Metaphor ReFantazio Review (PlayStation 5)

by Jim Smale · October 22, 2024

Metaphor ReFantazio Review, From the creative minds behind Persona 3, 4, and 5 comes Metaphor: ReFantazio, a unique fantasy world, where your protagonist will journey alongside his fairy companion, Gallica, to lift the curse from the kingdom’s lost prince. Control your destiny, face your fears, and awaken magical “Archetype” powers that lie dormant in your heart. By awakening to an “Archetype,” you will unlock the power to channel and combine the abilities of unique job classes. Strengthen your bonds and build your party to take down powerful foes and discover the kingdom’s true nature.

Metaphor ReFantazio Review Pros:

Fantastic graphics.
37.88GB download size.
Platinum trophy.
You get the PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation 5 versions of the game.
Japanese and English voice choice.
16 save slots and a seperate network save data slot.
Action RPG gameplay.
Anime cutscenes coupled with in-game scenes and interactions.
Tutorial pop-ups as you play.
Awesome authentic voice work.
You can Invert axis and sensitivity sliders.
Pure eye candy.
Interactions can be skipped, fast-forwarded, and set to auto-advance.
Powerful soundtrack with sweeping vocals, somber tunes, and an orchestra-powered ensemble.
Multiple choice encounters and questions from time to time.
Best played with headphones.
Five game difficulties – storyteller, easy, normal, hard, and regicide.
Gallica is your sidekick and is a Fairy and you can use Fae sight lets you sense and see elements in the environment.
A full 3D game world and you have 360-degree camera control.
The map fills in and adds in points of interest, enemies, etc as you discover them.
Gallica can be called upon at any time to give guidance or tips on what to do or where to go next.
Save when you want in towns and other safe areas.
When in towns you can eavesdrop on people and listen to gossip which can bring up new information.
The map lets you choose where to go and get general information on an area you discovered.
Turn-based combat, you can stun enemies initially for an advantage and you can and should do squad attacks.
Earn exp and level up to get a stat increase and points for you to distribute as you see fit.
You see enemies walking around, hitting them without being seen gives you a first attack and deletes their break gauge instantly.
Breakable objects around.
Find loot chests and items scattered around the game world.
Combat is fast and satisfying, you get next to no downtime.
Fast loading times.
They have even made the transitions cool.
During combat, you have action points so you can do multiple attacks or actions.
It’s a very captivating story, it’s about a Prince who is under some affliction and you are trying to help him as he helped you.
Bonds play a huge part, you make friends and gain allies, raising your bond with them grants new abilities, and upgrades.
When scanning enemies the color of the text will tell you a lot. White is unknown, blue is they are weaker, yellow they are the same level as you, and red is the higher level.
The enemies in the world are all at set difficulties.
Weak enemies can be killed fast and won’t trigger the turn-based arena combat as usual.
It’s possible to chain kills together on weaker enemies and it is so satisfying.
At any time during a battle, you can quickly restart it.
Larger enemies let you target specific parts of them, if you find a weak point then it will tell you every time you highlight it.
Party members will attack and defend themselves when set to auto-battle, or you can give orders.
Buy and sell items from peddlers that you find around the world.
The selling of items will generate everything you can safely sell things like treasure or scrap.
Formations can be set up but also changed on the fly. Usually, melee is up front and ranged at the back but you are free to do what you want.
Generally before a big event, you get some downtime to prepare yourself like talking with people or using the shops, etc.
Such high presentation values.
Learn new skills and equip your own load out of attacks and abilities.
Each character can study archetypes as you select them from their individual archetypes tree.
A character yer will use a resource called Magla to learn the archetype and once learned you can change how that character fights.
Visit the Akademia hosted by a guy called More and read books and attend lectures to unlock the possibility of learning new archetypes.
Archetypes are these huge great big characters that you can summon and fight with, they have their own set of exp and level, they can also unlock new abilities and attacks, aging you can customize what they use.
Elements play a big part in combat such as poison, hex, sleep, stun, etc and each one has a positive and negative effect on another element.
Travelers Choice is a unique system where upon entering a dungeon you can view the stats and party members of other real-world players’ formations, you can then use their formations. If you have the correct archetypes. (PlayStation Plus subscription is not needed)
You can choose to equip new weapons and gear straight from the peddler shop screen.
Auto recovery can be turned on and used so an archetype skill can be used to heal the party.
So much fun to play.
Every party member gets exp regardless of if they attacked.
Unscathed triumph is where you win a combat scenario without losing any health, you get a bonus added to all rewards including exp.
Every character, enemy, and creature looks incredible.
A lot of memorable moments and set pieces.
Even if you are not typically an RPG fan this game moxes it up and adds in so much style that you soon forget its an RPG and keeps it lighter and more open than a Persona game for example.
I found I was always looking forward to playing the game, seeing what is coming up or what happens next,
Somehow they managed to get stealth sections into the game and do it well.
Endless runner-style sections.
The game crams in many genres of the game but in a way that feels natural and really breaks the game up.

Metaphor ReFantazio Review Cons:

You cannot remap the controls.
Not all of the interactions are voiced.
At times ai found the music to over power the talking.
There is a lot of information to take in and you keep getting more and more information.
The pacing is a bit up and down.
Pay attention at all times because the game does a lot of important flashbacks and little conversations, it’s a kind of blink-and-miss-it type deal.
No way to set the minimal to rotate.
The screen can get very busy and disorienting.
Lacklustre accessibility options.
Most of the time it’s beneficial to just exhaust all dialogue with every character.