At Summer Games Fest, we got to go hands on with their newest JRPG Metaphor: ReFantazio. First things first, while the game isn’t directly related to the Persona games, you can definitely see all the inspirations it takes from the that series. That makes sense as it’s made by Studio Zero and famed Persona director Katsura Hashino. The game features many mechanics that are hallmarks of the Persona franchise such as a bond mechanic with party members, a stat system based on social traits (called Virtues here), and a variation of the personas (called Archetypes). All that being said, Metaphor: ReFantazio is able to stand on it’s own as its own thing.
The demo we played was divided into three separate parts. The first part revolved around an early area of the game where you meet your first party member along with unlocking your first Archetype as well as getting the first taste of combat. Before all that, the first thing that caught my attention was, when choosing a dialogue option, the protagonist actually spoke. It caught me completely off guard as the protagonists in the Persona series are always silent and other characters just react to your dialogue choice. Combat features the ability to attack your enemies prior to engaging in turn based combat. Attacking enough will stun enemies and cause you to gain an advantage in the turn based mode. You can actually take out weaker enemies with just basic attacks without ever entering turn based combat.
The second portion of the demo featured a dungeon section. This short section allowed us to traverse an early dungeon in the game with a bigger party. This sectioned gave us the opportunity to engage in combat with a bigger variety of Archetypes. This also gave the ability to conduct Synthesis attacks where two party members combine their powers to hit enemies with an incredibly strong attack. The dungeon itself wasn’t too complex basically just adventuring through an linear story moment. The art style of the game really shines in the dungeon with the environment having a great style (though not as stylish as Persona‘s dungeons).
Finally, the last portion of the demo allowed us to encounter one of the game’s later bosses. This is really where the game shined as it gave a really strong emphasis on strategy in combat. Metaphor: ReFantazio features a row system in combat where you can during a character’s turn you can change the row that they’re in. Being in the front row, doesn’t change anything in combat. However, in the back row, characters both deal and receive less damage during combat. This allows you to strategize more in how you want characters such as letting your healer hang in the back and take less damage while healing the party. The boss fight was still tough and it came down to me expending many healing spells and items to come through and defeat the boss right as our time was running out.
Overall, Metaphor: ReFantazio is sure to be a big hit among JRPG fans when it releases later this year. You can see footage from the game below: