Metaphor Launching In The Shadow Of Persona Is Both A Blessing And A Curse

Summary

Metaphor: ReFantazio is more than just another Persona-like game - it introduces unique features and a fantasy realm with diverse races.
The game shares similarities with Persona in combat and visuals, but offers new elements like Archetypes and a deep, mysterious narrative.
While comparisons to Persona are inevitable, Metaphor strives to break new ground with an unfamiliar world, intriguing magic, and political intrigue.

For big fans of Atlus, RPG, or Persona (which is mainly one circle masquerading as a Venn diagram), we’re well aware of what Atlus has been cooking and are eagerly awaiting the launch of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Metaphor: ReFantazio. However, for many other gamers in my sphere, I’ve found they just don’t understand what it is. ‘It’s that new Atlus ga꧟me. Like Persona but not Persona,’ I tell them and they nod knowingly, finally remembering they are aware of it. Bu𓃲t to many, it’s just another Persona-like.

Metaphor being compared to Persona is both a blessing and a curse. There are so many shared elements between the two, including the developer, that it’s not a bad parallel to point out. Knowing Persona will give you at least some basic understanding of what Metaphor will entail. On the other hand, by passing it off as another Persona-like game you’re underselling the unique selling points of Metaphor at best, and you’re setting someone up for 🌺disappointment at worst. It’s not just Persona with a new name - for starters, there’s no romance. So no, you can’t romance that horny guy.

To cla🍎rify, he has horns. He’s not looking to get down and🍬 dirty.

A preview card for Persona 3 Reload's The Answer expansion.

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Metaphor’s visual style is strikingly similar to Persona, though with a more artistic paint brush texture flair, so immediately it feels familiar at a glance. The combat also shares a lot with Persona and SMT, such as elements with different affinities and weaknesses playing a role in battles, though it mixes turn-based fighting with action combat. While we may not have Personas to summon, each character has an Archetype they can transform into to perform specific moves, with each Archetype acting as a class, such as Healer, Knight, and Thief, to name a few. You don't whip off a mask or use an evoker though, instead, you rip out your heart as a metal microphone.

While the Archetype feature is new, there are still some comparisons to be found. There are certain Archetypes with skills that will allow you to increase the number of press icons you can use, similar to Sh🐻in Megami Tensei’s Press Turn battle system.

Another element all too easy to pair with its twin is Akademia, the mysterious place where you go to learn and unlock Archetypes - it feels like another version of the Velvet Room. Dungeons feature Magla Hollows, AKA safe rooms. It’s difficult to not see the similarities between the two games. Yet thinking it’s just another Persona game🐈 does a disservi🦋ce to Metaphor.

For all that Metaphor has in common with its sister series, it strives to break new ground too. We’re not in slick modern cities with a bunch of teenage🔯rs this time, we’re in a high fantasy realm with a diverse cast of races and ages. This mixture of many different races coming together and having their own disputes, stereotypes, and outright racism adds a new layer to the narrative that we haven’t seen before, especially when you factor in politics steeped in magical traditions we have no concept of before playing.

The biggest boon to Metaphor is that it&r❀squo;s unknown. It’s all weird and wonderful to us. We don’t know or understand this magic or the intricacies of this world, and that makes it all the more interesting. It also teases some sort of reverse-real-world situation, which I mention in my preview, where this world being fantastical is the norm, while the protagonist’s fantasy book appears to feature a world more like our real world.

Despite not being a truly open world, there’s a sense of depth that we haven’t seen before in an Atlus game thanks to Metaphor’s focus on travel as the party embarks on this epic journey across the land. Sure, you still have the daily element like Persona where you can pick and choose how to pass your time and which skills to level up, named Royal Virtues here, but a lot of these familiar tricks and treats feel new in this unfamiliar setting. Everything feels 🧜bigger, more mysterious, and as a result, uꦚtterly enthralling.

We won’t know for certain just how similar or different Metaphor is from its Atlus siblings until launch. Will it have multiple endings? Will it follow some of the usual tropes of here’s a bad guy to defeat, no wait, after that here’s the real bad guy to defeat? The comparisons and similarities to Persona will undoubtedly lure in a massi𝓀ve existing fanbase, but whether they appreciate where Metaphor deviates from their beloved serie♌s or not remains to be seen. It’s a double-edged sword for Metaphor. Its relation to Persona will give it more spotlight, but it’ll also be judged against its predecessor as a result.