If you’ve been following Atlus a long time, you’re probably familiar with the wide variety of genres and backgrounds they’ve made games in. Naturally, the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei series are both near the top of most people’s lists but what we see less frequently are high fantasy stories. You could probably argue that the Persona games are a form of high urban fantasy, but it’s kind of a fine line for sure. If you’re itching to play a more traditional fantasy game with Atlus sensibilities however, look no further than Metaphor: ReFantazio! While it was released last October, it’s time to revisit Metaphor: ReFantazio as it has recently come to Xbox Game Pass, giving a whole new audience the chance to spend some time with this epic RPG. There are more than a few similarities to Persona 5 here, so don’t be surprised to feel remarkably comfortable with the game rather quickly, as the design aesthetic is clearly heavily influenced by previous Atlus releases.
In Metaphor: ReFantazio, you play a nameless protagonist (you’ve probably got your own preferences there so name away) who was the childhood playmate of the prince of the United Kingdom of Euchronia. Sadly, an assassination attempt left the young prince cursed and dying, wrapped in magical thorny vines as his life force slowly ebbs away. To save him and restore him to the throne, you’ll have to team up with the fairy Gallica and Grius, a grizzled combat veteran in order to assassinate the caster of the curse and destroy the spell. There are complications however, and you and your team are sucked into a bizarre competition for the crown of Euchronia, even though you’re trying to restore the prince to his rightful place!
Metaphor: ReFantazio starts out a bit slow in order to fully build up the world that you’re experiencing. One of the first things you’ll notice however is an extremely strong focus on racism between the different races in the game. There are nine different tribes in the kingdom and each has a different status in a sort of hierarchical caste system. Your character is Elda, a heavily discriminated against and uncommon race. Unfortunately, the exposition on this system and the way different races are treated in Euchronian society takes away from the early narrative in the game and makes it end up a little bit preachy. There’s nothing wrong with incorporating these concepts, but they’re so heavy-handed that they end up having the opposite of the intended effect, especially coupled with the complexity of learning about each of these cultures as you play.
Gameplay will be familiar to anyone who has played Persona 5. In true JRPG fashion, you’ll explore cities, talk to residents, buy items, weapons, and armor, and explore a variety of dungeons. Dungeon combat is extremely similar to Persona 5 with turn-based combat where you select from a variety of attacks and special attacks in a flashy, visually dynamic combat screen. Once you’ve reached a certain level, weaker enemies are easily defeated without dropping to a separate combat screen, limiting grinding and making it easier to find the right enemies to kill. Stronger enemies can take a few hits before being stunned, letting you get in an automatic attack before combat starts and softening them up. Particularly strong enemies will be able to get in a shot before you, leaving you at a disadvantage during the start of combat, so sometimes it’s better to initiate turn based combat before they do, an option available for all level of enemies at the touch of a button.
There are several different types of attacks within combat, standard ones item-based attacks if you have the right gear, and your special abilities, which aren’t personas even though they try really hard to be in some ways. Instead of Personas, characters gain access to Archetypes, powerful character aspects shared amongst humanity and distilled into magical veils that can be unlocked by a handful of people. The parallels continue with the ability to study different archetypes, switch between them, and even inherit abilities between different archetypes, making them more versatile. When attacking with an archetype, you shift to its form for your attack and then back to your regular body afterward. Some archetypes interact with each other as well, allowing you to jointly attack with Synthesis attacks at the cost of your turn to devastate the enemy with a much more powerful attack. Some of these attacks are ridiculously powerful, especially later, so experimenting with different archetype combinations is essential.
Regardless of what type of combat style you prefer, you’ll need to incorporate Archetypes into your planning and actively work to power them up. As you do, additional abilities will appear as well, bolstering your strength proportionate to that of the monsters in the dungeons you’ll explore. There’s a lot of dungeon play built into Metaphor: ReFantazio, but there’s also a timer. You only have so long to accomplish your goals before things go sideways and everything you’ve been working for collapses. Wait too long to act or waste your time and Louis will reign instead of the prince, decimating the kingdom.
That timer is really the driving force behind the game, though it doesn’t really start impacting things until later when you get your bizarre walking base, the Gauntlet Runner. With it, you can travel long distances, but travel takes time and “time marches ever forward”. Every trip you take eats up some of the time you have left before the next major event, ensuring you simply can’t do everything you want to do (perhaps a tad too realistic?) and leaving you strategically choosing who to meet with, where to fight, and what to do in the two time periods per day you have to do things. Exploring towns doesn’t use up your time, but going places or spending time with people does. This is incredibly similar to the Persona series and a natural evolution of systems like that of Persona 3: Reload (review here) though more forgiving as you are told exactly what each decision will do in terms of increasing your royal virtue (the skills you need to be king) and the bonds with your allies. There are also plenty of side missions and people to talk to which can increase your popularity if you choose to address them, but it all feels pressured by the time constraints.
Naturally, Metaphor: ReFantazio is a gorgeous game with full anime cut scenes, beautifully rendered environments, and creative character and monster designs. The entire game simply oozes style, much like the Persona series but with its own fantasy flair. The humans were probably the most surprising weirdness, something you’d never expect, so enjoy those encounters! While the colors are muted in the game, the detail levels more than make up for that, and a vibrant, colourful fantasy world doesn’t seem like it would match the gritty realism of the storyline. Every single aspect of Metaphor: ReFantazio is wonderfully made, from the maps to the menu screens to the environments though, and there’s not a glitch or visual issue to be seen.
Atlus always steps up the audio as well and this is no exception. The entire game is fully voiced with a stellar crew of English voice actors and will blow you away with the range and depth of the characterizations. This is one hell of a script overall and scenes have gravitas, somewhat of a rarity in most games. The music is beyond excellent too, with a full orchestrated soundtrack that is intensely dramatic, sucking the player in and adding to the mood of the game by creating tension, elation, and excitement in turns. This is a soundtrack worth owning, and you’re going to enjoy every minute of it! Even the sound effects are noticeably crisp and well-done, with a wide variety of sounds, noises, growls, and the like for every conceivable event and combat type. Nothing has been left out in this top notch sound work.
There are really only a few issues with Metaphor: ReFantazio. One is that the time limit feels artificially constraining, something that is heightened from previous Atlus titles like Persona 5 and Persona 3 Reload. Making your decisions and living with them is definitely part of the game, but they can have significant impacts. In one portion of the game, there’s an additional level timer on top of the regular day timer, forcing you to rush through the level to beat a boss that you may or may not have been prepared for. The game realizes this and instead of a retry, offers to let you replay the last few days if you fail, but that feels almost like a design flaw. Should I have to do all that stuff when I was mid-combat before? It’s that added pressure that sours the mix a bit.
The same goes for the racism we mentioned earlier. While it’s great to highlight diversity and focus on how people are treated, the sheer amount of that coverage in the game quickly becomes irritating, especially if you’re not paying close attention to which races are which statuses. A bit more subtlety might have worked well here, but maybe people just need smacked in the face with a fish once in a while. Hard to say. Either way, there’s so much focus on discrimination and lack of equity that it’s hard to pay attention to the character dynamics sometimes, leading to a disparity between characters and the townsfolk around them that never fully resolves, even though the story does. It turns a powerful story into a bit of a mixed bag thanks to overuse and that’s a shame because these are important themes that need to be addressed.
Metaphor: ReFantazio is a spectacular game that forces you to make decisions whether you like it or not and challenges players to develop relationships and balance powers in a way that makes all the tinkering fun and engaging. It’s got one hell of a plot and while there are some strong themes that might bother some, it manages to be incredibly fun anyway and has a fast-paced and interesting combat system that will keep you engaged in every dungeon. That’s a pretty impressive showing for a new JRPG, even if it is clearly standing on the shoulders of the Persona series. Metaphor: ReFantazio is definitely worth your time and with its addition to Game Pass, you’ve got no excuse not to play it!
This review is based on a digital copy of Metaphor: ReFantazio provided by the publisher. It was played on an Xbox Series X console with a 1080p 55” Sony TV. Metaphor: ReFantazio is also available digitally and physically on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, and for PC on Steam.
Nate Van Lindt has been a gamer since the days of yore (aka Commodore 64), and has played a bit of virtually everything out there. He's also an avid comic book collector, both vintage and current, and reads a fair amount of sci-fi and fantasy. On top of that, he watches a fair number of movies and TV shows as well. Oh, and he has a family, a full-time job, and lives somewhere in the urban wilds of Southwestern Ontario, Canada, foraging for old video cables and forgotten game soundtracks.