight to feel meaningful, and that extends through to the fact that you can choose to just obliterate lower-level foes via action combat, which takes place as you’re dashing around dungeons.
Much like in the recent Trails through Daybreak, you can stun enemies with action-based attacks, leading to an immediate advantage upon triggering the regular turn-based battle. However, the trade-off is that should you be attacked by a suitably strong opponent — usually because you’ve woefully mistimed your dodge roll — you’ll end up being ambushed. And that’s pretty much a death sentence when it comes to dealing with more capable monsters.
Whether it’s through storytelling or demanding combat scenarios, Metaphor keeps you locked in — but it does stumble with dungeon design. The beast-infested areas that you’ll explore during the main campaign are largely fine, but optional dungeons suffer from a noticeable drop in quality. Granted, their main purpose is to house encounters and get you excited about treasure chests, but they’re shockingly bland to look at, and their repetitive layouts leave much to be desired. And no, they’re not procedurally generated — although they often feel like they could be.
Speaking of presentation, Metaphor can be disappointingly rough around the edges; an issue that’s amplified by the game’s frankly incredible art direction. The character portraits, their designs, the painterly menus, the user interface… it’s all stunning, and so it stings a bit when NPCs and environments are coated in terribly low resolution textures and dodgy anti-aliasing. Ultimately, the game’s artistry overshadows these ugly graphical flaws, but it’s still a jarring downgrade off the back of the utterly immaculate Persona 3 Reload, which Atlus released earlier this year.
And finally, let’s touch upon the music, which has got to be some of longtime composer Shoji Meguro’s most striking work to date. It’s a booming orchestral score that makes use of incessant, religious-sounding chants and rousing choirs, resulting in a strange and arguably otherworldly tone. It’s been a long time since we heard such unique but compelling tracks in a video game, once again emphasising Metaphor’s creativity.