Metaphor: ReFantazio Review

Persona 5 was a significant game not only for ATLUS, but also the JRPG genre as a whole in the modern day. It’s a genre of game that was always encroaching on the territory of feeling stale and predictable, but the release of Persona 5 shook things up. The game proved that these games can have both style and substance, though not without fault. In an effort to make itself feel unique compared to Shin Megami Tensei, the series from which Persona originated, the game’s scale was reigned in for a greater focus on characters and their impact on your journey in the story. Still, after the success of Persona 5, director Katsura Hashino felt that he wanted to distance himself from the series and work on something new. Thus, the new internal development studio named Studio Zero was born. Its first project was Project Re:Fantasy which would later become what we know as Metaphor: ReFantazio – a game whose identity and design sit as a wonderful middle ground between Shin Megami Tensei and Persona, allowing for the game to stand as a shining beacon for ATLUS’ writing, design, and style.

Metaphor: ReFantazio takes place in the medieval fantasy United Kingdom of Euchronia, a country that is home to various races of people ranging from your typical fantasy elves known as the Roussainte, to a race of bat-like people known as the Eugief. The country’s King, Hythlodaeus V, has been assassinated by a man named Louis Guiabern, and his son cannot lead as he is presumed to be dead – trapped in a long comatose state after being afflicted with a terrible curse by Louis. You take the place of Will (or whatever you decide to name your character), a close friend of the dying prince who has been tasked with assassinating Louis for his crimes against the King and the prince. You’re immediately put in the company of Gallica, a fairy who is a part of the secret organisation behind the plot to take out Louis. At the same time, the kingdom is under constant fear of attack from large, grotesque monsters called Humans.

The story isn’t quite so cut and dry, and it isn’t until you break past the game’s introductory phase that you pierce the veil of the game’s elevator pitch and begin to see the nuance that these games are known for. It is revealed that rather than being crowned by some sense of familial entitlement, the next king would be one effectively voted by the people. A tournament would be held by the Sanctist Church (think Christianity) though it is clear that the only reason the church wishes to hold this competition is to rig it in their favour. Racism runs incredibly rampant and so the prospect of a young Elda (the closest to being a normal human without being a human) like yourself being king fills a lot of the inhabitants of Euchronia with disgust. Most of the favour goes to the Roussainte and the Clemar (humans with horns). Everyone else mostly gets treated as if they were dirt, and the economy is equally cruel, ensuring that the poor remain impoverished and those whose race is too bestial like the Eugief or the Paripus don’t even have a hope of carving out a stable living for themselves.

The setting of Euchronia feels incredibly dystopian. There’s the vile racism, the corrupt and conniving church that holds a lot of power, oppressive socioeconomic systems, and the monsters that can potentially lay waste to everything that has been built. Oh sorry, I just realised I was describing the city of Sydney, though all those descriptors are perfectly apt for the themes of Metaphor: ReFantazio. The game makes it a point to tell an in-game tale about a utopia where people of all races from around the world live in harmony and every key character that you engage with wishes to help you achieve that goal, to uproot society as they currently know it and pave the way for a better future. It doesn’t shy away from its themes, either. Throughout your time playing the game, it is abundantly clear that the game’s stance on racism is that it is deplorable and its characters are vessels for empathy. They have all been stricken, in one way or another, by the twisted system and the people who run it. I won’t go into the fine detail, that is something for you to discover, but these characters are some of the most well-written characters that these games have ever seen. You don’t just have a cartoonishly evil character or any kind of trope. Instead, you have villains with depth, especially Louis. You know you are supposed to despise them, but it isn’t immediately obvious why, and as the game progresses you begin to question who is the mastermind pulling all the strings.

The Shin Megami Tensei and Persona games are no strangers to twists and turns. In fact, it is rather commonplace for these games to have much more going on than meets the eye. However, they can often feel a little cheap or contrived with these twists. It’s not that they are explicitly bad, but upon their reveal, it can sometimes feel like a shifting goalpost. Metaphor doesn’t break the mould in the traditional sense, as it is still rife with plot twists, but they feel much less contrived, and they fill in details that would have otherwise been left unanswered. As a result, the whole story feels more organic in its flow and doesn’t tread along the water of being self-aggrandising, as some modern games are. It has its story goals within its sights at all times and makes sure that it delivers on those promises.

Aiding in the storytelling of Metaphor is its phenomenal voice acting. We were already treated to good voice acting earlier this year with Persona 3 Reload, but Metaphor takes it to a whole other level. Most of the characters are really well-voiced, but the standouts are by far Louis Guiabern and the third companion you get (not naming names for spoiler’s sake). These characters have such a powerful and commanding presence that it is hard not to be entirely captivated by their performance. Louis in particular, who is voiced by Joseph Tweedale, steals the show every time he is on screen. Some truly phenomenal work was put in to ensure that the English voice acting was well above the solid standard we had grown accustomed to with previous Atlus games.

A funny quirk about Shin Megami Tensei and Persona is how, despite being built on the same core foundations, they are remarkably different in their design. Shin Megami Tensei is a very unforgiving game, and it will not pull its punches against the player. Saving often is encouraged, as it is easy to go down the wrong path on a level and fight something that is far above what you can feasibly take on. On the inverse, Persona games are typically straightforward and when it does have their challenging moments, they can be annoying as they feel antithetical to the more easy-going, casual design of the games. Metaphor exists as a nice middle ground between these two games. It is by no means the piss-easy affair that people might be used to with the Persona games, but it is also not the gruellingly punishing game that Shin Megami Tensei can be. Because of this, Metaphor never feels dull in its design, and it makes excellent use of its detachment from the other two series to elevate its own creative ideas to the main stage.

By far, Metaphor’s strongest point of design is its Archetypes system. While seemingly just another form of persona or demon on the surface, Archetypes bring a new level of customisation and buildcrafting to the game. Each character is the source of some kind of upgrade for each family of Archetype, and increasing your bond with them will either grant you some kind of passive benefit, or a more advanced Archetype from within its associated family. Because of these benefits, players are more likely to try their best when it comes to maximising their friendship levels with all their followers and engaging with this system feels far better and more communicative than any attempt that Persona has made at this. In Metaphor, you don’t have to maintain and repeatedly interact with the characters like you do in Persona. Instead, their requirements for progression are tied to both your social skills and your progress through the story. One of the biggest benefits of this is that it prevents the characters’ stories from feeling like they are intruding on the main story.

The cool factor with the Archetypes doesn’t end there, as each character can adopt any Archetype that you have unlocked. There are, of course, some requirements that need to be met to equip them, like having two other Archetypes unlocked and levelled to a certain level, but aside from that, the game is immensely flexible in how you build your characters. This flexibility is such a welcome change as, sometimes, Persona’s rigidity (Shin Megami Tensei less so) can be quite frustrating. Persona does have buildcrafting elements within it, but they require much more optimisation to get the best out of compared to Metaphor, and the balanced simplification makes Metaphor play and feel much better.

There is a meme that went around a few years ago that made fun of the Persona 5 crowd for acting as if the game invented jazz because whenever a piece of music in that genre showed up in posts, there were fans who said it was copying Persona 5. This is all to say that music is an incredibly important part of the experience when it comes to these games, and Metaphor does not disappoint. Composer Shoji Meguro really outdid himself with this soundtrack, as it has presence to it and atmosphere. It feels as integral to the experience of Metaphor as Mick Gordon’s music does for DOOM. The chilling melodies that are presented to the player by both choirs and the chanting of a Buddhist monk create a soundtrack that cannot be missed. Sometimes I would just let the game idle in combat or in cities to just have the soundtrack play because it was that good (this was before the soundtrack was made available on Spotify/Apple Music). A soundtrack hasn’t felt this good to listen to since NieR: Automata, which consistently sits as one of, if not the best video game soundtrack for me. Metaphor’s moments are so wonderfully captured with the beautiful and harrowing nature of its soundtrack, and it’s difficult to fault any part of it because it’s so brilliantly composed and utilised.

The only real problem I had with the game was with its PC port, which isn’t exactly a surprise. PC ports have never really been high on the list of priorities for these games and Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance’s PC port was shockingly competent. Metaphor, unfortunately, is a downgrade from SMTV: V, with a middling PC port that omits countless core features, runs systems hotter than it should and sees the return of that infernal feature that pauses the game when it isn’t in focus. This feature isn’t inherently terrible, but the fact that you cannot disable it just makes it frustrating. A complete lack of ultrawide support is also a kick in the gut. I did also encounter a weird issue where the game’s frame rate randomly sunk from 120fps to 51fps and was stuck there until relaunch. I was never able to replicate this issue, but it is something worth noting as it forced a relaunch.