Metaphor: ReFantazio – A showcase full of promise for Metaphor: ReFantazio

The least we can say is that even with a good 25 minutes of video, we are certain that we have not seen a hundredth of what the game has to offer. Far from the high school stories of the Persona series from which producer Hashino, Shigenori Soejima and Shoji Meguro wanted to move away a little, Metaphor: ReFantazio leans towards medieval fantasy with a protagonist involved in the race for the throne, the ruler of the United Kingdom of Euchronia having been assassinated; however, we are not in the context of a filial succession but rather an election to which everyone can claim, whatever their social status, thanks to a special Royal Magic allowing them to be elected by having ( and/or winning) the favors of the people. Except that here, it is not by making long speeches and campaign promises that will never be honored that the protagonist will try to get elected, but by traveling the kingdom with his companions, to forge alliances with the tribes populating the vast lands of this world thanks to his actions rather than empty words. Above all, he will do this to find a way to save the prince, his childhood friend having been hit by a curse in addition to having seen his father murdered – the double punishment… Hashino promises many twists and turns as in their old titles, and we can't wait to find out what they have up their sleeves.

Accompanied first by a fairy called Gallica who will help him in the first steps of the adventure, the protagonist will move through towns and dungeons which will not be in the open world: even if we will have a little freedom of movement he will not be possible to travel the world on foot at will. On the other hand, we will be entitled to a machine named The Armored Surveyor resembling a mix between a boat and a bipedal creature emerging from Evangelion (that’s good, the designer having worked on the series). The machine will serve as a mobile base for the hero and his team, and many aspects of social life on board will be discovered. The Armored Surveyor will be used to reach towns and dungeons at the cost of a certain number of days of travel, so you will have to be careful to respect your schedule according to the quests in progress, some of which may have a tight timing.

Standard Edition

Collector's edition

In the video we see glimpses of the royal capital Gran Trad with the wide squares and clean streets of the beautiful neighborhoods, but also of the poorer neighborhoods where the protagonist will be more accustomed, being himself a victim of ostracism due to his belonging to a so-called “inferior” tribe. Another city, Martira, with much more medieval architecture was also revealed with promises of truly varied settings throughout the game, to “give a real feeling of being on a journey”. In town, it will obviously be possible to wander around the shops, choose requests to go hunt monsters, but also to scrape information from information sellers in taverns.

Finally, the producer focused particularly on the combat system and Archetypes: it will be a job system based on “heroic figures” from which any character will be able to borrow the abilities – personae style, but this time the characters are not confined to a single role. To approach a fight, real-time attacks will immediately defeat the weakest enemies (indicated in blue during a scan), and the other more formidable ones can be started in the same way, but we then return to turn-based in a combination supposed to bring more rhythm to the flow of the game (and I clearly don't blame them).

There is still a lot to discover about the game, so in conclusion of the showcase Katsura Hashino indicates that various demos of the game will be planned during the next events in the world of video games starting next June. In any case, Studio Zero has big ambitions for their new game, and we are counting on their promises in the hope that they become reality.