Is Metaphor: ReFantazio JRPG Of The Year?

[@ErekLadd]

What did you think of this game? Let me know!

[@TheGunmanChannel]

It's a real pity to see most new games on steam have Denuvo, I just can't support that. I'll wait until they remove it. Gameplay looks a lot like Persona⁵

[@saviormonroe-lh7oh]

Still juggling which game of the year is mine between this and FF7 Rebirth. Im leaning toward Metaphor because unlike you, i LOVED the story! To me, the game got 3 10 outta 10s. Story, characters and gameplay. My biggest gripe with it was the graphics (even tho i love the style) and the dungeon design. That could have been stronger. The music was great too. 9 outta 10. But i think i feel the story from a deeper level. As a black man living where i live, i can directly relate to the discrimination and prejudice. Game was a little too heavy for me at times. But based on what i see, i understand why that didn't resonate with you as much as it did for me. And because i pretty much already knew what was going to happen in FF 7 Rebirth (because I played the original), and this game was new and hooked me emotionally even more than FF7 Rebirth, Metaphor Refantazio is my GOTY even though i absolutely LOVED Rebirth.

[@ErekLadd]

Hey that's great!! I'm super glad you liked the game overall. I enjoyed it for what it was but yeah, just didn't resonate with me. Interesting in concept for sure but just didn't land. Lots of stuff here to love though so it's great to see it'll be your GOTY pick. Rebirth for me all the way though!

[@midgetsparkle]

Jrpgs of the year, Easy. I've played a couple rpgs this year, trails daybreak, etc, a couple other indies. But this in gold. Such a story, such style! At direction, character writing, combat, creature design, new ideas created, old ideas perfected, I loved it, I was sold. I see your point about pacing though. And I love trails, but I think I give those games more credit is my rating because of the whole series being amazing.

[@ianp5367]

Nice video! I appreciate hearing your perspective from someone unfamiliar with Atlus games, respectfully disagree with a number of your takes though on the story and themes. I think your read of the story's themes is rather shallow, and is writing off the story as something its not. I've been seeing this sentiment a lot though, and I think it's because people latch onto the idea the game is about discrimination since you see it in the opening hours, and kind of just assume thats what most the game is about. The game is more so about the concepts of fantasy and fiction acting as both an escape and a source of strength to fight fears and anxieties. One of the core overall themes is that hope can be found in a fantasy, and encourage and push us to create a better world. Louis and the Prince were both inspired by the ideals found in the "fantasy" novel, and aspired to create their own world on the foundation of that inspiration. The people of Euchronia place all their hopes and desires on their leader, similar to how people in reality place all their hopes in a singular political view, prefering to blindly follow a leader than create change and a better world with their own hands. Metaphor pushes us to take inspiration and hope from it, and reflect on our own lives and the world- Finding our own ways to create a world or a life we "fantasize" about.

[@Tarrot]

*Laughs at the idea of Persona being a 60 hour game* Persona 5 Royal is easily 100 hours plus, and unless you're completely skipping bond events its not really skippable. I'm pretty sure Persona 3 Reload will also clock in around the 100 hour range as well. You were hesitant to play those, so I feel this is a fair warning. Now, personally, P5R is a significantly better game in story than Metaphor, so you might like it more, but you need to be prepared for how long it is. I'm about half-way through the game, and I pretty much agree with your review. Its good, but the story and characters don't have me hooked, and the battle system shows promise, but it does feel a little bit too much Rock/Paper/Scisssors with adjusting the team to enemy weaknesses, and I really don't like how, if you've got the wrong loadout for a boss, that you can't just reload to your most recent save in battle and rather have to intentionally die or reset the game to do so. That's kinda forced me into using guides for the bosses for weaknesses, just because of how time consuming and frustrating that is.

[@ErekLadd]

No I know that the Persona games are 100+ hours, I was just comparing my completion time to those. I definitely don't mind how long a game is so long as I get hooked into it. For example Dragon Quest XI was easily an 80+ hour game for me and I wished it was longer! All depends on how it lands for me honestly.

[@ianp5367]

"P5R is significantly better in story," thoroughly disagree, P5R is great but it's not miles better than Metaphor. You need to finish the game before making a hard judgement, P5R also benefits greatly from the full context of the story- To say P5R was comparatively miles better at the half way point is silly.

[@7xVaniLL]

P3R is around 80 hours(Answer excluded) Pretty short compared to other games in the series

[@jonl2792]

I resonate with a lot of your points. At the 60 hour mark I had to put the game down because the gameplay although fun at first became a bit repetitive at the final dungeon. On the other hand, infinite wealth kept me going until the end because of the story. Agree with your point at 10:48, took the words right out of my mouth. I would probably want to play it again a few years later so it’s fresh. Don’t regret spending all this time on metaphor but wish it was a bit shorter

[@ErekLadd]

Yeah that dungeon at the end.. my gosh it was such a slog. I forced myself through it but.. at what cost 😅

[@feiitogaming]

Great video Erek. Once again I completely understand all your critizism but for me personally... I completely fell in love with everything this game had to offer. If it wouldn't be for FFVII Rebirth, this would have been my JRPG of the year.

[@ErekLadd]

Hey I am glad you enjoyed it though!!!

[@Three-ke4dh]

Can't believe you've never played an Atelier game. With Yumia coming out in 2025 I think now might be the best time to start the series with Rorona.

[@DoteiAnimaLive]

gameplay wise i preferred shin megami tensei 5 vengeance (which is an expansion of an already published game to be fair) but everything else metaphor was on top of the entire year, i do not like how persona handles itself so i heavily prefer the softer notes of metaphor for the schedule and the social links, persona 3-4-5 is a glorified visual novel with tons of dead sections and useless dialog in between the peak moments(i say this while p3 being on my top 3 best games of all time) , metaphor is a dungeon crawler jrpg with visual novel elements, very different. but yea, SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI NUMBAA OOONE

[@houndmanjones]

I skipped to the final thoughts considering I was kinda wanting to play the game and didn't want many spoilers but it turns out it's exactly what I feared from the get go, Persona always had these Anime-ish plots but they had a deeper message although touched on very superficially at times. Glad to know it's not really the game many people painted it to be, glad I went for Yakuza instead 😂

[@ErekLadd]

I'd still recommend trying it because you might enjoy this game more than me but I certainly won't argue with you going for Yakuza!!!!

[@sixsixjd]

Rufus's Welcoming Ceremony Music Plays 🙌

[@ErekLadd]

I know right!!

[@sixsixjd]

@ErekLadd hell yeah we all know what the real GOTY is haha

[@beque3668]

I'm gonna say, if this game didn't gel with you then you probably won't like the Persona series. It's VERY similar... so similar that I was a bit disappointed. I thought it being a new IP that it would be different but it's almost the same thing, just with a different skin. Mind you I'm only around 10hrs in, so things can change but by your thoughts, I think it's save to assume that it won't change much. I just feel this was an opportunity for Atlus to try something different to their regular formula... and I say this is as someone who LOVED P5 and P4G... but hey I'm still happy to give it a try... who knows, I may eat my words haha. But thanks for your thoughts! It's refreshing to hear someone talk about this game with a little bit of criticism.

[@sigmaninja200]

There was a demo that is what made people buy the game

[@uppernimbus]

Hopefully this one comes to Switch 2, I'd love to play it! Great video Erek, always a pleasure hearing that smooth voice of yours 🐻

[@dediualex3554]

Definetly not, I wanted to love this game but I was putting my genuine feelings aside just cause I did not want to damage my perfect opinion of this game. The opera house arc had some genuine childish writing moments that made me go excuse me

[@geraldthegoose1685]

I gotta ask since I only see this said after the opera house arc not during the arc because for a lot of people, including me, that was definitely a big high point for the game

[@dediualex3554]

@@geraldthegoose1685it was build up to be that big moment that happens in every atlus game around the 60 hour mark, and the writing was so weird that it took me out of it in a lot of occasions. Just shock value, it’s so bad. And then the end game as well is just…… yeah well🤣

[@matthewskala691]

This game has one of the best soundtracks I've heard and ages and as a Persona fan have had a blast thus far

[@ErekLadd]

I thought it was great and suited the vibe of the game overall! Definitely something different which I’ve not heard in a game in a long time.

[@36inc]

I think youll need to play the game more than once to truely understand the story- atlus likes its layers and yes it has cliches (on purpose) the archetypes necessitate it the parts you feel are obvious are just the skin layer- anxiety and fantasy are ALWAYS present as themes- its no asspull of switch up you just didnt realize theyre related themes. many of the companions even represent some of these themes- to bite size many of its aspects. I dont wanna come off as some uhm actually asshole theres just no nicer way to explian that the methodology of their story design likes to use the familiar to add depth too its main theme- WHICH IS ANXIETY LEADING TO DESCRIMINATION. I promise im just autistic i love your reviews and i dont think its a bad review. I just think you came at it with expectations that didnt match your investment. (but thats why I avoid hype cycles)

[@ErekLadd]

I understand what you mean, but I did genuinely go into this game with zero expectations. So I can confidently say I wasn't letdown by hype, it's just the game. And yeah, it's not a flick of a switch for themes, it just seemed to shift more heavily from one side to the other which obviously makes sense thematically and if anything it helped clear up some stuff story wise. But overall lots of cool stuff to enjoy for me regardless of not being a perfect game, not that I expected anything anyway but still!

[@36inc]

@@ErekLadd The real value of Metaphor isnt that we all agree on its goty status (award shows and rankings are bullshit) Its just its a Quality TurnBased rpg with no massive flaws. Its not so much that were starved but when you really think about any rpg from our past its not like any of them really reinvented the wheel either. they just mixed a few working concepts well with fun mechanics. just like metaphor does- i think its just life changing your perspective- reviewers are far more desperate for something more unique So even the hint of cliche can take you outa it emotionally even if you logically know theres more to it. Now im taking my autism to armchair psychology but the difference between reviewers and essayists is -kinda obvious. essayist will expound on the good elements of midteir games and make it beuatiful, and reviewers will turn off their brain if they can guess the killer from a Chekov's gun.

[@dediualex3554]

@@36incno bro the game is dissapointing get over it

[@36inc]

@dediualex3554 im sorry you cant find joy in a 10/10 jrpg

[@stupid3814]

@@36incits okay bro, not every can like every games and its completely fine. Many people could not get into game like elden ring even. I personally thinks this game’s story is the most well written story in video games and atlus really got a different style of writing with multiple layers in it. The game often treat players like a smart person to get all of its messages without explicitly explain everything which is a very good thing but that is also their biggest downside. They assume players too smart sometimes.

[@lone5326]

I respect the opinion, but i suspect you're playing/played the game wrong. The in game calendar was supposed to leave you with 12 free days before the last dungeon if you have the perfect run. As for me i had 10 days left. If we were to apply your suggestion about the in game calendar be shorter, then it wouldn't be possible to platinum the game on 1 run. You were right on the money tho. weren't the target audience for this. Id have to argue, if you weren't the audience yet you enjoyed the game? Isn't that a goty material/attribute there? That those outside of their audience still has good interest in the game?

[@ErekLadd]

Lots of likable stuff here even for me, someone who didn’t totally click with the game. So maybe GOTY material? It’s still a solid 7.5/8 for me if I were to score. Only real shortcoming is the story but again, I’m not the target audience. Enjoyed my experience regardless for the most part!

[@wesley596]

I was thinking I'm crazy since I did not see neither Atlus greatest game or goty. Great game for sure, but the story is a little bit too generic for my taste. And with characters becoming "anything" with the jobs system, I think it made it worse as well.

[@fernandozavaletabustos205]

My vote is going to FF 7 Rebirth, but this game is really great too!

[@ErekLadd]

Same for me!

[@Ardith50]

60 hours? Damn I just started the last month and I’m already at 100.

[@jyeo5556]

Thanks for the great review. It's interesting how the usual tropes of JRPG games have been reversed. Usually it's the story that is engaging and the gameplay that gets stale. It seems like the main character just didn't have a personal dilemma that was written well enough for the player to empathise and feel invested in the lives of the characters. People don't need the world to end to care about the story.

[@luroc]

the mc carries the weight of the world and its inhabitants on his shoulders throughout the entire campaign. it’s more than he telling his own story, he is telling everyone’s story and being their voice. that’s the point of his candidacy for the throne. and those reasons grow even stronger once you reach the turning point of the story in the 3/4 mark.

[@nevinvegas]

I think I enjoyed the calendar system more than you but I agree the story was a little too childish and cliche at times. I love the flow of combat in megaten games and really loved persona 5 and forgave the cheesy moments because it's high school. I thought this would be more adult oriented for some reason. I don't think it reinvents the wheel anywhere or think it's game of the year but it's easily one of my favorite games I've played in a long time. I think Final Fantasy 7 takes game of the year.

[@ErekLadd]

I agree with FF7R, def game of the year. Metaphor was good, but like you said, doesn't re-invent the wheel in a way a lot of people are saying online. That's just me though!

[@Darklink532]

Agree with some many of your points if not all in the video. It's a good game, but I feel what broke it a bit for me was how dragged out it felt towards the end. The longer the game went the worse off it was for it. Still think the Personas are better than this and same goes for SMT5 Vengenance. Though I would like to see if they can improve upon the setting, it felt very fresh for the first third of the game, unfortunately just doesn't stick the landing. Great video!

[@ErekLadd]

Thanks!!! Yeah the longer it went the more it dragged. Well said!

[@secretbunnyninja]

No it isn't. Way too many problems with balancing (regarding your level, and penalty multipliers), variety in the OST, samey dungeons that are either too small, or too long, and a complete lack of originality for the plot, much too standard character development, and even worse, it kept the annoying FF feature that could oh so easily be obsoleted with a cutscene skip option. Along with a back 25% that was rushed, way too slow leveling, annoyingly stringent plot blocked archetypes, no endgame content outside of being forced to play the game again for an optional boss. For me it just screams hey guy, we are going to have a penultimate edition, where we fix these problems to milk our consumers. It is getting old, its getting tragic, and ultimately this isn't a third pillar due to how derivative the work is.

[@collin542]

to be honest i thought this game had the best pacing compared to other personas which are 90 hours and up lol. this is my favorite JRPG of the year maybe still debating on some others

[@ErekLadd]

Fair enough! Glad you enjoyed your time with it!

[@collin542]

@@ErekLadd happy you put this out. gives other a opinions other than "the game is the best ever" lol keep up the great work

[@jjoines96]

I have an higher grade of the game personally but still enjoyed your review. Earned a subscription 🎉

[@ErekLadd]

Hey nothing wrong with that! Glad you enjoyed the game a bit more than me. Thanks for checking out the video!

[@HonestEmillHead]

im totally agree with what you say, atlus bet too safe on this game is good but not great and im a big atlus fan.

[@ErekLadd]

Interesting! Well I'm still going to try out some of the Persona game here and see how we go!

[@HonestEmillHead]

@ErekLadd they work better, the demon/persona fusion system with the calendar system and social simulation works better in the persona series at least in my humble opinion.

[@JugbandGates]

Honestly, after almost being done with the game, no. I dont want to badmouth the game just like that for free since i still liked it in some places, but it is really repetitive and it reuses a lot of stuff. The dungeons are all samey (and the actual cool places are just JPGs), even the enemies are just recolors after recolors. The job system is grindy unless you stick to one path instead of experiment around. The story is still very static with characters talking over and over again overexplaining everything. I dont understand what did people see in it that caused everyone to overrate it so much. Its not that special, it wasnt that innovative and not that big of a step up from Persona games. Not deserving of a 94 metacritic score, more like 88 or something. It is still fine, but i dont know why people act like this is the greatest jrpg ever.

[@ryanhatfield8602]

It is my game of the year for me

[@Dragonslayer12345]

For me it is the game of the year

[@jakehemm]

Short answer, no.

[@LottyLettuce]

title is clickbait smh it's game of the year

[@ErekLadd]

Not clickbait when you watch the full video

[@dediualex3554]

Clickbait these nuts

[@luroc]

when it comes to battle, everyone’s stats are generally distributed according to their underlying specialty. in other words, sure, you can have strohl be a dark summoner or eupha be a samurai, but they wouldn’t be as effective due to the lack of pts in attributes, if that makes sense. the point of being able to have anyone use any class is really to gather those inherit skills to then mix and match them to better supe up your party member. the idea that the humanity and society that exists in the real world is considered a utopia in the in games fantasy setting is fascinating to me and not at all generic. commentary on racism, capitalism, xenophobia and the theocracy is very mature and to liken that to just any old anime rpg storyline is not really fair. there’s more here than just “save the world”. the fantasy world is absolutely original and does not follow any kind of preconceived fantasy tropes. the way hashino crafted this world should be commended. i respect your honest opinions on the game, it’s just, man, it’s hard to swallow haha. this is easily the jrpg of the year, and a contender for game of the year.

[@ErekLadd]

Yeah I know what you mean about the battle system. Overtime it just didn't seem to matter once I got high enough levelled and was ending battles that I couldn't just cut through in a handful of turns. I do appreciate what's there though. There's lots of commentary here for sure and it's definitely not a save the world type story but for the sake of the video I just said it to quickly summarize my point there. Honestly I'm glad you enjoyed this game as much as you did! It's just something that didn't hook me in the way I wanted to. I can definitely appreciate what was going on though, even some of those late game twists (with More etc.) and a lot of the commentary on Utopia vs reality but it just never grabbed me, like I mentioned about not getting stuck in before 10-20 hours more or less. Like I said in the video I think on paper it's all cool but I might not be the right player for the game and that's totally okay!

[@gregeichler5237]

Wow, this is a great review of this game, and actually honest, too. I can’t get behind this game being a “great” or even good game. I love job systems. FFV is my #1 game of all time. This job system and how it interacts with the combat doesn’t even come close. And the story was incredibly predictable, I forecast nearly every major story beat before it happened.

[@ErekLadd]

Honesty is the best policy!! I generally try not to buy into hype for anything otherwise I'll be let down but I'd almost be disappointed if I *was* hyped for this game. Then again like I said in the video, I'm probably not the target player and that's totally okay! But I'm with you, I saw nearly every story twist long before it happened. Maybe the story was just an easy read? I'm not sure honestly.

[@nevinvegas]

Final Fantasy 5 really had one of the most fluid job systems! Severely underrated compared to the rest of the series and of my favorites.

[@TheGunmanChannel]

Oh damn, it's woke, I'll definitely avoid it.

[@sagepirotess6312]

No. This game has to many flaws. Most revolve around combat. It pretty much makes you play mage overworld due to one mp recover, or merchant for gold. Thus you one shot everything before a fight. I was lvl 99 and everything unlocked and all skills bought. If feels like it wants you to play the game twice to unlock all jobs, skills. Giving 3 extra characters, but no party split up or two teams made the others useless. All bosses died in 3 to 5 rounds on hard due to leveling jobs and out leveling game. Then the final chapter... we are to save a prince, no i am a price. But a trash prince, ad a npc del can protect children from Louis, but omg our robots cant. It's an ok game but game of year no Way. It been much better if combat was isotonic like Oninaki.

[@ErekLadd]

Yep my thoughts exactly there. Little challenge if you're already that high levelled. I ended up rolling credits with most of my party around level 80-ish. Everything was pretty easy aside from the un-necessarily long final fight with Louis.. Imagine me thinking his turn is done then he grants himself another 5 or something turns again and again. Gosh it was super annoying!!

[@hugbuzzard]

My vote is going to Unicorn Overlord.

[@ErekLadd]

This reminds me I still need to play it!

[@thefuzzter]

Metaphor was easily the most overhyped game of the year, can’t believe I fell for it

[@ErekLadd]

TBH I agree. I wasn't hyped for this game necessarily, just saw literally everyone talking about it so I figured I'd give it a go but yeah, I'd have been a bit disappointed if I was hyping it up as much as some people were!

[@maziio646]

I ahve no idea how people can say this is one of the greatest JRPS out there, its really mediocre in a lot of places

[@ErekLadd]

Yep, I am with you there.

[@juancarlosrodriguez5022]

The mc is too much of a soy boy for me to deal with in a 100 + hours game...

[@Jack-nj9pi]

This game pisses me off as it has alot of atlus's pointless padding and tropes like runing out of mp quick with limited ways to recover it, your choices dont really matter, and not being able to at least set up your archetypes before battle makes the beginning of the game a slog and you get the later characters so late its almost pointless. Definitely not rpg of the year. I feel the hype is so big because its the same persona stuff atlus does just not in highschool so more folks picked it up and they are enjoying what they have been doing for years.

[@ErekLadd]

Oh my gosh yes the MP issue.. That really bothered me. Limited items to recover MP really bugged me, I totally forgot to mention that in the video. Good game but still a lot of issues here.