Metaphor: ReFantasio (PS4/PS5, XSX/XSS, PC)

[The Merchant]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1843292922818785333

Seems to deserve its own thread, considering it's likely to be a major GotY contender.

Click to read more...

 

[Tw1ster]

Day one purchase for me. Persona 3-5 are three of my favorite JRPGs of all time.

 

[Seedtype]

Looks amazing, but I'm way too deep into replaying Monster Hunter World right now.

Definitely will be getting it at some point.

 

[Blitzkrug]

Doesn't shock me honestly. Persona games generally review well but a lot of people don't like how some of the story beats are a bit creepy/weird. Teachers creeping on students, heavily implied sexual relations between the protag and his teacher, etc so it feels like those games will always be niche because of it.

After playing this, the thing I took away from it is it's essentially Persona, but with a dark fantasy setting. That's generally going to be an easier sell for a wider audience imo.

Combine that with Atlus's JRPG mechanics and you got the probable game of the year.

 

[Mikeaveli]

Unless Silent Hill 2 or S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 blow me away this will probably be my game of the year.

 

[Jovavic]

Going to wait for the first sale

 

[Blitzkrug]

I played like two hours of the demo and was immediately sucked in.

I usually stay away from anything that could be considered anime/weebish since i never really cared for it outside of the newer Final Fantasy games, but gave this a shot since the worst a demo could cost me is my time. Shit had me interested right away. Interesting political undertones, classic vibe of randos having to slay what is essentially a demigod like figure, deep class/bond system. Instabuy.

Persona didn't click with me because of the weirdness/it being a high school social life sim. This basically takes care of my biggest disconnect.

 

[Mikeaveli]

I played like two hours of the demo and was immediately sucked in.

I usually stay away from anything that could be considered anime/weebish since i never really cared for it outside of the newer Final Fantasy games, but gave this a shot since the worst a demo could cost me is my time. Shit had me interested right away. Interesting political undertones, classic vibe of randos having to slay what is essentially a demigod like figure, deep class/bond system. Instabuy.

Persona didn't click with me because of the weirdness/it being a high school social life sim. This basically takes care of my biggest disconnect.

You might also like the mainline Shin Megami Tensei games, they don't have the life sim stuff and focus more on combat and the creature collecting aspect. SMT V's combat system is way better than Persona 3-5's and I believe Metaphor borrows some aspects from it (Press Turn icons).

 

[Turin]

I started the demo today and yea, they unsurprisingly cooked.

 

[Jovavic]

It's a meaty demo, took me eight hours and I didn't walk around in circles trying to fight everything either

 

[PeteWorrell]

I never had any doubt that they would knock it out of the park.

People associate Hashino with the more recent mainline Persona games that are high school simulators but he has been involved in many Atlus projects since the late 90s. I am talking projects like Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, Digital Devil Saga and Catherine which are great and very different then the Persona high school sims.

So he is not and never has been someone who stuck to a single style who knows nothing else. He just took elements from different projects he worked on and used them to make Metaphor: ReFantazio.

 

[Commander Clueless]

This would be a day one purchase for me if I didn't have a crippling backlog this year...I haven't even started P3R yet

Definitely an eventual pickup.

 

[Turin]

Some of the localization in this game feels pretty heavy handed. I can’t imagine the original Japanese is quite this unsubtle when it comes to modern western buzzwords.

Very fun so far though. The difficulty is closer to SMT than Persona, I’m playing on Hard and I might lower it.

 

[Turin]

Something I'm seeing a lot of people somehow miss regarding the story (because it's pretty obvious from the prologue) is that the Utopia of More's book is the real world where there is only one "tribe" which literally in Japanese is "race". In the fantasy setting there are many different sentient human-like species dreaming of a world where there is only one human species (homo-sapien) and naively thinking how everything must be great there because of that. Since Hashino has said the main theme of the game is anxiety and not racism, I'm gonna assume the general thrust of the plot is something like "things like race/class divide, etc are all external manifestations of deeper anxieties shared across all humanity" which is something the people learn near the end of the game or something.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

Some of the localization in this game feels pretty heavy handed. I can’t imagine the original Japanese is quite this unsubtle when it comes to modern western buzzwords.

Very fun so far though. The difficulty is closer to SMT than Persona, I’m playing on Hard and I might lower it.

No wonder if got such glowing reviews from game journos lol

 

[Turin]

No wonder if got such glowing reviews from game journos lol

Yea I’m seeing most people say that racism is the main theme of the game. Tribalism is a big factor but it’s not the point of the story. The localizers kind of f***ed it up in English.

 

[Jovavic]

Yea I’m seeing most people say that racism is the main theme of the game. Tribalism is a big factor but it’s not the point of the story. The localizers kind of f***ed it up in English.

I could tell from the demo that it echoes the racial storyline from FF16 and how everyone shit on the Bracers. I also got a Mass Effect vibe with the amount of different races and how they interact with each other and who is a "lesser" race.

 

[PeteWorrell]

Do we have evidence that the translation is inaccurate? Like confirmation from people who can actually understand both Japanese and English at a high enough level? I am not interested in the opinions of people who can't understand a lick of Japanese starting dumb controversies without anything to back it up.

 

[Jovavic]

Do we have evidence that the translation is inaccurate? Like confirmation from people who can actually understand both Japanese and English at a high enough level? I am not interested in the opinions of people who can't understand a lick of Japanese starting dumb controversies without anything to back it up.

I'd be interested also though I suspect it's just the latest thing to melt over if it doesn't meet a narrow world view

 

[Mikeaveli]

I haven't seen anything regarding the racial themes but I did see a comparison on Twitter regarding Gallica's dialogue where they seem to have made her way more "quirky" in the English version.

 

[The Merchant]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1846054947244114106

 

[Turin]

Do we have evidence that the translation is inaccurate? Like confirmation from people who can actually understand both Japanese and English at a high enough level? I am not interested in the opinions of people who can't understand a lick of Japanese starting dumb controversies without anything to back it up.

I saw an instance where the theme of "dreaming of a world where there is one race (ie, homo sapiens)" was changed in English to dreaming of a world where all the races got along. Which really changes the point of the narrative. Also have seen a few instances of weird dialogue in English that seemed really try-hard, and then saw that it wasn't written than way in Japanese. It's not a total horror show or anything, it's not nearly the worst localization out there by a long shot.

 

[syz]

Most of the people who whine about localization at this point in my experience barely know anything about one language, let alone two. Haven't played Metaphor and likely won't for several months, but Atlus usually does well enough there, and I would assume this game being explicitly less Japanese than a Persona game made things easier. Although Persona games usually go for M ESRB ratings and it looks like this one is T so that can always cause some hurdles.

 

[Blitzkrug]

I'm not deep into it but I always got the impression it was just a basic classist type story beat though obviously not the entire point of it.

Hardly anything new with dark fantasy type stories.