Metaphor was provided by SEGA/ATLUS for review. Thank you!
When it comes to JRPGs, ATLUS is one of the reigning kings of the genre. They have consistently wowed me with the way they tell stories and how integrated you feel with the characters as you cultivate your friendships and learn about them over time. They have mostly stuck to the Shin Megami Tensei series and the Persona spinoff, which has been fantastic, but with Metaphor: ReFantazio, we started to see a departure from the settings we are more familiar with while keeping all the great mechanics we have come to know from their other series. This makes the game feel fresh and filled with worthwhile content and meaningful characters that instantly grow on you.
Metaphor: ReFantazio takes place in a fantasy world where multiple races exist on the same continent. You play as the protagonist, one of the last of the Elda race, who has taken up a mission to stop the murderer Louis from taking the throne after the previous king was murdered. To ensure this, our protagonist will enter the race to become the new king elected by the people while also figuring out how to lift the curse off of the true prince of the kingdom.
The story itself feels very familiar to other ATLUS JRPGs, but the setting makes it much more unique overall. Metaphor will have you traveling around the continent to help people out and win them over to get their support, which will also see you helping out the people and gaining new companions. The protagonist takes on the cursed prince's ideals to create a united world where no race is discriminated against. He will rely on his friends and his magical powers to accomplish the goal and defend against creatures and mighty monsters known as "Humans."
Like their other games, ATLUS has created an incredibly engaging tale that feels quite special. The recurring themes of discrimination and the underlying causes behind it feel a bit surreal at times due to what we see in the real world. Still, all in all, the game emphasizes overcoming anxiety and fear to free yourself of the shackles of insecurity. It's not only effective but also beautiful in a lot of ways. Watching our protagonist, who is initially disregarded because he is an Elda, try to overcome the prejudice that others have of him is a joy to see.
On top of that, every character feels really fleshed out, especially the companions. Like other ATLUS games, you will meet a cast of characters and bond with them, learning about who they are, their past, and their ideals. Each person you bond with feels distinctive from the others, and learning about who they are was a blast. I ended up feeling connected to each one, and while I have my favorites, I would say developing my bonds with each one (and seeing how they came around and awakened their Archetypes) was so worthwhile.
As the story progressed, there were some insane twists that I didn't expect. I don't want to spoil anything here, but from my first time seeing the game, I was intrigued that the enemies were called humans, and the fantasy book that our protagonist has depicts a world similar to our real world. It's all so fascinating, and how everything comes together is just phenomenal.
I also really appreciate how ATLUS went with a different setting than usual. In most of their big JRPGs (SMT and Persona), we are in a modern Japan filled with humans, skyscrapers, technology, and an assortment of demons and creatures. In Metaphor, we have a full-on fantasy world with different races and areas to explore. All the towns and dungeons have a sort of medieval-esque feel to it, mixed with some modern style like in the main kingdom, but each one is great to explore.
The actual aesthetic of these towns and all the characters don't stray too far from what ATLUS has done with the other series, but I loved how their other games looked, so I am not complaining. I noticed some oddities, like areas where Shadows didn't seem to show up for the characters or some textures that looked blurry or not detailed (even when on the highest setting), but it was never offputting.
If I had to change one thing, it would be some of the town's color palette. Some towns feel much more monochrome than others, and I enjoy vibrant scenery. There are some moments in certain locations where it really shines, but the main towns are generally covered in beige and dark colors. This is more of a personal desire than a general criticism, but it would have been nice to see.
Then we have the menus, which I love. ATLUS has been fantastic with UI for their titles, and Metaphor continues the trend. It feels like the art department was able to go nuts, and it is fantastic. The art that is integrated into the menus, and even how the summary screen of battles is organized, is just great to see. I enjoy it so much that it made me feel more energized to go into battles and grind, which can be more of a chore in turn-based games.
Combat itself will see you and your team of three facing off against different creatures. You take control of each unit on your team, and you can choose to melee attack, use your archetype and magic to use more powerful skills, or guard. Each foe has a set of weaknesses and strengths, and if you use the correct weapon type or element, you will gain an extra turn to try dealing even more damage. Leveraging your team's strengths with their archetypes to cover all of your bases is extremely important, as well as utilizing both front and back lanes in the battle to choose between extra damage and extra defense, and will be something you end up focusing on a lot the more you play the game. Once the battle is done, you will get experience to level yourself and your archetype up, and you will have two currencies to unlock new archetypes and money to buy items and weapons from shops.
These archetypes are similar to classes in other RPGs/JRPGs. Each archetype has a specific set of skills, both active ones you can trigger and passive ones, to enhance your fighting. The characters who fight start off with their own, but you can unlock more by meeting new individuals and developing their bonds. There are no limits on who can use which archetype. You just have to use a special currency you get from battling and developing bonds to develop them.
Each archetype can be ranked up to make them more powerful and get new abilities, and once fully ranked up, they provide permanent buffs to your stats that stick with you no matter which archetype you equip. I love this system, which feels like a different take on Personas from the Persona series, and made me choose to develop who I wanted to and which archetypes to max out. You can also inherit up to four skills/abilities you get from other archetypes into your currently equipped one, so there's a layer of strategy in which you choose to work on.
Generally, I like turn-based combat, but I am happy they did something similar to what Nihon Falcom did with Trails Through Daybreak. When roaming around dungeons, instead of going into battle immediately, you can attack them in the overworld. If they are low enough level, you can kill them without going into turn-based combat or "Squad Battles" while still getting the EXP, but if they are high level, you can hit them and try to stun them, and if you initiate combat, the enemy will be stunned and have lost 40% - 50% of their health.
Outside of fights, you will run around to different towns and locations to build up support and help the people of this country. As you travel, you will take on the main quest line and side quests and partake in different activities to increase your followers and "virtues" (more on this in a moment). These quests could have you buying items for people, finding a specific individual, or traveling to a dungeon to conquer it.
I do wish there was a quicker way to travel between the bigger kingdoms though. Each one has unique shops with specific items you will want to stock up on, and traveling between them can be tedious. You have to go to a specific area to teleport, and while you can fast-travel to other locations in your current town, you can't fast-travel to other towns.
One of the biggest aspects of non-combat play is how you manage your time and choose what you are going to do each day. You have two phases for different activities: Afternoon and Night. Once done, you move on to the next day. During these phases, you can go to shops and accept quests, which don't move you to the next phase, or you can increase your bonds with allies, grow your virtues, or even raise your health or magic points (MP).
There are five virtues that you can develop, and the more you do, the further you can develop your bonds with your team. Developing further bonds can unlock new advanced archetypes, extra benefits for your entire team (like recovering MP after Squad Battles are over), and the ability to inherit more skills. This also comes with learning more about their backstory and developing a deeper trust with them, and with the excellent storytelling in Metaphor, this is awesome to have. Everything in the game works together wonderfully, and I can't say that enough.
There have been a couple of patches that have come out that impacted Steam Deck performance, so more testing is needed before I recommend settings. But I will note a few things:
I will be taking another look at Steam Deck performance leading up to release and will update this before the game has launched publicly. I know the exact hardest-performing spots to test specifically so it won't take long to do, but I want to be sure I am reporting accurately before making a definitive statement. But I am very confident that the game will be very playable on Deck.
There are a lot of settings you can change here! You can toggle things like vibration, subtitles for anime cutscenes, cursor and auto tactics memory, saving your formation, confirmations, autolock, inverted camera, message speed, and skipping some animations. We can also change sound bars and rebind keys.
There is no 16:10 resolution support, so there are black bars at the top and bottom of the game, but there is cloud saves and controller support. There are no HDR settings.
Metaphor: ReFantazio is a step forward for ATLUS, of which I am a huge fan. The story and characters are both fantastic and engaging, while the combat and the new changes from them are wonderful. I love the entire archetype system and the new fantasy world that they built. It still has the deep story and meaning behind it that we have come to know from the Persona series, but with a new fantasy angle that I dig. There are a couple of areas that feel a bit monochrome or textures that don't look amazing, and I do wish getting around was a bit easier, but these criticisms are far few compared to just how enjoyable the game is.
Our Steam Deck coverage is coming in the next few days, but I am happy that it is playable from start to finish, and this will definitely be a great way to experience Metaphor.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Metaphor: ReFantazio is one of the best games I have played this year and it's hard not to recommend it, especially if you're playing on Steam Deck.
