Examples of Damage Control in Gaming: The True Metaphor

The need for Atlus to hold a Metaphor: ReFantazio stream was understandable, beyond the necessity of pre-release marketing. The Persona series’ DNA is all over the Studio Zero-developed game. It’s directed by Katsura Hashino, previously responsible for the last three Persona games and Catherine, and a few games before that like Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne and the first Digital Devil Saga title. The Persona series’ Shigenori Soejima is providing the sweeping (and somewhat familiar) artwork and overall visual style. Shoji Meguro, of far too many Atlus games to list (and beyond, considering his departure in 2021), is composing the soundtrack. The Persona-esque stylishness has been on full display, from its art style to the UI.

But Metaphor has yet to hook a significant audience thus far. Buzz for it among online communities and the social media world (often one and the same now) isn’t even close to the likes of the Persona 5 titles and the recent Persona 3 Reload. That’s a big problem considering the pedigree of the main talent involved, and resources the team has dedicated to this project in the time since it was announced back in, remarkably, December 2016. They’ve been working on this since the original Persona 5 released in Japan in September 2016, and its budget and scope is far larger than Catherine’s.

That was the key reason for this “Atlus Exclusive Showcase” for Metaphor: ReFantazio, beyond the purpose of merely showing off more of the game itself. It also explains the hilariously bombastic title, a stream about a particular game presented by the developer and publisher of that particular game. The stream carefully walked through its features, ensuring there would be little confusion as to what this game is going forward.

The story involves a magical election being held after the king has been assassinated, with the protagonist and the main party being main competitors. To do this, they must impress the populace in the hopes that they’ll vote for them. This is where the social aspects come in, which this title was bound to inherit from the Persona series, as Catherine also did. The mechanic could even lead to alternate endings. This also comes through a calendar-style system showcasing how many activities the player can participate in during the day and night, including sleeping, exploring, battling, and dungeon crawling.

The stream also dispelled prior assumptions regarding how players get around the game’s world. Making a large open world game is too much for Atlus at this stage, so travelling to other locations is handled through a detailed map and a vehicle called the Gauntlet. The vehicle is where the player can eat, sleep, and participate in social events. The development team has also tried to convey how large the game’s scope is through exploration and travelling through the Gauntlet.

The battle system is another beast, something worth detailing again despite it being largely highlighted before — largely. The team realized that fighting smaller hordes can get annoying in RPGs, so they can be finished with action-based attacks. But these will only damage enemies at the current party’s level or higher, and lead to turn-based encounters.

The new feature outlined here involves the Archetypes, described by the translated Hashino as the reflection of the main characters confronting their anxiety. You may read that and think they’re describing Personas, and they sure look like them. The powers they depends on the classes they have, though how much flexibility the player will have with choosing classes is a current mystery. The overall battles are also flashy and over quickly, another aspect in common with Persona.

The stream spent a good amount of time outlining features previously shown, for good reason. It’s a way to catch up anyone who hasn’t seen much of this game, a response to the lack of buzz it was generating. It’s too early to answer whether this stream fulfilled that purpose, despite trending on Twitter (or whatever) briefly during and after the stream. The developers have previously discussed their intention for Metaphor to be their third RPG pillar, in addition to the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei franchises. This could have been Soul Hackers 2, if that game had better performance. This puts a lot of pressure on the development team, but there’s a higher chance of this turning out better than the flawed SH2 in terms of quality.

The other purpose with this stream involved outlining when players will get their hands on Metaphor: ReFantazio. The game will finally release on October 11th for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series, and PC. There will also be special and limited editions, some including items celebrating Atlus’ 35th Anniversary. Demos will be provided at future events between now and the release date, though they should ideally find a way to let those of us chilling at home play those. It’s not like there are as many live events as there used to be, with the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) being the biggest victim. Perhaps they have several Atlus Fes events planned.

Another cloud hovering over this game is how… come on, you know it’s going to get one of those updated Golden/Royal-style editions down the line — the “Enchanted Edition,” or something like that. They’ll make sure to add a new “waifu” character too, to rope in a certain audience. Do expect to hear that they have “no plans” for it as the marketing cycle continues whenever they’re asked.