Metaphor: ReFantazio is created for a long time. It was announced in 2017 as Project re Fantasy via a strangely long video that said very little. Atlus has since replaced Project with Metaphor and scoured Google Translate for a cool way to say “fantasy.” It’s also made a giant fantasy JRPG game — and after playing a demo at Summer Game Fest last weekend, I’m dying to play it.
ReFantazio is the first original title from Studio Zero, a relatively new division of Atlus led by Katsura Hashino. As the director of the third, fourth, and fifth Persona games, Hashino was responsible for turning the Persona series toward social simulation elements. After completion Persona 5Hashino left P-Studio to work on entirely new titles unrelated to Atlus’ Shin Megami Tensei and Persona series.
Atlas and Hashino are known more for (-) grounded urban fantasy than wizards and elves, and ReFantazio in this sense it represents a major deviation. This is an epic, sprawling story spanning an entire nation, the United Kingdom of Euchronia. The Euchron king is killed and the people of the country must choose (!?) a new one.
Euchronia is home to eight “tribes” (fantasy races) and our hero is trying to reunite them. There’s also a cursed prince who everyone thinks is dead, a royal tournament for the throne in six months, and monsters everywhere. To make matters worse, Euchronia is invaded by hideous Hieronymus Bosch-inspired creatures called humans, who act as the game’s bosses. Guys, huh? Wondering if it’s… a metaphor?
Given Atlus’ history of storytelling, the broad strokes of ReFantazio it will probably make more sense than the moment-to-moment beats. It’s best to just let it consume you.
The game takes place over the course of six months, and you’ll travel across Euchronia in the Gauntlet Runner (an awesome ship designed from Evangelion’s mecha), trying to gather support for your entry into the royal tournament. Each town in the game has a tavern where you can eat and gather information, a recruitment center where you can accept quests, various shops, and an inn where you can rest. Completing quests and making friends along the way will earn you supporters among the various tribes, which is key to both the main story and combat.
Atlus’ Summer Game Fest demo was segmented into three 15-minute parts. The first was sort of a training sequence, heavy on story and light on combat. This felt mostly like a showcase for ReFantaziocinematics that were gorgeous, although the TVs in the demo area were set to interpolate footage. Atlus has a tradition of showing the highest quality anime in their games, and the demo clips were some of the best I’ve seen. What I appreciated more than the quality of the animation was how closely the character design and mood of the game matched the cinematics.
The voice acting is also memorable. For the English-speaking cast, Atlus takes Euchronia’s “United Kingdom.” a lot seriously as everyone I ran into had a completely over the top British accent. As the owner of an English accent, I found the characters more than theatrical, but enjoyable nonetheless. At one point in the demo I met a girl with a hyper cockney cat that she could audition for Oliver.
In another segment, I battled alongside a charming tall guy from the fantastic Liverpool who sounded like . If none of that excites you, the Japanese voice cast seems to be shooting for a typical fantasy vibe. Personally, I can’t imagine playing this game in anything other than English at this point.
No everything is voiced – as in many JRPGs, key lines and conversations are played out in full, but many interactions will be limited to text, with the voice actors emoting a little along the way for flavor. As a speed reader, this is absolutely fine by me.
Segment two was all about dungeon combat — time for Persona comparisons! The setting here will be familiar to fans of Atlus games: It’s a turn-based JRPG, with different types of physical and magical attacks, status effects, and ailments. ReFantazioThe version of the classic JRPG class system is Archetypes — there are 14 lineages containing over 40 unique Archetypes, including some familiar roles like Mage, Thief, Knight, and Healer.
There’s also a tactical element to party composition, with front and back rows playing a role in combat, and Synthesis moves that allow you to combine your party’s Archetypes for stronger attacks. Everything has a bit of Persona and SMT — you manage Archetypes in an Academy (similar to the Velvet Room), they can evolve through experience, and their skills in battle are tied to your relationship with your supporters.
A twist on the classic turn-based formula—and one I’m very happy with—is the quick battle system. When you encounter an enemy, you’ll be able to gauge their strength before starting a battle. The quick system allows you to target a specific enemy and hit them; this can instantly kill underpowered enemies, allowing you to avoid turn-based combat entirely when grinding low-level enemies. For stronger enemies, you can use Fast to smear them and start a team fight with advantage, but if you mess up this engagement, you can start the turn-based battle on your ass. Other Atlus games have a similar risk-reward system to allow players to gain an edge, but this one is more nuanced and satisfying.
The interface for all of this is a typically gorgeous menu system and user interface that looks more polished than ever. Simple actions are assigned to a face button on the controller, meaning less time spent in menus. It’s all pretty intuitive, and by the end of my short demo I was moving through turn-based combat without wondering which button did what. Taken as a whole, the battle system feels like a natural evolution of the classic formula that Atlus is known for.
The final demo section starts inside the Gauntlet Runner. It’s a claustrophobic space, more submarine than superyacht, but full of things to do. There are people to talk to, activities to participate in, and routes to choose. Like Persona, the game taking place over a period of time means you probably won’t be able to do everything you want, and instead have to decide how best to spend your time each day. You might try to level up one of the main character’s five traits—courage, wisdom, tolerance, eloquence, and imagination—or perhaps focus on fighting monsters or earning money. I played writing and reading a book, which unfortunately wasn’t enough to lift my courage from “scary”.
My cozy book session led right into the main show: face-to-face with a giant human. It started with an anime series that gave way to a classic four-on-one battle. The human designs in this game are wild. This one was called “Sea Horror Homo Sabara” and here are Cliff’s notes:
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Long purple beard and eyebrows.
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One yellow eye, one white eye, both glowing.
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12 ears arranged in two rows? Sharp piercing.
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Crown of Thorns. Actually, make these two crowns of thorns.
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The upper half of the head is scalped. It looks like a human heart is sticking out.
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Also, eight giant bejeweled tentacles as weapons.
It’s not like I haven’t seen crazy bosses in JRPGs before, but this octodad was a lot of fun to fight. There wasn’t major challenge: Pull out tentacles, body howl, tentacles regenerate, repeat. But he hit hard and the demo obviously set me up for success. It’s easy to see this guy destroy your team if you’re not well prepared.
Of all the things Atlus brought into the short Summer Game Fest, human combat was the most memorable. From the legend passed down to the fans, it seems that the humans are actually from our world and are being Isekai brought into Euchronia as these confused monsters. We hope that many of them have succeeded.
At first blush ReFantazio feels like a real signature moment for Hashino—as if after the worldwide success of Persona 5, he was effectively given a blank check. Hashino’s Persona titles bend over backwards to show you how cool and edgy they are, but the only concern for ReFantazio is how strong, confident and unique it can be.
Yes, there are elements borrowed from almost every Atlus RPG you can think of, but everything has been remixed and refined. I left my short time with ReFantazio filled with this wonderful environment of nostalgia and surprise, a warm familiarity from something unlike anything I’ve played before.
Metaphor: ReFantazio coming to PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox Series consoles on October 11.
See all the news from Summer Game Fest 2024 right here!
