Having played a bit of the Persona and SMT series, it feels like Metaphor tries to achieve a sort of middle ground in terms of gameplay and difficulty. While there is more room for experimentation than in Persona (at least not only the main character can change classes), it is not as customizable as SMT. I played it on Hard and it felt more challenging than Persona, but not as much as SMT. For me this was the sweet spot in terms of customization, but those used to SMT may find it a bit restrictive.
The story was overall interesting, although it fell flat at the end. It also gets kinda dragged with the "final" boss fights. I thought like 3 times I was on the final fight only for it to be yet another one. It feels like they are trying to say "wait, it can be even more epic!", and while I do not dislike, the quality did not match the rest of the game.
I particularly enjoyed the royal selection idea, and the world building was also well executed and explained. The portrayed discrimination from the dominant tribes to the poorer ones felt quite real and it gave a darker tone to the game. Towards the end they threw this dark tone a bit out of the window though.
Side characters and team members are quite charming and the side stories let the player bond with their struggles and dreams for the future. Not all of them were interesting but most of them. They all follow the same formula though, to the point I could tell exactly on which bond level the "problem" would occur for each follower due to sheer repetition of this formula. I would have liked some more skits where team members interact with each other, since it was mostly team members interacting with the protagonist and not as much among themselves.
Dungeons and such are mostly repetitive and uninspired, but honestly it's not like Atlus excels at this in most of their games, so my expectations were not high on this particular topic in the first place. So if you are hoping for some exciting exploration and breathtaking caves/dungeons, look somewhere else. These are just serviceable enough.
Music was good, but not on the same level as Persona. There are a few good tracks that are barely used, while most of them are decent but not memorable.
Menus are, of course, top notch. While in most games menus are just a utility, Atlus really knows how to make them into pieces of art. And in this installment they took it a step further compared to Persona and SMT.
Combat was probably the highlight of this game. As in SMT I really like how the extra turns and lost turns when dodged/blocked are implemented. There's also a front row and back row during fights, were front row characters deal more melee damage but they also take more damage, adding some more strategy to the mix. Trying different builds and skills was also quite fun, and the synthesis skills were pretty cool. Adding some real time combat for ambushes and to quickly dispatch weak enemies is a good QoL feature, which they have used in the past for other games.
Overall I had a great time and could barely put the game down until I finished it, but there are some aspects that could certainly have been better due to either lack of time or resources. I had a better time than with SMT5 but not as good as P5R.
