Niahak's Place

Hey, so I actually played a game a while back and never wrote anything about it. It’s a little game called Metaphor Re:Fantazio.

One reason I didn’t feel like writing about it all that much is that plenty of others have already. I feel like a lot of the things I’d say have already been said dozens of times. It’s also more mainstream than what I typically write about here.

I’ll say at least that it’s good. Great, even. It’s a little more iterative than I was expecting – even if its setting and story are somewhat different from Persona 5, you can really feel where features are lifted or repurposed without much in the way of change. But the overall thrust of the game works really well with the schedule system of P5, and I appreciate that Metaphor finally feels like a more mature story, with fewer of the staple anime tropes that the series has been riddled with since Persona 3. The companions are generally pretty good, too.

One of the main themes of Metaphor is really one that resonates with me. The idea that fantasy is not mere escapism, but a powerful force that fuels the imagination in a way that can change the world is, at the very least, a good premise for a fantasy game. And the irony that it is the fantasy world itself that is in need of that inspiration (and our world provides that fantasy) adds to the fun. I think it is maybe a little self-indulgent but eh, suspension of disbelief and all that. Most of your party treats the protagonist as a hopeless dreamer to start off, so it does have a bit of nuance.

I will say as a bit of caution that the art style for the “human” enemies is pretty out-there. It’s fairly disturbing, some bosses in particular. Metaphor focuses less on them after about the mid-point (…30 hours) though. Another word of caution, too – it IS a long game. My play-through took 60 hours, and it sounds like that is on the low end of the spectrum. Its pace isn’t bad, generally, though some side quests are a little tedious.