ReFantazio Blends Refined Persona Gameplay With Lackluster World

When I met the mysterious man in my dreams, I knew exactly what kind of game Metaphor: ReFantazio would be. 

The upcoming game, which comes out Oct. 11, is a turn-based RPG and dungeon explorer that focuses on building personal relationships to unlock supernatural avatars to fight on your behalf. If this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s exactly the same formula used in the Persona series, the other line of successful turn-based RPGs from publisher Atlus. 

Veteran Persona fans will enjoy getting their hands on a recognizable adventure. Despite Metaphor’s mechanical similarities to Persona, it’s a refined title with solid mechanics that play into an addictive gameplay loop. But after playing about a third of the way through the game for this review in progress, there’s not been a lot of payoff for its headier themes: the world, music, narrative and characters don’t reach the heights of Persona, which leaves Metaphor feeling unresolved. 

Atlus is a longtime Japanese game publisher with roots dating back to the original Nintendo Entertainment System. Internationally, it’s most well-known for the Megami Tensei and Persona series. P-Studio, which made 2016’s award-winning Persona 5, was led by Katsura Hashino. After the release of Persona 5, Hashino left P-Studio to head another division within Atlus named Studio Zero, where he was tasked with creating a new pillar for Atlus’ lineup of RPGs. His team decided to move away from post-apocalyptic or modern Tokyo settings and instead settled on a fantasy realm for Metaphor: ReFantazio — which, in the full game, hasn’t felt too different from past Persona games.

The narrative cadence, mechanics and gameplay loop are so similar to Persona that it very well could have been made by P-Studio. Given that Hashino directed 2011’s wildly unique Catherine, Metaphor: ReFantazio feels like a missed opportunity to do something new. To have the opportunity to start a new franchise yet stick to so much familiarity without adding anything novel is bewildering, which became more grating as I played through the first third of Metaphor.

This review will be updated with a final score upon completion or near completion.

New Setting, New Problems

Metaphor: ReFantazio takes place in a fantasy setting with kings, a looming church and a diverse set of races segmented to various societal castes. You play as an Elda, one of the smaller tribes in the United Kingdom of Euchronia, a minority tribe that’s discriminated against for unclear reasons. On your journey, you’ll befriend other races defined by physical characteristics: Roussaintes are notable for their pointed ears, Clemars, the dominant tribe known for having horns on the side of their heads and Nidias, exhibiting engrossing jewel-like eyes. It’s your standard fantasy analogue for racial bigotry, though at least it’s not the same elves-versus-dwarves flavor.

Metaphor’s story revolves around you trying to lift the immobilizing curse on your best friend, who also happens to be the crown prince and rightful heir to Euchronia. Lifting the curse requires killing the game’s main antagonist, who’s also gunning for the throne in a bizarre democratic rat race to become an all-ruling monarch. The story is engaging enough, even if it can seem contradictory at times as the country’s complex rules of rulership clash with your personal quest to save the prince.

While I’m a third of the way through the game, the narrative hasn’t painted much backstory as to why some races are treated better than others. Sure, the large walking bat-people of the Eugief tribe are viewed with suspicion given their appearance. The other races, however, largely look like humans, and their inter-tribal friction feels forced. Well, “human” might not be the right word. More on that later.

Metaphor’s society is one mired in racism, where some races are treated so lowly that their execution at the gallows is met with glee. It’s bleak and unnerving especially as the society writ large does little to question why things are the way they are.

Metaphor does little to explain this status quo to the player. Why, for instance, are the Elda, who pretty much look like anyone else (minus the horns or pointy ears) looked down upon with such derision? Is it solely because they’re rarely seen? 

One set of grotesque monsters you’ll run into are literally called “humans.” Is the metaphor that humans are monsters? Hashino doesn’t want you to look at it that way. “Humans” in Metaphor are supposed to be a personification of anxiety, as he told me recently. But unless you read his interviews, I suspect players might think it’s a ham-fisted attempt to sound cool or edgy. 

Hashino says the world of Metaphor shouldn’t be seen as a, well, metaphor to our own society. Even if that isn’t the case, at the very least, there’s ample ground to flesh out the racial dynamics in Metaphor. Yet, in my playthrough so far, that ground, largely, is left untrodden. 

Persona gameplay, streamlined

Broadly speaking, Metaphor plays identically to Persona. The turn-based battles are about exploiting your advantages against enemy weaknesses to quickly dispose of them and gain experience points. You run through dungeons to battle monsters, and, thankfully, if you’re strong enough, you can quickly bash them from behind without having to jump into a battle sequence, saving hours of repetitive gameplay. 

The elemental powers, weaknesses and other mechanics are borrowed wholesale from Persona, which feels like it’s bordering on gaming plagiarism. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing considering the Persona games have seen nearly three decades of refinement. It’s a system that works. But for longtime fans of Persona games, it can feel a bit been-there-done-that. 

The calendar mechanic also finds its way into Metaphor. Where some RPGs let you engage in infinite side quests before going on to save the princess, the Persona games only let you complete a certain number of activities throughout a given day. This means that if you have to save the princess on Oct. 20, you’ll have a limited number of opportunities to gather items, level up and build up your social connections before the clock runs out. Your packed schedule leads you to want to spend some days grinding dungeons to level up and others making connections with your friends to unlock new abilities. Without fast travel, you’ll burn even more time heading to and from destinations, a notable difference from the Persona titles. 

Players looking for a challenge will find it in Metaphor’s hard mode. It requires lots of trial and error, with careful optimization of your equipment and leveling throughout the game’s calendar. If you screw up how you’ve utilized each day leading up to a major event, you’ll ultimately have to load a save file from days prior and redo those days with a different strategy. While I was able to finish Persona 5 in hard mode without too much anguish, I found myself truly being pushed into multiple corners in Metaphor’s hard mode, requiring me to rewind the clock and try again.

Gorgeous art and jagged edges

While its gameplay is familiar, Metaphor’s art design differs from the Persona series in its watercolor aesthetic with a light filter of translucent brush strokes that gives Metaphor a distinct look. Character designs stick to anime tropes with big eyes and nonnatural hair colors. At the very least, the United Kingdom of Euchronia isn’t a rehash of J.R.R. Tolkien’s world. For example, Tolkein would never have designed a pink anthromorph with long bunny ears and short shorts. 

In battle, your archetypes — giant summonable alter egos — are interesting enough, but all have the same knightley shining armor look, meaning they aren’t quite as varied as the personas in Persona. The monsters you encounter are your general fare of goblins, grotesque slimes, giant bugs and ravenous dogs. The real variety in monster design lies in the fantastically grotesque “humans,” which are highly detailed and are made to look as darkly surrealistic as possible. The “human” design takes much inspiration from Hieronymus Bosch, a 16th century Dutch painter known for his ghastly depictions of hell and monsters.

Some graphical issues dogged my experience: While playing on Xbox Series X, I noticed that there were lots of jagged edges in the background and around character elements. This suggests there isn’t a strong anti-aliasing filter running on top of the game, dampening the overall strong presentation. At the very least, the game runs at a smooth 60 frames per second.

Graphically, Metaphor looks to be on par with Persona 5. It makes sense as Metaphor is a cross-generation game, releasing on PS4 as well. It’s possible that Studio Zero couldn’t graphically push Metaphor’s visuals as it also had to develop for the PS4 in mind. 

I’m not buying Metaphor’s world

Hashino says that Metaphor: ReFantazio’s main theme is anxiety and how it cripples our ability to progress in life. It’s a worthwhile theme to center a game around, but so far in my playthrough, the execution in Metaphor feels amateurish. Just because some monster attacks cause anxiety, a status effect inhibiting your abilities, doesn’t make Metaphor deep. And whenever your companion exclaims, “Is that a human?!” I can’t help but roll my eyes.

While it’s interesting to try and paint a complex fantasy world stymied by racism and other societal foibles, little is done to expand upon it. Yes, discrimination is bad. No, it doesn’t really affect your ability to finish side quests. Studio Zero simply doesn’t do enough to give Metaphor’s society much complexity.

Despite the fantasy world not being particularly deep or interesting, it doesn’t take away from the overall gameplay. Even though it’s a retread of past Persona formulas, it’s polished and makes for a satisfying gameplay loop. 

For those jumping into an Atlus RPG for the first time, Metaphor: ReFantazio wouldn’t be my first recommendation as the world, characters and intrigue don’t compare. Persona 5’s psychological murder mysteries and social interactions are more interesting with gameplay that cleverly aligns with its thematic whole. Even then, the bones of a solid game are still there in Metaphor’s first third. It ultimately fails to differentiate itself enough from past Persona titles to stand above them. In this case, throwing Persona in a suit of shining armor isn’t enough to convince me it’s a wholly new game when its clanking boots are dancing to the same tune.