This is the mirror of reality.
What if the world we live in today is their utopia?
Metaphor: ReFantazio is a 2024 fantasy JRPG and the debut title from Studio Zero, a development team at Atlus (who serve as the game's publisher), made up of former Persona team members, including director Katsura Hashino. A demo was released on September 25, 2024. The game will be released for PC via Steam, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation 4 on October 11th, 2024.
Originally revealed as "Project Re Fantasy", Metaphor: ReFantazio, though not Atlus' first original fantasy setting (that'd be Etrian Odyssey), is their first attempt at an epic High Fantasy, diverting from the Urban Fantasy of their flagship Shin Megami Tensei titles while retaining gameplay and stylistic elements from both.
Royal Magic that ignites a tournament for the throne… More than ten years have passed since the assassination of the prince, heir to the throne of the United Kingdom of Euchronia. And now with the king having succumbed to a fatal attack, the kingdom is in turmoil with no heir to set its course. Who will be the next king? Will it be the head of the state religion, the Sanctist Church? A lord of a neighboring principality, or perhaps the leader of the military? As expectations rise among influential figures with their eyes on the throne, a “spell” is cast during the king’s funeral that no one could have predicted.
Time is finite before my soul departs this benighted world… There shall come a reckoning—a Day of the Hero. Upon that October day, whosoever hath truly earned the greatest faith of the citizenry… shall ascend to throne and crown by right of kings.
The voice of the king, who all know to be dead, suddenly echoes in the sky. Upon the event of his death, he had arranged for a grand magic to allow all citizens to compete for the throne through his final, royal tournament. The people are cast into turmoil over this unprecedented event, unable to fathom a world where the people decide the next king. Amidst this chaos, the protagonist decides that in order to fulfill his mission, he must participate in the race.
Thus begins the grand tournament for the throne that takes the entire kingdom by storm. Along his journey, the protagonist will find himself surrounded by a diverse group of allies, and a grand adventure that will shape the future of the kingdom begins.
Metaphor: ReFantazio is unique among its contemporaries even as far as being a fantasy setting and Atlus' first attempt at it, averting as many Standard Fantasy Setting tropes: most of the races, or 'tribes', end up subverting many conventional depictions and avoiding typical elves or dwarves in the setting but completely unique races (the closest human analogue are a people of Horned Humanoids known as the clemar, and the closest to elves are the roussainte, who are The Big Guy among the races and most adept at physical fighting). In fact, the protagonist's race, the Elda tribe, which appears to be a human with heterochromia, is so exceptionally rare they're not counted among the various tribes as opposed to being the standard, and are known for being a Mage Species. What Euchronia call 'humans' are monstrous Eldritch Abominations who look like twisted, distorted humans in the style of Hieronymus Bosch, drawn by Anxiety, the basis of magic in this setting.
The game's gameplay is a culmination of Katsura Hashino's previous works and takes elements from all of them, featuring a mixture of social simulation and time management gameplay as well as dungeon exploration and party customization. The combat system is a mix of Action RPG and Turn-Based Combat: weaker enemies can be killed outright with real-time action combat, while stronger enemies will go into a staggered state that allows the player to take the advantage when switching into more tactical, turn-based combat at the press of a button.
Previews: PROJECT ReFANTASY Trailer #1, PROJECT ReFANTASY Trailer #2, Announcement Teaser, The Royal Tournament, Creator's Voice, The King’s Trial, New Beginnings, Travel Beyond Fantasy, United Kingdom of Euchronia
Metaphor: ReFantazio includes examples of the following:
- Advertising by Association: The trailer states that the game is from the creators of Persona 3, Persona 4, and Persona 5.
- Art Imitates Art: The Story Showcase mentions that most if not all of the 'Human' enemies in the game are heavily based on the various surreal creatures and demons in Hieronymus Bosch paintings.
- Base on Wheels: The "gauntlet runners", ground vehicles of the setting, look like wooden ships that have huge mechanical legs, that allow them to run across vast distances. As seen in the various pre-release showcases, the Player Headquarters is one such ship.
- Breaking Old Trends:
- A meta variant. Prior titles of Atlus were either set in a post-apocalyptic setting of some kind or dealing with the immediate aftermath of one, or in the case of the Persona series, a group of high school students combatting supernatural forces. As the trailer shows, Metaphor: ReFantazio is a rare game by Atlus to be set in a High Fantasy settingnote.
- This is also the first Atlus game that features a hybrid combat system that features action combat as well as the turn-based combat the company is more known for.
- While the Follower system is very similar to the Social Links of the Persona series, it has already been confirmed in interviews with the creators that you will not be able to use it to romance Followers, unlike Social Links.
- Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": The demo shows in an optional dungeon, there are creatures called Goborn who fit all tropes about Goblins but are tall as the average humanoid characters and a creature called Guptauros that looks and acts like a Minotaur. There's also the whole story of a story book of our world being their fantasy paradise, though some parts around how peaceful and harmonious our world is are clearly more fantasy than others.
- Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": As the demo shows, "Human", in Euchronia, means "a weird abstract monster that is Made of Iron due to magla and is attracted to masses of the stuff." Exactly how they came to be called that is unknown.
- Combination Attack: The announcement trailer shows a new battle mechanic called 'Synthesis', combination skills that use multiple turns (indicated by the star-shaped icons next to the attack) and are cast by multiple party members at once (indicated by their icons lighting up while selecting the skill).
- The Corruption: An excess of magla causes weird effects on the surrounding environment, especially attracting humans who seek to defend the crystals that generate it. This is shown in both dungeons in the demo, with the first being guarded by a human and the second by Grius' undead form, as a necromancer is making use of the Magla.
- Creator Thumbprint: As the trailer shows, the game features many Atlus gameplay tropes and quirks, such as the day cycle and social elements from Persona, and the Press Turn battle system from the core Shin Megami Tensei games. Visually, it has anime cutscenes, portrait illustrations for conversations and a stylish, maximalist UI.
- Crystal Dragon Jesus: According to the prologue demo, Sanctism, the state religion of the United Kingdom of Euchronia, can be considered analogous to Catholic Christianity: it is an organized monotheistic religion that worships a single God referred to as the Almighty, has a Pope equivalent in the Sanctifex, and its clerical garb and architecture brings to mind Catholic garb and churches. While the religion itself preaches compassion and mercy, its clergy are also prone to political corruption and its teachings openly discriminate against the Elda tribe, whose mere existence is considered an affront to the Almighty's teachings.
- Darker and Edgier: Even from the demo alone, the game's significantly darker than Katsura Hashino's previous works - not only are themes like political intrigue, racism and classism rampant in the setting, the game doesn't shy away from bloody violence - in the very first cutscene of the game a bandit kills a random person who was running away, before he himself getting stabbed through the chest by Hulkenberg with no censorship whatsoever. The main characters also don't have particular problems killing human opponents if they're forced to.
- Design Student's Orgasm: The game's UI, as shown in the demo, takes the already exaggerated style of Persona 5 and dials it up even further with bright and chaotic colors every which way, almost to headache inducing levels, the entire screen lighting up blue or red depending on player or enemy turn in the demo.
- Developer's Foresight: In the demo, if you manage to use action combat to defeat monsters in the desert before you gain an Archetype (for which you will receive no experience), Gallica has unique lines in response.
- Eternal Hero: Archetypes as explained by More when you meet him in the demo are a type of Fighting Spirit who is said to be the embodiments of, well, archetypical heroes throughout Euchronia's legends, coming to its summoner in times of strife and great anxiety to protect its user. Bonus points for being literally eternal, as they always can be called back by future users and shared between other characters as a sort of Job System.
- Fantastic Racism: It's established from the initial trailers and confirmed in the demo that some tribes in the United Kingdom face this from other tribes due to either their overall appearance or because of religious beliefs. The Traveling Boy for example is a member of the Elda Tribe, who the state religion decries as heretics for supposedly possessing some sort of forbidden power, although most people met in the capital are more shocked and curious to see an elda rather than turn to instant hate. The Clemar and the Roussainte are the most prone to be the ones doing the racism due to being the most politically influential tribes - though that doesn't stop discriminated tribes to be racist against other, even more discriminated ones.
- Fighting Spirit: Metaphor: Re:Fantazio carries over from the Persona series with Archetypes; as embodiments of archetypical heroes of legend throughout Euchronia's history, they are called forth from its summoners' anxieties and fears to adapt to its abilities like a suit of armor, and the demo shows just how much of a turnaround this is in a fight against Humans. It's directly tied to Akademeia and More, the Expies of the Velvet Room and Igor respectively, and like Personas, they can be summoned to aid them in battle. Interestingly, Archetype's are explicitly a Wrong Context Magic relative to Euchronia; most magic is done through magla crystals and Igniters in order to cast any kind of magic, so the resurfacing of long-forgotten Archetypes are considered very surprising by and large by the rest of the world.
- Horned Humanoid: According to the prologue demo, the Clemar Tribe are regular-looking people with ivory horns that point curve forward. They are the most populous tribe in the United Kingdom of Euchronia, and their lack of special characteristics other than their horns make them the "average" and most equivalent to real-life humans.
- Humans Through Alien Eyes:
- A core concept present throughout all of the trailers and promotional material of the game is that to the non-human inhabitants of the medieval fantasy world consider our world, with its technology and equality between people, as a utopian fantasy only seen in story books.
- Another much odder version, revealed in the trailers on enemies and shown in the demo, is that to the people of the world of Metaphor, 'Human' is often used as a synonym for 'Powerful Monster' - as in, there's an extremely powerful genus of monster of the game called humans, hence the 'Homo' prefix in the majority of their names.
- In-Universe Game Clock: Similar to Persona, the announcement teaser shows off a UI with a calendar to indicate the date and the time of day in-game.
- Irony: According to the prologue demo, in the game's world, our world (or something visually similar to it) is the setting of a fantasy novel that describes it as a "utopia": there is only one tribe living in harmony, no magic to be abused, and society is dedicated to the principles of equality and merit. This rosy depiction of modern Earth would also be regarded as a utopian story by anyone from Earth, given how every corner of it continues to be wracked by a litany of conflicts, crises, and hardships.
- Job System: As seen in the various pre-release showcases, all playable characters can switch Archetypes, which represent classic RPG/JRPG classes like Warrior, Knight, Healer, Thief, Gambler etc. to gain their power, and each Archetype has a skill tree that can gradually be unlocked. On top of that, changing Archetypes also changes the types of armor and weapons a character can equip, which also changes their moveset in the action portion of the game.
- Kingmaker Scenario: According to the prologue demo, the crown prince was cursed and then presumed dead after disappearing, and the king was assassinated twelve years later. To prevent a succession crisis, the "royal magic" activates and declares that whoever earns the faith of the populace will become the new king of the United Kingdom of Euchronia. This causes all tribes in the world to enter the Royal Tournament in the hopes of claiming the crown. The Traveling Boy also competes in the tournament, though his primary objective is to find a way to cure the prince of his curse.
- Knight in Shining Armor: One of the party members shown in the trailer, Hulkenberg, is an elvish lady knight who is seen wielding Archetypes like Knight, Magic Knight and Paladin.
- Magic Is Mental: The Story Showcase presentation states that people's anxiety is responsible for creating the magic particles used to empower igniters and other pieces of Magitek used throughout the Kingdom of Euchronia.
- Magic Wand: Igniters are a Magitek version, staves and mechanical wands that channel the energy from magla crystals into spells. They're relatively expensive, but common enough that basic ones are part of standard military issue even for recent conscripts, with you getting one in the demo before the Traveling Boy's Archetype awakes and he no longer needs one.
- Magitek: According to the prologue demo, specialized tools called Igniters are used to channel an energy called "magla" in order to cast magic. Outside of fairies and the Elda tribe's supposed heretical magic power, Igniters are the only way for the people of the tribes to wield magic.
- Meaningful Name: According to the prologue demo, the protagonist and Gallica are able to visit a place called Akademia, a library in an unknown location where More is kept prisoner, which serves as a hub where you can enhance your Archetypes. "Akademia" sounds very close to "academia", which refers to a space of knowledge or learning.
- Mythology Gag: In the prologue demo, the game's main battle theme heavily hearkens back to Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey 's main battle theme, 'The Fear of God', also composed by Shoji Meguro - on top of being the theme for normal encounters, both songs feature orchestral music and a section with incomprehensible male vocals, which lead into an even grander orchestral section afterwards.
- No Fair Cheating: In-Universe, the King's Magic carries with it a series of rules that aren't readily apparent to the contestants. In the demo, Grius attempts to kill Louis, only for the Royal Magic to stop him from killing a fellow competitor and disqualify him.
- No Name Given: According to the prologue demo, the protagonist is initially referred to as "Travelling Boy" before the player decides what to name him. However, changing the game's language setting mid-game will change the player's chosen name to a default one, depending on the language. For example, if you change to English from any other language, the protagonist is renamed "Will". The other default names are Victor in Italian and Spanish, Wilhelm in German, Eric in French, Pedro in Portuguese, and Alexander in Russian.
- Offered the Crown: The story trailer shows the scene where the Royal Magic decrees that the title of king is now up for grabs by virtually everyone, so long as they win the favor and faith of the populace. This leads into the Royal Tournament, an official competition where those seeking to claim the crown and throne race across all Euchronia and rally the people under their respective political agendas and views.
- Our Elves Are Different: According to the prologue demo, the Roussainte and Rhoag Tribes both possess pointed ears similar to elves, but the Roussaintes have the traditional elongated ears and boast impressive physical capabilities while the Rhoag have shorter ears, are long-lived and are akin to scholars who pass down their knowledge to future generations.
- Our Monsters Are Weird: A good chunk of monsters shown in the announcement trailer look like surreal nightmares straight out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting, like walking teeth with holes that form faces, but the grand prize goes to a monster shown in both the trailer and screenshots on the official website: Greatworm Homo Butera, which looks like a giant, Flower Mouth worm with human teeth, with a grotesque, gigantic, four-eyed human face with an extremely long tongue that ends in a flower...with an eye in the middle of the flower for good measure. The oddest part? Said creatures are called humans by the inhabitants of this world.
- Recurring Element: There are several elements that it shares in common with previous Atlus games:
- The style of the menus is very reminiscent of Persona 5, right down to the combat UI featuring a similar menu for choosing actions.
- The calendar system from Persona makes a return, with specific (fantasy-themed instead of real) days of the week but Gregorian month names.
- Non-combat social attributes from the Persona games also make an appearance, in the form of the five "Royal Virtues": Courage, Wisdom, Tolerance, Eloquence, and Imagination.
- Once again characters seem to summon (or rather, become) humanoid beings to fight and use spells—this time in the form of 'Archetypes' that represent various fantasy classes, bringing to mind both Persona and Digital Devil Saga.
- Battles and victory screens again have a character narrating the goings on in the fight.
- A secondary currency called "MAG" exists, a likely reference to the MAG currency in older Shin Megami Tensei games - in this case, rather than Magnetite, it stands for fragments of crystallized Magla, the physical source of magic.
- The Press Turn system from mainline Shin Megami Tensei also makes a return, with the trailer showing four icons on top of the UI representing turns—a dragon boss can also be seen in the trailer obtaining a typical 'half-turn' upon critically hitting a player character, a recurring feature in the Press Turn System.
- Some of the magic seen in Shin Megami Tensei and Persona is reused here, such as the Seeker Archetype being able to learn Matarukaja and Tetrabreak.
- Sinister Silhouettes: At one point in the announcement trailer, there is a backlit shot of five regal-looking figures.
- Succession Crisis: The game's plot is kicked off by Louis assassinating Euchronia's king, shown directly in the demo's intro, and is seemingly responsible for the crown prince's curse. With the king dead and the populace led to believe the crown prince has also died, Euchronia's leadership worries who will lead the kingdom. The royal magic activates in response to this crisis and declares the throne is now up for grabs, but only the person who earns the faith of the citizenry has the right to claim it.
- "Wanted!" Poster: The "King's Trial" trailer shows that player can take on quests to hunt down monsters or criminals by looking through posters at a bulletin board.
Fantasy is more than an empty dream.