Topic: Metaphor: ReFantazio Thread

@Tjuz That is good to know, thanks!

I've not used the exchange for awhile now, but have been spending MAG quite liberally when buying skills.

The Merchant archetype is good to use if you are short of cash.

I'm having a break from the game, hopefully only in the short term. I think I'm quite near the end too. I've tried to get through the cut scenes after the opera house, but real life has gotten in the way.

I am at Brilehaven, still working through the introductory cutscenes - I am guessing there will be lots of side quests here once I am let off the chain. I've been playing 35 hours and I'm level 26-27. Really enjoying it tbh! Hope I don't bounce off it...

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!