Metaphor: ReFantazio Review — An Unforgettable Fantasy Adventure

Metaphor: ReFantazio bears many similarities to the Persona series, but regardless of those noticeable parallels, Metaphor stands on its own to deliver an incredible adventure. If a Persona-inspired medieval fantasy adventure sounds appealing to you, then Metaphor is an experience you will truly treasure. Metaphor is without a doubt one of the best video games of 2024, delivering an exceptionally memorable journey.

Developed by the creative minds of Persona 3, Persona 4, and Persona 5, with clear inspirations to franchises such as Ni No Kuni, Tales and Final Fantasy, many fans had lofty expectations for Metaphor: ReFantazio. If you were one of those fans, you will be happy to know that Metaphor not only holds its own when it comes to the aforementioned franchises, but it provides an adventure that easily rivals some of the best role-playing games I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

Metaphor: ReFantazio introduces us to the United Kingdom of Euchronia, a land thrown into political upheaval following the murder of its king. This pivotal moment is shown before starting your adventure, as it depicts our antagonist, Louis Guiabern, dealing the murderous blow while the king sleeps. Louis is a military genius, lauded by the people for saving them from a rebel uprising, and is incredibly intelligent and charismatic in his own right. He believes that power should designate your standing in this world, not nobility or royal blood. Why should the sheer luck of your genetics deem you worthy of ruling others or grant you pre-established respect? He believes true power and recognition should be based upon true strength. These beliefs make Louis a magnificent villain, with well-developed ideals that left me in agreement with Louis on many occasions. In this respect, Louis has many similarities to the version of Thanos presented in the MCU, and due to these well-founded ideals, has become one the most memorable villains I have ever encountered.

Following the king’s death, your playable character is thrown into a Tournament for the Throne, as you aim to win the favour of the country and stop Louis’ evil plans. Throughout the 100+ hour adventure, you will encounter themes of political interpretation, ethical dilemmas, religious beliefs, prejudice, and more. Due to the impeccable writing, well-developed characters, and the morale questions at play, Metaphor: ReFantazio’s story is riveting until the very end. Alongside our protagonist is a cast of loveable characters, which include the loyal knight Hulkenberg, the compassionate noble Leon Strohl, and many others.

As with the Persona series, each companion has their own unique and emotional story for you to encounter by nurturing your relationships, and these stories are excellent. While some are better than others, many of these narrative arcs are heartbreaking, emotional, and joyful. All of which are enhanced by a magnificent ensemble voice cast. Metaphor provides some of the most powerful voice acting I have experienced this year; even surpassing the recent brilliance found in Persona 3 Reload. It’s also worth noting your hero character has more voiced dialog than previous Persona games, which is a welcome addition to help flesh out the protagonist.

Metaphor produces a dark fantasy world for players to enjoy, one with intricately built lore, impeccable attention to detail and relevant themes of power and class divide. Metaphor tackles darker subject matter than the Persona series and features brutal moments that the Persona series lacks. Metaphor is a must-play adventure for Persona fans, but I honestly believe role-playing aficionados should experience the brilliance of Metaphor for themselves.

Battles feature turn-based combat, as well as real-time encounters when exploring the environment. Players can slice weaker enemies down without entering turn-based combat, which is a greatly efficient way to deal with weaker foes. The real-time elements also allow players to deliver pre-emptive strikes to enemies, but if you are not careful, enemies can enact their own. As for the turn-based combat, there are some intricate features to consider that can turn the tide of battle. Each of your squad members has a chance to make a move during your turn, but dealing attacks that capitalise on enemy weaknesses can extend your turn, while missing an attack will shorten your turn. Using this system to full effect, players can deliver incredible amounts of damage before their enemies have a chance to attack.

This system becomes more intricate when you consider Archetypes, Persona-like magical abilities that you and your team possess. Archetypes are ancient magic tied to the ‘true spirit of a hero’ that can be unlocked by forging and nurturing bonds across the adventure, with each having their own strengths, weaknesses, and move sets. Unlike the Persona series, where each teammate is relegated to their own unique Persona, in Metaphor each character can be assigned any Archetype you have previously unlocked. This allows for some intricate strategies to create a complementary team, which is necessary to achieve victory through the major story dungeons and the plethora of side dungeons, all of which house some challenging threats.

Each dungeon features a unique map layout, fixed item locations, and no randomly generated maps whatsoever (yay). This makes traversing each dungeon interesting, especially as most offer unique puzzles and methods of exploration. While there are a few mechanics I found more irritating than interesting, none continue long enough to cause any major annoyances. But the most enthralling aspect of exploring these dungeons is the boss encounter at its conclusion. The major enemies within Metaphor are known as ‘Humans’, and these beasts are not only visually impressive, with some utterly grotesque, unsettling and unique designs, but also offer a major challenge to players who are unprepared. Players must be well-equipped, utilise their unique team, navigate their comrades through battles, and even utilise powerful Synthesis moves to slay these beastly creatures.

Metaphor: ReFantazio offers a range of activities and side content to enjoy when away from battle, which are similar to those found in the Persona series, but with a fantastical twist. Across the multiple deadlines featured across the story, players can spend their free time forming bonds with their teammates/notable side characters, improving their Royal Virtues by reading or hunting bounties, fighting in the coliseum, or even exploring the land in their large portable base of operations, known as a Gauntlet Runner. When travelling between locations, players will spend their free time within the Gauntlet Runner, offering other activities, such as fishing, cooking, cleaning, and even encountering battles as you travel. These moments allow you to further interact with your teammates in hilarious and heartwarming ways.

Metaphor also includes an in-depth encyclopedia of knowledge known as the Memorandum, to allow players to appreciate and understand the tremendous amount of lore found within the United Kingdom of Euchronia. Players also explore multiple cities across the adventure, and while these locations are visually distinct during cut scenes, each city only features several small areas to discover. I wish these grand cities could be explored further, or at the very least, each city implemented a unique aspect to help emphasise the different qualities of each region.

Critically acclaimed composer, Shoji Meguro, best known for his work on both the Shin Megami Tensei and Persona franchises takes the helm of the Metaphor musical department, and he has once again delivered a memorable soundtrack. Prior to release, Meguro explained he studied religious music to inspire the world of Metaphor, and those nuances can be heard across the soundtrack. His implementation of brass, wind, and string instruments help to create a remarkable and iconic sound. However, his use of ‘religious-like’ chanting across numerous tracks is my favourite element of the audio found within Metaphor. For some context, I have played almost 100 hours of Metaphor at the time of this review, and the main battle theme, featuring these chanting elements, which I have heard over and over across those many hours, is still my favourite track found within Metaphor. It culminates the religious inspirations, bombastic audio, and sense of grandeur to create a truly epic-sounding battle theme that I can see fans obsessing over for years to come.

Metaphor possesses a cell-shaded art style, which is beautiful to behold most of the time. It also delivers some incredible anime-like cut scenes that help emphasise the impact and grand scale of some of the most important sections of the narrative. The same visual fidelity can be found within the hand-painted visuals that represent each talking character on screen, and Metaphor’s use of colours to help showcase the wonder and imagination of the world is captivating. However, there are occasions where I found the use of moving textures to be a detriment to the art style. For instance, when the camera comes close to character models, the textures can be seen moving around the character. I found these textures to be very distracting, and honestly, the character models looked significantly better when these moving textures were absent.

Metaphor: ReFantazio continues the long-running trend found in the Persona series to deliver impeccable menus, so much so that Metaphor may have the most impressive user interface I have ever seen. From elegantly detailed menus, depicting stunning artwork, with style resonating from every single screen, I found myself in awe of this user interface.