Metaphor ReFantazio Critique: Missing the Point
206After getting into (and mostly enjoying) the main Persona games earlier this year, I was eager to see what the devs at Atlus could do when they were freed from having to follow the conventions of an established series. There are some great new ideas in Metaphor ReFantazio, both in the combat system and in the time management layer, but it seems that the devs were unable - or unwilling - to let go of the baggage carried over from their more popular series, and as a result the new ideas don't have the breathing room to actually stand out and make Metaphor feel like a unique experience. It ends up being a bland mixture of predictable traditions and half-baked concepts that constantly contradict themselves - and combined with a story that goes nowhere and has nothing interesting to say about our world, Metaphor ends up feeling like a pointless fantasy.
All games featured were recorded (and played) by me, except for the trailers:
Final Fantasy VII
Hades
Deus Ex: Human Revolution (trailer)
God of War (trailer)
The Wolf Among Us 2 (trailer)
Metaphor ReFantazio
Fallout
FTL: Faster Than Light
Suzerain
Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
5:43 - Story & Setting
38:42 - Combat & Dungeon Crawling
1:10:18 - Conclusion