Metaphor: ReFantazio
Review
2024-11-24
Metaphor Refantazio is merely a very good game. And for me that's a bummer. Judged in a vacuum it's a fantastic JRPG. But we're not in a vacuum. If you know this game you know it's genesis and there's no possible way you can not compare it to Persona 5. And when you compare the two you realize Metaphor Refantazio is kind of just a different flavor of Persona. For every new idea it has there are 5 old ones packaged slightly differently. And those new ideas? Aren't even executed that well. Metaphor Refantazio is a great game because it apes most of its structure and mechanics from Persona. But, I dunno about you, I was really hoping that Studio Zero, free from the confines of the Persona series, was really going to swing for the fences with something crazy new. Instead our Coke became Cherry Coke.
It was within like 5 hours I felt my dream of playing something truly new going out the window. I was having a great time but as Metaphor started to unveil all its systems, time after time, those systems would just be Persona systems. You got a calendar with two parts to each day, the MC has personality stats you invest in by reading books or sitting on a bench staring at a giant face-rock in the sky, you have bonds with party members you level up by shooting the shit, and on and on. Hell, there's a Velvet Room that's just called "Akademia" this time.
So what is new? The world is a big one but honestly I found it a bit trad fantasy with some tweaks. The plot starts off strong with a magic competition to become king based on one's popularity with the people of the country. But after that again it becomes kind of formulaic with some especially telegraphed "twists" thrown in.
Speaking of the world, in the lead up to release Metaphor looked like a potentially more open world spin on the formula. Early in the game you enlist as a part of the guards and you receive a map. I got very excited. Oooh maybe it'll start blank and I have to explore different areas to fill it in. Or maybe I can choose how I want to explore the map. Wrong. It's largely a linear game with a couple sections, similar to Persona, where you'll have some degree of free reign to select from a handful of different places to go. And these "places" are either small towns which consist of a (admittedly beautifully hand drawn) static background with a menu of options, a static background with a party dialogue, or a dungeon. And oh boy the dungeons. The main story dungeons, your "Palaces" of Persona 5, are great, don't get me wrong. But along the way there are a good twenty smaller side dungeons that are generic as fuuuuck. I mean genuinely it felt like you have Cave Dungeon, Castle/Tower Dungeon, or Outside Dungeon. Hell even the main story dungeons didn't feel particularly interesting due to the generic trad fantasy of it all.
Archetypes though, Archetypes are cool. Archetypes are the new job/class system in Metaphor. Basically different social bonds/links have different classes tied to them. As you unlock and level them up you level up the classes. There are advanced classes unlocked by maxing out some combination of previous classes. And anyone can be any class. Add on to that the fact that anyone can have up to 4 skills equipped from any skill learned from any class and you have a really fun way to customize your party. There's always something new to level up and master. Or a new skill combination to try. It's fluid, fun, and creative and I think it RULES. It is then a shame that it feels squandered a bit by the aforementioned middling dungeons.
There are other smaller QOL things I imagine will be patched in the inevitable Metaphor RE-Refantazio release in a year or two. Things like MP regen just being this incredibly tedious thing. Oh so to have MP before bosses I either have to auto-attack to conserve MP (tedious), farm single use items (tedious), or change jobs to a Mage and farm low level enemies (tedious)? The final dungeon they give you a way to heal your entire party to full for free any time you want. It's like they knew they fucked up. Oh and just grinding in general is terrifically boring. Running around and just one shotting stuff, traveling to Akademia to reset the dungeon, and then doing it all over? Surely you can make some other concession that doesn't mean hours looping in one of your drab-ass dungeons, Studio Zero.
I'm sure I sound like I hate this game but the criticism comes from a place of considering Persona 5 to be one of the greatest games yet made. Studio Zero has shown that the Persona formula can be remixed into wonderful new things. The loop of: cool anime story > hang with the lads > do a dungeon > level up and try new Archetypes > etc. IS great. The characters aren't Persona 5 levels but Basilio is great, Archetypes fucking rule, the boss designs are incredible, Soejima-san's character designs pop off, Meguro-san's music is great (shout out to the Buddhist monk Keisuke Honryo who did the rap-chanting on some of the tracks)--you got 80 hours of fun here. I mean, who doesn't like Cherry Coke?