Metaphor: ReFantazio - Part 14: Ancient Eldan Sanctum & Abandoned Path

00:00:10 - Ancient Eldan Sanctum 01:10:22 - Louis's Ascension & More Bonding 02:39:30 - The Abandoned Path First off, let’s not pretend that this is not a Persona game with Fantasy themes – it exactly fits the idiom “Same but Different”. Every month will be built around a centrepiece event, which usually culminates in a dungeon, boss battle and liberation of one of the many towns/cities of the kingdom from the issues that they face. You can choose how to use each day, and it is vital to how your story progresses that you get to grips with this system quickly. Each Day is split up into Daytime and Afternoon, and activities include progressing stories specific to your allies, visiting side dungeons, working on your qualities (you will level up 5 categories – Wisdom, Eloquence, Imagination, Courage and Tolerance). It is worth remembering that your virtues being low may lock you out of progressing side content – however unlike Persona, it is a lot clearer and efficient in telling you exactly what you need to do before progression is available. Other day to day activities involve kitting out your party either buy buying armour, items or weapons or cooking/fishing/battling in a colosseum. This can be a point of frustration on one hand, and I was really disappointed that I just couldn’t do anything in one 70 odd hour playthrough. Metaphor largely differs from Persona with the Archetype system, comparable to a job system seen in the Final Fantasy games. Each of your Social links and party members will unlock a distinct class (such as Thief, Healer, Mage, Warrior, Knight, etc) with skills that become available as you level up that particular class or strengthen your social bonds by completing their unique side story. Each Archetype will also be compatible with other Archetypes to unlock synthesis attacks which are extremely powerful collaborative moves used in battle. Skills gotten from one class can be used with another so that you can build and prepare your party to best tackle the dungeons and bosses ahead. It is a well thought out and deeply customisable system unlike any I’ve seen before (and also sounds more complicated than it is!). The game looks beautiful, crossing a vibrant medieval fantasy look with anime graphic novel characters. Enemies (particularly bosses!) are living breathing preces of grotesque surrealist renaissance art, and beautifully designed – though the game clearly went to the FFX school of reskinning and colourising enemies, unlike P5 where there is something new in each dungeon – and if they do a sequel (which I hope they do) then hope they take that into consideration because the art departments have done something really special here. Music is also at the forefront of the game’s qualities, with symphonic orchestral numbers occasionally backed up by an excitable Buddhist monk (who wibble dibbles with all his heart through the dungeons) if the need is there. This is a game where the flaws are very few, and I really enjoyed my time with it. There were very few parts that felt like a slog. I would say that Studio Zero have produced a game more accessible than Persona or SMT, and a great place to start for ATLUS newbies. More like this please. #ps5 #metaphorrefantazio #atlus #jrpg #metaphor #nukeboxharris #twitch #fullplaythrough Broadcasted live on Twitch -- Watch live at   / nukeboxharris