Project Re:Fantasy, now known as Metaphor Re:Fantazio, has been in the works for more than 7 years, and it shows. It always sounded interesting, especially with the many recommendations by Yoko Taro - the director of Nier.
From the team that gifted us Persona 5, a game that I deeply loved although my first real entry point to the genre, I had expectations of nothing but excellence, and I'm really glad I was right.

Extremely minor spoilers about the intro ahead.


The story of Metaphor Re:Fantazio is set in the fantasy world of Euchronia, a land that is deeply divided in racially-motivated political and religious conflict between the core 8 races that inhabit it.
Its political and social topics are incredibly contemporary, to almost an uncanny level. This world spoke to me in ways Persona never has. Maybe it's because I'm more interested in fantasy than contemporary stories, or maybe because of the current climate in the world.
As if releasing it before November was a way to strive and encourage change...

We play the role of the Hero, who's part of a resistance, on a mission to infiltrate the army. The objective is to learn more from a contact they have in it, in regard to a curse that has been plaguing the Prince of the land for more than 10 years, leaving him in a comatose state.

With us, the magical fairy Gallica serves as a guide in our adventure.
The Hero always carries, and is very attached, to a novel the Prince used to read with him, where a utopia is described: a land where conflict doesn't exist, there is no racial discrimination and everyone lives in harmony.
This land that eerily reminisces of our world is naught but fantasy for them, as this world is fantasy to us.

The story is narrated to us at points by a narrator, almost as if you'd be listening to an audiobook, and it's a beautiful way to really make you live the fantasy.
There's no shortage of good writing and twists, personally keeping me hooked the whole time.

The art direction of the game is one of the best I've ever seen, no wonder it won a Game of the Year for it. Each new area is stunning, from the great city of Gran Trad to the shores of Brileheaven, the game is polygonally and artistically superior to all other games in the Persona series I've played.

Worth mentioning is the music in the game, which while featuring fewer tracks than usual, is an extreme banger and is the only thing making me happy about finishing the game: I get to listen to it on repeat.


Coming from the same developers, I had somewhat of an idea of what the game would look like, and, indeed: Metaphor Re:Fantazio does follow a lot of concepts that are part of the Persona series.

Starting from the quotidian nature of its story, having the player follow the Hero not through a told X amount of months, but actually play and live them, day by day with rare time-skips.
Each activity takes half of the day to complete, with dungeons taking the whole day when coming back. Nothing can be skipped.

Confidants are back, with many people along our journey becoming close friends of ours and asking us for help in their disadventures. Each new confidant unlocks new powers, called Archetypes, and leveling the confidant up gives said archetype family more options.
These are especially improved in Metaphor Re:Fantazio, with none being a second thought or a rejection of writing. All companions were as good as some of the best in previous Persona games, and although there is not an option to romance any of them, part of me is happier. I'm sure the devs would have again limited who I could romance, so I'd rather leave it to interpretation, personally.

Archetypes, similar to Personas or Stands from JoJo Bizzarre's Adventure, are back as the main magical power we use to cast many spells and abilities, but compared to the other games, the limitation of having only the Hero being able to use all of them, is no more.
All characters can use all Archetypes, with no limits but their true final form.
I preferred this approach over Personas.
Leveling an Archetype unlocks some of its abilities to be purchased for an in-game currency to be equipped by other archetypes; i.e., I had my main Warrior stacked with healing abilities. Even at max confidant level, you can't completely erase the nature of an Archetype with inherited skills, because you'll always be limited to max 4.
On the other hand, in Persona you do this by using Skill Cards you obtain as loot from enemies, without any limits to what you can overwrite. With most, if not all, abilities being a Skill Card, I rarely found myself choosing a Persona over another instead of just "installing" all the abilities I wanted on the Persona that looked the coolest.

Additionally, although some fan-favorite designs are back, all enemies and Archetypes are brand-new designs, whereas Persona has the tendency to normally reuse all enemies and Personas from previous games while adding new ones.

The UI is again a masterwork, with incredible designs and animation for each menu, blending both 2D and 3D together. Perfectly fitting of the art style, and with an amazing sound design.

A feature to kill lower-level enemies in "action mode" of Persona 5 you'd get from a confidant at level 7 is expanded, making it now a base feature and expanding it with a dodge, movesets for each weapon family, etc. Therefore, over-leveling is a great choice if you prefer the action-oriented approach when exploring dungeons while keeping the turn-base for bosses.
Worth mentioning: in turn-based having the hero die in the fight won’t force a reset anymore!

OH LORD! Again, a-f-gain.
Nothing new, nothin' changed. Same old shi.

Reader, I'm going to level with you.
When I saw the first trailer of the Persona 3 Remake, I rejoiced they were using Unreal Engine, whereas normally I'm disappointed when devs do that - the industry needs diversity, over a messy unoptimized engine used by everyone 'cause easy. If it wasn't for the Fox Engine, MGS:V would have never run on PS3.

When I saw the first trailer of Metaphor Re:Fantazio and noticed the familiar shimmering of the AA my reaction was the same as in the above title.
Persona 5 has many positive sides: its engine is not one of them.

At the demo's launch, the performances were a mess, and overall the engine just doesn't stand the test of time in both feature and fidelity.

The worst offender is when traveling outside the city on a vehicle, with the areas around it being very scarce and low in density and detail.
Metaphor Re:Fantazio, again has an atrocious AA, helped by the option to render at higher resolution internally. Thankfully they patched in FXAA a few days after lunch; better than SMAA.

Textures are passable, but up close in some cutscenes, it really is a bit of an eyesore for a next-gen game only; some could have a higher quality.

I'm not sure if now all features available from the mod Metaphor Fix are in the game, but I strongly suggest using it for both skipping the intro, disabling the continuous camera noise which adds to the bad AA, and especially the depth-of-field and lines when sprinting.


Metaphor Re:Fantazio learns from the mistakes of Persona. It delivered a stunning package that spoke to my very core and kept me hooked the whole way through.
Not a better package, but one that stands with the best we've got so far, adding itself to that upper echelon of JRPGs you suggest to the people you really like, excited just at the idea you'll get to talk about it with one more person.

From the demo in September, to the release in October, to my month-long pause and return in December: this game lived rent-free in my mind and it will continue doing so in my playlist.

This story ended, but the fantasy? That lives on.

8.5/10

hulkenberg

"With all my heart, I hope that fantasy gives you strength."