Just finished Metaphor: ReFantazio and none of my friends that are playing it have beaten it so I'm coming here to yap about it. As for spoiler free just general thoughts, man I love this game so much. I played both it and Persona 5 Royal for the first time this year and while they're super close and MRF has recency bias I really wanna say it takes the cake for me. I love press turn combat so much, I think it's an incredible system and way better than 1 more. The writing was really really good! The environments are beautiful. The story is real, will certainly age beautifully, is extremely inspiring upon completion. I really like the setting, the kingdom of Euchronia was a welcome departure from Japanese high schools or the sandy wastelands of SMTV:V. If there's anyone who's on the fence about it I'd definitely recommend picking it up, if not now then at least when the inevitable Metaphor: Fantazio Remade or whatever expansion title they choose to drop releases.
Anyways spoiler stuff
Anyways spoiler stuff
I played the demo when it came out at the start of last month and that was enough to have me all-in hooked on this game. The initial setup seemed pretty sweet, you're an outcasted race on an against-all-odds rescue/revenge mission to stop one of the strongest military forces in the contrary with only you and morgana 2.0 to stop him. Infiltrate the army and meet up with Strohl and get to your first boss fight and have a METAL AS FUCK awakening to archetypes, oh my god that scene was so cool.
I was so excited to meet up with Grius and have this war hardened general in my party for the duration of the game, but I got pretty suspicious when I left the mine and had a social link for strohl (and maybe gallica?) but not one for him. After the (failed) assassination attempt I was pretty shook because even though I saw it coming the way in which it happened was still nuts to me. But god I love that Grius's death drives the party to move forward and also serves as the inciting incident for Maria's social link arc.
The martira chapter was amazing, I did not expect Heismay to be someone we'd end up recruiting and for the boss to instead be the like royal figurehead of the town. Heismay is an insanely well written character too, even if I found him to be nearly useless in combat. After this is where the Louis stuff picks up since the next dungeon is his skyrunner, though I wish they beefed it up a bit more than just the three boss fights you have to do because I didn't really feel like I wiped out a whole dungeon even though I basically did. I really had 0 idea how the protag was going to break into his room undetected but the ambush by whatever his name was and Junah's awakening was a solid way to go about it.
The next arc was where I started to put some things together since as you explore the dragon temple you see a lot of "old world" relics like a phone, a gun, a disc, etc. My running theory at this point was that we are actually in the future and magla caused some sort of great reset to the world, actually pushing society back x amount of years, with Elda being the humans that survived the old world and the other tribes being mutations forced by magla. I really liked the temple as a dungeon, the puzzles were solid and I appreciated how big it was coming off of the previous skyrunner dungeon. I like Eupha as a character a lot, someone who spent her life preparing to die is now learning to live again not only by herself, but with her new friends in a world much larger than she ever knew. It's good and relatable stuff. I think her main archetype is outclassed by Junah's and I don't really think she has the stats (or level, she was a good 4 levels lower than my party when she joined) to make her worth adding.
Leaving the island I was almost certain the last party member was either going to be one or both of the paripus brothers, but I assumed it would only be one because I only had one social link remaining. After going through the opera house which feels like another half dungeon, we see through a super heavy cutscene that the Makoto Yuki Metaphor edition once again learns that his friends are his power and sacrifices himself to save us, Basilio included. Once again even though I saw it coming like Grius's death, seeing how the actual scene plays out just makes it sooo powerful. Basilio's got a great social link and I really like his Berserker line Archetypes, but it does feel a tad late to use him. Maybe if there was one more story dungeon between him and "the final battle" I'd be much more willing to work him in.
Anyway from here the story kicks into MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE and this is the one major issue I have with the story. You learn that Rella was actually the one that placed the curse on the prince (which, again, I kind of predicted but not in the way that it played out) but then immediately after she challenges you for a fight to the death out in the northeast corner of the map. The boss fight here is incredibly designed and I do think her death scene hits pretty hard but yeah this entire thing just came off incredibly fast. I think the game would've greatly benefitted from heaving the Rella fight be at the end of the mage academy as a dungeon as it would fix pretty much my only two issues (Rella arc being rushed and a lack of story dungeons). Oh yeah, I also totally skipped over the whole Louis is dead -> nope not really -> forden's dead thing, but man that was crazy. THAT I did not see coming, I just assumed at the time that Rella/Forden was going to shift to being the game's main enemy.
After slaying Rella we have to confront Louis in the final battle. But then you fight him and he turns you into a human and you lose all the support of the people. So you go to the eldan village where the old woman there basically confirms my theories about the world, but the one thing that I did not see coming in the slightest was that THE PROTAG WAS THE PRINCE ALL ALONG?? In like a manifested form of the prince's desire to see the world??? And not only that but Gallica also had her memories rewritten to believe he was with her the whole time??? This was crazy. The entire game I was wondering who the hell this guy was or where he came from, what his backstory was, and at the 11th hour I'm thrown for the craziest loop of all time. Jesus. Oh yeah and you get a super cool Archetype upgrade called the Prince and it turns out Louis is also an Elda. Neat!
The floating palace is a great dungeon imo, though I think it could've used one more lengthy section. I wasted 2 of my MP items after the fight with the guy we "killed" at the start of the game because I thought we had more dungeon to do, but turns out that was it and those MP items were definitely missed in the final fight. Really enjoyed the magla star boss rush as well, and if you were short on exp at all this is the perfect place to grind up as much as you want, though I was so enthralled in the story and had a solid enough lineup that I didn't do any extra grinding.
The first fight with Louis here is pretty chill, but of course it's never that easy. All of the party members charge into a heroic sacrificial battle to get you to the guantlet runner so you can 1v1 this dude and the anime cutscene that plays here goes stupid hard but more importantly you die and get sent to More's realm where you and him argue about ideals for a bit before he unveils to you that he's THE KING AKA YOUR FATHER IN THE SAME SPLIT FORM THAT YOU WERE IN FOR THE FIRST 3/4 OF THE GAME??? Wild. Honestly I thought he was in some form related to Louis but I totally missed the mark here. Anyways after convincing him that your ideals are pure and true and you fight your friends or whatever you take out two stupidly fat Louis-Human hybrids and become king. GGz. The epilogue stuff is really cute and definitely had me emotional when I finished this game at 4 am last night.
Solid like 9.5/10 for me lol, I think playing a 75 hour game with 30 minutes of what I'd call rushed story isn't enough to hold it down any more than that, and even though I think the game does really only give you 4 real story dungeons + 2 half ones, there's enough side quest dungeons that I really don't mind it too much. It's not like I had trouble getting my levels up for the final fight or anything.
I was so excited to meet up with Grius and have this war hardened general in my party for the duration of the game, but I got pretty suspicious when I left the mine and had a social link for strohl (and maybe gallica?) but not one for him. After the (failed) assassination attempt I was pretty shook because even though I saw it coming the way in which it happened was still nuts to me. But god I love that Grius's death drives the party to move forward and also serves as the inciting incident for Maria's social link arc.
The martira chapter was amazing, I did not expect Heismay to be someone we'd end up recruiting and for the boss to instead be the like royal figurehead of the town. Heismay is an insanely well written character too, even if I found him to be nearly useless in combat. After this is where the Louis stuff picks up since the next dungeon is his skyrunner, though I wish they beefed it up a bit more than just the three boss fights you have to do because I didn't really feel like I wiped out a whole dungeon even though I basically did. I really had 0 idea how the protag was going to break into his room undetected but the ambush by whatever his name was and Junah's awakening was a solid way to go about it.
The next arc was where I started to put some things together since as you explore the dragon temple you see a lot of "old world" relics like a phone, a gun, a disc, etc. My running theory at this point was that we are actually in the future and magla caused some sort of great reset to the world, actually pushing society back x amount of years, with Elda being the humans that survived the old world and the other tribes being mutations forced by magla. I really liked the temple as a dungeon, the puzzles were solid and I appreciated how big it was coming off of the previous skyrunner dungeon. I like Eupha as a character a lot, someone who spent her life preparing to die is now learning to live again not only by herself, but with her new friends in a world much larger than she ever knew. It's good and relatable stuff. I think her main archetype is outclassed by Junah's and I don't really think she has the stats (or level, she was a good 4 levels lower than my party when she joined) to make her worth adding.
Leaving the island I was almost certain the last party member was either going to be one or both of the paripus brothers, but I assumed it would only be one because I only had one social link remaining. After going through the opera house which feels like another half dungeon, we see through a super heavy cutscene that the Makoto Yuki Metaphor edition once again learns that his friends are his power and sacrifices himself to save us, Basilio included. Once again even though I saw it coming like Grius's death, seeing how the actual scene plays out just makes it sooo powerful. Basilio's got a great social link and I really like his Berserker line Archetypes, but it does feel a tad late to use him. Maybe if there was one more story dungeon between him and "the final battle" I'd be much more willing to work him in.
Anyway from here the story kicks into MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE and this is the one major issue I have with the story. You learn that Rella was actually the one that placed the curse on the prince (which, again, I kind of predicted but not in the way that it played out) but then immediately after she challenges you for a fight to the death out in the northeast corner of the map. The boss fight here is incredibly designed and I do think her death scene hits pretty hard but yeah this entire thing just came off incredibly fast. I think the game would've greatly benefitted from heaving the Rella fight be at the end of the mage academy as a dungeon as it would fix pretty much my only two issues (Rella arc being rushed and a lack of story dungeons). Oh yeah, I also totally skipped over the whole Louis is dead -> nope not really -> forden's dead thing, but man that was crazy. THAT I did not see coming, I just assumed at the time that Rella/Forden was going to shift to being the game's main enemy.
After slaying Rella we have to confront Louis in the final battle. But then you fight him and he turns you into a human and you lose all the support of the people. So you go to the eldan village where the old woman there basically confirms my theories about the world, but the one thing that I did not see coming in the slightest was that THE PROTAG WAS THE PRINCE ALL ALONG?? In like a manifested form of the prince's desire to see the world??? And not only that but Gallica also had her memories rewritten to believe he was with her the whole time??? This was crazy. The entire game I was wondering who the hell this guy was or where he came from, what his backstory was, and at the 11th hour I'm thrown for the craziest loop of all time. Jesus. Oh yeah and you get a super cool Archetype upgrade called the Prince and it turns out Louis is also an Elda. Neat!
The floating palace is a great dungeon imo, though I think it could've used one more lengthy section. I wasted 2 of my MP items after the fight with the guy we "killed" at the start of the game because I thought we had more dungeon to do, but turns out that was it and those MP items were definitely missed in the final fight. Really enjoyed the magla star boss rush as well, and if you were short on exp at all this is the perfect place to grind up as much as you want, though I was so enthralled in the story and had a solid enough lineup that I didn't do any extra grinding.
The first fight with Louis here is pretty chill, but of course it's never that easy. All of the party members charge into a heroic sacrificial battle to get you to the guantlet runner so you can 1v1 this dude and the anime cutscene that plays here goes stupid hard but more importantly you die and get sent to More's realm where you and him argue about ideals for a bit before he unveils to you that he's THE KING AKA YOUR FATHER IN THE SAME SPLIT FORM THAT YOU WERE IN FOR THE FIRST 3/4 OF THE GAME??? Wild. Honestly I thought he was in some form related to Louis but I totally missed the mark here. Anyways after convincing him that your ideals are pure and true and you fight your friends or whatever you take out two stupidly fat Louis-Human hybrids and become king. GGz. The epilogue stuff is really cute and definitely had me emotional when I finished this game at 4 am last night.
Solid like 9.5/10 for me lol, I think playing a 75 hour game with 30 minutes of what I'd call rushed story isn't enough to hold it down any more than that, and even though I think the game does really only give you 4 real story dungeons + 2 half ones, there's enough side quest dungeons that I really don't mind it too much. It's not like I had trouble getting my levels up for the final fight or anything.
