Metaphor: ReFantazio Review: A Bold, Brilliant Fantasy Among Atlus' Finest
Metaphor: ReFantazio is many things. It’s a celebration and an amalgamation of Atlus’ legacy of incredible JRPGs. It’s an intellectually crafted fantasy story with smart commentary on various themes. But most of all, it’s a brilliant JRPG with Atlus’ typical level of attention to detail and style that makes for an unforgettable experience. // Image: Atlus
We find ourselves in a generation of video games deficient on bravery. With game budgets ballooning to unsustainable levels, many large publishers have gotten cold feet when it comes to taking risks. Instead of taking a gamble on letting developers try entirely new ideas, it’s financially safer to lean on already established IP through sequels, spinoffs, and remakes. This has defined much of the games industry in the 2020s thus far. Of course, this isn’t to say that sequels and remakes are bad things - far from it. Games like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 have been some of my favorite games of the last five years. That said, it’s unhealthy for an industry to exclusively lean on IPs that have existed for decades and not innovate with new branches. The indie space has been the ultimate antidote for this issue, with new ideas and franchises being born out of indie developers incredibly consistently. There’s a clear interest for this aspect of the indie spirit of making brand-new ideas to overtake the industry at large. Slowly but surely, we’re starting to see that.
Games like It Takes Two and Elden Ring took home major awards earlier in the decade. These games exhibited new takes on what their respective studios had done before and saw fantastic critical and commercial results as a reward. The success these games saw is a sign that risk-taking is not only a healthy, but essential aspect of making video games. Not only do people want games that try new ideas, the entire industry benefits from the newness and innovation those fresh ideas invite. Already, we’re seeing games take inspiration from the likes of It Takes Two, such as the recently announced Stage Fright, and Elden Ring continues to inform how a lot of open-world games construct and design their worlds. The more developers are allowed to go on bold new ventures and take the risks that allow their game to find a unique identity, the more we’ll see such new games inspire future generations of developers and the experiences they craft.
The JRPG genre has been no different with regard to the stagnation of brand new IP over the 2020s. While indie darlings like Chained Echoes, Sea of Stars, and Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes have proven that new ideas and franchises are more than capable of being introduced to the world, larger studios have leaned on established IP to grow. Square Enix attempted a new IP with Forspoken, which received a mixed-to-negative response, causing them to double-down on their efforts to fall back on more popular IP. Bandai Namco put out Scarlet Nexus in 2021, which was a fantastic new take an the company’s flavor of Action RPGs, but it’s unclear if the franchise will continue in any way. Other major JRPG developers like Monolith Soft, Nihon Falcom, Intelligent Systems, Gust, and others have all opted to develop their respective franchises and allow them to grow with new entries and rereleases of previous installments.
Enter Atlus, arguably one of the most conservative publishers in the JRPG space when it comes to making new IPs. Many people have fallen in love with Atlus’ particular style of game, with the Shin Megami Tensei, Persona, and Etrian Odyssey franchises, in particular, setting Atlus apart from so much of the rest of the industry. Shin Megami Tensei brings a dark, post-apocalyptic edge to the monster-collecting JRPG subgenre, while the Persona franchise expertly blends dungeon-crawling and social simulation elements to craft an RPG experience unlike anything else on the market. Other titles like Etrian Odyssey and Radiant Historia show the company’s wide skillset with regard to making excellent dungeons and worlds to explore in games, along with having the capability to make innovative combat systems.
Atlus has delivered consistent quality across much of its portfolio, and ever since their acquisition by SEGA in 2013, their games have steadily gotten better production values and have become more visually ambitious. Still, though, a large limitation of Atlus’ output is the fact that a significant chunk of their RPG lineage derives from Megami Tensei - a series that started back in 1987. Shin Megami Tensei is a spiritual successor to Megami Tensei, and games like Persona, Soul Hackers, and Devil Survivor are all spinoffs from SMT. As much as I personally love the series, Etrian Odyssey is ostensibly a more niche series that, while completely distinct from Atlus’ SMT lineage of RPGs, doesn’t really stand as a major pillar of Atlus’ IP.
A major pillar, though…that certainly sounds intriguing. Something that can stand as a new significant representation of the types of games that Atlus makes. It’s an enticing proposition, but making a completely new IP feel distinct from all of Atlus’ other IP while still ostensibly feeling like an Atlus game is certainly going to be challenging. But it’s that newness that will benefit not only the game itself but the industry at large that is more important now than ever before. It will take a long time to put together, but if done right, it can lead to a new, exciting future for Atlus and introduce so many more people to the unique flavor of JRPGs that only Atlus can provide.
Such was Atlus’ mindset when they announced Project ReFantasy in 2016 after the Japanese release of Persona 5. This game was set to be a new type of RPG from Atlus - like nothing they had made before. The project was very mysterious to the public, with only slight rumblings over the next few years, such as in the form of some of the game’s music being in the jukebox in 2019’s Catherine: Full Body, and, bizarrely, a Hulkenberg cameo DLC in 2018’s Etrian Odyssey Nexus that used a beta design for the character. It wouldn’t be until 2023 when the game resurfaced at the Xbox Games Showcase that summer when the game was officially unveiled as Metaphor: ReFantazio. The game resembled a lot of aspects of other Atlus titles with regard to its turn-based combat and calendar systems, but the unique artstyle, music, and fantasy setting was unlike anything Atlus had ever put out before. This is new. This is exciting. This is Atlus marching head-first into uncharted territory. The game’s re-announcement was immediately captivating to all JRPG fans and quickly became one of the most highly anticipated games in the JRPG space.
Featuring much of the talent behind games like Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, Persona 3, 4, and 5 - including director Katsura Hashino -, Metaphor was absolutely being treated as the next big thing from Atlus, only causing the game to garner more anticipation. The game’s release year, 2024, proved to be a shockingly competitive year for JRPGs, but Metaphor stood out from the crowd thanks to it being completely different from anything that its developer had made before. While it was going up against games like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Ys X: Nordics, and even Atlus’ own Persona 3 Reload throughout 2024, Metaphor: ReFantazio stood out thanks to its distinct style, setting, and approach to telling a fantasy story. Beyond that, simply being a brand new IP from a company hesitant to ever produce such a thing created buzz for the game alone. What helped for the game’s buzz was its immediate praise from critics and new fans alike, making it one of the highest rated games of not only the year but of the entire 2020s thus far. Garnering Game of the Year considerations as soon as it released, Metaphor was a landmark moment for Atlus fans. Not only was this the rare of example of something brand new coming from the company, but it quickly entered contention for Atlus’ greatest game ever made in their storied history of fantastic games. Could such hype be warranted?
This is what I found myself asking as I picked up the game a few weeks after launch. The game was one I was personally anticipating quite greatly, and the huge praise surrounding the game upon its release only made me more excited to pick it up and see for myself how good the game was. With an open mind and open heart, I stepped into the world of Metaphor: ReFantazio and quickly discovered how hard it would be to ever step out of it. As I touched on in my piece on my favorite games of the year, Metaphor is more than just a fantastic JRPG on its own terms. It’s also a refinement and celebration of everything Atlus has accomplished throughout their 35+ years of incredible RPGs. Despite feeling brand new, Metaphor pays homage to nearly every major Atlus RPG in a way that makes Metaphor feel just as much of a passing of the torch as it does a peek into the exciting future of Atlus RPGs.
Simply put, Metaphor: ReFantazio is an incredible JRPG that lives up to the incredible praise and hype surrounding the game. Let’s take a look at what makes Metaphor such an incredible achievement for Atlus and why the game has me more optimistic about the future of the genre than ever before.
Like many Shin Megami Tensei and Persona games before it, Metaphor doesn’t employ industry-leading production values or graphical fidelity. That said, the game proves that such things aren’t necessary to make something beautiful - a game only needs strong art direction and style to create a visual identity unlike any other. // Image: Atlus
There’s perhaps no better place to start with an assessment of Metaphor: ReFantazio than with the game’s most striking feature: its visual identity. Atlus is no stranger to making 80+ hour RPGs, and with such long playtimes, there sometimes comes the risk of losing player interest and retention. Atlus’ genius method of sidestepping this from ever happening is simply by making games that are consistently visually captivating and just plain fun to look at. Persona 5 introduced animated character portraits that appear whenever characters speak. While character portraits displaying when characters speak is nothing new - especially for lower-budget RPGs -, the decision to add slight animation touches to Persona 5’s character portraits makes the very portraits that players are going to stare at for a significant chunk of the experience never cease to be entertaining to gaze at. Persona 5 also has animated UI elements, specifically with regard to its text boxes. Even if a cutscene is just showing characters standing around talking to each other, the animation of the character portraits and UI elements housing dialogue keeps things interesting to look at.
Metaphor takes both of these concepts and runs with them. Between animated character portraits and many moving pieces of UI elements, Metaphor is a pretty game to look at during its cutscenes, even if the cutscenes themselves often don’t do anything visually crazy. The style and art direction on display does a lot of heavy lifting for Metaphor, and it succeeds in making everything in this game consistently interesting to look at. A large aspect of Metaphor’s visual identity is that of paintbrush strokes covering each other to show highlighted options within menus. Moreover, the game employs similar paintbrush textures and heavy lines for various parts of the game’s environments. From skyboxes to the texture of sand in deserts to the look of the landscape that passes you by while on your Gauntlet Runner, Metaphor’s world is one that’s infectiously captivating to look at.
Beyond their animation, Metaphor’s portraits themselves carry a level of detail and style that once again alludes to the game’s visual theme of paintbrush strokes. Characters with distinct features such as Hulkenberg’s long hair and pointed ears as well as Junah’s vividly detailed, colorful eyes - characters just look good here, and that’s in large part to the great style that’s layered on top of already-great character designs.
Metaphor’s world, the United Kingdom of Euchronia, features nine tribes - essentially, races - of people, all having different visual traits and accompanying lifestyles. This gives Atlus’ artists liberating creative freedom with regard to being able to make diverse characters that don’t look like anything you’d see in any other RPG. While tribes like the Elda and the Roussainte are somewhat grounded takes on humans and elves, respectively, some of the game’s more inventive races like the wing-bearing Ishkia and the nomadic Mustari create a diversity in the world of Metaphor that not only makes the game’s array of characters varied and interesting, but it also creates a realistic depiction of a diverse world that invites conversations and themes on how these tribes live amongst each other. The game develops a commentary on racism and classism through the lens of the different tribes. This visual commitment to diversity within Metaphor’s makes it feels remarkably alive and believable. Even the Eugief, who would likely be the mascot race of characters for most other JRPGs (such as Nopon in Xenoblade or Moogles in Final Fantasy), serve as both a visually distinct type of character from the rest of the world, while still being treated with same seriousness as any other tribe in the game.
In addition to character diversity, Metaphor also depicts a believable diverse world that, despite being quite large in size, never feels overwhelming to explore. Part of this is due to the game’s structure, which uses the Gauntlet Runner to travel long distances between major dungeons and towns, making the player only get to engage with segmented parts of the game’s world. Through not having to commit to having the player see every corner of this massive kingdom, Atlus has allowed themselves to show players the essential highlights of this game’s world, making for players to witness a diverse variety of locations. From the starting city of Grand Trad showing an overwhelmingly large cityscape filled with bustling markets and depressing slums alike to the palpably salt-scented air of Port Brilehaven to the tropical Virga Island to the snowy Altabury Heights showing a mysterious monolith floating above a theater, Metaphor’s world is full of visual variety. The consistent diversity and newness in the way Metaphor presents its world to its players keeps things visually interesting while never being particularly overwhelming.
Perhaps more importantly than anything, Metaphor: ReFantazio looks unlike anything Atlus has put out before, despite taking some visual cues from Persona and Shin Megami Tensei’s UI and even some greater visual elements from Etrian Odyssey (more on that later). The world of the United Kingdom of Euchronia balances a mix of grunginess in its populated cities while having a beautiful tranquility in its smaller settings. Throughout the journey, players will come across smaller villages and scenic locations that are depicted through menus in front of very pretty PNGs, but the imagination on display in these more solitary sides of the game’s world gives a believable variety and refined hope that true beauty unfettered by the industrialism of places like Grand Trad still exist. A recurring event throughout the game involves taking pictures of these scenic vistas and showing them to a character named Maria, who consistently becomes starry-eyed whenever looking at these corners of the world beyond the hyper-industrial, color-muted walls she’s surrounded by. This event throughout the game creates consistent hope that the beauty of Metaphor’s world is far from gone. Getting to see many of these locations for ourselves on the massive adventure our characters go on paints a refreshingly optimistic narrative about how seeing more parts of the world informs how much Metaphor’s world deserves to be saved, preserved, and protected from the darker presences within the game’s narrative.
Metaphor: ReFantazio employs a hybrid system of combat. While primarily featuring turn-based combat, Metaphor allows players to weaken and sometimes outright defeat enemies by attacking them in the field akin to Action RPG combat. // Image: Atlus
With all this said, what do you actually do in Metaphor?
As a JRPG, Metaphor doesn’t entirely reinvent the wheel. In this JRPG, you often do traditional JRPG fare - you’ll stock up on supplies and equipment in town to prepare yourself for your trips through the game’s massive dungeons where you’ll fight enemies, acquire experience points, and conquer challenging boss fights. The very core of Metaphor: ReFantazio stays true to roots of the genre established back in the ‘80s with titles like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, but, of course, what makes Metaphor so remarkable is how it takes these tried-and-true aspects of the genre and presents them through the structure and challenge akin to Atlus’ other franchises. Like with Persona, Metaphor implements a calendar system that sees players decide what characters will do each in-game day. Within this calendar system, each dungeon throughout each portion of the game will have a hard deadline contextualized by circumstances of the main narrative. This is particularly evocative of Persona 5, in that the player is constantly given a countdown of how many days that have left until the major story-related deadline in the corner of the screen. Whether you’re spending time talking to NPCs in town or making your way through the game’s plentiful dungeons, the deadlines imposed on the player are always visible, making the player always have to consider how they’ll spend their days to accomplish all that they want and need to do before deadlines rear their head.
Also akin to the Persona series is the very decision-making of how to spend such days. Like in the Hashino-directed Persona games, players can pass time in more ways than just exploring a dungeon. One way they can spend their time is engaging in activities to raise the protagonist’s Royal Virtues. Through raising the protagonist’s Courage, Wisdom, Tolerance, Eloquence, and Imagination, the player will be given access to more opportunities to engage with NPCs in what is perhaps the most crucial way to spend time in Metaphor: bonding with your Followers. Much like the Social Links and Confidants of the Persona series, Metaphor’s Follower Bonds depict more intimate storylines that feature the game’s protagonists developing relationships with other characters. Some of these Followers are fellow party members that fight alongside you in combat, others play more supportive roles that represent the different aspects of the protagonist’s quest to become king of the land. The structure of the Follower side-stories are very similar to Persona 5’s particular implementation of its Confidant system. Like in Persona 5, each of Metaphor’s Followers invite the player to engage with a smaller-scale narrative that explores each major character in Metaphor’s excellent cast of characters.
The main story introduces Strohl as an honorable noble whose hometown was burned down because of Louis, the game’s antagonist. While we get to see a portion of this side of Strohl’s character in the context of the main narrative, Strohl’s Follower storyline allows the player to learn more about Strohl’s particular relationship with his parents, the people of his village, and coming to terms with what to do in the wake of such devastation. These additional stories explored in each Follower storyline aren’t particularly complex or demanding, but they do a great job at adding layers to characters and deepens the believable relationships between the protagonist and each of the characters he comes across. Because all of these smaller stories are told in smaller sections that run concurrently to the main narrative, the instances of Metaphor’s narrative that focuses on character development never come at the cost of pacing in the main story. The player will only get to see as much or as little of the Follower system’s stories as they desire.
That said, players looking for an ideal gameplay experience will want to complete as many Follower storylines as possible so that they reap the plentiful and meaningful rewards that each Follower Bond gives the player. Borrowing another feature from Persona 5’s Confidants, advancing ranks in Metaphor’s Followers will give benefits to the player. For Follower stories for fellow party members, this may result in benefits that allow party members to gain just as much experience regardless if they participate in a battle, getting to switch active party members during battle, or getting increased quantities of experience points after battles. Some rewards are better than others, but the amount of meaningful rewards and the rate at which the player can receive them through consistently engaging with the Follower system is overall well worth the player’s effort, commitment, and time management. It may be irritating to enjoy the story and rewards for a Follower Bond and wanting to see what happens next, only to be hit a Royal Virtue requirement to progress a Follower system. However, putting the time and dedication towards raising your Royal Virtues to progress your Follower Bonds is expertly incentivized given the plethora and quality of rewards from Follower Bonds, even from very early on in the game. Simply put, Followers make for both satisfying narrative and gameplay payoffs that make it feel like a highlight of the overall Metaphor experience. Moreover, the Follower system synergizes with other aspects of the game greatly, as it gives the player access to more Archetypes, which, in turn, opens up far more gameplay opportunities in the combat side of the game.
As great as the Follower system is, though, there are some slight flaws with it. One of Atlus’ most recent releases preceding Metaphor: ReFantazio was Persona 3 Reload, a fantastic remake of the beloved PS2 game. As I outlined in my review of the game, one of Reload’s greatest aspects was the incredible production value of the game seen in the fact that most of the game’s sequences were fully voice acted, including the game’s Social Links. The original Persona 3 did not have voice-acted Social Links at all, which meant that Reload’s depiction of the same stories benefitted from having new life breathed into them. This was a step up from Persona 5, which featured voice acting for the first and final ranks of each Confidant, but otherwise featured no voice acting. Metaphor mirrors Persona 5’s implementation of voice acting, in that only the first and final ranks of each Follower storyline features any voice acting. Coming off of Reload, this feels like an unfortunate step back . While the lack of voice acting isn’t too much of a loss for Followers that are party members, given that we get to hear these characters talk a lot during the rest of the game, it is a shame that some of the minor Followers like Brigitta and Alonzo don’t get to audibly express themselves that much throughout the game.
All told, this isn’t a major issue, but it does tie into one of Metaphor’s larger issues: the sheer inconsistency of voice acting. There are many sequences even in the main story where there will be long strings of cutscenes where characters are fully voice acted, only to later have events in between cutscenes where there aren’t any cutscenes. It leads to some jarring sequences, and I admittedly found myself scratching my head over when a non-voice acted sequence was sandwiched by two voice-acted sequences, all of which were important to the main story. It’s a complaint that’s minor, but given how much Reload spoiled players with its wealth of production value improvements, this inconsistency does make Metaphor feel like a minor step behind Reload in some instances.
Metaphor: ReFantazio is a refinement of the Press Turn system first seen in 2003’s Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. There’s a reason why this 22-year-old combat system is still being used - it leaves so much room for impeccable strategy and never gets tiresome in the game’s 90+ hour runtime. // Image: Atlus
Ultimately, though, the game’s schedule system, the implementation of Follower Bonds and the benefits they provide, and the equipment and resources available in towns are all to service the primary gameplay of Metaphor: ReFantazio: engaging in explosive combat in the game’s numerous dungeons. And indeed, this is where Metaphor feels its most polished and refined. From an initial glance at the UI, Metaphor’s battles seem to mirror Persona 5’s combat system thanks to the use of different face buttons leading to different actions. Even the actions themselves are akin to Persona 5’s options, with prompts to perform basic attacks, defend, yield your turn, or summon your Archetype to perform various offensive, defensive, and supportive skills at the cost of either HP (Health Points) or MP (Magic Points). However, Metaphor’s combat shares more in common with Shin Megami Tensei’s lineage of battle mechanics thanks to Metaphor’s implementation of the beloved Press Turn system that was introduced in 2003 with Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. The battle system has since appeared in other titles like Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2, Shin Megami Tensei IV, and Shin Megami Tensei V. There’s a reason why this mechanic has been implemented in so many of Atlus’ games over the last twenty years: it leads to consistently exhilarating, fun, and often intense battles.
In the Hashino-directed Persona titles, the primary means of seeing success in battles is through exploiting enemy weaknesses to get “1 More!” opportunities, where the player is given an additional action, where they can either pass their turn to another party member, or continue to exploit the weaknesses of other enemies. The Press Turn system functions a bit differently. At the beginning of a player’s turn, the player will see crystals appear on screen, the amount of which corresponds to how many party members are actively fighting in the party. Each crystal represents a turn, meaning that, with a maximum of four active party members, the player will have four crystals and thus four actions to perform per turn. However, each crystal will only be half-expended when either landing a critical hit or when exploiting an enemy’s weakness to either different types of physical attacks or different elements of magical attacks. Through optimally punishing enemy weaknesses, players can turn four actions per turn into eight actions per turn. Of course, what makes the Press Turn system so engaging is how enemies can also take advantage of the same system, meaning that enemies gain more actions per turn when exploiting party members’ weaknesses. This forces players think more critically about what Archetypes they choose to assign, as each Archetypes carries with it different resistances and weaknesses. On higher difficulties, enemies will exploit weaknesses whenever possible, and if they maximize their number of actions per turn, battles can quickly go south.
On top of that, the Press Turn system necessitates paying attention and not being reckless when using skills against enemies. Using an ice spell on an enemy that absorbs ice attacks will drain the player of all their crystals and immediately end their turn - of course, this can also be weaponized against enemies to minimize their actions against the party. This is a deep system that has undergone so much revision over the years. This already fantastic system is arguably at its very best in Metaphor thanks to the wide variety of character build opportunities and the myriad types of enemies that players will come across throughout their journey. The Press Turn system consistently keeps players on their toes and necessitates strategically configuring party compositions not dissimilar to how the Press Turn system forced players to think of different Demons to make up their party in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne over twenty years ago.
Metaphor’s unique spice in its particular implementation of the Press Turn system comes in the form of the Synthesis mechanic, which borrows a concept popularized by Chrono Trigger’s Double Techs and Triple Techs. Depending on particular Archetype combinations present in the party, two or more characters can combine their skills to perform an even more powerful attack at the cost of larger HP/MP costs and multiple crystals to be consumed, effectively taking up multiple actions to perform. Two Mages with access to the Bot spell, the game’s basic fire spell, can Synthesize with each other to either perform a version of the spell the hits all enemies, or a stronger version of Bot against a single enemy. If the Synthesis skill exploits an enemy weakness, then the numerous crystals used for the skill will still only be half-used, making Synthesis skills consistently viable despite their increased risk and reward. Synthesis skills start off relatively basic like this, but as the player gets access to more abilities and Archetypes, Synthesis options become more complex and provide some of the most devastating damage output in the game.
There’s a lot to enjoy with Metaphor’s combat system, and thankfully, the game features some incredible fights that take great advantage of the capabilities of the Press Turn system. Whether it’s some of the game’s numerous challenging boss fights or the plethora of battles offered in the game’s optional dungeons, the player is sure to engage in a lot of consistently challenging yet rewarding battles. While Persona 5 and Persona 3 Reload were notably a step down from Atlus’ typical offerings of challenge, I’m happy to confirm that Metaphor offers a great challenge for players that are looking for more arduous battles. On higher difficulties, enemies have more crystals and hence more actions per turn, making the player consistently feel as if they’re on the back foot, making victory feel so much sweeter. That said, there’s also a story-focused difficulty that ensures the game is accessible for those that simply want to enjoy the story. Moreover, players can switch between multiple difficulties at any point to increase or decrease the game’s challenge to their liking. Another accessibility feature I’m happy to see is the generous retry system. At any point in a battle, players can press L3/LS to reset the battle to the beginning if they see the writing on the wall. Even upon losing a battle, the game allows players to immediately retry the fight in the case of boss battles, or sets the player back to a nearby checkpoint in instances of regular encounters. Despite Metaphor not shying away from being a consistent challenge, losing a battle only ever results in a minimal time loss - we’re thankfully past the era of older SMT and Persona titles being stingy with save points and causing players to lose hours of progress.
The last aspect of Metaphor’s combat worth talking about is, funnily enough, about how the game reduces the amount of battles the player engages in. Metaphor employs basic action combat that can be used when exploring dungeons that allows the party to attack enemies in real-time. For stronger or evenly-matched enemies, this simply allows the player to reduce some of the enemy’s HP before the proper fight begins. For weaker enemies, players can outright defeat enemies in these real-time combat instances, making the player able to quickly garner experience points and money. This is something that’s been done in JRPGs before - EarthBound is one of the earliest examples I can think of off the top of my head that immediately kills weaker enemies when the party walks into them -, but the implementation here still makes defeating weaker enemies an engaging experience. Moreover, this makes grinding for experience points and money in Metaphor to go by refreshingly quickly.
Archetypes effectively serve as Metaphor’s class system, with more Archetypes becoming accessible through bonding with the protagonist’s Followers. Acquiring skills and inheriting skills from other Archetypes is essential to making a build that can cover various combat situations, exploit multiple enemy weaknesses, and minimize potential openings for enemies to exploit. // Image: Atlus
This makes the process of exploring dungeons feel far more dynamic than if players just had to walk into enemies to trigger regular encounters. The implementation of action combat is decisively simple, but it injects some much-needed diversity into dungeon exploration. While basic real-time combat does make dungeons a bit more fun to explore, it isn’t enough to fully distract from the fact that dungeons are, by far, Metaphor: ReFantazio’s weakest aspect. Especially coming off of games like Persona 5 and Shin Megami Tensei V, it’s disappointing to see Metaphor’s basic, unimpressive dungeon design. Atlus has made some remarkable progress with regard to making more involved dungeons that feature fun set pieces, unique mechanics, and inspired navigational challenges. By comparison, Metaphor’s dungeons rarely engage the player in meaningful ways. Aside from occasionally pulling switches to open previously blocked off passageways or following a trails on the ceiling, Metaphor doesn’t do anything with its dungeons that will make you remember them, which is a severe shame considering how much dungeon-crawling players will be doing throughout the game’s runtime. Thankfully, dungeons aren’t outright poorly designed and never waste the player’s time, but they’re underwhelmingly plain.
It often feels as though Atlus is aware of this, however, as Metaphor injects a lot of diversity in what players will be doing throughout the main story. In the game’s first major scenario that leads to the first major boss fight, players trek through the Regalith Grand Cathedral, serving as the game’s first major dungeon. This sets a false expectation that every major deadline will be accompanied by a boss fight that awaits at the end of a dungeon. After all, why wouldn’t players expect this to be the structure throughout the game? Persona 5’s structure was built around navigating Palaces for each of the game’s antagonists associated with each deadline in the game. However, instances such as Louis’ soiree in Brilehaven and the Montario Opera House offer sequences where the player moves towards major boss fights and moments in the game’s story, however, in place of a dungeon, players navigate through alternative scenarios that task the player with stealth-like sequences.
This adds some nice diversity to the game’s main scenario, but doesn’t entirely erase the presence of lackluster dungeon design. In instances of the game where there aren’t dungeons to go through with the main story, the player will have access to various side quests that will task them with spelunking through caves, towers, forests, and tombs. Each of the game’s optional dungeons are relatively interchangeable, rarely offering mechanics or sequences that make them stick out from one another. Again, these optional dungeons aren’t inherently bad, but they leave much to be desired. There is one major exception to Metaphor’s overall lack of inspired dungeon design, but we’ll talk about that more in an upcoming spoiler section.
Metaphor is at its best, gameplay-wise, when it is inviting players to think critically about how to intelligently construct their party configurations to maximize turn efficiency and minimize enemies’ ability to optimize their turns. The secret sauce that Metaphor uses to get players in this mindset is the game’s masterful Archetype system. On the surface, Archetypes are yet another instance of a class system that thousands of RPGs have used throughout the genre’s history. Some Archetypes specialize in physical Slash attacks while other Archetypes offer healing options and others may offer defensive options with buff and debuff skills. Each Archetype also gradually learns more skills by ranking up with Archetype experience points, or A-EXP. While character levels raise HP and MP thresholds along with base stats, levelling up Archetypes will teach new abilities and increase the extent to which Archetypes influence a character’s base stats. Perhaps more importantly than learning more skills to be used for the Archetype, though, new skills on Archetypes means that those learned skills are now able to be inherited onto other Archetypes.
For example, the Mage Archetype gets access to fire, ice, and lightning skills, all of which can be used to exploit enemy weaknesses. Assigning an ice skill to a Brawler, an Archetype that typically only has access to physical Strike skills, means that the party member using that Brawler Archetype can now exploit enemies with Strike weaknesses as well as ones with ice weaknesses. This, in turn, makes it much easier to efficiently maximize the amount of actions per turn, allowing for additional actions such as buffs and debuffs that give an additional edge to players during combat. As the player advances their Follower Bonds, they’ll be able to unlock more facets of their Archetypes, ranging from being able to inherit even more skills to unlocking access to new Archetypes altogether.
More advanced classes come with requisites, often requiring characters to have reached max rank with other classes before undertaking that class’ successor featuring more powerful skills. The more time that the player puts in to developing their Archetypes and Follower Bonds, the more options that will be available to them in combat, making for a system that feels as smartly interconnected as it is satisfying to optimize and master. Whenever I struggled with a particular fight, I found myself rearranging my Archetypes for my characters and reconsidering what my Inherited Skills for each character should be. In each of these instances, when I critically considered my party composition for the fight ahead, I ended up seeing much more success on a tough fight’s second or third go-around. The Archetype system is remarkably flexible, ensuring that every player will have a combination of character builds entirely unique to their playstyle and decision-making, which makes for an overall gameplay experience that feels both personal and meaningfully tactical. With the consistent challenge that Metaphor often presents, smart use of Archetypes is essential.
Thankfully, the game does a great job at gradually giving players access to more options as they get onboarded to the game without ever overwhelming them. The rate at which players get new Archetypes, gain A-EXP, and learn new skills that can be inherited onto other Archetypes feels balanced to perfection. Players never have to wait too long to gain access to new possible strategies to employ in battle, while also never having to worry about getting paralyzed by a wealth of new options appearing too closely to each other. Through the flexibility and diversity of options made available to players, Metaphor ultimately delivers what is one of the most consistently satisfying and deep combat systems ever crafted. Even by the game’s final dungeon, over 90 hours into the experience, I still found myself devising brand new strategies and approaches to besting some of the game’s most powerful enemies - a mark of a masterfully constructed battle system.
Metaphor: Refantazio’s narrative embodies so much of what people love about JRPG storytelling. Metaphor depicts a world wrought with tragedy, discrimination, and hardship, yet the palpable idealism combatting the wrongs of the world represented by the game’s party that represents each of the world’s tribes inspires hope, even in the face of daunting stakes. // Image: Atlus
Many of the Archetypes are representative of a major recurring pattern in Metaphor: Refantazio: callbacks to other Atlus franchises. Most of these are cute nods for the Atlus faithful - things like Archetypes being called “Soul Hacker”, “Persona Master”, and “Devil Summoner” doubtlessly bring a smile to any longtime Atlus fan. Other references include DLC costumes that reference past games, complete with changing the battle music to the soundtrack of whatever game is being referenced by the costumes. However, one reference goes above all other instances of innocent callbacks, possibly even reframing the entire context in which the game takes place. Not only did this reference lead to arguably the most memorable sequence of the entire game for me, but it cemented in me that, in addition to being a fantastic JRPG in its own right, Metaphor is ultimately a love letter to Atlus’ history and legacy.
NOTE: The following section contains story and gameplay spoilers for Metaphor: ReFantazio. Please proceed to the next section to avoid possible spoilers.
When navigating through the Dragon Temple dungeon in the Virga Island region, players are convinced that this is yet another typical venture through one of Metaphor’s dungeons. The Dragon Temple has an ancient aesthetic along with a unique mechanic of having to follow a path along the ceiling to navigate through a sea of fog that teleports the party backs to the entrance. So far, this isn’t anything too special - RPGs feature dungeons where players need to follow a certain path all the time. After getting through this section, though, the player descends deeper into the temple until they enter a foliage-infested building that looks like a modern building in the real world. As the party looks out a window, they see a devastated remnant of a city that suffered some sort of cataclysm. Eupha describes to the party that this place is known as “Drakongrace Shinjuku”, and that it’s a “lost city”. On one hand, this foreshadows a reveal later on in Metaphor’s narrative that confirms that the world of Metaphor is, in truth, the distant future of the real world we inhabit. On the other, though, the music playing in the background while Eupha describes the setting to the party is unmistakable: this is Etrian Odyssey.
As if the party navigating this dungeon to defeat a dragon named “Eht” wasn’t enough of a clue, this portion of Metaphor: ReFantazio is doubtlessly a giant Etrian Odyssey reference. From the music of this area being an arrangement of Etrian Odyssey’s track, “The Fallen Capital of Shinjuku”, a song that plays in the first game’s fifth and final stratum, to the dungeon design being an exact recreation of the same dungeon from Etrian Odyssey, this section of Metaphor recreates a significant portion of the first entry of Atlus’ oft-forgotten dungeon-crawler franchise. Funnily enough, recreating one of Etrian Odyssey’s dungeons in turn causes this dungeon to be one of the best dungeons of Metaphor, though the labyrinthine design appears more rigid compared to the rest of Metaphor’s dungeons. That said, that possibly plays well into the fact that this dungeon is representative of a bygone era that is foreign to the rest of the world Metaphor takes place in.
I feel the need to mention this particular sequence because of how much it genuinely took me aback when I reached it. There’s no other sequence quite like it in Metaphor, and the fact that Atlus was willing to reference such a niche franchise of theirs so boldly confirms their attitude towards Metaphor in general. Metaphor owes its existence to the strides that Atlus have made over their entire history. Through the innovations of the Press Turn system, their particular style of monster collecting in Shin Megami Tensei titles, and the social simulation elements in their Persona titles, Atlus have left their mark on games history, and Metaphor feels like both an inheritor and homage to the great legacy that Atlus has built.
NOTE: This concludes the spoiler section of this review.
As much as Metaphor ostensibly honors the history of Atlus and offers great RPG systems throughout its runtime, much of doing so would be for naught if Metaphor wasn’t able to deliver a world and story worth getting lost in. Thankfully, Metaphor brings forth one of the most engaging stories in recent memory and feels distinct from any other type of story that Atlus has attempted before.
In a genre where villains often don’t reveal themselves until a good portion into the story, Metaphor breaks typical JRPG molds by quickly establishing Louis as the game’s primary antagonist in a cutscene that plays before the player even begins a new game. In a detailed scene that plays before the title screen, we see the charismatic Louis Guiabern kill the king of the United Kingdom of Euchronia, an action that propels the kingdom into an era of chaos. Unlike almost every JRPG under the sun, there is no secret greater force behind the scenes. Louis isn’t a puppet of some greater threat. Indeed, Metaphor shows its hand immediately by revealing a charismatic antagonist that just about any player will love to hate. He seeks to create a world where only the strong are allowed to exist. Shortly after it’s revealed that the king has been assassinated to the public, the deceased king triggers the Royal Magic, which takes the form of a forced competition where the most popular candidate among the country will become the next king of the realm.
The game’s protagonist, canonically named Will, is an Elda - that most ostracized member of a deeply divided population - that enters the competition for the sake of getting closer to Louis and create an opportunity where he can defeat Louis and thus prevent his likely ascension to the throne. To combat Louis, Will is accompanied by allies that increase in number as he quests around the continent in search of gaining notoriety that will allow him to climb the ranks for the contest of kings. From the supportive yet sassy Gallica to the heroic and humble Strohl - from the dutiful Hulkenberg to the tragically resilient Heismay, Metaphor’s eclectic cast of characters is among its best traits. The core cast of Metaphor is an inherently diverse one, showing the productive potential of unity in a world devoid of such a thing. Moreover, the game’s decisive focus on Louis as an antagonist ensures that each of the game’s party members have a relationship with Louis and a motive for why they want to prevent his ascension to kinghood. Metaphor’s core narrative is a deceptively simple one, but it works so well because of the characters and their disdain for Louis’ warped philosophy.
The bulk of Metaphor’s narrative revolves around traveling around the United Kingdom of Euchronia in search of ways to outsmart Louis and corner him, but given Louis’ sharpness, it’s often hard to predict how any plan that the party conducts will truly work out. This makes for deeply entertaining and genuinely unpredictable set pieces throughout the game’s story, making for consistently great moments. In instances between these larger set pieces lie quieter exchanges between the party, aided by the Follower Bonds, that help develop the diverse cast of Metaphor, revealing a collection of characters that undergo believable conflicts that make each party member incredibly likable. My personal favorite character, Eupha, is a woman that has always anticipated having to be sacrificed for the sake of her tribe. When Will and co. prevent her sacrifice and share their ideal vision for the future of the kingdom, she begins to look at her life and the world at large in a different light, and finds joy in learning more about the world she grew up being closed off from. It leads to fun and even deeply touching character moments that offer a good mix of brevity and profoundness.
That very mix helps paint Metaphor’s overall tone. Despite depicting a fantasy world torn apart by classism and racism, there’s a palpable idealism instilled by the presence of Will and the party that brings a shining light of hope for a seemingly downtrodden world. Along their journey, Will and the party meet more people and become exposed to different parts of the world and alternative ways of life. This exposure gives Will more of a reason to genuinely want to become king and resolve as many of the troubles that the party observes throughout the story. There’s an optimistic lens of leadership that Will and the party begin to adopt throughout the story that seeks to genuinely make the world a better place for all of its citizens. Devoid of cynic realism, Metaphor uses its fantasy setting to craft a story about characters that want to acquire the power to improve the lives of their subjects. Even when he’s the recipient of consistent racism and exclusion throughout the story, Will never falters in his desire to create a future where such things don’t happen to anyone. The tone here is an infectiously positive one and only fuels the player to side more and more against Louis, someone that just wants to double down in making the world more divided.
On top of crafting a compelling narrative in its own right, Metaphor also contains a compelling meta narrative that discusses the value of fantasy in relation to the real conflict that we see in our day-to-day lives. How valuable is any piece of fiction? What meaning is there in engaging with make-believe stories when there are very-real atrocities happening in our world that we can do something about? This is something that Metaphor consistently asks its players. While a broader conversation may be more appropriate for a separate article analyzing this game’s story, I will say that my personal answer to Metaphor’s questions call back to that very tone that I adore so much in this game. It would be very easy for Metaphor to depict an awful world where things never seem to get better. Atlus could have easily crafted a story in a dark fantasy world where we don’t see the hopeless, cynical aspects of the world ever improve. But instead, Atlus chose to tell an ultimately hopeful story about rebelling against the injustices of the world. Metaphor is ultimately a tale about the power of trust, companionship, and holding true to one’s ideals. There’s genuine value in seeing this power become recognized and gradually attained by its characters - such a thing inspires the possibility of doing just the same thing in the real world. Just as Will, Strohl, Hulkenberg, and the rest of the gang can unite the world through holding true to their shared convictions, we, the people inhabiting this world, can unite and make the world a better place in the ways that we can. For some, that may be on an incredibly small scale, and for others, that value and conviction may impact a far larger group of people. But it’s that possibility, that hope that makes Metaphor and the fantasy it presents a meaningful one.
Saving the world through the power of friendship is often mocked as being a tired JRPG trope, but I think there’s a reason why such a trope exists in the first place. I think there’s genuine value in engaging with stories that prioritize the meaning behind the bonds we forge with others. Metaphor: ReFantazio delivers as good of a narrative as it does because it connects characters together through believable scenarios that ultimately see them unite with each other in spite of their differences in pursuit of a common goal - a common vision of the future. By the time I reached the final battle and needed to truly fight for the party’s convictions, I found myself right next to the very characters I had spent over 90 hours with, having developed just as deep a connection with them as they had forged with each other. The friendships that are forged in Metaphor only reinforce the idealistic vision for a future that benefits everyone. Because of that, I think Metaphor is a genuinely better game for its focus on the companionship between its incredible characters.
Atlus’ industry-leading user interface is constantly in full swing in Metaphor: ReFantazio. Menus are flashy yet functional and constantly provide eye candy at all times throughout the game’s runtime. Simple actions like changing a character’s equipment never cease to demand the eye’s attention. // Image: Atlus
The writing present in Metaphor: ReFantazio is consistently well-thought-out and well-paced. Thanks to a great blend of philosophy, drama, humor, bombast, and quietude, Metaphor offers a wide variety of moments that keep the narrative experience perpetually compelling but never exhausting. The game’s willing to have fun moments in its writing at just the right pace. A lot of this is the result of the fantastic localization courtesy of Atlus West. The British accents across the English dub and the occasional fanciful flavor to the game’s copy makes for a great presentation of the game in English. I touched on voice acting earlier with regard to its occasional inconsistency in the scenes that it appears in, but when voice acting is present, it’s incredibly well-performed. Beyond the many events and cutscenes that players will watch and read throughout the game, one of my favorite aspects of Metaphor: ReFantazio is its implementation of presenting lore.
Perhaps having taken notes from Final Fantasy XVI’s innovative “Active Time Lore” system, Metaphor’s “Memorandum” menu is almost always available, either during cutscenes or from the main menu. This menu compiles detailed blurbs about all aspects of the game’s world. Whether recaps of certain plot revelations to outlines of the history of the in-game world, to descriptions of the different tribes that inhabit the United Kingdom of Euchronia, the writing on display in the Memorandum is particularly enticing and well-detailed. I’m a sucker for lore that provides additional insights into the world, and Metaphor’s implementation of its lore makes all information constantly accessible and interesting to keep up to date with. The Memorandum is updated as the player makes progress through the game, with relevant pieces of lore becoming available in the menu once the player learns of the associated information during the narrative. The story material contained within helps flesh out the expansive world that Atlus has created and ultimately makes for an immersive storytelling experience that I think any fan of story-driven games will greatly enjoy.
The only additional aspect of Metaphor’s narrative that begets discussion is the inclusion of side quests throughout the game. If there’s any particular aspect of Metaphor that doesn’t feel like a step forward in any way, it’s the side content that players can engage in. Most side quests revolve around having to defeat monsters or recover items in optional dungeons scattered throughout the land. Given Metaphor’s set up, it takes one or multiple days for the party’s Gauntlet Runner to travel from a town to one of these optional dungeons. Since most deadlines throughout the game’s narrative give a couple weeks of wiggle room, side quests and the optional dungeons that many of them involve mostly exist to give the player something to do to justify spending multiple days in the game’s calendar traveling.
That said, the quests themselves are fine. The lack of inventive dungeon design makes traveling to optional dungeons feel like an unexciting venture, but the saving grace is that many quests involve quite challenging fights that ultimately make for some of the most strategic efforts in the game. Of course, there are also many other quests that don’t involve optional dungeons and merely ask the player to retrieve items from smaller villages or talk to a string of NPCs. The rewards for these quests are often generous and worth the effort, but they’re certainly a weak link in the game’s overall structure and pacing.
Side quests are at their very best when they’re intertwined with the Follower Bonds. Indeed, some instances of Follower Bonds will be locked behind completing a side quest that involves more agency from the player towards the storyline being exploring in the Follower Bond storyline. There aren’t too many of these, but they quickly make themselves known as the best quests that Metaphor has to offer. Not only do these quests have more gameplay stakes since Follower Bond rewards are so beneficial to the player, but the quests themselves have more of narrative weight for the player to hold onto. Ideally, I would have loved to see these types of quests be the norm for Metaphor. As is, quests are menial if harmless busywork at their worst and contribute to some of Metaphor’s most strategy-inducing gameplay moments at best. If Metaphor is to see more installments in the future, quests are one area that I’d love to see be significantly reworked and innovated upon.
What Atlus has innovated upon with Metaphor is the incredibly distinct music on display throughout Metaphor. Longtime Atlus composer Shoji Meguro returns with a soundtrack that sounds distinct yet familiar. Many of the game’s battle tracks feature Esperanto chanting from a Buddhist monk mixed with a typical orchestra and choir, making for tracks that feel uniquely entrancing and exciting. Many of the game’s battle tracks feel oddly reminiscent of Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey’s soundtrack, another of Meguro’s works that utilized foreboding vocals that convey a distinct atmosphere. Outside of battle, Metaphor’s music gets the job done in conveying its fantasy setting but doesn’t stick out nearly as much as many other SMT, Persona, or Etrian Odyssey’s soundtracks. Many of the tracks that play in cutscenes and in towns oddly remind me of tracks used in modern Fire Emblem titles thanks to the use of flutes, strings, and light percussion. Overall, Metaphor’s soundscape perhaps doesn’t impress as much as other Atlus titles, but it goes for something that, while borrowing certain elements from games like Strange Journey, sounds unlike much of what Atlus has put out before.
Metaphor: ReFantazio is a special game. It’s a type of game that inspires newfound hope in the future of JRPGs. In an era where it’s easy to become cynical over the abundance of sequels, remakes, and iterations of established IP, it may be tempting to see Metaphor’s cues from other Atlus franchises as a disappointing shackle that prevents the game from having its entirely own identity. However, I think such a reading of Metaphor betrays what makes the game work so well in the first place. Perhaps more than any other medium, video games thrive off of iteration and improvement. Developers learn lessons from their games and apply those lessons to the next game they create. Metaphor is the ultimate fruit of that mantra - it builds upon everything that Atlus’ developers have learned over decades across the Shin Megami Tensei, Persona, and Etrian Odyssey lineages to create something that honors the very legacy and foundation it was built upon while also providing a gameplay experience that holds its own.
The game represents some of the very best storytelling and worldbuilding that Atlus has ever crafted, and the Archetypes make way for a deeply tactical battle system that’s as fun to command as it is satisfying to master. More than anything, Metaphor: ReFantazio is a bold reminder of how far sheer creativity can carry a game. From the game’s premise to the way characters travel around the world to the game’s incredibly deep combat system, Metaphor exudes a creative spirit that shines a bright light across the entire experience. Metaphor is a game that begets critical thinking about things such as its narrative themes, the philosophies it posits to players, and the opportunities presented within its layered combat system. That requirement of critical thinking is a large aspect of why I love RPGs in the first place, and Metaphor’s intelligent construction, above all, plays a large role in making the game so interesting to think about, talk about, and play.
I’ve thought a lot about Metaphor: ReFantazio both during my playtime and in the month since I’ve rolled credits on it. Earnestly, I can’t imagine any player walking away from this game and not having it occupy their minds as they go about their everyday life. Metaphor is ostensibly the type of game that sticks with players thanks to its creative, bold spin on its RPG systems. Metaphor leaves an imprint on players in a way that most games wish they could - and such a mark left on players is a testament to the immense payoff that was the risk of Atlus’ venture in creating this game. Metaphor: ReFantazio was an experiment for Atlus to create something familiar yet foreign to its longtime fans. It was an experiment to bring a new wave of players and usher in a new generation of JRPGs - one where creative, intelligent exploration of narrative and gameplay rule above all else.
To that end, Metaphor is an experiment and risk that succeeded with flying colors. While the game stumbles a tad with its unimpressive dungeon and quest design, the incredible narrative, worldbuilding, characters, and gameplay opportunities make for an unforgettable RPG experience that any fan of the genre, new or old, needs to experience. If a metaphor is something symbolic of something else, then let it be known that Metaphor lives up to its namesake by being representative of the very philosophy of its protagonist. Metaphor is a bold, idealistic vision of what the future of RPGs can be. And truthfully, it’s nearly impossible to not fall in love with the experience this game brings and proudly stand under its banner.
Final Grade: A
Thank you very much for reading! What are your thoughts on Metaphor: ReFantazio? How do you think it compares to Atlus’ other releases? And do you think it’s promising look at the future of JRPGs? As always, join the conversation and let me know what you think either in the comments or on Bluesky @DerekExMachina.com.
