Metaphor: ReFantazio

Metaphor: ReFantazio is basically a playable seinen anime with an impeccable story which uses the same gameplay formula Atlus uses over 20+ years. However, if you've played earlier Atlus titles such as P3, P4, P5; please expect more from the story and less from the gameplay. Let's start with whats good about the game: its story. At the beginning I didn't like the protagonist because of his design but besides that the beginning was spectacular. The game hooks you up in the blink of an eye, and proceeds to not let you down as long as you keep playing it. The twists, the characters, the liveliness of the world... It's certainly peak. World design is also interesting, and as you proceed it makes more sense; both the world design and world building. Level design however, is imbalanced and I didn't enjoy exploration nor dungeon navigation that much. One of the things i realized is that after a certain point, if the protagonist's overworld basic hit is like a 360 thing, you don't even look at the dungeons interior, you can just simply play the game by looking at the minimap. When i realized that it almost made me feel sad. The difficulty level is , well, stupid. I mean Ubisoft level stupid. Basically if you played personas, the game is harder than them, and if you played Shin Megami Tenseis the game is easier than them. The problem is that the 'hard' part being higher hp, annoying skills that some late game monsters spam such as 'reflect almost every damage shield' skill and more. Each fight takes more and more time if you are not grinding enough, which imo is stupid. Just for your reference, the final boss for me took almost 2 hours of fight, straight up. The successful run was almost 2 hours, not the 'retries'. mind you i was level 75, which was pretty decent. Gameplay part is, sad. Really sad. You see, if you never ever played any other Atlus jrpg title, like any personas, you are gonna love the combat if you enjoy turn based combats. It's one of the best out there. And i also think its still good, but it's sad. The reason is simple; this is the exact same combat from , for instance, persona 3, which is ALMOST hitting its 20th birthday. Come on man, seriously? you had the same gameplay formula for almost 2 decades Atlus, and with persona5, you polished it to perfection with additions and somehow you made the combat feel worse than a title you released 9 years ago? Because of this, the whole experience felt like i went to a new town with everything so exciting about it, and the first restaurant i entered serviced me the same meal i got from my hometown, heated in a microwave?!?!?!!! I am utterly disappointed in this company. If this was my first Atlus title i'd rank the gameplay an 8.7/10 just because of poor balancing options, but this is not my first Atlus title. I'd say the gameplay is 7/10. Story however, makes up for the cons of gameplay, and I still think it's one of the best seinen anime stories ever out there. 11/10. TLDR: If you expect a better gameplay then persona5, dont even think about it. Even then, the game is an overall 8.9/10.

Note: I've beaten SMT3 HD, SMTV Vengeance, Soul Hackers 2, Catherine, and Metaphor at least once. I've only played a bit of P5 Royal though and none of 3 or 4 yet. That said, if this is your first Atlus game, much less JRPG, you're in for a treat. Metaphor solves one of the biggest problems with JRPGs by delivering a top-notch English translation and English voice acting. So if you're new to JRPGs, much less Atlus games, Metaphor should be (one of) your first. Even if you're a long-time Atlus fan, you'll find a lot of the features you love from their other games, a lot of great Easter eggs, and a few new innovations. Maybe the best innovation though is that the game didn't launch with a bunch of overpriced DLC's or DLC's that include content they should've just included in the base game to begin with. That, and you can ride on a hovering sword through town through much of the game. After a certain point in the game, you can even shoot a lot of lower-level monsters from a distance if you don't feel like facing them in turn-based combat (though this mechanic can get a little clunky sometimes). In general, it's just nice to see most enemies beforehand instead of them all randomly engaging in combat with you. This also makes the rare surprise encounters a lot more fun. --- As for the real meat of the game itself? Well, there's a lot of game here--unlike, say, SMT3 HD or Soul Hackers 2, Metaphor is actually worth the full price. Even if you sped through all the dialogue and cutscenes, there's still an awful lot of gameplay here. Though if it's your first playthrough, you should definitely enjoy the dialogue and cutscenes while you're playing. It's a long game, but they put a lot of time into making sure you're not just wasting your time most of time you play it: - Generally, the game mechanics and level progression are very well-balanced and fine-tuned, with minimal unwarranted difficulty spikes. - The characters are generally likable/relatable and fleshed out, and the story is generally well-paced and enjoyable. The game can be incredibly dark, but there are a lot of funny moments as well. I have a small gripe with how the last few hours at the very end feel a little padded out but I've beaten the game multiple times regardless. - I've beaten the game multiple times, and both the English voice acting and Japanese voice acting with English subtitles were quite enjoyable. - The music, sound design, and art are unique and well put-together in general. Hieronymous Bosch is my favorite visual artist though so I'm a little partial to the monster designs inspired by his work but yeah. My only real gripe here is that you can't turn down the string music inside a couple taverns at night in the game that clashes with the background music once the end-of-day cutscene begins (I guess it's not a huge deal to take off the left side of my headphones during these scenes though). - Levels are well-designed and, while challenging, aren't completely obscure. You're rewarded for your curiosity if you choose to explore but you can generally work through a dungeon in a reasonable amount of time if you're not feeling too curious to discover any secrets. - My only REAL gripe? Catherina should've been a playable character. That said, Atlus still has plenty of material here to make her a main character (or one of them) in a DLC/sequel/prequel/side story.

fantasy lives on

I’m only just on the side of recommending this game, because it is far from perfect. I did not play this for as long as recorded. I often had to leave it running to do other things because of the lack of a save point, something that annoys me about this and Persona 5 Royal, the only other Atlus game I’ve played. Metaphor has some characters I greatly enjoy, and overall I prefer the themes to Persona 5. It feels aimed at grown-ups, though unfortunately the writing is still very young adult. I also have issues with the interactivity (or lack of). It bothers me that the written dialogue options don’t directly map onto to what the mc then says – and sometimes seem nearer to the option I didn’t choose. Plus, the dialogue choices don’t impact the game (and nor do the time usage choices as there’s enough time to do everything). I’d rather they felt more meaningful. I never truly felt I was playing a role – my input is too irrelevant and the mc is too bland for that. On the plus side, it feels warmer than Persona 5 and blessedly free of the skeeviness. It improves in other ways on Persona 5. I prefer the archetype system to personas – it feels less complicated and tiresome to implement. Although some of the dungeons are too long, none are as tedious as I found mementos. However, overall, it feels far too similar to Persona 5. It ultimately outstays its welcome. The final quarter of the game feels so samey to what has gone before in Metaphor (and of course Persona 5) that I found myself wishing it over. The repetitive music drove me so crazy I had to turn it off and watching numbers go up after each battle when I was so over it all severely tested my patience. Finally, I thought I was finished, and even had a little tear in my eye – but no, there is a poorly executed epilogue which comprises the most tedious gameplay of the whole experience, entirely lacking emotional heft. Overall, the final 20 hours squandered my goodwill towards this game. I enjoyed enough of it that I’m glad I played it, but unless Atlus significantly changes things up in future, or improves their writing, I can’t imagine feeling tempted to play a future release of theirs. Even just better editing and losing playtime would help – a game needs to earn that length, and nothing I’ve played of theirs to date does.

整体玩下来还是不错的，音乐美术依旧超模，迷宫也简化了很多(狗洞要不删了呢)。但是后劲几乎是没有的，这种天马行空的剧情很难让我代入进去，个人还是比较喜欢青春校园故事。不过出p4r前拿来当甜点倒也算及格吧，谁让我是阿特拉斯凯子呢

不好玩

比P3好太多

好玩，真不比p5r和p3r差，我觉得甚至更好

This game is really good with a story that is very engaging and entertaining, I would encourage anyone to buy this game when it is on sale which is pretty often.

孩子们 阿特拉斯凯子来了 要是有恋爱线就好了，某三只眼都送妻子给丈夫的礼物了😄