One of the first things I did after I got a PS5 was pre-ordered this game. Atlus is one of my all time favorite developers and this looked to be an incredibly fun game. Metaphor ReFantazio is the story of a protagonist fighting to save his friend the prince from an unknown curse. Alongside his fairy companion Gallica the two of them venture out to find more about the curse; however, in the process they get wrapped up in the power struggle for the vacant throne of the kingdom. The late king’s magic decreed that only the one selected by the people shall become king and as a result everyone after the throne seeks to unite the will of the people and the various tribes to obtain it.

I’ll start things off by talking about the story. It is an absolute marvelous story. The world is made up of various tribes; however, you’re an Elda a tribe that faces massive discrimination and is shunned. A massive challenge you end up facing when you seek to claim the throne in order to get close to the main antagonist Louis Guiabern. The man who murdered the late king and is suspected of putting the curse on the prince. While facing the enemies after the throne you also have a wicked race of monsters called humans wondering around causing destruction wherever they go. While fighting one of these humans you unlock a power called an Archetype and it is through your bonds with the cast of the game where you grow this amazing power. Archetypes are embodiment of heroic traits manifested in a powerful new form encasing the hero and providing incredible strength.

Each character you unlock in your party has their own stories. Their own anxieties and struggles and it’s wonderful to see their stories both the parts included in the main game and their side stories. I can’t tell you how many times I stopped the game just to process the emotional weight of the story being told. You have a story of a man grieving the loss of his son. Another of a man who lost his people and one of a woman who is forced to sacrifice herself for her people. The main story is incredibly captivating, but add on the stories of these characters on the side and you have something words struggle to describe.

The main story is also really good outside of the characters. The world is full of strife and the various races all have great animosity towards each other. This is very much a story about the struggles of discrimination and the wars and conflicts that come from that. Which is also why becoming king is such a challenge because it involves the races all coming to a consensus, something they struggle to do throughout the entire game. You’ve also got a ton of mysteries that are very captivating. For example who is Louis and what is his motivation. He is a rather enigmatic character almost the entire game. The protagonist also carries with him a book describing a utopia; however, through that book he meets a character named More trapped in a world of his own. It is there we learn about what the Archetypes are but it also raises additional questions about this unknown character who has no knowledge why he’s there. The actual answers to these questions made for intense but wonderful story moments.

I want to also talk about the characters themselves. As I said earlier they all come with intense and masterfully told stories. Moments that really have an emotional punch to them. The protagonist is also very interesting because unlike a lot of games from Atlus he actually speaks giving him more of a personality than other Atlus protagonists. There’s also a lot to this character that gets revealed late in the game in some very surprising moments that I won’t go into any further to avoid spoilers. Then you have Louis Guiabern who is one of if not my favorite antagonist of all time. He is well designed in every aspect. He has an amazing story, motivation and his lines just hit hard. Two of my favorite types of villains are ones that seem to be this unstoppable force and the ones who are relatable and not entirely evil. This is a story full of incredibly written characters that will leave you impressed.

The gameplay borrows a lot of what you see from the Persona series but with major quality of life improvements. Like Persona, you essentially have two actions a day. One in the afternoon and one in the evening to build bonds with characters to unlock story moments and new powers, or build stats needed to progress further in their stories at certain parts of the game. If you go to a dungeon it takes up both your daily actions. One change I like from Persona is where normally you can only do things one at a time here you can kind of multi task. For example some dungeon trips can help unlock new story moments with the characters and some of those story moments can also boost some of your stats. Plus unlike Persona I was able to see everyone’s entire story in one playthrough of the game which was something I loved. It’s a long game so it’s hard to find time to sit down and do a second playthrough to see missed story elements. Plus the game has a lot to do. Various quests are scattered throughout the world and you have the main story to progress. I ended up with plenty of time to do everything and managed to not spend a lot of time doing the same thing day after day because of all the stuff the game has to offer.

Continuing with gameplay the combat is turn based. Each archetype has it’s unique skills and levels up along with the players. As you progress though the game you unlock new archetypes and new powers. Though you can also assign skills from other learned archetypes to the one you’ve got equipped. For example some archetypes are skilled with magic attacks while others are more physical attackers. If you have a character who’s mastered both then you can equip one and then add skills from the other. It was a level of customization I really enjoyed and had me spending a lot of time crafting the perfect move set for my party.

Overall this is an incredible game. One that quite honestly has me bewildered as to how a game can be this good. The story is a masterpiece the characters are captivation and the gameplay is addicting. The only real downside to this game is that at some point it does have to end.