Will Metaphor: ReFantazio Be Political? (Trailer Reaction and Speculation)

With Atlus revealing the new Metaphor: ReFantazio trailer, I had to give my initial reactions, speculations, and feelings about this new trailer because there has not been a game that I have been this excited for in a long time. Atlus' Studio Zero which is helmed by Katsura Hashino who is known for his work on Persona 3, Persona, 4, and Persona 5 is developing Metaphor and so this has me ready to believe that Atlus saying the Metaphor will become their third pillar is no joke.
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#MetaphorReFantazio #atlusgames #sega

[@ThoughtBubbleYT]

This is a new kind of video that I’m trying out so let me know what you think! And what about Metaphor: ReFantazio looks interesting to you?

[@BigKlingy]

Warning, this will be long, but regarding the video's title: 4:35 The speech section gives you the choice of "let's promote local delicacies", "let's place more effort on tourism" and "let's put more power into industry." This is SO COOL. Given how heated politics gets online I hope they don't go TOO "real", but getting to know local "electorates" and what they want and finding which policies work best for them is something you don't see often. A lot of fantasy games have royal protagonists but rarely do you see them actually ruling, you're often just left with an assurance they were a good ruler in the epilogue. Also, earlier interviews confirmed that the monster-vehicle things were inspired by campaign cars used by Japanese politicians. So it's clear this game will get into politics in interesting ways, that said... With combat being so integral to videogames, it's often hard to make diplomacy FUN (diplomatic options in RPGs typically boil down to "choose the right dialogue options and pass some rolls on your Charisma stat), and therefore you get a lot of "changing the world" stories that unintentionally send the message: "the only way to bring social change is through mass violence." After seeing that over and over I've been hoping for a game to portray diplomatic solutions in a more hopeful way, but how would you do that mechanically and make it as deep as combat? Undertale is one of the only games I've seen that makes non-violent solutions the most fun option mechanically, but its approach doesn't work elsewhere. I'm wondering if drawing from Ace Attorney could work, that series manages to make word-based arguments look as cool as actual fights. The other thing that worries me is Atlus has dabbled in philosophical and ethical ending choices in Shin Megami Tensei and... I've never felt it did a good job. It's a meme for a reason that SMT4's 3 endings boil down to "Genocide, Genocide, Sidequests". But in general the choices offered are always lopsided because SMT has almost never been able to write the Law alignment well (Devil Survivor 1 and Strange Journey Redux being the few exceptions), and with this game having the protagonist "branded as tainted by the state religion" I don't have high-hopes if it tries anything Law-coded. Personally I think Maruki in Persona 5 is what a decent Law character should look like, and he isn't even in SMT. (While I'd never support Maruki's methods in the context of Persona, he does genuinely want to make people happy, unlike most SMT Law characters who just want to strip away free will "for humanity's own good") Now, my thoughts on the rest of the vide. I feel like at some point, the protagonist is going to end up going for the throne, either because the prince dies or cedes to you. My main worry about Galica is she'll end up hated like Morgana, for being a voice telling you what you can/can't do with your daily life. I forgot about the fear theme. That... could be interesting. it's also interesting that the "social link" system is called Followers. Like you said, it could be gathering people to help make your case for the throne. A lot of them have unique designs so I'm guessing even if they're not party members, they'll probably be helpers in the base, like with cooking and stuff. Oh man a Chrono-Cross style party would be dope though. 5:26 Note the very "Persona 5" style countdown in the top corner. And it looks like there'll be some clear villains you have to stop at points. 7:26 This "days until a path opens" might be some designated downtime between major arcs? Persona had that, but it was never directly marked as such. It's nice to be directly shown "you have THIS many days of free social link time, go nuts". Also, briefly on the map screen, you can see an objective "find the real kidnapper" when hovering over the main city. That could be a sidequest? If so, it's a pretty intense quest. The "hybrid" system is interesting, Trails through Daybreak did try a hybrid system but from what I've heard it's "action" part ended up feeling like an afterthought (it can't be used for bosses), so I'm hoping this doesn't end up being watered-down on both. Especially since what little we've seen of the turn-based part looks like my perfect system. (Persona party style with SMT Press Turns)

[@Snzn18]

Trails of Daybreak action combat "isn't an afterthought". Cause if you had played trails progressively and see the combat system 'evolve". Basically how you encounter monsters is you can see them on the field. and if you went into them from the back or caught them of guard. You can enter the battle in a "pre-emptive state' giving you advantages like having free first turns or with buffs. Now that aspect evolve to being able to "attack the field monsters zelda style to be able to enter turn base battle mode with more incentive advantages compared to just getting around the monsters to the back. And basically Daybreak evolve it to a more Action combat style. So with weak low level mosters you can basically just beat them using Action attacks and with stronger monsters, you can use the Action combat to "get the boss monsters to be staggered" so when you enter the turn-base combat you can get in with the advantages and stuff. They also balanced it by making attacks made in combat be more stronger compared to the Action combat so players won't loss incentive in ditching one combat style completely. With the action combat you can also use them to break boxes for items and to break barrier and solve overworld puzzles as different action combat attacks can break some barriers other characters etc. etc. And those aspect can be literally seen applied to Metaphor since the trailer show you the MC beats a mob monster using only Action Combat and the MC using the action combat to stagger the monster before entering the Turn Base combat. (like Daybreak style was an afterthought then why would atlus took notes and use the same thing in Metaphor.)

[@crusiver8453]

The seven year wait was definitely worth it. I love what were seeing. Btw, through digging through the previous trailer it's confirmed as to what the job system is. The knight outfits are linked to each archetype. For example, seeker, knight, warrior, soul hacker etc. These archetypes give you these mechanical forms. We also see in a frame of the first trailer the mc obtaining an archetype from one of his bond achievements.

[@ThoughtBubbleYT]

Yes! I honestly think this video was so knee jerk that I wasn't even thinking about what we knew and saw from the first trailer!

[@DS4__]

Always a pleasure to see a video from you! I relate 100% to your excitement, hoping this takes the best of Persona & SMT and excels in creating an exciting world and very interesting characters.

[@Ian46434]

Right now my only theory/hope is that the protagonist and prince will fall in love and rule together. I don't actually think this will happen but I'd be ecstatic if it does.

[@ThoughtBubbleYT]

That would definitely be an interesting dynamic especially with the protagonist going to such lengths to save the prince!!

[@nathanmatthews6745]

I can't wait for it. But I'm curious about how many party members we will end up with? And how the bond system will work.

[@ThoughtBubbleYT]

I'm really hoping that we have a ton of potential party members that also act as confidants.

[@Bowflex2480]

cant wait for this myself, but i hope it will sell well since they started work on this game years ago. i like the concept of a royal tournament and i want to see how that will play out.

[@ThoughtBubbleYT]

I think the Royal Tournament is a really interesting idea, I'm excited to see how it plays out!

[@frikizone2.03]

Are you going to continue with the Persona 3 character analysis like you said or is Yukari going to be the only one?

[@ThoughtBubbleYT]

I will definitely continue! Though these videos take a lot of time and I have some other videos coming out first before I get to the next one!

[@heroicgangster9981]

Honestly reminds me of Fallout games, except you make your own faction that would be definitely better than everyone else's cuz you're the protag XD

[@AnimeCoffeeShow]

it takes a lot of recent isekai animes

[@rafaelploumis8682]

My guess is; it's gonna be more religiously allegorical than political. It basically writes itself: the King (God) is dead (Atlus hates God for some reason), probably by the deuce with the gold hair (the devil) and the protag has to take part in a tournament against others from many other races (other mythological gods). In the end, you defeat the golden deuce (or join him, typical SMT) and by becoming the new God, you create the fantasy, the utopia these people envisioned, which is our world. So... this game is a prequel to our existence or something. 😅

[@ThoughtBubbleYT]

The game being a prequel to our existence would be a fascinating twist.

[@bizarduno]

Since there’s a kingdom and the protagonist will be trying to become a monarch, yes, the game will be political. There, saved you 23:54 minutes.

[@ThoughtBubbleYT]

Believe it or not, there’s more in the video than that. With that said knee-jerk reaction videos like this aren’t for everyone, so to each their own!

[@chaost4544]

Nobody cares about politics if the writing is good (see most great fantasy and science fiction).

[@oriongear2499]

My god, I hope not. I'm so tired of politics being inserted into media I wanna enjoy.

[@toopoorandobscure3865]

Maybe watch the video before you comment, better yet know even a little about the game. Instead of having a kneejerk reaction to the word "politics" like a pavlovian dog.

[@Snzn18]

I see western media completely broke the idea of politics in media. Like politics in media isn't really a bad thing. Using media as means to promote irl politics in law is the questionable thing. Like a lot of the greatest fictional media out there has a well built political stuff in it and most of the time the political stuff helps world building. Like Game of Thrones is 80% politics since its all about people getting into thrones. Star Wars has a good amount of politics to make the audience understand why Sith lords are in power and why "rebellion" is the option the heroes opted for. Dune won't be Dune without its politics. Gundam won't be that realistic and showing how war is held without its politics. Trails has good worl building because it can explain the politics going on about its world, FF tactics is another one that has good story relying on a good backbone of having a well built medieval political conflicts, etc. etc.

[@deatheater6222]

keep crying

[@milk-el8vq]

Watch ppl somehow be shocked when the anime voting simulator manages to have political messages 😭