Metaphor: ReFantazio

When Persona 5 came to gamepass I was enamored… for the first 40 hours. After that I was burnt out of the gameplay loop and there was no end in sight. With that now being off gamepass and my desire to finish obliterated with time, I’ve given up on completing that story.

Metaphor hits better. I completed this adventure after 61 hours and while it has many improvements over Persona 5, I also have similar complaints. Let’s get into it.

The king is assassinated and the prince is cursed into eternal slumber. The antagonist Louis is gunning for the now open throne and our mission is to stop him and break the prince’s curse. However, it gets interesting when the Kings magic is still alive and used to help pick his predecessor. It’s incredibly strong and the system will choose a ruler based on the populous sentiment. As the game progresses you can check various rocks throughout the towns displaying the current leaders based on size.

The main story was engaging and I was always looking forward to what would happen next. The same calendar system is used as persona. You have a main quest you need to complete within X number of days, and then the rest of the time you can use to complete follower quests, accept bounties to earn cash and xp, or do various tasks to raise your character traits such as Courage.

I enjoyed doing the follower quests for the first members you get in your team. They’re basically just dialogue you go through to progress that members level up to 8. Each level gives you a new bonus. However, late game you’re still getting new followers and at that point they felt tedious. I was invested in Strohl, Hulkenberg, Heismay, Brigita, and Alonzo. The rest of the follower stories felt like time wasters to me, but I didn’t want to miss out on the potential perks they provided. The final month of the game was especially monotinous with knocking the remainder of the members out. And if you don’t have a trait at level 5 then there’s more time you gotta kill. It’s just not fun after 50 hours of gameplay.

I enjoyed the combat and archetype system. While annoying having to restart at level 1 with each new archetype, it didn’t take too long to level up and obtain new abilities. The final OP versions for each member made the final boss battles easier than I expected them to be. Finding a good synergy between members and exploiting it was satisfying. I’m not a big turn based fan, so my favorite feature was the auto kill system for lower level enemies. There also appeared to be a difficulty spike near the end and I felt forced to do boring side quests and grind for a short time to catch up.

The best part of the game was the twist for me. You’re actually part of the prince and merge back with him when you reunite. Then when you’re with More he tells you none of it was real and the room opens up into a city. Part of me really wanted to stay in that world, but the job wasn’t finished.

Overall, it was a really fun game that I wanted to finish. It had its flaws but it still managed to grip me in a way that I’ve been missing with gaming. I also played the majority of this while sick and I’m grateful for the distraction.

Rating: 837/1000