Topic: Metaphor: ReFantazio Thread

Well, I just gave into the hype and purchased the game myself today. I've actually never played any other Atlus game before this. The Persona series always intrigued me, but the school setting put me off as it just didn't seem that interesting to me. The whole fantasy politics is way more up my alley... so I decided to take the plunge. Aside from no previous experience with Atlus, I gotta say I also have never really finished a JRPG. I'm familiar with turn-based combat of course, but it's been hit or miss for me whether I enjoy it. Combat systems like in Divinity: Original Sin and X-Com I enjoy, but the demo for Octopath Traveler 2 put me off with its repetitive combat encounters.

I've now put in two hours, so we're very early on in the game, but it's made a good first impression. I was surprised by how different the cinematics were from each other. From full-on anime to in-game rendered to pretty much non-voiced static dialogue. I'm not particularly a fan of the not voiced dialogues, but I'm pretty sure that's a staple of the JRPG genre so I'm not all too fussed about it. However, it does irritate me how they still put in voice lines for unvoiced dialogue that are either barely relevant to what's being said or not at all. I'd rather they'd have just kept it completely silent then instead of forcing that in. I also think that while exploring the world the game is way too hyperactive with random voice lines left, right and in front of me everywhere I walk. It's like sensory overload, and so often these voice lines seem to just repeat as well. It was giving me traumatic flashbacks to the Divinity: Original Sin Cyseal market... not in the mood for cheese, anyone? It felt like that but on steroids.

I'm actually a big fan of the combat system so far though. It feels intuitive, flows nicely and they end quick when it's just farming simple creatures. It's pretty much all I could ask, because I absolutely despite to grind for levels in RPGs, so to at least make that process painless and swift is already a huge pro on my side. I'm also interested to see where the story goes from here. I'm definitely invested in Strohl's character already as well and was sad when I thought he died for a second there. Excited to play more of it along with all of you!

I also disliked the school element of Persona, I think over the years I better understood the intention behind why it was there, but I still haven't come around to loving that part of the game.

However, it is funny because I was playing Metaphor and thinking to myself man... that is about as refined of a Persona experience as I've had, but it is weird, I just can't quite figure out what they did differently that has had such a profound effect on making this feel like a better paced, more focused, experience.

Then it clicked.

Oh yeah, the school is gone.

Mechanically very little has really been done to alter the formula in a physical way, but when you're asked to do busywork to stay up to date with random people in town, or to study for a test or keep up with your after school clubs or whatever it may be, it really makes the busy work obviously busy work. Some of that may have been intentional, but understanding the narrative intent doesn't automatically make doing that stuff fun.

Here when the game asks you to do busy work, you're working on some grand goal, or going on a quest, or building an army or whatever fantasy flavoured endeavour it may ask for. And while it may be mostly just narrative dressing, it really does positively alter the perception of you feeling like you are doing meaningful activities in your down time, when really you're doing much of the same stuff we've been doing in these games now for like two decades.

They basically imported the modern Shin Megami Tensei "Press Turn" battle system almost outright for this game, which is nice. The big addition here I'm a fan of is how fully they integrate on-map battles for clearing out weak mobs, which is a huge boon. It's more commonplace and skill-based than a similar mechanic in Persona 5 with the dodging and whatnot.

I've seen several people try this game now and say they've never dabbled in Persona or SMT. I feel like the more Western fantasy theming is really bringing people on-board in a big way.

It'll remain to be seen if the game has legs, but sales are FAR outpacing any of Atlus' previous releases to date, and it's garnering a ton of mainstream attention. Very cool to see for one of my absolute favorite developers.

I think another underrated mass appeal thing to Metaphor is the dub. I think Persona 5 and Reload have pretty good dubs, but they still are very much anime dubs. Whereas, I feel like the direction just feels more natural for the dub in Metaphor and it just feels more like a Western RPG made to be played in English.

I'll be honest I never much paid attention, I am playing predominantly on Steam Deck so the mouths are very small 😂 I will try and focus on that the next time I play and report back.

JRPG dubs just seem to sound better when everyone doesn't sound like an American.

Xenoblade fans have known this for years.

@Yagami I'm playing with the English dub myself and I've definitely paid attention to the syncing at certain points, because I don't think it's very good. I honestly can't even tell if they tried to re-sync it for the English dub or not, though I would lean towards no? The lip syncing seems so half-assed to begin with that I feel like it doesn't really matter ultimately, haha. I'm not even saying that as a criticism or anything since it doesn't really bother me, but I can't imagine the lip-syncing in Japanese feels much better with the way these mouths move.

Only thing I prefer in the sub is the thing @Tjuz pointed out which I didn't know was a problem until I swapped, and its that in the unvoiced bits of dialogue they play like a canned word or two from the actor like its from an emote wheel or something. In Japanese this feels like flavour because I don't know what is being said, but its extremely distracting in English when you're trying to read a block of text while a random English voiceline is blared over the top of it, that matches nothing to what is written and sometimes isn't even tonally aligned, either.

How accessible is this game for someone with zero experience with Persona/SMT....

The GOTY Hype has me really intrigued by this title, albeit I don't think I have ever played anything quite like it? This is the same feeling I got about Baldurs 3, which I took the plunge on and absolutely fell in love with (only CRPG experience prior was Disco Elysium...)

My JRPG experience is pretty limited, mainly Xenoblade series (Switch, 1-2-3) alongside the PS1-era Final Fantasy games.

Is it a game whereby I'll need to have the laptop open the whole playthrough to understand the various mechanics? I'm no stranger to that, having been well versed in Monster Hunter (!), but I'd rather have something a bit more 'pick up and play' if possible.

This might seem impossible, but would be great to hear a hard sell for a ATLUS n00b ha

@CJD87 As someone who was in your position prior to starting, I would say it's mostly safe to jump in. I do feel somewhat overwhelmed by the amount of systems in the game already (and by all accounts it'll just get even more with time), but the game introduces them gradually enough that it's not an instant dump of information you're bound to forget half of. The game also has plenty of tutorials at the ready if you ever feel out of your depth because you didn't pay enough attention when a mechanic was first introduced or need a little more information to get the gist of it. So far I haven't needed to go out of the game to get more explanation elsewhere, so that's a good sign at the very least. The only thing I've had to Google was how to dodge while exploring the overworld, which I'm pretty sure the game tutorialised me on but I simply forgot in the slow onslaught of more information. If you're comfortable at least committing enough to getting to grips with the mechanics, I don't think it will turn you off entirely. If you'd rather not have a game with a bunch of different systems in general, then maybe wait out on this one until you're more in the mood for that type of experience.

@Tjuz Thanks man, and appreciate the response.
As a newcomer to ATLUS yourself, are you enjoying it so far? What elements are pulling you in? And is anything turning you off?

I'm really leaning towards it, as the last 2 GOTY winners (ER and BG3) are some of my favorites of all time... and this could well follow suit

I'd say it is as pick up and play as you want it to be, @CJD87. A cop out answer maybe, but an honest one. Outside of making sure you hit deadlines for quests, there isn't really that much you need to pay attention to if you put it on the Storyteller difficulty (as this is the only difficulty that lets you revive with progress restored on failure, so any boss you could keep reviving and whittle its health down until its over if you really wanted). I do think though if you want a rewarding experience with this or push the higher difficulties, this isn't going to be very pick up and play friendly at all and you're going to have to be pretty committed to it. You won't need to follow a guide word for word though unless you are aiming for a 100 percent completionist playthrough whatever you chose to do.

@Pizzamorg really helpful thanks

I actually enjoy a challenge, so would likely play on ‘normal’ or higher. What difficulty do you play on? In BG3 I did Standard difficulty IIRC… and this was good for me, as nothing was too terribly difficult - but I certainly had to pay attention and plan for battles

I’m not completely ‘learning avoidant’, I just don’t want to feel like I’m learning a new language! Comments here suggest though that the ride isn’t too rough, and the learning required is well worth the experience

I started on normal and dropped it down to easy @CJD87 - it's complicated because difficulty isn't flat in this game. By that I mean if you go into a baffle with bad job match ups or just get bad luck, stuff can go sideways really fast, even on easy. You could probably go about your business even on hard in the moment to moment and be okay, but then it takes sometimes only one miss, flipping the press turn system in the opponents favour and you're snow balling to a game over screen in seconds, even against regular enemies. It's definitely a lot more SMT than Persona in that regard.

Without spoilers @Yagami I have run into a few occasions where monsters were immune to my jobs entire ability suites which required a lot of passing and then a job change as soon as I was out of the battle 😂

@CJD87 You could always start on Hard and drop down to Normal if it's too much.

Things to keep in mind:

• Dungeons are essentially about resource management. Learn to manage your magic usage in battle against regular enemies so that you have gas left in the tank to fight a surprise boss, or push to the next save point, and you're good.
• ALWAYS save when you have the opportunity. The game auto-saves regularly, but it'll still save you time in certain spots.
• The game operates according to a calendar system, where most activities will make time pass and push the days forward. The game tells you what activities will and won't consume in-game time. If dungeon exploration is about resource management, then the game overall is about time management. You'll want to carefully consider your available quests and objectives and the amount of time you have left to complete them, and then act accordingly.
• In general, you want to complete dungeons in as few runs as possible. Most activities only take up a part of your day, but dungeon runs will consume a full day, so the more visits you make to a dungeon, the less time you have to do other stuff.
• You'll have partial control over the stat growth of your main character. My suggestion would be to decide early on if you want to prioritize him as a physical fighter or magic user. A jack-of-all-trades approach will be less useful when it comes to your protagonist hitting hard in battles.
• Diversify your skills and attack types for exploration so that you're able to easily hit enemy weaknesses. The game grants longer turns if you hit enemy weaknesses and punishes you with shorter turns if you use elements they're resistant to, so it's critical that you're always able to hit weaknesses whenever possible, which means balancing physical and magic damage across your party. Enemies play by the same rules, so you'll also want to make sure you balance out your elemental weaknesses across classes as well.

It sounds like a lot, but you'll be fine. The game explains everything.

@Yagami - almost the entire party lol last time I try and have more than two physical based units in my team 😂

@Ralizah Legend, thanks for that. I have screen-printed that feedback, as it is nice & concise...

I think I am going to take the plunge and get this once I'm paid at the end of the month. I am really keen to keep mixing up genres, and couldn't believe how enamored I was with BG3... which, on paper, was something I definitely thought I would not enjoy.

I need to finish off Broken Sword Reforged, try and force myself through Echoes of Wisdom, and then hit the Blasphemous 2 DLC (end Oct). Then start-Nov I'll begin Metaphor

Thanks again

@CJD87 Absolutely. We'll also be here to answer any questions you have.

Even if you're not a JRPG guy, you'll probably like this. Studio Zero makes JRPGs that even people who aren't big fans of the genre enjoy. That's even more the case with a fantasy epic like this.

BG3 is one I absolutely need to pick up at some point. I've heard so many cool things about it.

I started it today. Not far into it yet as I was playing n my lunch (beat the first boss) and I really enjoyed what I played. The combat is really fluid.