Topic: Metaphor: ReFantazio Thread

Yeah very low damage unless you use the 0 MP damage boost item. But sometimes it is your only choice when the enemy has a resistance or a block to every damage type in your party unless you wanna reload and change everyone's archetypes.

Honestly, it is more how you manage things than necessarily the things you do.

An example is one boss was weak to fire, but they put up a shield that blocked all elemental damage. I didn't have a move to bypass that in my party at the time. And also, once the shield was up, the boss would use that turn icon for a very strong team wide damage move instead.

Once you used an elemental attack on the shield, it would disappear and need to be recast. So sacrificing a turn icon to lower the shield even though it may result in no damage ended up being the way to go, as they couldn't use the team wide damage move cause they had to keep recasting the shield instead.

Reached the fifth city, the story is weird in an interesting way (nothing too epic but at least it has got an identity).

The performance keeps screwing with my progression as the game visuals give me a headache and I struggle to play for more than 90 minutes at a time

@Pizzamorg Thanks for the heads-up on the recommended level for September! I'm still way behind many of you it seems, even though I feel like I'm binging this game for my standards, haha. I just reached Brilehaven and will see the Exhibition of the Brave next time I pick the game up. I'm at level 30 right now, which I hope leaves me pretty up to bar with where the game expects me to be. I haven't really done any grinding, but I do set out to defeat every enemy in every dungeon. Not once they respawn though, or I'd be there forever. I hate grinding or anything repetitive in games. Still really enjoying this game and the conclusion to the Martira arc was incredibly well done. Excited to see where the game goes from here now that we'll presumably be getting a new objective.

I played the demo and I enjoyed it but I couldn't decide whether I liked it enough to spend $60 on the game. As it would be my first Atlus game, I decided to make a compromise and instead I bought Persona 5 for $15

@lotan666 I really enjoyed Metaphor: ReFantazio, but I think you made the right choice. Persona 5 Royal is one of my favourite games of all time.

@lotan666 Difficulty balancing issues aside, P5 (and especially P5R) is one of the best JRPGs of the last ten years. It's 100+ hours of gripping, stylish goodness.

P5 Royal is basically the Persona formula perfected (which is why I was sad more of its innovations didn't make it into Reload). Metaphor kinda just transplants the learns from P5R into a new world, setting etc and while that is great, the one thing Metaphor doesn't retain for some reason is P5R's strides in smoothing out the difficulty curve a lot of these games have.

People like me loved that loved that change for P5. I bounced off of that game for years, for a lot of reasons, but a major one was what a brutal slog every dungeon felt like. And I may never have finished it without the Royal version. However, long time fans didn't love this change as they see the difficulty of these games as part of their identity, and it deffo feels like Metaphor is a response to those long time fans, borrowing far more heavily from the mechanics you'd see in SMT. Which basically translates to "you better not get caught by random enemies in the world without an advantage as they will one shot your entire party and force you to restart, every single time".

I kinda grew to the point of absolutely dreading doing Metaphor's story dungeons because I knew I was just in for a big ole pile of frustration before I could get to the next story moment. I stopped playing Metaphor right before the final dungeon cause Veilguard came out, and I'm honestly not sure I'm ever gonna have the motivation to go back and play that game now I've been away for it for so long.

If you can accept that though, or even like the sound of that, I think Metaphor is probably the better game as anime lensed high school drama will always hold less appeal to me versus a sweeping fantasy epic would, but I think P5 Royal is overall way more fun to actually play.

@Pizzamorg Man, I had the biggest, dumbest grin on my face when I saw using multi-target spells that were nullified/drained in Metaphor lost you press turns even if you also hit weaknesses, just like in SMT. You actually have to tactically use abilities instead of just going with whatever the most powerful multi-target ability on hand is. It's still not as hardcore as something like SMT V: Vengeance in terms of complexity when it comes to team builds (how could it be?), but it gets difficulty balancing very right. This game is occasionally a little bit of a challenge even on the Normal difficulty.

Hoping and praying they see people don't need Pokemon-esque difficulty for Persona, and we get a return to more satisfying mechanics in P6.

I'm really tempted by the game but I really hate the time schedule element. I had two or maybe three attempts to get through P5 and bounced off each time - and that was with using a detailed guide so as to not mess anything up. I did actually finish PS4, though.

I played the demo and like it but there were no time schedule things there. It did get quite hard as it went on and I wonder, could you softlock yourself by running out of resources while grinding in a dungeon, like the cave i got to in the demo?

Also, I pressed the button that shows you what level other players were at that point and they were often way higher than me - like, what seems like hours and hours of grinding higher. IIRC they had max level "persona" (I forget the actual name) in some cases.

While it seems like most of you have either finished or dropped the game by now, I'm still making my way through it with some 70 ish hours under my belt. I've gotten to the part where Altabury has opened up and I'm doing the side quests and typical follower stuff in that area now before the next deadline. I'm still really enjoying it, but I'm baffled when I look up around how much of the game is left and it seems like I'm at like 2/3rds of the game. I have no clue what places this game is still gonna go if I'm not very near the end at this point. Both because the calendar seems to slowly be nearing its end (I'm in mid-September now) and because the story beats feel like they're setting up for the big climax. I'm not mad about it, but I do wonder if it's going to run out of steam at some point before the ending because of it.

I've been pretty lucky leveling wise in that I've managed to stay on track while not having to grind, which is something I absolutely despise doing in games. The game seems to be fairly forgiving on that front, which I was hoping it would be but not exactly expecting from a JRPG. For the most part, I'm still usually a few levels ahead of whatever enemies I'm facing. Nothing big in terms of any fights where I've ran into a horrible difficulty spike either, but I am playing on Normal. Rella's Ice Dragon was probably the hardest fight thus far thanks to it having two phases, but I still managed to get through that in one go despite having to use many items to do so. My party was definitely not optimised for that as mostly magic users, haha.

I just gotta say though... frick the Dragon Temple. That just went on and on and on and turned a cool setpiece into something I was praying to end as soon as possible. I do think it's funny that there's such a big moment in the game that continues to just... not be brought up again up to this point. I feel like there were some pretty big revelations there that we just seem to be ignoring, but what do I know?

@Matroska It's not really possible to softlock yourself. You can at any point leave the dungeon you're in if that's what you want to do, though it will ultimately "waste" a day. Alternatively, if you're short on time or just stubborn like myself, you can grind MP by killing overworld enemies as a Mage archetype to recover MP. Luckily, I've only had to do that once in the first big dungeon.

@Jimmer-jammer I'm glad you're enjoying it! I also bought it on a whim really, since I never properly played a JRPG or anything Atlus put out before. I was just interested and happened to be in a mood where I wanted to try out new things, haha. So far I'm happy to report I'm not at all disappointed with my choice!

But yeah, the point where you are right now is definitely still very early goings. Good luck playing the rest of the game hearing the Buddhist chanting all the time! At this point I'm just singing along any time it comes up (which is, of course, often). Let me know how you feel about it as you continue playing!

@Jimmer-jammer You're moving on quick! I'm glad the game hasn't let you down yet. Good to hear you haven't felt at any point pushed or stressed with the deadlines so far either. I don't think it'll happen for you at any point then, having used your time up until this point efficiently. And I agree regarding the Hero Leaves. I'm usually just keeping the Archetype I have unlocked a better one I'd like to use for a character using leaves, and that's worked out well for me so far.

I'm a bit more slow going than you seem to be, so I'm still making my way through the very end game. I just started in what I believe is the last main dungeon of the game earlier today, but I popped out midway through to continue tomorrow. I have my Royal Virtues and Follower Bonds all maxed out at this point, so aside from having to clean up the last few side quests I have time galore luckily. I'm a bit stressed about my leveling regarding getting to the final boss, but I hope with the final dungeons I'll get to a point where I feel like I'm ready to face it. Hopefully I won't have to grind still at some point in the future, because that always puts a damper on my fun. I feel blessed that I've been able to avoid it thus far! I presume you're currently somewhere around Virga Island based on your game time? Is the main theme there driving you nuts yet? Haha.

I think I have less than ten hours left at this point, and I'm pretty happy about it. Don't get me wrong. I still really enjoy the game, but after eighty-some hours I'm definitely feeling the length. Especially since I was playing it with Midnight Suns "on the side", which itself is an eighty-hour romp. I hope they'll nail the ending as I've not heard much chatter about it, so that could be positive or negative!

So I picked this up after playing the demo and getting hooked in. For some reason I downloaded the PS4 demo, so I couldn't transfer my save over to the PS5 version. D'OH!

What drew me in is the quality of the writing for most of the characters and story. Which is strange for me as I'm usually a gameplay first kind of guy. It also moves at quite a brisk pace for the first few hours. Also loving the mostly British accents, with one character I cannot see past Billy Connoly lol. The human enemy designs are all kinds of wierd and awesome. And it all looks so so stylish. Love the art style. The game does a good job of manexplaining all the systems too.

I'm at the grand cathedral just after the second save room. I also beat the dragon at the mines. Not finding it too difficult so far, with only a pack of white wolves almost wiping me out. But you can restart battles at anytime without any penalty, and I rinsed them at the 2nd attempt.

I'm almost out of MP for a couple of my characters though. Items which restore it are scant too. I'm aware you can grind the easier enemies if the main character is a mage and you get a little MP back for each character stunned/killed. But ugh grinding. Will see how I get on when I carry on this evening

Tagging in @Th3solution as he was somehow interested in my thoughts.

@Jimmer-jammer Ah cheers for that! I did think that, as one of the tutorial tips mentioned that. I wasn't sure if I wanted to 'waste' a day though.

I've tried about half hour of grinding to get MP back, and it feels too much a chore to me! Will explore alternative methods!

@JohnnyShoulder Sounds like it’s clicking for you. It’s really interesting that this game has resonated so strongly with you all (like @Jimmer-jammer @Tjuz ) who haven’t been Jrpg or Atlas / Persona fans before. The new IP and setting was probably a really good idea to help make the genre more appealing to newcomers. The quality of writing also sounds like it’s a step above. Not to disparage the writing of Persona, but I’m not sure I would use the superlatives I hear you all using when talking about the narratives. I’ve felt they were always good, but not exceptional. The fun was always in the social sim aspects intermixed with the combat systems.

Speaking of, it also sounds like they’ve loosened up strictness of the schedule. In the Persona games I’ve played you really do want to try to complete a dungeon on one go so as to maintain efficiency of schedule, otherwise you can’t max out everything and could miss content. The option to break up the dungeon runs has been there, but I always tried to knock them out all at once. Maybe that’s why I eventually felt burned out after the end of P5. 😅 It’s a bit like playing an open world game and trying to get all the collectibles and side quests.

Regardless, the positive vibes everyone has had for the game has definitely stirred some interest for some future point.

@Th3solution I don't really have any frame of reference as to the writing in the Persona games, but I'd definitely say it's above average compared to the wider gaming landscape. I'm not sure I was quite as enamored with the narrative as some, but I did really enjoy myself throughout. I think it has some very high highs, but there's also times I wished it would speed up a bit. The game also has the tendency to lock you into what are essentially hours of cutscenes, which I do think negatively affected the pacing. The effect of which is especially worsened by the fact that they would often deliver the necessary information in long, drawn-out conversations which could've easily been cut down into more biteable chunks.

I do think the character work in this game is the star way more so than the overall narrative, which I doubt is surprising or unusual based on what I've heard about other Atlus RPGs. I did genuinely enjoy being with each of the party characters and I would be hard-pressed to name a weak link within them. I do think their follower bond stories are mostly pretty... hamfistedly written. There's really not a lot of nuance or thematic subtlety they employ, but I think the positive themes and strength of the charcters overcome that and most of the time make it come across more charming than anything. If you don't mind that type of writing, then I don't think there'll be an issue for you there.

As for the schedule, yeah, I didn't really have any problems with time management throughout the game. And as much as I tried to play optimally anf min-max my time, I definitely wasn't incredibly efficient or anything. In the end, I believe I had about a week left where I could finish up some non-essential stuff or just kill time waiting for the final day to approach. If you're already coming into this game knowing the system and how to approach it from Persona, I imagine the scheduling will be a walk in the park for you on this one. I did one-day every dungeon which I'm sure helped, but I've found it to not be that hard to do. I'd say the first major dungeon is the hardest to do in one and the only one that really required a bit of grinding, as you're simply not well-equipped at that point to deal with a battle of attrition versus your MP.

I do hope you'll give it a shot and let us know how you get on with it! Just make sure you have a good block of time available to dedicate yourself to it. I finished at about 110 hourd on the in-game timer, but that includes a lot of my pausing the game while I had to look away for a bit to perform home office duties. Having a home office job where I'm mostly not actually working and can focus on other things has been essential to me in finishing it in the — by my standards — short two months I did, haha.

@Jimmer-jammer @JohnnyShoulder How are you peeps' journeys getting along? Glad to see you join us on the path, Mr. Shoulder. Like I said earlier, I've finished the game at this point. If you at any point have the need for some spoiler-free advice or tips, just give me a shout and I'll do my best to help out. Not that I'm the best gamer, mind you, but I've managed my way through this one alright.

And to maybe assuage some of my own fears for you once you get to the later points of the game, don't stress the level or Archetype grind. You'll be fine. I was too, and I'm not the type to grind anything at all. As long as you just kill every monster in your way going through the dungeons, you'll rack up the necessary XP soon enough. I would advise prioritising Maria's bond as much as you can, as she gives you certain bonuses that help out in leveling both. The sooner you get her to a specific level, the more beneficial it'll be to you in the long run. I think it definitely helped in my lack of need to grind.

@Tjuz Thanks for the tips! It's good to know there is not an over reliance on grinding in the game.

I'm currently facing Zorba and did a sort of a trial run against him, as I didn't have a great deal of MP so will need to go back into town and get some rest. I think this will be my third day in the dungeon and fourth for this section. Seems to be doable though.

@Tjuz Okay, that sounds about right, regarding the story and writing that is. As much as I enjoyed the Persona games, the stories I’ve largely forgotten but the characters were quite memorable, even though their arcs and dialogue were sometimes… hamfisted, as you eloquently put it. I’m not really an anime fan and the manner of storytelling is more in that style. Still, they’re doing something right to make us care about the characters despite it all.

I've beaten Zorbo which I found quite straightforward. I made sure I kept my teams health topped up and I don't think I had to revieve anyone. I struggled more with what came afterwards, but that was down me not changing Archetypes (anyone else sing 'I am an Architect' by Manic Street Preachers whenever an Archetype is on screen? Obviously I'm replacing Architect with Archetype. No? Just me then.) I could done it with my then setup, but it was taking too long. So reloaded later and changed my Archetypes round, and it was way better.

So now I've been wandering round town doing side stuff, and have a couple of days left until the next event. I've got a bounty and a follower bond to do. In hindsight I maybe should not have done so many virtue quests before follower bonds and bounties/side quests.

Almost forgot to mention that this is another game I'm getting higher frame rates and resolution than advertised. My TV is showing 4K 120fps, which I do not think is an option on consoles, even on the Pro. My TV must be doing some fancy upscaling or something. It feels great to play anyway. I'm currently playing on my Dad's PS5 who has a 1080p TV and I have noticed some blurriness, especially in motion. It hasn't made me feel queasy like it has before, but it is definitely noticeable.