Metaphor ReFantazio is so good Atlus can probably stop re-releasing Persona games now

Atlus’ Metaphor ReFantazio knows what it’s all about from the start. Fantasy and our urban contemporary existence have their heads smacked together; a feudal inheritance story meets modernity. ‘This is a fantasy,’ you will hear throughout the first hour of the game. The first real choice you get poses a simple question: do you believe in the power of fantasy, or has it lost its worth?

Atlus’ upcoming RPG poses a similar metanarrative to Persona and the Megami Tensei series’. It’s about worlds colliding and exploring the bridges between them. And unlike its predecessors, there isn’t an inkling of high-school drama – a relief to many.

Metaphor ReFantazio introduces Euchronia as its main setting. Its populus is defined by nine archetypal tribes each designed to disseminate forms of social inequality. Race, gender, class, immigration – it’s all there. Furries, too. In a society in which all of the -isms are nailed to each of the tribes, the possibility of equality is dead. So too is fantasy, which the ‘Elda’ tribe mourns.

The main character hails from the Elda and carries with them an epic fantasy book of the modern world, steeped in irony and utopianism. It talks of ‘skyscrapers reaching the heavens’ and a world in which there is only one race. The conservative attitudes of ReFantazio’s institutions will shun your poxy ideas, but not before you’re able to radicalise the young feudal elite with dreams of social media, taxes, and the nine-to-five working week.

Euchronia is bespeckled with ornate and distinct world building. The first major city you arrive in is adorned with ‘the oldest magic’: music. Between lamp posts and da Vinci-esque flying contraptions, each is inspired by the design aesthetic of wind instruments. There’s a sense of inauthenticity here. Intentional, I think. The world looks like it was generated by machine learning algorithms that don’t quite know what reality is meant to look like. Like the bridge between fantasy and reality is truly obscured.

This brings me onto Metaphor’s seismic soundtrack. It’s intense, operatic, swings between rock and jazz with ease, and it’s going to score the world with the same kind of style that Atlus’ games are beloved for. The soundscape clashes the modern with the historic, much like the urban magic that inspires the protagonist on their mission through Euchronia.

Atlus does away with the, mostly, silent protagonist in Metaphor ReFantazio. Instead, they are teeming with personality and dry wit, finally brought to life through voice acting for as much of the dialogue as possible. It’s a far cry from Persona 5’s Joker, whose passivity was a chore to wade through, and especially far from SMT:V’s Nahobino, who was devoid of any character at all. Yet aside from the heterochromia, the hero looks just like another one of Atlus’ boilerplate protagonist siblings – slender, blue haired, and somehow always swagged out in a blazer and suit trousers.

Personally, I’ve got a little vendetta against Atlus’s intros. I’ve gone through enough of its games to know that the first hour can be pretty dry. Thankfully, you won’t be subject to cutscene after cutscene in Metaphor ReFantazio without the opportunity to explore its landscapes, interact with NPCs, and dive into fighting pretty early on. When you do finally get stuck into combat, it’s good.

The meshing of real-time and turn-based combat works well. Creeping up on enemies and dealing a substantial amount of damage before engaging in full squad-based combat feels like a welcome direction for Atlus’ games. Although, I must admit disappointment that it feels very secondary to turn-based. It’s almost too subtle for me to be excited about, and I fear it could feel like a proprietary mechanic without really adding to the game’s identity. However, with only an hour played, I have hope that more complex and difficult enemies demand a little more strategy and skill when it comes to engaging them through some hacking and slashing.

When it comes to the actual turn-based combat mechanics, there is no issue recognising the heart and soul of Atlus. Dynamic paint-smeared UIs explode onto the screen and frame the fight’s gorgeous animations. Skills are performed based on weakness-focused Archetypes similar to its spiritual predecessors. Where you had elemental types in Persona and SMT, the new meta is a system of mages, warriors, brawlers, and so forth. There are 14 in total. These can be levelled up to reveal sub-Archetypes totalling 40. Aligning with new companions will unlock their Archetypes, and though there wasn’t much opportunity to dive into levelling in my preview, it looks as though it’s going to take quite a bit of time to max everything out.

The trick to conquering Atlus’ battle mechanics lies in keeping stock of the press-turn queue. The same applies to Metaphor ReFantazio. Successfully stunning enemies through real-time combat lets you jump into turn-based with a vital advantage, and from there you’re going to layer Archetype advantages and joint attacks to keep tough foes at bay.

My excitement for Metaphor ReFantazio hails from the new approach to exploration, but it’s also a refreshing take on a tried and tested turn-based system. Combat builds on the successes and fluidity of Persona 5 and SMT:V; the skeleton is undeniably the same. But, but all of the new bells and whistles afforded by moving away from the established IPs lets ReFantazio wear its own skin, w. Where it can experiment and try out new things. Atlus kills its favourite darling (negotiation) in favour of a more traditional, and at times, far less cluttered, combat system. If you’ve spent hours in Atlus’ other games, you’ll pick up the dos and don’ts quickly. If you’re new, then Metaphor ReFantazio is gearing up to be an incredibly approachable entrypoint into turn-based JRPGs, with an approachable hack-and-slash filter to ease the transition.

In my hour with Metaphor ReFantazio, I came up with a long list of reasons why this is a bold move from Atlus. Its departure from established IP is exciting, especially considering the long list of Persona rehashes we’ve seen since P5 dropped. But the questions I wanted answered most focused on what the world is going to be like, is traversal going to be more of the same ice-skating across barren land, or will we continue navigating through cities in SMT’s signature (yet dated) pin-drop dungeon crawler style? Thankfully, Atlus does away with its previous systems, and exploring one of its worlds is finally a rewarding and interactive experience. One where you’re not constantly fighting against the environment or jerky controls. The Vengeance reboot for SMT:V teased the next-gen potential of Atlus’ games, but there was an irrefutable element of scarcity. The world was barren, boring at times, and weirdly uncanny for the rest. Euchronia flips that on its head. The world is brimming with life and interactivity where its spiritual predecessors could not, and it feels new, unexplored, and inviting. 

The Hieronymus Bosch inspired enemies are a thrill to look at too. Despite each of the Megami Tensei games being different enough, the recycled pantheon of monsters doesn’t make it easy to become infatuated with each new title. Some of the monsters you encounter in Metaphor ReFantazio are pretty nuts, and I’m very much looking forward to discovering them all.

It’s not a game about fantasy without its tropes and cliches though. The worst of them all? The annoying sprite companion guide. Metaphor ReFantazio has its own, Gallica. Like Berserk’s Puck, P5’s Morgana (who at least had real purpose), or the mire of useless fairy companions in SMT:V, this is the little voice in your head who tells you the controls, argues with you incessantly, then leads you to hidden treasures while acting coy. All I’m saying is that I’d be happy without it.

When it comes to the ideas driving Metaphor ReFantazio forwards, I have a few concerns. The fantasy metanarrative is a sound start, and I’ll be watching carefully to see how this gets unpacked. For me, one of Atlus’ weak points is poignantly unpacking social issues. Corny cop outs like the power of friendship or love become trump cards, and that’s where I tend to lose interest. I sincerely hope that ‘the power of belief in fantasy’ doesn’t become this game’s final calling card.

Similarly, the first hour of the game really hamfisted the idea of sociopolitical issues forming the fabric of Euchronia. In that short time, it appeared as though these ideas are going to form much of the conflict within the game. For example, early on Gallica will stop you from giving spare change to a group of Furry lepers. My concern is that these foundational pillars will get shoved aside throughout the game in favour of more general drama, much like the cutscene with the lepers. With Atlus’ multi-ending philosophy riding on the importance of player action throughout, I’d like to see how your interactions with different groups of people as a whole play into this, or if they will at all.

If Metaphor ReFantazio is really about what it presents – intersectionality between worlds – then I want the game to lean into this. There should be no black-and-white answers to any of the questions it hopes to pose. I want to immerse myself in a narrative that is complex and raw. In terms of gameplay, it hits enough of the marks. A lot is riding on the writing and whether it can veer away from the generic Anime trope of virtual reality worlds meeting our own, or if it’s going to be able to define itself with a story that is as bold as the visuals look.

I hope this game is as good as I think it is. Maybe then Atlus will stop milking the Persona series for all it is worth. Don’t get me wrong, I love that series. But change is welcome, and if change comes in the form of Metaphor ReFantazio – bring it on.