Metaphor: ReFantazio Extended Preview - Atlus celebrates its 35th anniversary with arguably its greatest work

The RPG genre has so far had one of the best years I can remember. Possibly the best of the decade. We've had stories of all kinds, more variety and narratives than any other, and also great, accomplished series that have made a comeback, partial or complete. And Atlus has been a very active participant in all of this. First, when in February they released Persona 3 Reload, a great remake that some missed a later DLC release, and also with the "definitive" version of SMT V, known as Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance. And while these two titles alone could sustain the studio's 35th anniversary celebration, there's still one more to go. The big one. Metaphor: ReFantazio will be, by all accounts, the studio's biggest game yet, and that's big words from the team that revolutionised and put the JRPG back on the map in the West with Persona 5.

I've been following with almost religious interest every detail that's been released since its announcement, and so when I was asked if I wanted to come along on a whirlwind tour so I could try the game out for four hours, I didn't hesitate for a moment. Sega put me on a plane and sent me to New York to try out Metaphor: ReFantazio. I needed to feel if the game was going to let itself be defined by other names, if it would be content to simply give players what they expected, or if it had an entity of its own. And I got the answer.

Sega/Atlus didn't leave even the choice of space to a score of media from around the world to test the game lightly. Before it was a neo-gothic art gallery, the Angel Orensanz Foundation was the oldest synagogue in New York, and I take this as an important fact to start talking about the game's narrative and its world-building. Metaphor: ReFantazio is like a look through a fantastic mirror at our own world. Indeed, our universe does exist in the Unified Kingdom of Euchronia, only to its population we are little more than old wives' tales, figments of fiction, a fantasy. But in their world, as in ours, there are profound differences in social, racial and spiritual beliefs. Our protagonist, the first to feature voice acting throughout the game at Atlus, belongs to a race or ethnicity called the Elders (or Elda), who are despised by the rest of the world's sentient species, and whose task is to prove to all that he can be the rightful king of the land, by popular acclaim. I may be on slippery ground here, but for me the connection between the oppressed peoples of our world (at least from a pre-WWII historical perspective) and the races of Euchronia was clear.

But before we embarked on this Tournament for the Throne, Metaphor's extensive demo began by sitting us down with an Xbox controller in hand and turning the game on at the beginning of the game. I liked that they did that, because usually in demos they try to omit crucial parts of the narrative to focus more on the gameplay, and here we had it all. The screen fades to black, and it's then that a "mysterious" narrator asks us about our beliefs about fantasy, and whether it has real power in the world, or is just a figment of our imagination to entertain us. It's a bit jarring that he starts off by asking us about these philosophical questions, and when I asked the Atlus staff closest to us if this was really relevant now, they just shrugged and smirked.

After a short opening sequence, in which our protagonist and his inseparable companion, the fairy Gallica, are left stranded in the middle of a desert surrounded by deadly monsters, the game begins. The king of Euchronia has just been assassinated, and there are powers moving in the shadows both to seize the throne (and the magical power that goes with it) and to protect it. While on a secret mission for the crown prince's protectors, a group of bandits attack the caravan and we must escape from them, heading into the wilderness of Tradia. Metaphor shows us some of its basic mechanics here, such as a combination of real-time attacks and turn-based combat that reminds many of Xenoblade Chronicles 3, and a little less of the current Final Fantasy VII games. Metaphor turns it into something genuine by giving it that "Atlus touch", combining this system (useful, for example, for experience farming) with the classic one that popularised the study of elemental and physical resistances and weaknesses in Shin Megami Tensei. After our trek through the desert we arrive in the city, where our objective is to infiltrate the army to establish contact with an undercover character.

This character is located in a fortress in the north, so together with other recruits we set off to defend it from a supposed attack by the worst monsters that populate this world, the "humans". This fortress will serve as an introductory dungeon and also as the place where the protagonist awakens his inner power by overcoming his fears: His Archetype. Again, here we find reminiscences with Monolith Soft's title. As these Archetypes function more as classes than as autonomous entities, and are closer to XC3 than to Persona or SMT's demons.

But back to the plot, our protagonist has managed to befriend another recruit named Strohl and an old soldier named Grius, who was also our contact. Talking to him, we learn about our next mission: to eliminate the king's assassin, Lord Louis (general of the army that controls the king) before the coronation ceremony begins. We have five days (in game time) to reach the capital and level up along the way. And so I can begin to praise the fluidity with which we transition between dialogue sequences, cinematic cutscenes, combat and free-form exploration. Not that I expected it to go badly, but one of my main criticisms of Shin Megami Tensei V is that the technical side of the game detracts from the experience, even in Vengeance. But here I breathed a sigh of relief: save for the loading screens between sections exploring the city, nothing really took me out of the action at any point.

Progress is based on more or less regular encounters against different types of enemies, which we will have to study and get to know in order to take advantage of the benefits that our own weapons and spells can offer, and avoid getting into trouble if the enemy is of a high level or has resistance against us. The ideal system for combat and exploration is to press the LB button to launch Gallica's fairy sight. If the enemy is highlighted blue, we can hit them directly and take them out in real time with one or two hits (just in case, be prepared to dodge at least once). If the enemy is yellow, the fight will be evenly matched, so take the opportunity to strike first and then immediately enter Squad Mode for a first strike and initiative in turn-based combat. If you come across any enemy highlighted in red, avoid them at all costs, even if you have several party members at full health and magic (or Magla, as it is known in this world). It is not worth spending magic, healing resources and possibly losing a party member for a little more experience (which is not proportional, anyway).

And during that journey, fighting monsters and enemy soldiers, Strohl also gets an Archetype awakening. At this point we can choose whether to keep our current Archetype or assign a different one to each character. For this we travel to a kind of dream plane where we meet More, who would be something like the Igor and the Velvet Room in this universe. And here I would like to talk about how they have taken care of even the smallest detail in the art design of Metaphor: Refantazio. The tree of classes that we can unlock (40 in total), is organised around the image of the Vitruvian man drawn by Leonardo Da Vince. It has already been mentioned that the "humans" in the game are inspired by the work of the Flemish painter Bosch, but here the architecture (by the designer of NieR: Automata), the map design, the menus, the user interface, everything exudes personality. Atlus has excelled in this area before, but here they do it even more.

In the second part of the demo we played a much more advanced section of the game, possibly a save file of around 30 hours where in addition to delving into advanced combat (such as the combined abilities of party members, called Synthesis), we also got to see how the side quest system is set up and executed. To carry them out we must take into account both the time it takes to travel to the area, mounted on our walking ship (the Gunner) and the weather conditions that will be in the same. Certain weather conditions can favour or weaken the enemies to be defeated (most side quests are fairly simple in their premise, mind you), and each time we deliver the quest we will have an increase in popularity in the Crown Tournament rankings. These (optional) quests seem to only serve to speed up the main story process, but we've already been warned that fulfilling certain requirements and dropping others will unlock different endings to the game. In case you still didn't see enough depth and personality here.

I can't close these impressions without highlighting the one element that perfectly tied together the feeling of an epic fantasy story bigger than its characters, its world and its gameplay: the music. Shuji Meguro may be one of the best composers not only in JRPGs or in his country, but in the industry in general. Not for nothing has he been in charge of the greatest works in Atlus' history, and here he signs a composition so different, original and evocative that it is impossible to get it out of your head in several days.

As you can see, I've talked a lot about feelings, a lot about systems and a lot about perceptions. Four hours are a tiny part of the epic that Metaphor: Refantazio will leave us with in October, but they do serve me to say it emphatically: The best role-playing game of 2024 is here, waiting for you.