Metaphor: ReFantazio

[SoLong]

If the whole blablabla racism thing is in the original game as well (and not just a result of the troonslation) then they ****** that up as well.

In the endgame you find out that all the different "races" are just humans with light to severe mutations caused by the magic fallout of a war. And the protagonist can't even offer an alternative to the big bad's plan outside of making everyone sing kumbaya and get along. At least they gave the big bad an actual motivation this time instead of making him mustache-twirlingly evil just because.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

the protagonist can't even offer an alternative to the big bad's plan outside of making everyone sing kumbaya and get along.

A sadly common ending to anime and JRPGs.

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

the protagonist can't even offer an alternative to the big bad's plan outside of making everyone sing kumbaya and get along.

A sadly common ending to anime and JRPGs.

Ya it’s ****. One thing I appreciate in older mainline SMT games is that once you defeat the different antagonist in the endings it doesn’t suddenly become all sunshine and rainbows. The world is ****** no matter what happens in no easy solutions ,with you deciding what best moral alignment fits in the post apocalyptic world.

[DDC]

I am finally done with this piece of **** and wow do I have thoughts on it.

First the good, since the list is much shorter:
-About half of the soundtrack was pretty good, with the remainder being forgettable rather than actively bad. Same goes for the voice actors and there were a few standouts
-The combat was good. Hard mode was very rough at the start, got easy in the midgame, then throws out some tough optional bosses near the end. A lot of the attacks and damage formulas felt very satisfying and well-tuned.
-The introductory premise was interesting and not something we've seen before with the giant hovering head. The villain has presence and is entertaining.

Now the bad:
-Nothing is done with that interesting premise, and the villain spends most of the game doing absolutely nothing. A minimalist plot is fine if the game is more focused on exploration and leaves the player in control (such as SMTV). But somehow these ****** devs have accomplished the seemingly impossible task of creating a plot where nothing at all happens despite the fact that most of the game is spent reading. And unlike Persona 3 and 4, which had some likable characters to make it tolerable, most of the companions that you "bond" with are not worthy of the time it takes to read through their stupid side stories. Yet the main story is even worse than that. It holds out a bit of promise during the first 1/3 or so, but by the time you hit the tropey "primitive tribe" chapter, you know it's going to be ****, yet are seemingly close enough to the end to power through. But the game drags on and more than wears out its welcome, and all of the underlying questions about the origin and state of the world are answered in unsatisfying ways. The lore is paper-thin and lacking any kind of detail.
-The character designs are the dumbest ******* thing I've ever seen in a major JRPG. They start off treading the line between questionable and tolerable, but by the time you fully assemble your party, it looks like the most ******** menagerie I've ever seen. One of the characters wears a ******* black and white polka-dot garbage bag over some green tights as an outfit.

► Show Spoiler

-The texture work is the worst I can remember seeing from a major developer in a very long time. There is a lot of stuff here that would get called out even if it was a PS2 game. Some of the skymaps are comically bad and look like they came out of a Sony PSP game and were then blown up and stretched out from that 4-inch screen to cover my 77-inch OLED.
-The dungeons are ****** and low-effort. The main story dungeons are passable, but once you get into bounties and side-quests, it's the sloppiest of the slop. They made a small handful of asset "biomes" (e.g. forests, caves, towers) and you repeat them a bunch of times in what are basically tile-based dungeons. You will never come across an interesting view, or a shred of creativity. While traveling between locations on the world map, your party will occasionally stop to admire "wonders," like a crystal canyon, or a sky island, or a giant tree. This is depicted with a static 2D backdrop with your 3D party shown from a distance with a dramatic camera angle. These are the types of areas (as opposed to the repetitive tile-based slop) that you should have beenexploring, and in fact did explore in the much better JRPGs you played in the past (and these feats that Metaphor falls short of were accomplished with CD roms and a 33mhz processor). Atlus has historically had problems making decent dungeons, but I expected much better after SMTV.
-Character growth initially seems good, but late in the game (for spoiler reasons), you will see each character actually needed to spec into specific classes that you were never told, and that you actually didn't have much leeway to experiment. I got lucky because I had naturally built my characters the way I was "supposed" to without knowing, but it would have been easy to build the wrong way and screw myself.

[Vergil]

TV size humblebrag is the most boomer **** I've ever seen

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

I am finally done with this piece of **** and wow do I have thoughts on it.

First the good, since the list is much shorter:
-About half of the soundtrack was pretty good, with the remainder being forgettable rather than actively bad. Same goes for the voice actors and there were a few standouts
-The combat was good. Hard mode was very rough at the start, got easy in the midgame, then throws out some tough optional bosses near the end. A lot of the attacks and damage formulas felt very satisfying and well-tuned.
-The introductory premise was interesting and not something we've seen before with the giant hovering head. The villain has presence and is entertaining.

Now the bad:
-Nothing is done with that interesting premise, and the villain spends most of the game doing absolutely nothing. A minimalist plot is fine if the game is more focused on exploration and leaves the player in control (such as SMTV). But somehow these ****** devs have accomplished the seemingly impossible task of creating a plot where nothing at all happens despite the fact that most of the game is spent reading. And unlike Persona 3 and 4, which had some likable characters to make it tolerable, most of the companions that you "bond" with are not worthy of the time it takes to read through their stupid side stories. Yet the main story is even worse than that. It holds out a bit of promise during the first 1/3 or so, but by the time you hit the tropey "primitive tribe" chapter, you know it's going to be ****, yet are seemingly close enough to the end to power through. But the game drags on and more than wears out its welcome, and all of the underlying questions about the origin and state of the world are answered in unsatisfying ways. The lore is paper-thin and lacking any kind of detail.
-The character designs are the dumbest ******* thing I've ever seen in a major JRPG. They start off treading the line between questionable and tolerable, but by the time you fully assemble your party, it looks like the most ******** menagerie I've ever seen. One of the characters wears a ******* black and white polka-dot garbage bag over some green tights as an outfit.

► Show Spoiler

-The texture work is the worst I can remember seeing from a major developer in a very long time. There is a lot of stuff here that would get called out even if it was a PS2 game. Some of the skymaps are comically bad and look like they came out of a Sony PSP game and were then blown up and stretched out from that 4-inch screen to cover my 77-inch OLED.
-The dungeons are ****** and low-effort. The main story dungeons are passable, but once you get into bounties and side-quests, it's the sloppiest of the slop. They made a small handful of asset "biomes" (e.g. forests, caves, towers) and you repeat them a bunch of times in what are basically tile-based dungeons. You will never come across an interesting view, or a shred of creativity. While traveling between locations on the world map, your party will occasionally stop to admire "wonders," like a crystal canyon, or a sky island, or a giant tree. This is depicted with a static 2D backdrop with your 3D party shown from a distance with a dramatic camera angle. These are the types of areas (as opposed to the repetitive tile-based slop) that you should have beenexploring, and in fact did explore in the much better JRPGs you played in the past (and these feats that Metaphor falls short of were accomplished with CD roms and a 33mhz processor). Atlus has historically had problems making decent dungeons, but I expected much better after SMTV.
-Character growth initially seems good, but late in the game (for spoiler reasons), you will see each character actually needed to spec into specific classes that you were never told, and that you actually didn't have much leeway to experiment. I got lucky because I had naturally built my characters the way I was "supposed" to without knowing, but it would have been easy to build the wrong way and screw myself.

Makes me wonder why this game got so much praise when it appears to be downgrade in Atlus prior games in almost every aspect.

[rusty_shackleford]

Makes me wonder why this game got so much praise when it appears to be downgrade in Atlus prior games in almost every aspect.

I don't even have to go look up the game to know it's because of weeb coomers

[Vaako]

I am finally done with this piece of **** and wow do I have thoughts on it.

First the good, since the list is much shorter:
-About half of the soundtrack was pretty good, with the remainder being forgettable rather than actively bad. Same goes for the voice actors and there were a few standouts
-The combat was good. Hard mode was very rough at the start, got easy in the midgame, then throws out some tough optional bosses near the end. A lot of the attacks and damage formulas felt very satisfying and well-tuned.
-The introductory premise was interesting and not something we've seen before with the giant hovering head. The villain has presence and is entertaining.

Now the bad:
-Nothing is done with that interesting premise, and the villain spends most of the game doing absolutely nothing. A minimalist plot is fine if the game is more focused on exploration and leaves the player in control (such as SMTV). But somehow these ****** devs have accomplished the seemingly impossible task of creating a plot where nothing at all happens despite the fact that most of the game is spent reading. And unlike Persona 3 and 4, which had some likable characters to make it tolerable, most of the companions that you "bond" with are not worthy of the time it takes to read through their stupid side stories. Yet the main story is even worse than that. It holds out a bit of promise during the first 1/3 or so, but by the time you hit the tropey "primitive tribe" chapter, you know it's going to be ****, yet are seemingly close enough to the end to power through. But the game drags on and more than wears out its welcome, and all of the underlying questions about the origin and state of the world are answered in unsatisfying ways. The lore is paper-thin and lacking any kind of detail.
-The character designs are the dumbest ******* thing I've ever seen in a major JRPG. They start off treading the line between questionable and tolerable, but by the time you fully assemble your party, it looks like the most ******** menagerie I've ever seen. One of the characters wears a ******* black and white polka-dot garbage bag over some green tights as an outfit.

► Show Spoiler

-The texture work is the worst I can remember seeing from a major developer in a very long time. There is a lot of stuff here that would get called out even if it was a PS2 game. Some of the skymaps are comically bad and look like they came out of a Sony PSP game and were then blown up and stretched out from that 4-inch screen to cover my 77-inch OLED.
-The dungeons are ****** and low-effort. The main story dungeons are passable, but once you get into bounties and side-quests, it's the sloppiest of the slop. They made a small handful of asset "biomes" (e.g. forests, caves, towers) and you repeat them a bunch of times in what are basically tile-based dungeons. You will never come across an interesting view, or a shred of creativity. While traveling between locations on the world map, your party will occasionally stop to admire "wonders," like a crystal canyon, or a sky island, or a giant tree. This is depicted with a static 2D backdrop with your 3D party shown from a distance with a dramatic camera angle. These are the types of areas (as opposed to the repetitive tile-based slop) that you should have beenexploring, and in fact did explore in the much better JRPGs you played in the past (and these feats that Metaphor falls short of were accomplished with CD roms and a 33mhz processor). Atlus has historically had problems making decent dungeons, but I expected much better after SMTV.
-Character growth initially seems good, but late in the game (for spoiler reasons), you will see each character actually needed to spec into specific classes that you were never told, and that you actually didn't have much leeway to experiment. I got lucky because I had naturally built my characters the way I was "supposed" to without knowing, but it would have been easy to build the wrong way and screw myself.

Makes me wonder why this game got so much praise when it appears to be downgrade in Atlus prior games in almost every aspect.

the universe has potenial and the items/archetypes can be combinated pretty nice for some synergy, but overall the game is mostly dialogue and time management and different builds. And grinding if you dont use xp cheats at some point to skip that time waste. Also the royal archetypes arent mandatory to use at the end even tho they are really strong. On my newgame+ playthrough I played with only 4 merchant archeytpe and just throw money at the bosses with guarantied crits and a jewelry item which doubled the crit dmg. Made pretty much every boss except the last one and secret boss a one round combat on the highest difficulty. And certainly does more dmg than 9999 dmg like you do if you use that synthery skill from the royal archetypes. Where you have less attack rounds for your characters. But there are a few other builds you could do like a dodge build where the bosses lose their turns if they miss. Or build which is focused on self healing and using martial arts skills which use hp for attack. But since the story is super linear and most good archetypes arent unlocked until almost the end I couldnt stomach more than 2 playthroughs. 70% of it is skipping dialogue anyway at that point.

[DDC]

Makes me wonder why this game got so much praise when it appears to be downgrade in Atlus prior games in almost every aspect.

I don't even have to go look up the game to know it's because of weeb coomers

The game has no material. Not one nice *** or decent rack in the entire game. Seemed intentionally desexualized.

[Vergil]

Makes me wonder why this game got so much praise when it appears to be downgrade in Atlus prior games in almost every aspect.

I don't even have to go look up the game to know it's because of weeb coomers

The game has no material. Not one nice *** or decent rack in the entire game. Seemed intentionally desexualized.

Only art and discussion I've seen of this game online is of the brown elf girlboss.

[Vaako]

I don't even have to go look up the game to know it's because of weeb coomers

The game has no material. Not one nice *** or decent rack in the entire game. Seemed intentionally desexualized.

Only art and discussion I've seen of this game online is of the brown elf girlboss.

the last outfit from junah at the end is the only one which shows skin and I think that was preorder or bonus edition content, all other outfits are usually just school uniforms

[rusty_shackleford]

You guys aren't going to trick me.

Selection_019.webp

[Vergil]

The game has no material. Not one nice *** or decent rack in the entire game. Seemed intentionally desexualized.

Only art and discussion I've seen of this game online is of the brown elf girlboss.

the last outfit from junah at the end is the only one which shows skin and I think that was preorder or bonus edition content, all other outfits are usually just school uniforms

Okay. Only art and discussion I've seen of this game online is of the brown elf girlboss.

You guys aren't going to trick me.

Make sure "-dark_skinned_male" and "-furry" is in that search.

[Vaako]

Only art and discussion I've seen of this game online is of the brown elf girlboss.

the last outfit from junah at the end is the only one which shows skin and I think that was preorder or bonus edition content, all other outfits are usually just school uniforms

Okay. Only art and discussion I've seen of this game online is of the brown elf girlboss.

You guys aren't going to trick me.

Make sure "-dark_skinned_male" and "-furry" is in that search.

i know which one you mean but 431 hits for that game is rather weak for rule34 compared to the stuff you can find to eldenring which has like 15k+

[Vergil]

the last outfit from junah at the end is the only one which shows skin and I think that was preorder or bonus edition content, all other outfits are usually just school uniforms

Okay. Only art and discussion I've seen of this game online is of the brown elf girlboss.

You guys aren't going to trick me.

Make sure "-dark_skinned_male" and "-furry" is in that search.

i know which one you mean but 431 hits for that game is rather weak for rule34 compared to the stuff you can find to eldenring which has like 15k+

Fromslop is a lot more popular than this irrelevant jrpg that's already fallen into obscurity.

[DDC]

Strong evidence supporting the execution of game journalists by lampposts and helicopter rides to nowhere: Metaphor has a higher metacritic score than FF7 Remake, Persona 3, Persona 4, Shin Megami Tensei V, every Valkyria Chronicles game, Dragon Quest 11...the list of indignities could go on and on.

[Vergil]

who cares about metacritic

[Stack of Turtles]

wait I thought metacritic was for movies

[DDC]

who cares about metacritic

It's a convenient aggregation of people who need to be disposed of. Sort of like if we maintained a formal registry of ******** *******, everyone would no longer have to specifically reference "Vergil" and everyone else by name and could instead refer to all of you collectively.

[Zothique]

I avoid overtly **** stuff. This includes Mario.

[spookyheart]

I'm too burned out by ATLUS to show any interest in it as all of their games these days are tourist magnets and never ending ****** cycles of discourse after discourse. :/

[Nooneatall]

I started playing this again. There's a lot of gay stuff about equality and how it's bad to be racist against each other. The game mechanics are fun and straightforward though which is something you don't get much anymore. If it becomes too gay I'll just go play through final fantasy tactics for the millionth time.

[Bertram_Tung]

now that japanese are infected with the woke mind virus there's really no reason to waste time playing video games anymore

clearly the next logical step is to kill anthony fauci

in minecraft