Metaphor: ReFantazio Review – Gamers Heroes

I spent over 70 hours playing Metaphor: ReFantazio.

Even a week after I finished the story, I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about it. There are moments I loved, story memories I will cherish, but I don’t think I’ve ever sworn at my TV as much as I did playing this game.

Metaphor: ReFantazio Review

Metaphor: ReFantazio is a heavily narrative-driven RPG experience with traditionally bizarre JRPG pacing that is as exhausting as it is impressive.

You could spend several hours in many of the dungeons if you go in unprepared, slogging through enemy after enemy as your supplies and patience slowly dwindles. Exploring repetitive dungeon design one nearly identical corridor after another is tiring, and thrilling?

It’s that constant desire, the relentless urge to get this bit done and move on to the next. Sure, the end of a three-hour dungeon run sucked, but after 45 minutes of cutscenes and dialogue, the beginning was bliss.

It’s a strange combination of highs and lows, one many JRPG players will be familiar with, but it’s ultimately what will decide whether this is a game for you.

Metaphor: ReFantazio is a marathon and not a sprint. The story builds slowly but the pay-off is pure Persona. It’s an incredible adventure, one filled with surprisingly deep companions, and a twisting and intriguing political narrative. A reflection on what our society has become, and what it could be.

I don’t think it’s going to make any great strides in introducing the JRPG style to those yet to brave the waters, but for the fans, it’s everything it needs to be.

Rarely is my first thought in approaching a new game the visual style. It’s important, a defining feature for many of today’s biggest releases, but nobody does it quite like Atlus, the Quentin Tarantino’s of the video-game space.

Metaphor: ReFantazio drips with style and class. Every element of the user-interface, every carefully constructed loading screen, every bizarre or outright hideous monster design.

Everything in Metaphor: ReFantazio is done with a level of flair and creativity almost unrivalled in this industry.

It helped define Persona as one of the most iconic and successful JRPG franchises of all time, and Studio Zero have not missed a beat with Metaphor. While the environmental graphics suffer with the inclusion of a last-generation release, the overall style, characters, and animation design are flawless.

Studio Zero continues to show a willingness and ability to innovate the turn-based genre, when it feels as though most of the industry has turned its back.

Metaphor: ReFantazio’s combat is some of the most intense and strategically layered the genre has seen for years.

There are two main elements to the combat system: Action and Squad. Action is a real-time combat lite, allowing players to move around and slash at enemies with a primary weapon. It’s never primarily used as a means to defeat most enemies, more so as a method of engaging in combat with the upper hand.

It’s not as simple as running around mindlessly slashing at anything moving. Using different weapons and different styles of approach maximizes the chance of avoiding damage and beginning combat with stunned enemies.

This is simply the first couple of layers of the innovative combat system. Once the Squad combat starts, the turn-based element, it continues to evolve. It features the traditional tactically driven decision-making of the turn-based genre. Choosing the best time to attack, buff, heal, or defend, but with a level of consequence seldom seen.

Every enemy has its own arsenal of abilities, a list of elements and attack types it’s either weak or strong against, but this is much more than simply increasing or reducing damage.

Hit an enemy with an attack they are strong against, and you may miss a turn. Hit an enemy with an attack they can repel, your entire team loses its turn.

This is huge, both offensively and defensively. It greatly increases the value of characters built to dodge or sustain damage, allowing them to double up as action economy sinks for your opponents. Metaphor: ReFantazio rewards understanding and investigation of each enemy type unlike any other.

A carefully constructed symphony of Persona and Shin Megami Tensei’s best combat elements sees Metaphor: ReFantazio deliver one of the most innovative turn-based entries in years.

I should probably mention just how brutally difficult this game can be. I messed around across most of the difficulty settings, but even on Easy, my lack of preparation and intel caused me to wipe during several battles, and then there was the final battle…

It took me two days to defeat the boss at the end of the story, and I had to drop the difficulty to Storyteller mode to get the job done. Metaphor: ReFantazio is punishing, and frustrating as all hell, but about as satisfying as a turn-based RPG is ever going to be.

This was after spending nearly 70 hours maxing out the best Archetypes and gathering the best gear. No substitution for skill, I guess.

The Archetypes, the game’s class system, brings with it a blend of the familiar with a dash of the surprising. Watching as characters tear out their heart and transform into strangely armored thingies, seriously, I have no idea what they are, is glorious.

Carefully planning progression routes, so each character has the requirements to unlock the next tier of their preferred Archetype, is the sort of micromanagement RPG players dream of. Decisions made in the early hours of the game, choosing what direction to take characters, pays off nearly 60-70 hours later.

It’s a robust, powerful set of systems that truly give players the freedom to create, manage, and evolve a cast of characters. Despite my struggles with the latter stages of the game, I had characters that were nigh on invincible, my favorites, characters whose stories I loved and enjoyed.

I also had characters I didn’t really like, and they typically died after a couple of slaps. For players with the time, ability, and understanding, Archetypes are the pinnacle of an RPG class system.

Metaphor: ReFantazio is a deep, stylish, and rewarding adventure, but it’s not for the faint of heart.

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