So I beat this thing... almost twice, actually. More on that shortly. I had some vague ambition of doing a lengthier blog on this game comparing it to the Persona games in some detail, much as I did with RE4 and last year's remake. But I'm feeling a little too lazy to do that right now. Instead, here's some shorter and less organized thoughts, mostly about the game's setting.

I'll first say, as an FYI, that I played this game for the first time on a combination of normal and easy... mostly on easy when I figured out that you get more archetype XP that way. I did a lot of grinding, because that's just the way I play these games... I put a TV show on a second screen and happily grinded away for hours and hours. And it must be said that Metaphor somewhat perversely incentivizes this in some ways... like giving a stat boost every time you max an archetype, and allowing instant killing of enemies in the overworld when you're four levels above them or more.

Then, to balance out the experience, I played through most of the game again on the newly unlocked highest difficulty for NG+ while skipping past all the story. I made it to the end-game for NG+ (the final calendar month), and have now put it down for the time being, possibly for good, though if Atlus does their usual thing of creating an expanded version, who knows.

As I said in the game's discussion thread, I did like the game, and I think it makes some improvements on Persona by streamlining some of the more overcomplicated systems (like every hang-out with a character always increasing the relationship level). But while I did enjoy the game--I wouldn't have played it through most of two times if I hadn't--I still didn't connect with it as much as did with the Persona series. And I think that it ultimately comes down to the fantasy setting, as compared to a modern Japanese high school. After all, apart from that major differentiator, the DNA for Metaphor and Persona is essentially identical.

One thought that kept coming back to me was that I'd taken a creative writing class in undergrad in which we had to write and critique each others' short stories, and the professor had a rule: no sci-fi or fantasy for this class. Not because those aren't legit genres, but because, for a fledgling writer, the world-building is so often a distraction from the characters and the story (especially for a short story), and because it tends to be intrinsically easier to connect with "real-world" characters anyway. A "walk before you can run" sort of thing.

(Unrelated side note: Dune, so often held up as one of the all-time best of sci-fi and fantasy fiction, is a terrible book. The world-building is great, the writing is terrible. Fight me.)

Anyway, the writing in Metaphor isn't exactly bad. There were some genuinely affecting character moments here and there. But let's be real: writing in video games gets graded on a serious curve. And too often this just felt like a generic medieval fantasy world. Moreover, the storytelling and "power of fantasy to affect reality" through-line, and what they did with it, was not as clever as the writers seemed to think it was. The story was fine, but my overall reaction was basically: "meh".

I did wonder a bit at my reaction. It's not like I don't enjoy me some fantasy stories. I've read a lot of the big ones in the genre: LOTR, Wheel of Time, A Song of Ice and Fire, Narnia, Eddings, Brooks, Goodkind, Hobb, Butcher (those last two have become my enduring favorites). And I also enjoy a lot of fantasy games, including classic JRPGs, but also games like Dark Souls and Monster Hunter that are in a fantasy setting. So why was I feeling so lukewarm about Metaphor's story? Is it really just ho-hum writing, or is there something else going on?

I believe it's a little from both buckets. I tend to think that it's a little harder to write a compelling story in a fantasy setting, simply because it's intrinsically more remote from the audience's experience, and it's all too easy to fall into genre tropes. Truly excellent writing can overcome the handicap: Witcher 3 comes to mind. And for games like Dark Souls that focus less on story per se and more on gameplay, a fantastical world can provide excellent atmosphere without needing to bear the weight of a compelling narrative.

Which made me realize that part of what makes the Persona games special is that they seem to stand almost alone among flagship, AAA JRPGs in having the mundane modern setting that they have. Honestly, I can't really think of any others off the top of my head. Earthbound, kinda? Which is 30 years old at this point? After that I'm pretty much tapped. By contrast, there are plenty of western games in more modern and mundane settings... but a lot of these are FPSes and the like that don't focus much on story. Some do, to be sure. But there's nothing else that marries JRPG gameplay with a grounding in something vaguely like our modern world.

Which is all a long way of saying: I really did enjoy Metaphor: ReFantazio. I just like P5R better, and I think Atlus is better off when they're not distracted trying to build a fantasy world and hitting almost every genre trope in the book, intentionally or not.

I have just gotten started on the election plot, and the racism issue feels like it's written for third-graders. It's incredibly basic and on the nose, and so many NPC dialogues boil down to "I'm racist towards XXX and my reason is YYY". Not exactly engaging writing. It certainly doesn't help that the various "fantasy races" have the most boiler-plate, uninspired designs taken straight from the anime trope book. That is, designs that were made to be easy to cosplay, not to actually engross you in a new world. So many humans with clip-on horns, ears and tails...

Honestly, with the way people were praising this I expected the writing to at least be a little better than Persona (which I dislike for similar reasons) but the gameplay is the only thing keeping me going and even that is starting to get too repetetive).

I will say that the playable characters have finally started to have actual personalities outside their one "thing" now but you shouldn't have to play a game for 8-10 hours before that happens haha.

Yeah, I would have liked to see a little more creativity on the different races. The bat-like race is the only one that is truly distinct, otherwise they're pretty samey.

Unrelated, but on the positive side, one thing I didn't mention is that I did really appreciate that the game gives you plenty of room to max all your relationships with no need to follow a guide... something that P3R did not do. I had about 9 days at the end with nothing else left to do.

Then again, P3R did go the extra mile of providing fully voiced social links for all ranks, whereas Metaphor returned to only have voice acting on the first and last ranks. Bit of a bummer.

Whenever I see Japanese games explicit try to tackle racism as a plot point it's almost always like this. Like make them very minor animal people or give them tiny horns or something. It's likely very targeting at their Japanese audience and maybe they aren't operating on enough feedback as to how.... basic.... it's going to look outside.

I don't think they did a bad job or anything, the message felt like it's in the right place, but I was much more interested when it shifted over to focusing more on intrigue.

I think it's unfortunate that most of the coolest reveals about the lore (not spoiling anything here but pacing issues) happen during the last third of the game when everything about it feels rushed. There are a lot of fantastic ideas and global motivations for the world being the way it is that are quickly glossed over with a few lines, and while it's still impactful, having the characters devote more time to what are essentially these world-shaking truths would have gone a long ways towards cementing the creativity.

I also think there's just a lot of room to explore less same-y areas in any future games. All the labyrinths feel largely uninspired, save for a couple. The first city is really cool and I like the seaside town but give me some grander shots of the places outside Grand Trad (am I spelling that right?). Give me some atmosphere, not just some static streets.

Anyways, great writeup. I don't have anything of particular note to contribute, but yeah, it's a really fascinating start for a potential series. Hope we see more of it (and the world).

I agree. There's the argument for "showing not telling," and "only show the tip of the iceberg," etc., but weirdly it felt like this game could've actually stood to be more navel-gazey. Which is a weird thing to want, since usually the problem is the other way around.

Also agreed about dungeons being uninspiring, though the Persona games have never exactly been great on dungeon design, either.

I was actually thinking about an old hobby horse of mine in this connection: it would have been cool if they'd included a 3D overworld map that you could run around in like a lot of older JRPGs had. For some reason this has mostly just stopped being a thing. The last really good one I remember was in Tales of Vesperia, and that's 15 years old now. Don't get me wrong, the 2D map looked cool and I liked what they did with the narrator thing. But I wish overworld maps in JRPGs would come back.

Thanks, although in my eyes it's entirely too self-indulgent and barely talks about the game itself, more just some of my loosely connected feelings and musings about it and fantasy games in general. I wanted to write something a little more coherent and comprehensive, but I've been a little distracted. E.g., my new custom PC recently got delivered and I've spent the last few days copying files over, installing programs, making tweaks, sorting out weird bugs...