Topic: Metaphor: ReFantazio Thread

@Tjuz Thanks man, and appreciate the response.
As a newcomer to ATLUS yourself, are you enjoying it so far? What elements are pulling you in? And is anything turning you off?

I'm really leaning towards it, as the last 2 GOTY winners (ER and BG3) are some of my favorites of all time... and this could well follow suit

I'd say it is as pick up and play as you want it to be, @CJD87. A cop out answer maybe, but an honest one. Outside of making sure you hit deadlines for quests, there isn't really that much you need to pay attention to if you put it on the Storyteller difficulty (as this is the only difficulty that lets you revive with progress restored on failure, so any boss you could keep reviving and whittle its health down until its over if you really wanted). I do think though if you want a rewarding experience with this or push the higher difficulties, this isn't going to be very pick up and play friendly at all and you're going to have to be pretty committed to it. You won't need to follow a guide word for word though unless you are aiming for a 100 percent completionist playthrough whatever you chose to do.

@Pizzamorg really helpful thanks

I actually enjoy a challenge, so would likely play on ‘normal’ or higher. What difficulty do you play on? In BG3 I did Standard difficulty IIRC… and this was good for me, as nothing was too terribly difficult - but I certainly had to pay attention and plan for battles

I’m not completely ‘learning avoidant’, I just don’t want to feel like I’m learning a new language! Comments here suggest though that the ride isn’t too rough, and the learning required is well worth the experience

I started on normal and dropped it down to easy @CJD87 - it's complicated because difficulty isn't flat in this game. By that I mean if you go into a baffle with bad job match ups or just get bad luck, stuff can go sideways really fast, even on easy. You could probably go about your business even on hard in the moment to moment and be okay, but then it takes sometimes only one miss, flipping the press turn system in the opponents favour and you're snow balling to a game over screen in seconds, even against regular enemies. It's definitely a lot more SMT than Persona in that regard.

Without spoilers @Yagami I have run into a few occasions where monsters were immune to my jobs entire ability suites which required a lot of passing and then a job change as soon as I was out of the battle 😂

@CJD87 You could always start on Hard and drop down to Normal if it's too much.

Things to keep in mind:

• Dungeons are essentially about resource management. Learn to manage your magic usage in battle against regular enemies so that you have gas left in the tank to fight a surprise boss, or push to the next save point, and you're good.
• ALWAYS save when you have the opportunity. The game auto-saves regularly, but it'll still save you time in certain spots.
• The game operates according to a calendar system, where most activities will make time pass and push the days forward. The game tells you what activities will and won't consume in-game time. If dungeon exploration is about resource management, then the game overall is about time management. You'll want to carefully consider your available quests and objectives and the amount of time you have left to complete them, and then act accordingly.
• In general, you want to complete dungeons in as few runs as possible. Most activities only take up a part of your day, but dungeon runs will consume a full day, so the more visits you make to a dungeon, the less time you have to do other stuff.
• You'll have partial control over the stat growth of your main character. My suggestion would be to decide early on if you want to prioritize him as a physical fighter or magic user. A jack-of-all-trades approach will be less useful when it comes to your protagonist hitting hard in battles.
• Diversify your skills and attack types for exploration so that you're able to easily hit enemy weaknesses. The game grants longer turns if you hit enemy weaknesses and punishes you with shorter turns if you use elements they're resistant to, so it's critical that you're always able to hit weaknesses whenever possible, which means balancing physical and magic damage across your party. Enemies play by the same rules, so you'll also want to make sure you balance out your elemental weaknesses across classes as well.

It sounds like a lot, but you'll be fine. The game explains everything.

@Yagami - almost the entire party lol last time I try and have more than two physical based units in my team 😂

@Ralizah Legend, thanks for that. I have screen-printed that feedback, as it is nice & concise...

I think I am going to take the plunge and get this once I'm paid at the end of the month. I am really keen to keep mixing up genres, and couldn't believe how enamored I was with BG3... which, on paper, was something I definitely thought I would not enjoy.

I need to finish off Broken Sword Reforged, try and force myself through Echoes of Wisdom, and then hit the Blasphemous 2 DLC (end Oct). Then start-Nov I'll begin Metaphor

Thanks again

@CJD87 Absolutely. We'll also be here to answer any questions you have.

Even if you're not a JRPG guy, you'll probably like this. Studio Zero makes JRPGs that even people who aren't big fans of the genre enjoy. That's even more the case with a fantasy epic like this.

BG3 is one I absolutely need to pick up at some point. I've heard so many cool things about it.

I started it today. Not far into it yet as I was playing n my lunch (beat the first boss) and I really enjoyed what I played. The combat is really fluid.

@Ralizah Thanks, and yes I'll certainly be returning with a ton of notes and questions ha!

IIRC - you have a Steamdeck right? I played BG3 exclusively on deck, and genuinely it ran OK enough for it to be a really enjoyable experience. The game is unlike anything else... just so richly detailed, with amazing VA work and characters + awesome combat. There are a million ways to approach nearly every situation, and consequences for whatever you may decide to action. You should definitely have it on your hit list

@CJD87 Yeah, for games that support cloud saves, I use my Steam Deck and PC sort of like a Vita and PS4 for games with crossplay. Well, mostly for games where the experience isn't too disparate. For Metaphor, I do low-ish settings @ 45fps on Deck and max everything @ 60fps on my main PC, so it works well.

Good to hear BG3 ran well enough on Deck. I imagine I'd mostly stick to desktop for a game that's likely built with M+K in mind, but for long games, I like to have that hybrid freedom to play wherever or grind at times. I've heard insanely impressive stuff about the level of narrative detail and flexibility here. Really puts the "role playing" in RPG.

I guess my concern is that I have next to no familiarity with the universe of D&D and no real motivation to do a bunch of research to get myself up to date on it. Would you say it's approachable enough despite that limitation?

@Ralizah Honestly you'd be amazed by how approachable BG3 is in terms of combat, and the DnD enrichment etc. Its quite unique in that there isn't really a necessity to go full 'min/max', and in fact pretty much most/all builds are viable as long as you 'play smart'.

Generally speaking, the early game tutorials explain the basics of combat - and how each character can commit to so many actions during a turn (move/spell/attack etc). You'll have an idea of how you'd like to play, and then just work to balance your party of 4 a bit - ie have a healer, a melee, a rogue and/or a damage spellcaster.

Once you get a grip for how dice probability works, which is honestly simple, everything clicks in terms of understanding the probability of an attack landing - and the potential damage upon landing. Then just keepm your gear and armor updated and you'll be fine!

The fun part is that you can actually talk your way out of combat a lot, and still gain XP. Or alternatively you might accidentally talk yourself IN to combat Honestly its such a great time, I played on normal difficulty - and there were definitely some fights/areas I needed to reload. But the time I spent researching was minimal, I just kind of had fun 'figuring it out' myself and learning from mistakes.

I'd say story/explorer mode is too easy, normal is a nice curve. Normal is still really enjoyable, but you can still mess up and die if you don't pay attention!

I just started the game a couple of hours ago. So far, I’m impressed by the more graphic nature compared to the Persona series, and even SMT. Another thing that stands out is how well paced it is compared to Persona 5. The game doesn’t waste time throwing you into its world and I love that approach. And honestly, this might be more stylish than P5. As of now, I just beat the “first” boss and met my contact, and we are now resting at a bonfire. I’m looking forward to seeing the game evolve over time, and this is shaping up to be a special JRPG.

@Yagami I agree 100%. I honestly can’t think of any other franchise that comes remotely close to this level of style, from top to bottom. The loading screens, the menus, art style, combat, character models and animations — all of it draws you in to keep you engaged. It’s honesty incredible.

I'm like 20 hours in and crying already. "Their memory deserves love, not pain."

This game is phenomenal stuff.

I just finished the Nord Mines. I decided to opt in and fight the optional boss fight, the dragon, and won. The loot was great, too. I’m digging this game a lot so far.

Just a warning to any Deck players like me. They just dropped a patch it's only a couple of gig big, but it then starts a patch of around 86 gig which is I think the size of the entire game. To have enough room to install this thing I had to basically delete every game off of my deck. You cannot just have the 5 gig free for the update, you actually need like almost
100 gig free for the download to start. Really weird, never had this issue before. But I was scratching my head working out why I could not instal this thing and that's why. Hopefully this helps someone else.

Not sure how well this will go down, but I'm about 25ish hours in. My main complaint is the difficulty design - what a surprise coming from me, I know.

I thought the Archetype system worked like a classic RPG job system where you carved out roles for your party members, but really none of the individual Archetypes really matter all that much or have much individual synergy with specific characters. Instead really all that matters is: is the enemy weak to your attacks and are you weak to theirs?

As such, you'll just start swapping Archetypes around willy nilly until you hit their weakness and have no weakness which can be hit on your end. You're not actually building a team with synergy, it's just matching the ends of the triangle.

This is especially true in boss encounters which are designed less around how well built your party is like I'd have wanted and are really more like puzzles to be solved. Finite numbers of turns, needing to kill enemies in specific orders, needing to interrupt before they do a big move or a heal, very gimmicky stuff.

It's gotten to the point where it's just save at the cat, go to the boss room, did everyone hit a weakness? No? Close the game, swap everyone's Archetype, repeat until you get victory. Like maybe you like this, but I don't.

I'm technically engaging with the systems but not in a way I personally enjoy. I'd rather the strength of my tactics and my team building be tested rather than trying to win a rock paper scissors encounter where nothing else matters. You also can't brute force those encounters either cause of those gimmicks, hit a weakness or you're doing nothing.

I get it. I know this is just how Atlus design their games, and I'm sure some people would love this, but I feel it makes the Archetype system feel way more restrictive than it might have otherwise and I feel like it really strips the personality of the party on the field, cause I'm just interchangabley swapping their role to suit whatever specific encounter I'm in. This isn't like a Persona where each party member has a specific role and you build out teams for specific encounters. Maybe this comes later but right now my roster is static and the only thing changing is the menu of abilities next to their name.

I didn't feel the same strain in say a Persona or even an SMT where you're trying to build a deep roster to make sure you always have something to target a weakness. This has taken that idea but turned it into basically a bunch of different colour hats you swap interchangeably around your party and it makes the more interesting on paper system actually less interesting in practice. For me, anyway.

Wanna stress, I'm not disliking my time with this. Im loving the world, the story, the characters, enjoying all the stuff between the dungeons. But I've just found most of the boss encounters a mixture of frustrating and just sorta tedious because of how limiting their design is.

@Pizzamorg Wait, the update makes you redownload the entire game? I'm confused (also haven't played much in days, lol).