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

[TheDoldrums]

Okay so I bought it and got in a couple hours so far. Really liking it so far. Super early impressions:

- Definitely feels distinct enough from Persona to be it's on thing and I don't feel burnout coming from P4G. The world reminds me more of something like Trails and the art style has Fire Emblem vibes.

- I hope not every single NPC exclusively talks about the "tribes." Like we could do with a little more nuance early on

- Why does the main standard battle theme go so hard lol. OST as a whole sounds good so far and so different from Persona obviously

- Battles go super quick early on, especially only controlling the protag. Good stuff

 

[PeteWorrell]

I like Metaphor more. I bounced of SMT V pretty hard, just didn't get into the story enough but maybe I didn't give it a fair enough shot.

I appreciate that Metaphor is trying to switch up the formula a little bit. It's very familiar for Persona/SMT players, but there's just enough variation to keep it feeling fresh, at least from what I've played (still really early, I got too busy and have had my progress slow to a crawl). I like SMT Nocturne a lot, but have had trouble getting into any of the more recent SMT games.

The mainline SMT games are more focused on game mechanics like fusing demons then the story. The fourth game had much more of a narrative but the fifth game went more towards what the third game did and that was all about gameplay and atmosphere.

 

[Turin]

Okay so I bought it and got in a couple hours so far. Really liking it so far. Super early impressions:

- Definitely feels distinct enough from Persona to be it's on thing and I don't feel burnout coming from P4G. The world reminds me more of something like Trails and the art style has Fire Emblem vibes.

- I hope not every single NPC exclusively talks about the "tribes." Like we could do with a little more nuance early on

- Why does the main standard battle theme go so hard lol. OST as a whole sounds good so far and so different from Persona obviously

- Battles go super quick early on, especially only controlling the protag. Good stuff

This is indeed the main issue with the game, imo. The dialogue is extremely one note for too often.

Image if 95% of your conversations in P4G had the term "reaching out to truth" in them- instead of it being an overarching theme it was just said in every conversation. That's what Metaphor feels like sometimes, and I'm not sure if thats a translation choice or the actual literal dialogue.