Metaphor ReFantazio Quick Thoughts
Thoughts as they come to me, mostly unsorted. A running commentary, if you will.
Spoilers, obviously, though I'll try to not get overtly direct.
Had some earlier thoughts from playing the demo here
I wrote on bluesky,
So far, Metaphor blundering into narrative pitfalls I was worried about, like the classic "villain has a point but is also a crazed killer necromancer and thus can be immediately dismissed with the 'you're being just as bad!' line". Also all the side characters are way cooler than the main party. Also not into fighting to protect the monarchy status quo. I want to tear down the endless now, not keep it going.
I stand by that still.
The party dynamic is improving as I get further in and they're willing to get a bit sillier with it. Heismay actually has stuff going on compared to Strohl or Hulkenberg. The scene where he genuinely empathizes with the villain of the week is a step in the right direction for the game.... 20 hours in.
As just noted, all the non-party member social links seem way cooler to me than the party members. It's a crime Catherina isn't a party member. My eyes rolled out of their head when the party basically says "well, she hasn't thought her platform through, how silly" when her platform is "kill the rich and redistribute wealth". What's your platform, Strohl? Reinstate the monarchy with a prince who's been in a coma for a decade?? Fucking whatever.
Being decoupled from modern Japan as a setting makes it stand out how bloodthirsty Metaphor is; people are dying left and right to a point where it's nearly comical. The party's whole objective is explicitly to assassinate Louis. A random Social Link rank (not a whole link, just one rank up) might involve someone being hung from the neck until dead or an entire village being razed to the ground. The city alleyways are littered with corpses. I have to assume it's an intentional part of the mood, but it feels like an overcorrection considering the meta-context.
The racism is still pretty fucking hackneyed, but a couple of bits have stood out as better than the rest.
- At least a couple times, characters have assumed Strohl - being a clemar, the tribe dominant in population and political power - is the actual king candidate and addressed him as the representative for the whole party, having to be awkwardly corrected.
- The game has dipped into how cross-tribe children perhaps have it worst of all, since elda are apparently extremely rare. Heismay's dungeon puts a point on this to a nearly absurd degree.
- I discussed this with Gee and he brought up that this is an angle that Japanese devs might actually have a shot at tackling due to how mixed-race people are treated over there. The RGG/Yakuza series pulls out the "Secret Korean" card literally about once a game to the point where it's almost a running gag.
Any port in a storm, I guess.
It's been interesting adjusting to a more classic Press Turn battle system rather than Persona's One More system and learning some of its idiosyncrasies. Missing attacks or hitting a block/repel is catastrophic compared to Persona, making Sukukaja (accuracy/evasion) buffs and debuffs far more important. Because of this I've used more Almighty attacks in 20 hours of Metaphor than probably my entire Persona career combined. The early-game Merchant ability where you throw 500 gold at the enemy has been incredibly useful, not just as Almighty damage but because some enemy types will skip their turn to try and pick up the money. I'm also making damn sure to stay stocked up on the consumable items that do flat 100 damage of a specific element because sometimes squeezing out that last half-turn pip is critical.
That said, I would say I haven't been grinding in any intentional way, just doing sidequests as they pop up, and I'm definitely overleveled. A solid 95% of encounters in Heismay's dungeon died on the overworld, and I was able to defeat the Big Scary Monster that you're supposed to run away from (the game refused to acknowledge this meaningfully despite suggesting that I could try).
Social Links now level up every time, with "correct" dialogue options apparently just rewarding you with more MAG. It's a nice quality of life change, but removes some of the hangout-i-tude that was critical to Persona. There isn't really a "daily life" aspect anymore, in Metaphor it's closer to taking a managerial role for your little merc company.
Downtime feels a bit enforced in a way that it didn't in Persona, as though the characters would push on ahead if they weren't actively being stopped by landslides or weather or whatever else. In Persona 3-4-5, the plot mandates that there's simply nothing for the party to do until the next full moon or foggy day or whatever, so it's cool to just go get some beef bowl or hang out the mall.
Added Oct 15, 2024
The story's starting to get into full swing and I'm still iffy on it. It's nothing outside of expectations so far, for good or ill... which means I'm still kiiinda leaning towards ill. I think the stuff implied by the various ruins that you merely stop at to take a picture is way more interesting than anything I've seen in the main game so far.
For example, so far Catherina's social link is about how she wants to basically redistribute wealth by taking down the rich. Sounds good, except now it's about how her followers are going too far and stealing from anyone with more money than them. So the game has Catherina straight up say "well not every rich person is bad" and the game wags its finger at me when I pick the dialogue option that says "the rich should be obligated to help others". Yes, Catherina! The rich should be obligated to help others, even at the point of a blade!
HOW DO YOU THINK PEOPLE GOT RICH IN THE FIRST PLACE LADY
There's a new mechanic where if the weather is bad when you go to a dungeon, you no longer get extra turn pips from hitting weaknesses. I messed up some timing and ended up in a side dungeon while this was going on and wow it becomes way harder than I was expecting. I had it in my head that "oh yeah, I beat most encounters in about one or two turns it's fine," but foolishly did not account for how that was with the extra turn pips.
On the bright side it got me to start looking at Synthesis skills more closely; I've been mostly ignoring them because I felt like most of them weren't worth spending two full turn pips. But when everything's taking a full pip, it can be worth it to scrape out that extra 200-300 damage with a synthesis skill while maintaining the turn order.
The real bottleneck I'm starting to run into is MAG, especially as Archetypes and skill inheritance are costing more and more. I was probably a little too gungho about converting it to money. Not sure how best to grind it out either; at least with cash you can fence random drops from enemies. With MAG it feels like you just gotta grind it out.
Best skills so far: anything that simultaneously does damage and inflicts a debuff. Shield Arts is my best friend.
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