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.
Conclusion
Metaphor: ReFantazio is one of the most memorable RPGs we've played in years. In pursuing a new property, complete with a fantasy setting, Atlus has allowed its creativity to blossom, resulting in a brilliantly rich experience — both in terms of narrative and audiovisual design. While Metaphor takes obvious gameplay and structural cues from the developer's previous projects, it combines and refines those elements to make an epic, kingdom-hopping adventure that feels unique and deeply fulfilling.
Comments 65
If anyone's got any questions about the game or the review let me know and I'll try to answer them.
Picking a top five for GOTY this year is going to be difficult...
Looks really cool actually; I'm a big Atlus fan, so this should be right up my alley..
That said, October is STACKED. I need to make some priorities, and while this game looks fun.. the other games (Sonic, Dragon Age, YS) will take priority. Will be adding this game to my wishlist though!
@ShogunRok And some people said this is a terrible year for games... (egg meets face)
This sounds like it’ll be an amazing buy when it goes on sale next year, gives time for Atlus to polish it up, will be one of the first games I get next spring!
"Chugging frame rates" - Thats an easy no in my book.
I know the argument for 'its the sum of everything that determines a games score' but im very disappointed in this score with such a damning statement. Sorry.
@ShogunRok
I have a question! Can you please cover for me at work for like, a year or something. That way I can actually play all the gigantic rpg's that are still in my backlog before adding this.
Thanks in advance!
@ShogunRok couldn’t have said it better. Last quarter is always the most packed. Sadly a ton of stuff I can’t get right away (like SH2), but as a gigantic dead rising fan, I already know what my goty is. Really happy with 2024! 2025 will be a banger too with Yakuza Pirate and of course, Dynasty Warriors.
@ShogunRok Is this another 100 hour plus behemoth? I wanted to try Persona 5 but the sheer length of it put me off even attempting it.
All of the reviews so far have been incredible. Man, this has low key been a monster year for games. I can’t wait to dive deep into this RPG. Also, I want to apologize in advance - I didn’t read the review because I want to go in blind, but I’m sure it’s great as always!
@Ooccoo_Jr it most definitely is.
@Kraven for a sec, I thought you said you couldn’t read the review because you were blind! But yes. I agree with this sentiment.
Thank you for the review, it seems like everything I expected from the demo - I am going to enjoy this immensely, I am already over-tinkering with the job system in the demo itself 😅 (HP-regeneration on HP-consuming brawler? You gotta have it.) Day 1!
@Ooccoo_Jr Reviews saying 80 hours minimum so yeah….
@ShogunRok Thanks for the review! I want to pick up now, but am concerned about your thoughts on the dungeon design, as it’s something I’ve loved about previous Persona games (especially 5R). Are there some dungeons that you found enjoyable? Would you say the rest of the game outshines this issue?
Thanks again
@Rich33 Chugging framerates and graphically rough also makes this a backlog game for me.
I will put this on the Christmas to play list. By then its been polished and probably at sale at the PS Store.
Those negatives bring the score down lower than that for me, but even a 7/10 or 8/10 is still decent and my pre order is being kept.
Just saw it has a metacritic of 94 as well which is possibly Atlus best ever game score wise.
I really started to get hooked toward the end of the demo so I can't wait to get going with the full game. I am ready for another Persona like experience to take over my life for a few months as the weather gets colder. Great review, thanks so much Robert!
I really hope that the technical aspect will be better than on the demo.
Honestly, there are too many games to play!
@ShogunRok The demo have terrible antialiasing (or lack of), is it better in the full version?
Imagine saying PS5's catalogue sucks when this week alone we have Silent Hill 2, Dragon Ball, and Metaphor — all of which are critically acclaimed. And that's one week.
Yes, they're not exclusive Sony published games, but you can only play them all on PS5 or PC. Crazy times!
Damn...might just have to preorder.
Oh! Wasn't on my radar at all... sure is now!
I've been chipping away at the demo. It's fine - definitely one that I'd like to play at some point, but I may just be growing out of JRPGs or something. I can't stick with one to save my life this year, even when they're good.
@Ooccoo_Jr Yeah my final playtime was around 90 hours, so it's slightly shorter than Persona 5.
That said, there's a lot more stuff in Metaphor that's optional. Optional dungeons, bosses, etc. And they all boost the runtime significantly.
Thing is, I wouldn't recommend missing out on the optional stuff — a lot of it will keep your party around the right levels and get you good equipment.
@get2sammyb I know right.
I think too many in PlayStation land are caught up in the exclusives - which have probably not reached the heights of the end of the PS4 era.
However there have been so many games to play this gen and so many excellent ones at that.
Hell yeah, can't wait!
My only wish was that Atlus would start letting us upgrade our games when the inevitable "super-complete-delux-edition" comes out in a couple of years. Kind of tired of having to double-dip to get the full experience. 😑
@Enriesto I found the main story dungeons (which are obviously the most important) to be perfectly fine. They have some interesting gimmicks and they're quite fun to explore.
It's really the optional dungeons that drop off in terms of quality. They're very basic in terms of layout and they're dull visually.
But yeah, the dungeon design wasn't enough to truly hurt my time with the game. You're going to be concentrating on the combat and your characters' progression anyway, so the actual dungeon issue fades into the background more often than not.
Ugh I gotta find a way to buy this soon. But dungeon designs is one of the things that kept bothering me in the demo. They were so uninspiring for a game that's coming out many years after persona 5. I just thought they'd have improved by now. But still it was a fun time. I look forward to the full game now. I'm hyped
So, I've been playing the demo and I'm feeling mixed about it so far.
I feel like the way you get thrown into the world is very jarring, especially considering how outrageous some of the world/character designs are. Granted, I'm only maybe 3 hours into the prologue demo, but so far there's already been some major events that have taken place and I'm struggling to figure out why I should care.
Can you speak to how this plays out as the game progresses? I loved Persona 5 and think this looks good, but it's another huge time commitment I'm not too anxious to commit to.
@Sveakungen Nah, as far as I can tell, it's the same as the demo, which is a shame. Like the review says, the art direction is amazing, but the actual graphics are pretty poor from a technical perspective. The AA is rough throughout (but it feels like something that should be patched).
N.i.c.e.9 is a excellent score.im happy that metaphor refantazio get a incredible score.more video games is always welcome.word up son
Strange to see 4 negatives only reduce the score by 1 point. Can't help but feel like if these same negatives were applied to another Jrpg it would've lowered the score more. Still, the game is amazing from what I've played of the demo. I preordered it way before that though, as I knew I'd love it anyway.
Dull dungeon design and repeated enemy types makes me a little worried, but glad to hear everything else seems top notch, especially if the combat is super engaging.
@Cloud39472 my thoughts exactly! Just typing out the same feelings...
When you haven’t had time to play P5 royal or p3 reloaded 😂
One day…
@ShogunRok Weird for a PlayStation site to be reviewing Xbox game Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Anyway, I was always gonna get this given how much I love Persona but I'm glad it seems to have turned out really well.
@sikthvash @Cloud39472 Just on the topic of the Pros / Cons, they're not necessarily of an equal weight. So Metaphor's Cons aren't really a huge deal when taking the whole game into account — the Pros outweigh them by a lot, if that makes sense.
The Pros and Cons are really just there to give you a summary of the review. So if a game's got a lot of Cons but still a really high score, then it's basically saying that the Cons don't drag the game down to any significant degree.
@Jedihillis Hmmm, I suppose it depends on what you're looking for in the story, but Metaphor picks up quite a bit after where the demo ends and you're given more of a narrative purpose.
I'd say it's a well paced plot overall, but if isn't quite resonating with you from the start, it's hard to say whether it'll hook you later, or whether it'll keep you hooked throughout.
It might be best to watch a chunk of a playthrough on YouTube or something, just so you get an idea of how things go story-wise. At least then you can make a more informed decision.
@ShogunRok Sure, I understand that. I guess they just sound like big negatives, dull dungeons and repetitive enemies have been big problems in other games for me. It's all subjective though. The early game is fantastic and I just hope that carries all the way through.
@johncalmc it a game on ps only thing Xbox had was marketing rights
@ShogunRok Thx! I will wait and see if they fix it. Destroys the feeling for me. Played the demo on Series X also, and it was better in that version.
I thought this was suppose to be one of the worst gaming generations ever, and this year had no games.
we had 3 bangers in less than a month with astro bot, silent hill 2 remake and now metaphor. I cant keep up at this point Dx
@ShogunRok Does the Platinum require more than one playthrough like Persona 5?
I’m definitely going for it but want to know what I’m getting myself into.
@johncalmc It’s not an Xbox game, Xbox just had the advertising rights.
@HeeHo Yep, there are a couple of Trophies specifically that can only be unlocked on NG+.
@ShogunRok Hi Robert. Great review as always. Sorry if this has been asked already but would you still recommend this game to someone who has been struggling to enjoy anime tropes in JRPG stories recently? I find the writing style to be very bloated and predictable, with poor pacing. I found the demo to be a real slog and was calling out plot twists hours before they happened. Is this something I could expect for most of the main game as well or does it start to deviate from typical anime writing and becomes more original? Thank you!
EDIT: For context, I enjoyed the writing in SMT V: Vengeance and Eiyuden Chronicle Hundred Heroes, but really disliked the way story, pacing, and themes were handled on Persona 3 Reload.
@ShogunRok thank you for that response! I'll keep playing the demo and see where it goes and then maybe do what you suggest and take a look at the videos. Appreciate it!
What a year for Japan. Rebirth, Reload, Infinite Wealth, Erdtree, Astrobot, and now Metaphor. Absolutely keeping the industry afloat.
Persona 3 Reload looks a lot better going on the demo. This will be wait and see for DLC or new version
Looks fantastic, but I can't justify 100 hours for a while. Ive been playing persona 3 on and off for 2 years, it's so long
@ShogunRok Thank you, I appreciate the feedback!
@Rich33 didn't chug in my demo play through, the whole thing was buttery smooth
Medieval Persona, basically. Feels like a throwback to the older games when there was more of a focus on challenging gameplay and dark, compelling stories over social simulation. It's fantastic so far. Really looking forward to playing through this during the remainder of the year.
@Jayslow Japanese developers are why I stay a gamer.
@tabris95 Hmmm, that's a tough one. For me, Metaphor avoids a lot of the more cliched writing you'd find in modern JRPGs because of its fantasy setting, and it does subvert expectations every now and then.
But if you really didn't like what was in the demo, I'm not sure whether the full game will change your mind. Obviously it expands on things quite a lot, and the stakes are raised — and you get to meet many more characters — but the style of storytelling and dialogue tone is very much representative of the full game.
Again, I do think the story goes in some really interesting directions to the point where it becomes quite unpredictable, but you personally might still find it to be underwhelming.
I think based on what you've said, I'd wait until it's on sale and then consider jumping in. Or maybe you could look up some playthroughs on YouTube etc., to see whether upcoming story beats catch your eye.
But yeah, overall, if you found the demo to be a slog, I'm not sure I could recommend the full game. The demo's obviously quite limited in scope, but you can probably already tell how the wider game will feel.
Counting down the days for my collectors edition to arrive. Been keen on this game for so long it feels surreal to actually be watching a tracking number.
Got it pre-ordered, knew Atlus would nail it.
@tameshiyaku
The reviewer here says 'some chugging frame rates' and its a common complaint for the demo - its possible you cannot see framerate issues until they get bad enough as peoples perception varies greatly - some find 30fps fine, others 40fps, others like myself find anything much under 60fps to be complete no-go territory (even then 60fps is not what i would classify as 'buttery smooth' ).
Edit: i have no idea what caused an emoji to be placed but ive got rid of it now.
Glad it's reviewing well. I'm interested, but other games are keeping me busy right now, so this may be one for the wishlist. Plus, it's Atlus, so there's always the possibility of it getting a definitive edition or an expansion by the time I get around to playing this.
@ShogunRok RIP my free time.
Thanks for the answer and review😀
@Rich33
I consider not being able to withstand little hiccups in a game to be such a privileged 1st world problem that I always laugh when the inevitable complaints are filed in the comments.
"30 frames per second? I would rather die!"
"Chugging framerates? Uuuuuuuuunplayable!"
I am not telling you to change, just know how funny it is to someone with entirely other (gaming) problems.
I can't get enough of the proloque/demo. So looking forward to this!
@johncalmc is in the PushSquare towers playing sarcasm @HeeHo @C25CLOUD
I liked what I played in the demo, and the game seemed to run pretty decently on my PC, but I'll definitely wait on getting it since there's so much releasing at this time.
Banger after banger. Sadly, I'll be missing out on this for a few months but will definitely pick it up in the future. I've already decided on Silent Hill 2 Remake for this month since it's a perfect Halloween game
Damn, the metacritic for this game is one of the highest of the year. Looks like a GOTY contender. I'm hoping that if anything beats Rebirth this year that it's Metaphor. Definitely the 2 most deserving games imo.
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...