In Metaphor: ReFantazio, the throne is now empty after the king’s assassination without anyone nominated as the heir. In order to find a new ruler of United Kingdom of Euchronia, the will of the late king indicates that the next royal figure will be chosen by the people via a tournament.

Metaphor: ReFantazio is a Japanese RPG, role playing game, akin to the Persona series; makes sense given Studio Zero is comprised of former Atlus/Persona developers. The game combines dungeon exploration, combat, quests, side-quests; also a need to maintain and improve social relations with specific characters such as your party members and work on your attributes such as Tolerance and Imagination for example.

The first notable difference is in the combat. While the core of the battle is turn based, Metaphor: ReFantazio also features real time combat. As you roam around various dungeons, you can see enemies and engage them in combat. When up-close, pressing X will attack enemies. Weaker enemies can be dispatched within a few hits. Stronger enemies can be attacked as well, but you’ll need to engage them in proper turn based combat. After a few hits, enemies will be stunned and the Y button will prompt on the screen with the word Squad.

This will allow you to enter battle with an advantage where enemies will have the stun status giving you a chance to get the upper hand and perhaps wipe them in a single turn. As you’d expect this is not applicable to boss battles. Weak or strong enemies, if you decide to not engage, you can directly press Y when prompted and you’ll enter the battle. And on the flipside, if enemies jump you, they’ll have the first turn and your party will have damaging statuses. Additionally, the game rewards with extra rewards if completing a flawless battle encouraging players to master combat.

The best way to describe Metaphor: ReFantazio is imagine if Persona had a baby with Final Fantasy. While the Shin Megami Tensei sub-series, Persona, focuses on characters wielding the power of demons for their strengths, weaknesses and skills, this new endeavour replaces demons with Archetypes. These are entities that grant characters various skills and the like; they are referred to as Mage, Gunner, Knight, Thief; just to name a few “jobs”.

While you begin with a handful of Archetypes, you’ll unlock new and stronger ones along the way. And this is where maintaining your relationships comes into play. As the relationships level up, you’ll unlock new classes of Archetypes. Or simply reaching the max level, 20, of an archetype, will unlock the next iteration. But sometimes, along with reaching the max level, you’ll need to reach a specific rank of relationship with the character that unlocked the Archetype.

Another interesting tidibt of gameplay, Metaphor gives players a bit of freedom in terms of Archetypes. You can have them inherit previously unlocked skills from another Archetype. Meaning you can share unlocked skills among the Archetypes which can make for some interesting combinations. As you use the Archetypes, they will improve and learn new skills.

And yes, akin to Persona games, there’s some time management skills required here. Time and days go by and each main storyline quests have a deadline, so if you can’t complete it by the deadline, it’s game over. For example, the first quest requires you to reach and defeat a specific antagonist before the end date. But you have to take into account a bit of grinding and having to leave the dungeon to rest (and refill your health/MP). Sleeping will bring you to the next day. If you don’t manage things properly, it’s going to be game over.

Now that being said, among the dungeon crawling, you need to manage, optionally, side quests, helping people, find and maintaining relationships with your party members and other key characters. What’s helpful here is that when not in the dungeon, if a friendly is available, the protagonist will be notified so you won’t have to randomly try to find available friends. Characters whose relationships are key to improving your attributes or rank are also represented by a crown icon above their heads.

And then you’ll also need to improve and max out five Royal Values: Courage, Wisdom, Tolerance, Eloquence and Imagination. All of which can be increased by either talking with specific characters or completing side-quests for example. While not really beneficial on the surface, they are a pre-requisite to unlocking certain friendships and quests. For example, to be able to comfort one of your colleague’s daughter, your Tolerance needs to be at level 2 otherwise you won’t be able to benefit from that character.

Metaphor: ReFantazio looks absolutely gorgeous. While like the gameplay, the visuals are similar to the Persona series, well moreso Persona 5 than previous entries. The game looks great, bright and colorful. Dungeons and towns have their unique color palette; and the latter also have a 1700-1800 era style. This is also one of the most diverse crew of protagonists that I can remember; all of which are absolutely likeable. Enemy design feels both creepy and familiar; in a good way. The soundtrack is another majestic outing from the team. It’s a majestic and orchestral score with a pinch of something that’d remind you of Castlevania at times. The voiceover work here is top notch; but I’m not going to hide that playing this in Japanese gives it an extra layer of immersion so to speak.

My main gripe with Metaphor is the time management aspect. It hinders players from properly and thoroughly enjoying the wonderful world they created. It adds a layer of linearity which is problematic in RPGs. RPGs will normally give players freedom to explore environments, tackle side quests at their own pace. Here, if you want to tackle side-quests, it can take up a few in-game days that you waste traveling. Exploring dungeons takes time and if you need to leave because you’re low on everything, you’re teleported back, but if you want to continue a specific dungeon, you can’t teleport back to the dungeon so you’re losing additional in-game days traveling. I’ve had the same gripes when I reviewed Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden. While it requires players to plan things accordingly, it feels more like chores.

Metaphor: ReFantazio is definitely going to be in the game of the year conversation. Time management nuisance aside, the game has it all; great environments/locale, enjoyable cast of characters, addictive combat system thanks to its combination of real-time and turn based; not to mention the Archetypes mechanics. Gamers looking for something diverse that will keep them busy for the foreseeable future absolutely need to get their hands on Atlus’ latest opus.

Overall
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    CX Score - 100%
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Summary

Pros

  • Great cast of characters
  • Intriguing story
  • Beautiful styling
  • Maxing out and unlocking new Archetypes is addictive
  • Skill inheritance in a welcomed addition to this genre

Cons

  • Time management forces a linear experience

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