izigame.me

I think Metaphor ReFantazio is a fine game. I don't think it's an amazing game but I don't think it's a horrible game. There is little in the game I would consider outstanding but not much that is bad and what is bad, doesn't ruin the experience. I don't recommend the game at full price ($70USD) but I think it's a decent pick up for JRPG fans if it's one sale for 25%-50% off. If you are someone who wants numbered scores, I would probably give it a 5.5/10.
The story was very predictable, but it's not a bad story or bad messages its conveying. I never had any moments of shock or sadness and there was one hype moment. Every event in the story that I would guess the developers wanted to be exciting or shocking moments were so predictable that they lost a lot of weight and value.
The party members are pretty 1 dimensional. I don't think they are bad nor did I ever dislike them, they just rarely (if ever) act out of their character Archetype. (Eh? Get it? Archetype?) For example, your first party member Strohl, his first reaction to most things is being angry and acts impulsively. He never acts differently for the entire story or his own bond missions. He doesn't mature, he doesn't learn to deal with the anger or impulsiveness he's had since he was young. I can't recall a single time your party ever argues or really butt heads when it wasn't for a joke.
The only party members who stuck out characterization wise were the final two party members, but they join the party and barely (if ever) change after joining. It's like their entire character arc is completely finished when they join the party. They join really late in the overarching story so they really don't get the time they deserve. I don't really understand the point of having party members even join after the 4th or 5th member, they add so little. The only reason I even used the 6th party member was cause they looked more mage-like and I wanted a mage in my party that looked like a mage. Minor complaint, but liking to eat food isn't a personality trait. It's feels like MySpace bio in the 2000's when liking bacon was a personality trait for some reason.
An issue with the party members feeling 1D is probably caused by the overarching story doesn't account the player progress in the party members bonds or the bonds don't take account for player progress in the overarching story. They both hold each other down and its for the worse.
I'll list some of my main complaints for the game, then some of the main things I liked.
1: I do not like the self insert/blank slate main character. I find it very difficult to invest myself in the story when all the characters you meet say how their life changed when they met the MC and all the MC does is give simple affirmations the entire time. Dialogue such as "We can do this." or " is wrong, you are in the right." It all feels very undeserved cause the conversations are so one sided and I didn't do anything but say a simple affirmation and they respond like their life changed and how the MC boosts their confidence.
A massive offender to this design is when you are at a stop in the story and your party needs to figure out how to tackle an issue given to them. The parties discussion will come to a complete halt to ask the MC what they think. The game will give you three options but only one of them are the correct answer. Two of three answers will be responded to you with "No...I don't think that will work." The you choose the 3rd and only option left and the party will respond with "Wow, you are a genius ! I can't believe you are so intelligent you figured this out!" Again, it feels very undeserved and really sucks you can't tackle these things in different ways if you answer with different options.
2: Dungeon design isn't great, namely side dungeons but the main dungeons don't really have anything unique about them to stand out from each other except visuals. Many of them don't have unique mechanics, almost all the side dungeons feel like Warframe randomly generated tile sets. I really struggle to remember any of the dungeons lay-outs cause they are all so same-y. This doesn't ruin the game, just feels like this was a huge area of the game that was neglected. (Also, please show the level of the enemies in the dungeons on the map, ty.)
3: Equipment menuing sucks. Namely accessory slots and armor slots. Weapons and classes slightly less so. Trying to find one specific accessory is often very difficult for no reason. For some reason every time you change your class, it auto equips the "strongest" gear you have and it's so annoying to change back to other gear with defenses or anti-statuses you need. It's a minor complaint but annoying nonetheless.
I'll like my three favorite things I liked about the game now.
1: I played the game in the Japanese dub so if you don't care skip to #2. Takehito Koyasu's voice performance as More is probably my second favorite performance he has ever done. This is a role that really shows his talent as a voice actor.
2: Brigitta's and Nearus's bond missions messages (at least what I interpreted) were pretty good. Maria and Heismay's were decent too. These four are the stand out ones. I don't really count Gallica's or More's since they are mostly tied to the overarching story.
3: Some of the classes look so amazing. My favorites are Soul Hacker, Savior, Pugilist, Martial Artist, Persona Master, and Merchant. I'd say when I unlocked 90% of them, my first reaction was "Hell yeah." cause they looked so cool.
I didn't really want to make this too long but it is a minimum 60-70 hour game when going pretty fast. There is a lot more I can write but I don't think it's really needed. I didn't talk about the combat, enemy design, art style, graphics, or difficulty cause it's just fine. I don't really have much opinion one way or the other, it's just fine. I didn't say much on dialogue options either but there's not much to say other than generally almost all of them are the same thing but option one and option two.
In my opinion, Metaphor is held down quite a lot by Atlus's formula of things like the Visual Novel style story telling, calendar system, MC social stats (they are called Royal Virtues in game), bond ranks, and bond missions. I think if these were far more polishes or removed and the story was changed around to account for the changes (namely calendar) the games quality would substantially increase. (I hope you don't read this as me saying "remove the things that make an Atlus title an Atlus title. This is not what I mean.) I'm playing through NG+ right now to wrap up the final achievements and the super boss, and the game feels far better when I can ignore my Royal Virtue stats cause they are all 5/5 from my first playthrough.
So much tension is sucked out from the story when you are about to hit a really cool moment in the story and your party says "Let's head back to base and re-group." then the game will tell you to wait till x/xx to take on the bad guy or if you can take on the story at that time, you then have to wait x days till you can even progress the story. I think this really holds back the games ability to tell the story it wants to tell and any tension or shock.
Thanks for reading if you got this far. I didn't dislike playing the game but rarely was I hooked in or was excited to get back to it asap. I struggle to really to put into words what I think about the game other than just "meh" or "fine" or "passable" and I'm usually pretty opinionated when it comes to games. It's the most non-offensive and non-outstanding JRPG I've ever played, it's just okay.