Sega and Atlus have enjoyed a very strong year as far as critically acclaimed JRPG releases. Boasting the likes of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Persona 3 Reload, and Unicorn Overlord, that’s already 30% of many Top 10 Games of 2024 lists for RPG fans. After getting my hands on Metaphor: ReFantazio, I’m pleased to say it has a strong chance of making it 40% of my list so far this year.
For me, the shining star at Sega’s Summer Game Fest booth this year was undoubtedly Metaphor: ReFantazio. Developed by the Persona folks at Atlus, Metaphor is pretty much another facelift to Persona except in a more gritty fantasy setting, and I never realized how much I love that until now.
The demo available to SGF Play Days attendees included three modes: Scenario Mode where you experience the story in an early part of the game, Dungeon Mode where you explore one of the game’s early dungeons, and Boss Challenge Mode which pits you against a boss also in the middle of the game. I had an hour scheduled, and I did all of them, but unfortunately I didn’t get to the finish in any single one of them as there was a roughly 20-minute time limit to play before the game reset itself. This was kind of annoying, because I was SO close in the latter two modes.
The Scenario Mode of the demo began with a conversation between the protagonist, who was trying to sleep, and a fairy named Gallica. Gallica was complaining about the prejudice she’s seen between humans, and in her conversation she’d constantly ask the protagonist questions. To my surprise, all of your answers are actually spoken dialog, so it seems that Metaphor won’t really be having the silent protagonist that was all too familiar in the Persona games.
Before long, the game’s world map was shown, and a prompt told us that we should be heading to a specific place. Upon choosing it, time passed the way it would in Persona, like from night to day. Eventually, we get tasked with exploring a castle and put on a rescue mission. Unfortunately, I spent too much time enjoying the game’s battle system and didn’t actually accomplish the rescue mission, which would’ve shown an Archetype Awakening–which I’m assuming would be akin to a Persona Awakening.
I should’ve played the Dungeon Mode the way I played through the Scenario Mode. While this also takes place early in the game, I had no idea what was happening, but dungeons are pretty much all the same in JRPGs–just plow your way through.
This is where we get a close look at the battle system, and this is also where I got a little confused with the button layout due to a combination of both me being used to play Persona on PlayStation, and having played so many games across every platform all weekend. All the machines running Metaphor at Play Days were Xboxes, so when I saw X for attack, I thought that meant A on the Xbox. The A button wasn’t used in battles yet on this mode. Y was for skills, X was for melee, and B was to defend. Using items were left for the menu button and passing was done via right bumper. Button layout aside, the battle system is very much like what we got from the modern Persona games with just a different visual look to them.
Unlike the Persona games, Metaphor sort of allows you to do significant damage outside of battle. Monsters that you’re stronger than can be killed on the field outside of battle, eliminating the need to watch the same battle animations over and over again with every enemy you decide to fight with a first strike. When enemies aren’t weaker than your party, Persona rules pretty much takeover where attacking can stun the enemy but won’t do as much as kill it outside of an actual battle. It’s akin to what’s seen in out-of-battle combat in The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak, but feels a little more familiar to its Persona source material.
All that battling was put to the test in the demo’s Boss Challenge mode which pit us against some Kraken-esque boss.
What a bad egg.
Before that boss fight, though, we were treated to what the ship meta felt like. The ship acts as sort of a hub world or base of operations in Metaphor. Most things you choose to do will end up passing time, and we saw that simple mundane things like taking a shower ended up raising some stats. We even went to the toilet a couple times to see some hilarious dialog. When we first used the toilet, the narrative text said “Having confronted myself in peace, I feel I’ve seen the truth of the world…”
As enough time passed, the boss attacked, but I decided to once again try to go to the bathroom to be met with my character saying to himself: “I’d prefer to not die on the toilet.” Fine then.
The boss was sort of kraken-like beast called the Sea Horror. In addition to its main body, we had to deal with its many arms that attacked our party consecutively and annoyingly. Unlike the last two demos, we had the luxury of having a magic user that could directly affect the enemy’s weakness. On top of that, the knight we had in the party had a pretty effective slice he could use that could attack every enemy. We also had a bunch of healing items that we weren’t afraid to use seeing how it was just a demo. The main new thing of note was the Archetype maneuver that we can use with the Y button to call upon the spirit/monsters operated by our characters. The A button also called forth a Synthesis ability, which allow multiple party members to work together for an especially powerful spell or attack.
Right when I was about to finish the monster off witih one more devastating blow, the game reset itself, devastating me. I had some time to give it one more try, but I already know I want this game. I don’t want play it again before release until I know my save can carry over.
Metaphor: ReFantazio is coming to the Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC on October 11, 2024, and we can’t wait.
Sega and Atlus have enjoyed a very strong year as far as critically acclaimed JRPG releases. Boasting the likes of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Persona 3 Reload, and Unicorn Overlord, that’s already 30% of many Top 10 Games of…
Sega and Atlus have enjoyed a very strong year as far as critically acclaimed JRPG releases. Boasting the likes of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Persona 3 Reload, and Unicorn Overlord, that’s already 30% of many Top 10 Games of 2024 lists for RPG fans. After getting my hands on Metaphor: ReFantazio, I’m pleased to say it has a strong chance of making it 40% of my list so far this year.
For me, the shining star at Sega’s Summer Game Fest booth this year was undoubtedly Metaphor: ReFantazio. Developed by the Persona folks at Atlus, Metaphor is pretty much another facelift to Persona except in a more gritty fantasy setting, and I never realized how much I love that until now.
The demo available to SGF Play Days attendees included three modes: Scenario Mode where you experience the story in an early part of the game, Dungeon Mode where you explore one of the game’s early dungeons, and Boss Challenge Mode which pits you against a boss also in the middle of the game. I had an hour scheduled, and I did all of them, but unfortunately I didn’t get to the finish in any single one of them as there was a roughly 20-minute time limit to play before the game reset itself. This was kind of annoying, because I was SO close in the latter two modes.
The Scenario Mode of the demo began with a conversation between the protagonist, who was trying to sleep, and a fairy named Gallica. Gallica was complaining about the prejudice she’s seen between humans, and in her conversation she’d constantly ask the protagonist questions. To my surprise, all of your answers are actually spoken dialog, so it seems that Metaphor won’t really be having the silent protagonist that was all too familiar in the Persona games.
Before long, the game’s world map was shown, and a prompt told us that we should be heading to a specific place. Upon choosing it, time passed the way it would in Persona, like from night to day. Eventually, we get tasked with exploring a castle and put on a rescue mission. Unfortunately, I spent too much time enjoying the game’s battle system and didn’t actually accomplish the rescue mission, which would’ve shown an Archetype Awakening–which I’m assuming would be akin to a Persona Awakening.
I should’ve played the Dungeon Mode the way I played through the Scenario Mode. While this also takes place early in the game, I had no idea what was happening, but dungeons are pretty much all the same in JRPGs–just plow your way through.
This is where we get a close look at the battle system, and this is also where I got a little confused with the button layout due to a combination of both me being used to play Persona on PlayStation, and having played so many games across every platform all weekend. All the machines running Metaphor at Play Days were Xboxes, so when I saw X for attack, I thought that meant A on the Xbox. The A button wasn’t used in battles yet on this mode. Y was for skills, X was for melee, and B was to defend. Using items were left for the menu button and passing was done via right bumper. Button layout aside, the battle system is very much like what we got from the modern Persona games with just a different visual look to them.
Unlike the Persona games, Metaphor sort of allows you to do significant damage outside of battle. Monsters that you’re stronger than can be killed on the field outside of battle, eliminating the need to watch the same battle animations over and over again with every enemy you decide to fight with a first strike. When enemies aren’t weaker than your party, Persona rules pretty much takeover where attacking can stun the enemy but won’t do as much as kill it outside of an actual battle. It’s akin to what’s seen in out-of-battle combat in The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak, but feels a little more familiar to its Persona source material.
All that battling was put to the test in the demo’s Boss Challenge mode which pit us against some Kraken-esque boss.
What a bad egg.
Before that boss fight, though, we were treated to what the ship meta felt like. The ship acts as sort of a hub world or base of operations in Metaphor. Most things you choose to do will end up passing time, and we saw that simple mundane things like taking a shower ended up raising some stats. We even went to the toilet a couple times to see some hilarious dialog. When we first used the toilet, the narrative text said “Having confronted myself in peace, I feel I’ve seen the truth of the world…”
As enough time passed, the boss attacked, but I decided to once again try to go to the bathroom to be met with my character saying to himself: “I’d prefer to not die on the toilet.” Fine then.
The boss was sort of kraken-like beast called the Sea Horror. In addition to its main body, we had to deal with its many arms that attacked our party consecutively and annoyingly. Unlike the last two demos, we had the luxury of having a magic user that could directly affect the enemy’s weakness. On top of that, the knight we had in the party had a pretty effective slice he could use that could attack every enemy. We also had a bunch of healing items that we weren’t afraid to use seeing how it was just a demo. The main new thing of note was the Archetype maneuver that we can use with the Y button to call upon the spirit/monsters operated by our characters. The A button also called forth a Synthesis ability, which allow multiple party members to work together for an especially powerful spell or attack.
Right when I was about to finish the monster off witih one more devastating blow, the game reset itself, devastating me. I had some time to give it one more try, but I already know I want this game. I don’t want play it again before release until I know my save can carry over.
Metaphor: ReFantazio is coming to the Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC on October 11, 2024, and we can’t wait.
by Danreb Victorio
