So I've been playing a lot of Metaphor ReFantazio and it's so good, I feel this game deserves its own thread instead of disparate discussion literally everywhere. Firstly, if you're unsure what this game is it's basically Persona 5 in a magitech steampunk setting, rife with social inequality and the King has very recently been murdered. You end up with a plucky band of anime protagonists whose goal it is to fix the wrongs of the world in order to become popular enough to become elected. There is a lot of thought and storytelling in this premise, with your classic Persona style gameplay systems, such as needing to manage your time between raising stats, going to dungeons to accomplish your objectives, helping people and building social bonds with your various companions throughout the game.
Here is a launch trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQPk4cVrU_w
And it's also reviewed extremely strongly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2d4nyTpwpwhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2afXi-ZsIQIhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1PXTXhUvfY
With Metaphors
solid 93 on Metacritic and
91% positive rating on steam it's looking like this is one of of main contenders for being GotY and so far, I strongly agree with those takes. The wonderfully weird and extremely creative character designs, especially of the monsters and bosses is one of the highlights of the game for me - as well as the refreshing and interesting cast of characters you acquire over the game too.
So far I'm around 20 hours in and I'm having a fantastic time. For me one of the biggest improvements to the JRPG formulae in general is that when you are over leveled compared to enemies, you can simply kill them on the field by just hitting them with your weapon. This ends up being really satisfying, as instead of having to engage in the classic turn based combat of persona - which is still excellent and truly refined to a remarkable degree here - you can just mow through an entire pack of enemies very fast. One early side quest even encourages this in order to draw out a boss you're trying to find and fight. This mechanic is so good, I'm unsure if I can play another JPRG that does not do this.
I really encourage anyone, especially those who may have been put off by the high school setting of Persona, to give this a go. It's very similar in style, but without some of the problematic parts that those games sometimes ended up having. Game is just fantastic and everyone should play it.
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They just really did a good job making the time feel like something to consider without it being too overwhelming.
Anyone who has played through the early part of the game should immediately recognize this.
Makes me love the game even more.
While that game said "Look, enjoy life while you can, because you're going to fucking die", this game is saying "Things are more than a bit shit, aren't they? Let's make them better." And, man. That just feels like the exact message I needed a game to smash in my face this year.
Which is a pretty cool message.
I def need to look through settings and tweak some stuff. That screen-shake aboard the runner has got to go.
Completed the second major deadline last night; Faker/Gunner Synth was a boon for getting through quickly, as I guess Alligators hate Jugglers.
Random QoL changes I would have liked:
1. Just let me quit out of losing battles or reset the battle outside of my turn. Please.
2. They really should have implemented more types of screen transitions. The “rhythmic tile wipe” is overdone and often jarring
3. It’s very weird that the Accessory shop is night-time only
There is an escape option.
2. Escape almost never works (on Hard Mode?)
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Kind of always felt like you losing entire days because you didn't pick the best response in Persona really took away from the roleplaying experience.
I feel like I'm waiting for a penny to drop on this one. I'm sure I read an interview with the director saying you wouldn't be able to fit everything into your in-game calendar, but so far I don't feel like I've had any issues keeping my virtues up while still raising my follower levels.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Whereas the combat is largely mainline SMT.
Right; it's got DNA from a bunch of different Atlus IPs. For the out of combat stuff; some things it ports over from Persona, some stuff it adds, some stuff it takes away. It's its own thing.
In all fairness they were surprised people managed in the Persona games too.
But it has been confirmed from multiple sources that beat the game that you can make plenty of mistakes but as long as you try you will still get there with plenty of days to spare.
Also there is a special NG+ fight... so maybe they just meant that. Technically that is one thing you can't do on one playthrough haha.
Persona 5 is the only one I think you could reasonably manage a perfect run in without a guide honestly. Mainly because Fortune is so ridiculously powerful.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
I legit can't believe this isn't an option, especially on the highest difficulty. Like there are clear fights where you just do not have the right setup and having to alt-tab and close the game from within STEAM is not the way to go. A simple "Quit to Main Title" or "Load Recent Save" is just to obvious.
This I think is there to prevent you from loading up on elemental Items and doing a dungeon in one day. Definitely silly as the items still cost resources (money) but I can at least see this design decision.
. . .overall agree that there are some serious QoL-failures that just don't make sense in this year; like really, I'm going to have to sit through these awakenings for every character and Archetype. . .really? What's crazy is the stuff they DID catch like Fast Forwarding through protag responses (which is odd because it clearly calls out these player feedback beats as pointless - as they've always been).
I think their point is that this is clearly an evolution of the "Persona formula. . ." that ATLUS have been refining through P5 as opposed to the game being "extremely not Persona." I skipped through all the tutorials about "deadlines" and "time limits" and etc. because it is clearly pulling the same management systems that Persona has (just a bit more polished with more to do in the offtime given you aren't in school).
Especially since it remembers weaknesses!
I've been buying up every bath salt I find on the vendors and I'm pretty sure all nights on the runner are just going to be bath nights. It's a real hard sell doing anything on the runner at night but grinding permanent stat ups.
"I didn't succeed on the Steal first turn? That's fine, we're gonna do this dance until you give me whatever you're hiding."
At like 30 hours. Still no 4th party member(although I'm just about to get them i think!) There is no world this is an 80~ hour game for someone that listens to the dialogue.
There's so much dialogue!
Gonna feel bad once I have to start benching people.
Active party size is 4.
And so it was that Strohl was out of a job.
It's nice spending time with you Strihl and Hulkenberg. But know this isn't a permanent thing.
(Spoilers for late August)
Also, for people planning out characters - the rank 3 Swordsman class requires level 10 in General (second rank of Commander). Not even complaining, that class line has good stuff. (Buff the whole party's attack two stages for one action is very good!)
Finally, for when you have to bench party members - spending enough time with party members will give them a passive that lets them get full XP without participating in combat. I think it's rank 4 improves the xp, rank 6 gives full xp.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Don't care about regular because they aren't coming off that bench haha. But I wouldn't mind some a-exp batteries on the bench..
I build my MC for strength so as soon as I get a suitable mage they are a permalock.
Not sure, I'll have to check. Didn't really think about it.
Mage is the fourth person to join. And their base class is really good for it, too. (I got to have fun with "inflict fire weakness to all enemies" into "deal extreme fire damage to all enemies+debuffs" synergies back to back and that's as silly as it sounds). Hulkenberg is a good choice to put in the Mage class a bit if you're looking to chip at elemental weaknesses though, since two of the Knight classes require levels in the Mage line.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
You can hot swap characters in and out of the party in battle, at the cost of one turn icon. But unless you have sufficient bond level with them, they will still get less exp by virtue of having been placed in reserve in the menu.
4th (party member, not to join) is Agi.
I really need more companions suited for magic though, because my MC is built to be a physical dodge tank with stacked agility and smacking things otherwise. But I'm forced to keep MC in more of a magic user role for now. While I love Strohl, he'll be benched and I'll switch my party appropriately as soon as I can get another magic user to replace him.
Yea was referring time join order as that's what the other person was doing. I'm aware of who all the party members are haha.
And also I just don't swap battle members in games. I want a set party and that's that.
But if my background members can grind a-exp on mastered archetypes I certainly will take advantage of that! Although that does seem pretty busted so I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't work like that?
Even knowing the "trick" to the mimics doesn't trivialize them on Hard, it just makes them skip every other turn. When they're almost oneshotting my party, it's quite a challenge!
I think I'm underleveled for this, I'm only level 20 and these enemies are level 25+
That being said, I just did the boss mimic and it took a few tries, but he went down. This dungeon is no joke!
Current setup is Mage, Warrior, Mage Knight. Warrior has the merchant gold attack for mimics, and Mage/Mage Knight both have light attacks. Switching my warrior to brawler trivializes most of the skeleton fights, but the mimics are the really hard part of this whole thing.