Metaphor: Refantazio Takes a lot of inspiration from PersonaBut that’s not always to his benefit. Borrowing the concepts of Personas (which it calls Archetypes), Social Links/Confidants (which it calls Bonds), and Awakenings (which it calls… Awakenings), metaphor is not exactly a Persona Sequel, but with little more than a name change, it certainly could be. It’s not just a carbon copy of the rest of the series, either; In many ways, it builds on classic franchise tropes, blending Persona And the wider Shin Megami Tensei series to create the next evolution of the Atlas formula.
But that formula has its limitsAnd one of them is very clear from the first hour of metaphor. Recent Atlus games may have lulled players into a false sense of security, thinking the studio had finally found a way to crack the code and avoid this early pitfall, but it’s just as present and just as frustrating in metaphor As it was all the way back in Persona 3.
It takes several hours for gameplay to start
simply, Metaphor: RefantazioThe introductory sequence is far too long (and long-winded) for its own good. Depending on how the player paces themselves during its opening chapters, it can take two hours before they get their first real taste of combat. When they finally do, they do so without access to all its features – it takes significantly longer for them to be able to challenge their first archetypes. Immediately after, the player is forced back into longer story scenes.
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This pattern repeats several times until all the gameplay features are unlocked. Then and only then the player is given a measure of freedom, allowed to explore the world, tackle dungeons and complete side activities at their own pace. total, It takes about five hours to complete Metaphor: Refantazios tutorial in full; That’s roughly the entire length of the free demo. It’s hard to sell a player who has never tried an Atlus game before on the early story scenes alone.
To some extent, it makes sense: Metaphor: Refantazio Has a lot of mechanics to introduceBetween the ins and outs of battle, the peculiarities of the Bond system, and the complexities of archetypes. It’s much more than a typical RPG, so it doesn’t have the luxury of simply explaining what experience shows and then turning the player loose. Add this to his complex, completely original setting, and metaphor Kind of needs a long tutorial.
This goes double with its calendar system. Players have a limited amount of time to complete certain activities; Miss one, and it could be locked out for the rest of the game. It’s only fair to make sure the player is aware of all this before the clock starts ticking. But even so, that doesn’t have to make the opening hours so long or boring. The tutorial could have been a bit more interactiveBut instead, it mostly consists of watching story scenes and wondering when the game is due to start again.
Long intros are a persistent persona problem
And an RPG staple more generally
metaphorIt’s not the only game that has this problem; Many RPGs have an overlong introForcing players to complete hours of story scenes interspersed with snippets of combat before the game properly begins. however, Persona Games are consistently the worst offenders in this category, and it’s unfortunate to see metaphor Follow this tradition.
Persona 3 Has one of the shorter intros, lasting about three hours if the player takes their time. Persona 4It’s about the same. Persona 5The intro is the longest, taking up to six hours to complete, depending on how much the player decides to do and explore during the short game moments that punctuate this long chapter. It, however, make a small change to the usual formula that completely turns the issue on its head, giving players a better idea of what is on the other side of all the tutorials.
Persona 5 has a much better tutorial
A taste of combat right up front
Persona 5 begins with a flash forward, An exciting action sequence that takes place in the final chapters of the game. Less than five minutes after clicking “New game“, the player is thrust into combat Fight enemies from the end of the game, pulling off high-level abilities as they explore a stunningly unique dungeon. Then, they’re treated to a crash course in the game’s stealth mechanics, having to sneak past lots of enemies without getting caught. The sequence lasts only a few short moments, and comes to an abrupt end when the protagonist is arrested.
What follows is another long sequence of story scenes, however Ideally, the player is already entranced by the satisfaction of the first moments in combat. If they stop the exhibition for a while, they will inevitably return to battle eventually, and get a chance to develop the same abilities from scratch. It’s a simple solution, but effective: players can experience the game at its best from the start, so they’re more willing to spend time working back to it afterwards.
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Now, compare that to the intro of metaphor: ReFantazio. It’s about the same length of time between the start menu and the player’s first moments in the game, but this time, as soon as they’re dropped in, they’re given a clear, one-sided directive: head in that direction, And if an enemy gets too close, run. Flying from the potential of battle is not funAnd unfortunately, it’s basically the player’s only choice here. If they try to engage the first enemy they see, they will inevitably find themselves outmatched, almost certainly dying before even getting into turn-based mode.
This is soon followed by another long sequence of dialogue scenes, and then, finally, the first limited taste of combat. Only during the first boss battle will the protagonist finally awaken to their archetype and be able to direct their powers to their fullest potential in combat. After that, things expand greatly; There are still some long cutscenes, but there’s a lot of actual gameplay in between. Still, it’s frustrating to see a problem like that Persona 5 were to solve repeated in Metaphor: Refantazio.