Metaphor: Refantazio is a pretty good game from Atlus, and if you've played Persona 5, P3 Reload, or some of the SMT games, you'll likely find this one to be very familiar. It's very difficult to talk about Metaphor without comparing it directly to Persona 5, because frankly, it does almost exactly the same things that Persona 5 does - in fact, maybe an uncomfortable amount.
TL;DR - Metaphor's story is far less profound than it leads on, and the gameplay ends up being more of the same of Persona 5, but it's still ultimately enjoyable for the most part, and can generally recommend it. My review is quite critical of the game, but I want to emphasize that it's built on a fairly strong foundation to start with.
Story
The story to Metaphor starts off extremely strong, with the former king's palace rising into the air, and declaring that the next king will be chosen by what's essentially popular vote across the kingdom. Your character, the protagonist, is working to stop the villain from winning the race and taking the throne, as well as finding a way to lift the curse on the rightful heir, the prince.
By laying out these mysteries and political intrigue, the story has hooks to pull you in immediately, unlike the slow pace of Persona 5. Getting a taste of this terrific villain from so early on makes the pacing much better. It settles into a similar pattern to P5 - new arc villain, new party member joins in the course of stopping them, move on to the next arc and do it again - but in Metaphor, you venture to a new village or city each time, and the change of scenery actually makes a large difference in keeping interest.
Metaphor has a similar system to Social Links, although they're much easier to manage in this game. I actually finished every single one before the end of the game - you not only get more time to finish links, but there's fewer and they're a little shorter than the Persona games many side characters you can befriend.
One thing I hope they eventually change is giving more of the side characters more time together. Early in the game, your first two party members will interact a fair amount, but by the time you have most of the party members, the game's dialogue devolves into each character saying one line of dialogue in every conversation. Every conversation sounds like:
A: "I think we should be careful going in."
B: "Agreed, they could have an ambush setup for us."
C: "But what if there isn't one? We can't afford to waste time."
D: "That's a good point. Maybe we can scout ahead".
(imagine this continuing on further)
I really would love more of the group interacting with one another, but the game ultimately revolves around the main character.
Spoilers following: However, ultimately, the story ends on a much weaker note. One trope in many SMT & Persona games is a chaotic villain that wants to plunge the world into a primordial, natural order, where the strong rule and the weak are killed, free of societal laws and rules. It turns into "we're stopping the villain" into "there's a worldwide apocalypse about to happen" in an identical way to the other games. The villain they set up throughout the rest of the game feels so much more intriguing and badass, and at the end, he's just a super evil guy.
The themes of the game are just beat over your head over and over, and I get the feeling that Metaphor really wanted to feel epic and inspiring, and instead came across to me as shallow. The amount of times the characters say "change is really possible!" and "don't give up on your dreams" is just a little too much. It also kind of stings where the game initially sets up this drama where anyone can be king, and then wow, it just magically ends up being the king's son. Who would've thought?
I really think if the game told a more character-based story, it would've ended up with a much stronger final product, because the villain, Count Louis, is so terrific, that it's a shame to see him reduced to just being a generic end-the-world guy.
Gameplay
Again, if you've played Persona 5, you'll be right at home. The gameplay is nearly identical, with a few small changes, the most notable being the Archetype system. Archetypes are like Personas, except once unlocked, anyone in your party can equip them. Initially, this is a really cool idea - in the first dungeon, you can make multiple members of your team Brawlers in order to exploit the right weaknesses of the enemies. So initially, it seems like you'll have this cool party building and experimentation and flexibility and---
None of it pans out. You see, as the characters level, their specialization in their stats becomes more exaggerated. By mid-game, running Hulkenberg, the tanky character with high endurance but low strength and agility stats, is useless as a Warrior or Brawler, so you'll almost always just be keeping characters in one or two lines of archetypes. Additionally, some of the archetypes have mind-boggling poor design that render them nearly useless. Why does the final Gunner archetype have only magic elemental attacks when it gives strength and agility??
Ultimately, the Archetype system just ends up being a skill tree. Want to get the strongest Knight class for Hulkenberg? You need to level the prior knight classes, and some of them have Mage classes as prerequisites, but Hulkenberg barely deals any damage anyway. Thankfully, the "social links" unlock a passive that gives EXP to party members you aren't using, and you get items that give XP to your archetypes so you don't need to grind as much, but some of the late game classes still take an absurd amount of XP.
I did all of the side content, did all of the main content, did a little extra grinding, and made an effort to kill every enemy in every area to ensure I was getting as much XP as I could, and even then it wasn't enough for some of the late game archetypes. I found it frustrating, to say the least. What you really want to do is look up the requirements for each character's late game archetypes so you don't waste time leveling stuff you don't need, though you'll still need a ton more XP.
Additionally, some late game fights really fall apart as bosses get 4-8 actions per round, and buffs and debuffs begin to turn into a joke. Many late game bosses can remove all of their debuffs, remove all of your buffs, buff themselves up, and then attack you with multiple AOE attacks in one round. It's very frustrating and tedious to fight through.
Anyways, this is a lot of complaining, but ultimately this doesn't ruin the game. The combat system works fine for the most part, but I'm disappointed that it doesn't do more.
Art, Graphics
Okay, now where I have much more praise is the strong art direction of Metaphor. Metaphor is incredibly colorful, and the different parts of the land that you travel to all have their distinctive style. The different cities all have similar activities and shops, but unique layouts and scenery that emphasize their own cultures within the world. There's also landmarks that you'll discover that also add to the sense of wonder that actually added a lot to the game - sometimes, they're crazy magical anomalies, and sometimes they're just really pretty pieces of scenery.
Much of the menus and artwork reference Da Vinci and Renaissance-era aesthetics that combine with a more fantastical perspective that end up hitting just right. If anything, Metaphor's aesthetics are truly distinct in a way that serves it very well.
Also, the models for this game are all totally new! All of the monsters and Archetypes are fresh, as opposed to how the SMT & Persona series reuse the same demons and monsters frequently, which is an incredibly welcome change. Many of the mutant monsters really hit this perfect tone of fantastical horror that suits the game perfectly.
The graphics on a technical level are mostly good. Environments look much less flat than Persona 3 Reload, which was on the same engine, but there are some other choices I didn't love. Thankfully you can now turn off motion blur, and there are PC mods to disable the somewhat ugly character outlines. The support for 144FPS and high-def resolutions are also appreciated! At times though, you will notice how poor the background environmental details are. Many of the pretty scenes in the game are just 2D images with 3D characters composited on them, and in modern games, that can sometimes really stand out as being low-fidelity.
Voice Acting, Music, Sound
The voice acting in this game is really terrific. Like, really goddamn good. The actors for Strohl and Louis in particular stand out in their performances, and many of the lines that they read just hit really well.
Shoji Meguro continues to demonstrate that he can make music of any style, ever, for any Atlus game he wants. The battle theme of this game is incredibly catchy and awesome sounding - Meguro always understands the assignment and this game is no exception. I will say, I found there were slightly fewer tracks that I found especially catchy, but I think it's because the game's music is generally less poppy and more epic sounding (and, much of it is in Esperanto). The sweeping choirs and full orchestra set the tone perfectly for what Metaphor is going for.
Conclusion
In retrospect, I know a lot of this review is really critical of Metaphor. I did enjoy the game, but as a simple matter-of-fact, if you played Persona 5 or P3R, this game is more of that without a lot of meaningful evolution, and a story that I've found to be somewhat clumsy at times. I would really like to see Atlus try to mix things up a little more in the future, as Metaphor just feels like a different coat of paint - albeit, the paint is awfully pretty.
80/100
