It is being made by Studio Zero under Atlus, the company that published some of the Persona Titles. The director of Persona 5, Katsura Hashino had made it clear around 2016 that he wanted to move on to other titles as he understood that Persona 5 is marking a shift in direction for the company and thus with a few employees from P-studio, Studio Zero was founded under Atlus. Metaphor: ReFantazio is coming to all consoles except the switch, on October 11th.
The Pastel Art Style Is Just Amazing
It follows the same artstyle as the Persona series, which is a good sign as the team is creating something new with the mechanics and systems that they are already familiar with. The characters are so distinct in their colors and their design. The colors of each character always pop out on screen, it is always satisfying to come to any location and immediately recognize all the characters present due to their design.
The artstyle is a joy to look at with this distinct anime style whenever you as the protagonist start a conversation with anyone. The background helps more in setting the characters apart as it has this effect of being off-color but everything is still identifiable and detailed enough.
The UI itself is worth a tale on its own, every option change has a splash of color with large text that are displayed on top, everything has this wacky feel to it which adds to the experience when playing as UI shouldn’t impede the player when they are in-game but here it manages to do that while maintaining its style.
A Thought Provoking Tale
As with most JRPGs, the story will seem straightforward at the beginning but it will soon delve into a complicated setting where there are too many factors and twists for everyone to be awed at. It starts off with the kingdom’s king being assassinated and thus there is now a power vacuum, on top of which the prince has been cursed and it is your job to cure this prince and also find out who assassinated the king.
Now this is a good start as there are two distinct but related quests to complete but again, it will soon expand into something much deeper with developments the player won’t see coming.
A Familiar Setting For Fans Of Persona
Now as this was made by the team who made the persona titles, there is the mechanic of choice, where the player has a set amount of time to clear a main quest and what happens when the player fails. Thus this asks the player to think wisely as doing anything in the game will cost them a day.
Along with the familiar time requirement, the combat is something every persona fan will enjoy as it is quite similar to Persona. It is turn- based and your team has the basic actions such as an attack, guard for a turn, skip a turn along with the positioning of characters. Now what is the most fun aspect is the introduction of the “Archetypes”.
Your team members have the ability to summon these Archetypes, which are essentially ancient powerful beings that all have their signature design and role when in combat. There are front-lined focused Knights, ranged mages that attack from the backline, warriors that can multi-hit and help in crowd control etc.
There is also the ability to perform “connected attacks” where if there are two familiar Archetypes they can perform a combined attack on enemies. Of Course you will slowly get access to a lot of different Archetypes and can upgrade or change their moves to suit the party’s needs, this is essentially Studio Zero’s take on the Job System that almost all JRPGs have in place.
This Is A Good Choice For Those Wanting To Jump Into JRPGs
The game contains it all, a compelling initial story, good strategizing gameplay, lots of side quests and mini quests to do wherever the character is, amazing and creative designs on enemies and allies alike etc.
What is a complaint here is that for veteran JRPGs players the prologue can be a bit tedious as it tries to teach mechanics aimed for the new player and thus making it boring for the veteran player, it would be a proper quality of life improvement if there was an option to skip the tutorial sections instead of being forced to do them.
There is a demo out on steam right now for everyone to try that contains the prologue section of the game. While most western triple A games have been disappointments so far, games like Wukong, the most recent Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero and now Metaphor: ReFantazio are proving that all that was needed was creativity and the drive to bring something new to the table for gamers to sink their time into in order to be successful.
