Metaphor: ReFantazio

Metaphor is so cool I wish fantasies were real

Solid game, but with a little rough around the edges. [h3]Gameplay[/h3] Very enjoyable. I love the flexibility of having to freely assign archetypes to your teammates and give them a role suitable for what you want them to do. I find myself strategizing a lot on what my party composition is for every dungeon boss. The inheritance of skills add to the layer of strategy, because you can have hybrid support/damage dealers as needed. Synthesis skills and the adoption of press turn system is perfect for the game. I have no complains with progression because I think it's fair enough. There are tools that really help you boost yourself, and that's fine for me. The dungeons are enjoyable. About what I would expect from an Atlus dungeon design. [spoiler]♥♥♥♥ the Dragon Temple though[/spoiler] The gameplay is what kept me hooked. It is the reason I kept playing. [h3]Story[/h3] With all honesty, the story is alright. While I like the direction it was going for, there were a few misses on how it's presented. Don't get me wrong, I still appreciate this story. I still enjoyed the journey we had. But a few things. - [spoiler]This tournament plot just got dropped after halfway to the story. So many participants of the competition didn't get any involvement, unless if you did the optional battles against them. Which is still unsatisfying.[/spoiler] - [spoiler]Redundancy. Biggest example is the Tyrant's Star. The first time we battle Louis there, we had a conversation regarding the flaws of Louis' motivation. THAT SAME CONVERSATION IS DONE AGAIN BEFORE THE FINAL-FINAL BATTLE. Literally just repeated points painted with new lines of dialog.[/spoiler] A lot of conversations between characters fell into this issue. Those two things really caused a drop of points for my rating on this game. But for the rest of what the story offers, I still enjoy.

5

Um dos melhores JRPGs que já joguei 10/10.

tkm atlus

A very captivating, heartwarming jrpg that oozes with style and visual flair. I'm a big fan of SMT but have never played a Persona game, so it was interesting to see elements I love from MegaTen games fused with something a bit unfamiliar. The biggest Persona influence I enjoyed was the visual style and flair of the menus. Everything is so pleasing to look at. I love the bond screen with the two hands shaking, the visuals for characters in the equipment menu, the character portraits lined up in the party select, and especially the different portions of the protag's body linked to different sections of the menu. It's all so eye catching without being too clunky to use or visually impairing. The music is fantastic as always with MegaTen games. I fear I was possessed by demons as I frantically added the vinyl soundtrack to my cart online after 40-50 hours of the game. Combat is stylish and enjoyable. I always enjoy the press turn system and it was fun experimenting with different party synthesis skills. By the end of the game, the sheer amount of archetypes became a bit overwhelming and at times could be grindy if you wanted to mix and match skills. A major flaw I see with this system is how, especially for the mage lineage, so many are locked behind the very last moments of the game. I think it's fair to have the Prince and Royal Archetypes locked to the back end, but man is it a bummer some others get so little time to shine. NG+ doesn't even let you have fun with them right off the bat, gotta go through the full game and bond events to have more time with them. The story is simple but very endearing. I feel the sheer length of the game coupled with the earnestness the story has makes for the simple narrative to be much more compelling. It is nothing we haven't seen before in the genre, but the way it is told is very heartwarming and it grasps at something in the very core of the human experience. Metaphor is a very uplifting game that makes you want to pull yourself out of the darkness and try and find a way through life, whatever that may mean for you. I'm always a sucker for an end of journey epilogue section in a jrpg and I found this game did it quite well. Often times, the victory lap is either non-existent or excessive traveling, so it was nice having it limited to Grand Trad. The final moments made me sad to be at journeys end. Reflecting back on first meeting these characters felt like so long ago; they felt like long time friends by this point. My biggest gripe for the game and the thing preventing me from considering this an absolute all timer would have to be the calendar system and the gameplay to story ratio. The calendar stressed me the ♥♥♥♥ out. I'm not a fan of being on time limits and wish I could have relaxed more throughout. After beating the game, I now realize there is more than enough time to do everything, but I wasn't sure of that going in. I much prefer to play games at my own pace. Adding to that, there is some rough pacing. Some nights I would get to play through an entire dungeon, other nights I would burn an hour on cutscenes and then another hour on reading dialogue. The story is good and I'm not saying I want less of it, but I wish the story was told a bit more through the gameplay to give a breather to the long dialogue and cutscene sessions. The game is equal parts movie to game. One of my biggest frustrations, is you cannot pause to save between them. I wasn't sure if the autosave would leave me before or after the cut scenes, so instead some nights I would be caught in cutscene purgatory. I'd tell myself, "okay 20 more minutes then I go to bed" only to be desperately trying to escape 40-60 minutes of nonstop dialogue and animated cutscenes. I felt bad skipping through some voice acted sections and reading instead just so I could go about my business quicker. I'm definitely going to replay the game once more to see the secret NG+ boss, but I don't know if I can see myself playing this again after that. A game doesn't have to be replayable, it can certainly be a one and done experience, but I like to walk away from something thinking how nice it would be to revisit one day, regardless of if that happens. DQXI for example is one of my favorite modern jrpgs. I loved it and feel like I *could* replay some day. Have I ever sat down to do it? No. Would I like to? Absolutely, I don't think the act of replaying would be less enjoyable in that case. The raw gameplay here is great, the story is fun, the visuals are superb, but I just struggle with the gameplay to dialogue ratio. Even on a first playthrough, it feels excessive at times and wears one out. Metaphor Refantazio is so close to being a 9 or maybe even a 10 for me, but this issue really does hurt the experience. Gotta give it the strongest of 8/10s. Absolutely worth a play for jrpg fans and a great new direction for Atlus, I only hope that a future Metaphor or Metaphor style game will find ways to surpass Refantazio and give a truly 10/10 experience all around. Until then, I'll certainly cherish the time I spent with this game.

整体玩下来还是不错的，音乐美术依旧超模，迷宫也简化了很多(狗洞要不删了呢)。但是后劲几乎是没有的，这种天马行空的剧情很难让我代入进去，个人还是比较喜欢青春校园故事。不过出p4r前拿来当甜点倒也算及格吧，谁让我是阿特拉斯凯子呢