Topic: Metaphor: ReFantazio Thread

Forgot there was a thread for this.

I'll be starting it up shortly.

I was thinking of replaying Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne but remembered I'd bought this a couple of months ago so... Here's hoping it grabs my attention (Been a bit fickle lately so I hope it does stick)

@HallowMoonshadow You should probably like it. Feels like Digital Devil Saga and Persona had a baby together.

I'm gonna replay it soon as well! I never actually finished it because I got distracted by life stuff, but I'm in much more of a gamer mood lately.

I probably will love it @Ralizah.

_Hopefully

I need to give SMTV:V another shot at some point as well and see if it was just me at the time or that I really don't gel with it all that much.

@HallowMoonshadow Enjoy! I finished it late last year and had a good time with it. Since you're already used to the Atlus philosophy of making games, this should fit right in for you. Especially after I just read on the Mass Effect thread you're more of a fantasy than sci-fi gal, so this should scratch that itch for you! Let us know how you get on with it.

@HallowMoonshadow SMT V isn't a perfect game, but at least in the case of Vengeance and the new story route, it's sort of the game I wish Nocturne had been. I absolutely adore it.

But it's also a game some people just don't love. I think it heavily depends on how you feel about the level design and gameplay loop.

I'll definitely keep the thread updated and give you a tag too if you like when I actually make some worthwhile progress in Metaphor @Tjuz~!

Considering how much I adore Nocturne... You wound me with that Ral 🥲

But yeah I did not jive with the "Level" design all that much the first time around in SMTV:V. Doesn't help that the first two areas are mostly desert and ruined buildings so it was kinda boring visually.

I stopped shortly after getting to the... hidden fairy forest in the second area? I think that was it? 🤔

@HallowMoonshadow lol it's my least favorite mainline SMT. Even including the first two. I love the vibe of Nocturne, but the dungeons and story, ugh. Also not a fan of Meguro's soundtrack beyond a few tracks, as heretical as I know that sounds to people who worship the PS2 era of Atlus.

Kinda funny how this one even mirrored the Nocturne trajectory of requiring a re-release to fix the story. Although Vengeance had a LOT more work put into it than Nocturne Maniax. And pretty much all of Atlus' other re-releases. They pretty much remade the campaign from the ground up, which is why it's one of the few times I'm not all that annoyed by a Director's Cut version of the game existing.

Is this game worth to get now for $33 on Amazon, or should I wait till it drops even lower or even when a Royal type of edition releases like Atlus did with Persona 5?

@BeyondKnight I mean, it was worth getting at full price, so certainly for $33 if you like Atlus JRPGs!

I'm glad Sega seems to be clueing in that doing remasters for recently released games with no upgrade paths is scaring off consumers.

Falcom games will follow if they keep up with the Ys X shenanigans.

@HallowMoonshadow Definitely do so! And that goes for anyone who decides to revive this thread by diving in! I had a complicated, but ultimately positive relationship with it myself, so I'm intrigued to see what you all will make of it.

...Why? Why do you keep twisting the knife Ral? 🥲

Alright so I haven't made a lot of progress in Metaphor. Just done the mines but... I have a nitpick.

A very minor one.

Why did they only change some of the skill/spell names in Metaphor?

I don't mind that they changed them, in fact I wouldn't mind if each sub series had unique names... But why still have light as Hama? Patra as the status clear? Dekunda to remove debuffs?

But then half arse Dia and Media to Dei and Medi or completely change Agi, Bufu, Zio and Garu to Bot, Blizz, Kande and Cyc? 🤔

Alright so I wanted to wait a while, getting a decent ways into Metaphor before finally giving my impressions on it @Ralizah & @Tjuz.

I've just done the soiree at Brilehaven. Literally stopped as soon as I could save after the fight there and am in Grand trad going to find Rella.

So first things first I will say I find the archetypes/classes quite hit and miss on their usefulness, especially so if you don't have many inheritance slots.

Faker in particular being completely support focused (and a second tier class so it takes even longer to level) makes it kinda useless til I have a number of inheritance slots to make it viable and Knight was pretty much in the same spot too (One attack skill at level 20?!?!)

The knight classes having at least 4/5 passive skills out of the 8 or so it can learn in it's movelist is incredibly annoying too.

If I could change Archetypes mid battle like something akin to Final Fantasy X-2 or Persona I'd be especially fine with how the classes are implemented but... Yeah... I'm not a huge fan of how they work at the moment. Especially in Atlus's press turn system that's very aggressive and rewards aggressive play. It's not hampering my enjoyment mind. Just I find it could be better.

I was a little disappointed as well by the fact I've already got every follower already (baring new party members).

I get that there's only 5 months or so compared to Persona's year and you spend a decent chunk of change on the gauntlet runner so can't actually meet up with a lot of your bonds half the time... But still.

Plus the usual relegated to the plot bonds like in persona would be fine... But goddamn that means Mage and gunner classes get left behind (Gunner I haven't touched at all tbh and find it very underwhelming).

Also the bonds not being fully voiced is lame. The fact that Persona 3 Reload did it with even more characters and two extra ranks released in the same year kinda sucks.

I do really like the English voices though! They're great. I appreciate the mix of American and British voices (Including a lot of regional accents... I did NOT expect scousers to appear in Metaphor as notable characters )

Also very incredibly minor nitpick.... But Atlus... Why give arguably the best female designs in any of your games with no creepy connotations attached like there usually is in some of the Persona romance links... And make Metaphor's ladies completely unromancable?!?! Hulkenburg!!! Brigitta!!!!! Fabienne!!!! (I know she's not a follower but still!) Catherina!!! Rella! (I really like her design I hope she's a future party member) Why Atlus?!?!

In another little nitpick I will also say the tribes are a little wonky in that most are pretty distinct... Til you get to Elda and Roag.

We have Elves, Horned people (I kinda wish they more distinct too tbh), wing people, Bat people, beast people, The box heads (really reminding me of Captain Kumamura from Bleach) and the only difference between the "featureless" Elda and Roag's is some slightly pointy ears you can barely see, a somewhat darker complexion and white hair?

And somehow Elda are treated as abominations but the very similar looking Roag's are seemingly well respected? I dunno you couldn't have made the Roag's the dwarven counterpart of your fantasy races to make them more distinct? 🤔

Anyway aside from that little quibble the artwork and character designs is of course on point. I love the creepy "human" designs in particular.

Also Louis is basically just Griffith from Berserk with horns or Atlus's Helel/lucifer design but with longer hair. He's a great villain, I love every moment he's on screen so far

And the music. No notes it's great. Shoji is showing off his talent once again (I only really disliked P5's music for Lynn's voice not the actual composition).

As for the story? I was enjoying it quite a bit. Grand Trad and Martira are very good.

However... Brilehaven is EXTREMELY messy. The worst arc/area so far by a considerable margin. The objective for this month and how it's executed is just... So blindingly, mind numbingly stupid I almost can't believe it actually happened.

I'm not a huge fan at how short the dungeon was and even the gauntlet runner dungeons felt rather lacklustre this month too.

I really enjoyed the cathedral dungeon and Martira's was okay but... Yeah very disappointed this time round.

Though I am glad there's no persona 5 shenanigans of HAVING to go to the dungeon mulitple times and waste precious time just to be able to fully unlock it. I like being able to clear the dungeon in one shot of I have the choice/option to.

So... Yeah. Those my thoughts so far. I don't think I've missed anything?

@HallowMoonshadow Metaphor was actually the first Atlus game I've played, so I can't really comment on the comparisons you've made to their previous games. The unique premise for this one is ultimately what got me to try it out. I definitely agree that quite a few of the archetypes feel rather useless. I'm sure some of them could work great when synergizing them with a party built around it, but that's above my pay grade really. I've never been a min-maxer who cares much for specialising my party's builds to get the best out of it. I try to simply get something usable and go from there until I hit a wall and clearly need to adjust some things. I think when you have more opportunity to mix and match certain archetypes over time, you'll have a bit more fun with the system from the sounds of it. A few of my characters definitely turned into something very different from what their selected archetype would suggest by the end of it.

Totally agree that I was very disappointed the bonds weren't voiced. It saddens me to hear that they did that for Persona 3 Reload but not here. That's a rough regression. Like you said, the voice acting is really quite good all around, so any excuse to have more of it would've been acceptable. More importantly though, I think it does cheapen the effect the bonds are supposed to have. They're the big character-building moments that should have had tremendous care put into them, and yet they fall flat on too many occasions because of it. With the scousers representation, I assume you mean Junah? I'm not well-versed on British accents, but that's the one that jumps to mind as standing out. Loved her voice and accent, so it was a solid choice!

I get your frustration that none of the characters are romanceable. I actually like that all of them were platonic, since I don't think this story is served in any way by becoming about who's the best girl, but there's definitely plenty of great options we could've had if they had decided to go that route. That said, and I know that this likely wouldn't have been possible either way, Strohl would've had to be my romance pick. Love that man (and he's hot)!

A lot of the fantasy races do feel like "here's a regular model, but we added a little something so they're a whole different race now". The eugiefs are by far the most distinct from what I can remember. I think they largely make up for it with the writing, but having it visually represented as well would've been better. The places this game goes with the elda in particular I found very interesting. Totally echo your sentiment on the ugly human designs though! I forget what their inspiration was for those, but I think they nailed it. They look really cool.

I'm glad you're enjoying the story thus far, minus the hiccup with the pacing in Brilehaven. I think I enjoyed Brilehaven more than you as I enjoyed the getting together of all the champions, but it does run a bit overly long. I think that's a problem I have with the game in general, where by the end it was less about seeing its culmination and more about getting it over with. Not that there isn't good stuff throughout as well as specifically at the end, but the pacing can be a bit messy sometimes. There was definitely a point where I started feeling burnt out, but that could be a mix of the game as well as my own tendency towards shorter games.

@HallowMoonshadow Yeah, I was a bit surprised you couldn't switch Archetypes out mid-battle, either, considering how closely they seem to stick to the MegaTen format for a lot of stuff. I don't mind being forced to commit to a build during battles, though, tbh, since it forces you to be a bit more careful with how you customize your characters going in, and you're still given so much more freedom with your party overall. Also, once you get enough party members you can swap in new ones mid-battle, it's easier to bring in characters with skills and elemental affinities that would help during battle.

I joked with people that, yeah, naturally they don't include romance in the game that doesn't feature teenagers in it. 😛 I'm not sure it would've been appropriate for the game overall, though, and it's another way that this game distinguishes itself from Persona (because God knows it needs more instead of less of that).

And yes, Louis is beautiful and very fun as a villain. 😍

I actually really like the smaller scope of the cast/game compared to Persona. The scope creep of that series since 3 is honestly insane!

Took a few days to mull over my responses and I haven't touched Metaphor in over a week now too to let it sit even further.

Maybe it's because I keep shooting for the "battle unscathed" bonus as much as I possibly can but I honestly feel more restricted by the battles then I do in any other Atlus game. Sticking every party member with the same skills cus the enemy variety in dungeons isn't exactly huge either.

I dunno maybe I'm being a bit too aggressive with the battle system/mechanics? 🤔

No the scousers (or Liverpudlians) are the Paripus brothers who work for Louis, Del and Basillo.

Junah's got what we call a "West Country" accent Tjuz (What you'd find in Somerset, Devon and the likes) although it seems to slip into something else (It sounded like it had a bit of an irish lilt in places) as it clearly isn't her usual accent.

I don't actually mind that the followers are platonic either Tjuz. It's just like you were joking about though Ral that it HAD to be the one that had the least questionable choices that they took the romances out of

I don't mind the smaller cast either. I just wish I had some left to find in the future rather then front loading them all in the first two locations~!

@HallowMoonshadow Ahhh, those accents! Forgive my ignorance when it comes to the wide range of accents within the UK, haha. It's a great collection of them and each one really gave the characters a unique personality. I really liked them as well. But haha, fair enough! I suppose ''what's the point of dating if they're not high-schoolers'' might be Atlus' MO. That said, does Shin Megami Tensei have romanceable characters and/or are they adults? Like I said to Ralizah, I actually don't know much about that particular series.

Neither SMT or any of the Atlus sub series have anything like that @Tjuz. Nor does Persona 1, Persona 2 Innocent Sin or Persona 2 Eternal Punishment.

Only the modern trilogy of Persona games (3, 4 & 5) have dating sim elements (In P3 Reload and I think 5 too you can be platonic with everyone mind).

@HallowMoonshadow Ah, good to know! I had no clue that was more of a recent addition and not a staple of all their games. I guess it makes sense then that they went back to the roots with something like Metaphor... even if disappointing for everyone who wanted to make out with Hulkenberg. 😉

Alrighty so I've now done up to Montario's Opera house and the Mage Academy @Tjuz & @Ralizah.

The more I play... The more mixed... Almost apathetic my feelings become.

It's weird... I played Digimon Story: Time Stranger only a few months ago and that arguably has a worse battle system then Metaphor that I never took full advantage of with all the available moves and skills... Yet I enjoyed the battles much more there then I have with Metaphor.

I'm not quite sure what it is. Maybe I should've been playing on Hard?

I'm really not feeling the archetypes though. The movesets are just very restricting and not in a fun way. I'd much rather have Digital Devil Saga's Karma system and being able to chose 8 moves myself rather then a mostly trash movelist that I have to augment to be actually useful.

Hell the previously mentioned Digimon TS has only 4 slots you can equip skills too and a similarly 4 party members active in battle (For part of the game only 3). But you have those 4 slots available right from the start... No having to deal with the silly inheritance system that gives you only 1 to start out with.

Also good lord what the hell is with Heismay's stats?! I didn't even realise til now how useless he is being cripplingly specialised into agility.

He has LOWER magic then bloody Strohl and Hulkenburg and his strength is about on par with Eupha and only slightly higher then Junah's.

I like him as a character, and I love his voice but good god is he useless to have in the party beyond stealing things and dodging

Some postive notes now... The voice acting (When it's there) never ceases to charm. Eupha is an adorable little cinnamon roll with her delightful Welsh accent and I won't hear any slander against her.

All the characters are delightful mind. I wouldn't say there's anyone here I dislike compared to Persona 5 (Sorry Ral) where I actively hate most of the main cast.

... But my god I don't think I've ever been so... whelmed then I do with the follower bonds. I won't say underwhelmed because I don't feel ANYTHING towards these stories at all.

Maria's was... Okay I guess? Alonzo's is fine too I suppose? Brigitta's was the best I feel. I dunno... I'm really not feeling these much at all.

To be honest... I think the social sim/calendar is very redundant here and doesn't add much to the experience.

In the Persona games with you going to school and all the different time slots you really get into that routine but here with just the afternoon and night slots... It just feels kinda pointless and I don't think anything of value would've been lost if they went with a more traditional jrpg and had the bonds as side quests instead.

As for the story? I thought the whole traveling round the country and the tournament thing was rather novel at first but now I'm just... i dunno.

The main message of the game... Feels rather trite honestly. About the same as Persona 5's standing up against authority and injustice. I'm enjoying the individual story beats but... I dunno it's not fully coming together for me.

I'm not hating Metaphor... But I'm sadly not loving it either.

I think I may have to call it quits on the game despite being relatively close to the finalé.

@HallowMoonshadow It's a shame to hear that you haven't really been vibing with Metaphor as time as gone on, but I have to say, I had pretty much the exact same experience. It went from a stand-out game to a good game at best for me over time as well. I did end up finishing the whole thing, but by the time of the epilogue I was waiting for the credits to roll more than anything. I think you say it perfectly when it's a game that just completely whelms you. There's nothing I can point at that bad necessarily, but even its best moments are not ones that elevate it. After all the praise I'd heard for Persona's gameplay loop with its calendar and social bonds, I also definitely expected more from that here. It all felt fairly negligible and none of the arcs really felt like they deepend the characters in any meaningful way. I agree with you that those could've been easily taken out of the game and that it'd probably be better off for it. Only Strohl and Heismay's really stand out to me when I think back to the bonds now as being worthy arcs for the characters.

It's really a game that sells itself on its premise, since like you said, the whole tournament and traveling stuff was very novel. It just eventually loses the charm of that and doesn't really replace it with anything of equal interest. I will say I disagree with Heismay's stats! I will concur that they don't really make sense, but his high mobility saved my butt on more than a handful occasions. I found his near-guaranteed misses to be incredibly useful in taking down bosses and minimising damage for the whole party. He was probably the one I had in my party most frequently by the end of the game.

So yeah, it's a solid 7/10 game. Good stuff, but nothing that really justifies its incredibly long playtime. I'm not surprised that even as you're nearing the end-game, you're not really feeling the heat to continue on. I wish I could say the finale is worth the trudge, but I think you can safely end it here if you're no longer feeling the motivation. I think if you force yourself to keep playing, you'll just come to resent it more than anything. I'm glad that for the time you played you at least found enjoyment in it, so it wasn't a total lost cause!