Metaphor: ReFantazio Demo Impressions
Ahead of its October 11th release, Atlus released a prologue demo for Metaphor: ReFantazio on PlayStation 4|5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. After playing over four hours of the demo on PC, I have much to report on regarding the exciting world, engaging combat mechanics, and powerful presentation for Atlus’ exciting new JRPG IP.
What is Metaphor: ReFantazio?
Originally teased in 2017 as Project Re:Fantasy, Atlus officially unveiled Metaphor: ReFantazio during the 2023 Xbox Games Showcase, with the title releasing on PlayStation 4|5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on October 11th.
Taking inspiration from the team’s prior work on the Persona franchise, the game follows a voiced protagonist on a journey to unite a fractured land through forging bonds and fighting against oppression. The official Steam Page further goes into details on the game, stating the following;
From the creative minds behind Persona 3, 4, and 5 comes Metaphor: ReFantazio, a unique fantasy world, where your protagonist will journey alongside his fairy companion, Gallica, to lift the curse from the kingdom’s lost prince. Control your destiny, face your fears and awaken magical “Archetype” powers that lie dormant in your heart. By awakening to an “Archetype,” you will unlock the power to channel and combine the abilities of unique job classes. Strengthen your bonds and build your party to take down powerful foes and discover the kingdom’s true nature.
World & Story
In a high-fantasy world, the player travels to the kingdom’s capital on a mission to take down Louis. Louis is responsible for a great loss for the player’s character. What makes the player character far more interesting in comparison to the Persona titles is that he is fully voiced. This adds more agency in the narrative.
Not unlike the Atlus-developed Soul Hackers 2, the main character talks to other characters non-prompted but can still make dialog choices, which are fully voiced. But what makes the main character feel so special, is that he has a defined personality. He is an Eda, a race of people at the bottom of the totem pole in Metaphor’s world. But even despite the blatant racism and abuse thrown his way, he still leaps into action to defend others.
But your main character isn’t alone in facing the trails ahead of him. Like other Atlus RPGs, a party of characters joins you, with their personalities being a mixture of familiar and refreshing changes on typical Atlus tropes. Strohi is one of the first party members, a low-class noble who lost his entire village and family in a great fire, fitting the ‘role’ of the best friend character to the protagonist. But instead of being comedic relief, something Persona 4 and Persona 5 did with that character type, Strohi is serious from the jump.
He is quick to defend the main character upon his introduction in the story and even despite not knowing the full ‘scale’ of the protagonist’s quest. Despite this, he still blindly joins the main character, sensing the earnest hero within him. The events that follow, only further cement Strohi’s loyal, kind, and heroic personality.
The two other party members that join you are Grius and Hulkenberg, both having connections to the royal family. Grius leaves such an impact on the player, making later events all the more impactful. Meanwhile, Hukenberg’s voice acting and fantastic character design instantly make you root for her journey to find the Prince, someone she failed in her eyes.
While I only played four hours of the massive demo, the story moments I’ve come across so far have me locked in for the game’s launch on October 11th. Something worth noting is that the lead-up to the game’s first proper dungeon does take a while, similar in length to something like Persona 4. So keep that in mind for those who felt the pacing of some Persona games was longwinded in the early goings.
Combat Impressions
The combat system takes the formula established by SMT and Persona but makes interesting evaluations and appreciated changes. One of the biggest shake-ups is the inclusion of real-time action combat when in the overworld/dungeons, defeating lower-level enemies.
However, you can’t just button-mash through most battles, as the higher-leveled enemies demand you enter turn-based combat. This is where the real-time action-combat elements function more as ‘getting a head-start’ for the longer battles, typically leaving your enemies at around 50-70% health.
The turn-based combat itself has the familiar interface seen in Persona 3 Reload and Persona 5 Royal, being able to use specific face buttons to easily use melee attacks, blocking, healing/defensive items, and even simple magic spells. However, the utilization of the Archetypes is very different from the Personas or Demons in prior Atlus RPGs.
Earning Archetypes through story progression and a Social-Link style Bond system the player character can freely equip any Archetype. But this ability also extends to the entire party, with each character being able to swap Archetypes mid-battle. Each one offers a small set of ‘standard’ magic attacks, but to use the stronger abilities, you need to use up a higher amount of turns, represented by blue crystals at the top of the screen.
Landing attacks using weaknesses against enemies can give you an extra turn. This is similar to the ‘Once More’ mechanic from Persona, but it’s stricter when compared to that game. While you can sometimes chain multiple blows on a group of enemies, the exclusion of Persona 5’s ‘Batton Pass’ mechanic ensures you can’t abuse this system.
Another thing I noticed during my time with the demo was how when the protagonist died, the battle did not end. This ensures, that even during the toughest battles, you can either keep fighting with your remaining party members or escape to try again. A major issue some had with the Persona series was the ‘Leader’ dying flat out ending the fight, so I am quite pleased Metaphor changed this.
Metaphor: ReFantazio Presentation
It would not be an Atlus production without breathtaking, stylized visuals. Their work on the Persona franchise speaks for itself but other productions like SMTV and Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE demonstrate their mastery in art direction.
The menus alone ooze style and character, having a painterly-look, and highlighting the different parts of the protagonist’s body while you sort through items, party members, and more. In addition, The battle UI is very clean, continuing the ‘face buttons leading to specific actions’ format Persona 5 started.
Metaphor’s art style goes for a high-fantasy look. Even in the game’s early hours, you explore a sizable town filled with NPCs roaming about, a dense forest, a cave ripped out of a Final Fantasy dungeon, and the first major dungeon having the party exploring a ravaged church.
While some textures and assets reflect the game’s long development, looking somewhat rough in comparison to Persona 3 Reload and its Ray-Traced Reflections in Tartarus, I feel it adds to the game’s overall darker presentation. My favorite area had to be one of the early mini-dungeons, the lead-up to the protagonist’s ‘awakening’. The dark lighting, your fallen comrades laying limp on the ground, and the massive boss at the tail end of the area; it was a great opening set-piece.
Another visual highlight was the daunting desert location that opens the game, with your main character initially running for his life with pure silence lingering in the air. But that changes on a dime once your fairy companion Gallica uses a spell to grant you a new ability. That being hearing the land of Euchronia’s ‘music’, what a tune that plays. It instantly conveys a stark, but exciting departure from Shoji Meguro’s usual work in the Persona franchise.
The music itself is masterful work, with a standout music track in the demo being the Ambush Battle Theme. It instantly gets you up for a big fight, with the male chanting and powerful instrumentation playing together in a masterful harmony.
Performance
Playing the game on my Lenovo Gaming Laptop, Metaphor offered stable performance. Using maxed-out settings and setting my resolution scale to 200%, things felt ‘good’. As the demo progressed, I got more frame drops, so I dropped the resolution sale to 125-150%. Between that and recent updates to the demo, it runs well above 60FPS on my setup.
In addition, the demo performance on Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 seems solid, running at a high resolution at 60FPS. Interestingly enough, if you play the PS4 version on PlayStation 5, you can get a ‘smoother’ performance thanks to that version running at an unlocked frame rate.
Thoughts from the Lords
I wasn’t the only person at Lords of Gaming that enjoyed this demo. Lord Cognito, who also expressed more in-depth comments on his time with the demo on both Iron Lord Podcast and Defining Duke. He shared with me his excitement at seeing both Louis’ character development as a Sephiroth-esc figure and was shocked at the directions they took Grius’. In addition, Cognito was impressed at the turn-based combat and enjoyed the challenge of how MP is utilized.
It is hard to get MP-restoring items, with that mechanic also being the case in the Persona series. So balancing when and when not to use your spells adds a new layer to the combat encounters, adding further challenge to the higher difficulty.
Closing Thoughts
When Metaphor: ReFantazio was re-revealed, my interest was assured from the jump. I loved the darker tone on offer, the striking art direction, and seeing Atlus, in my eyes, directly attacking Final Fantasy at the juggler.
And with many outlets already reviewing the game, and giving it insanely high praise, my time with the demo has me excited to play the full release on October 11th. For anyone on the fence or who wants to get a head start (as progress in the demo carries over to the full game), dive into the fantasy world Atlus has crafted and see why so many are drawn to this game.