Metaphor is a breath of fresh air and an easy 10/10 if I gave numbered reviews. It's a hell of a weird journey, with a narrative that's all over the place tonally. But that same uneven tone helps set it apart and give it a flavor all its own, even stranger than the Persona games (though you can see some through lines with 5's sense of humor and world-building in this game).

In particular, I love the class system, which functions a lot like jobs from the Final Fantasy games. A bit more individuality in these would have gone a long way but it's a hell of a jumping off point if they make this into a series, and they damn well should. The combat is easy to pick up and understand, with its complexities coming from a gradual introduction to enemy weaknesses, buffs, and debuffs. Some of the dungeons are overlong, a problem with the Persona games too, but it's easy to overpower your characters and cut a swath through the mobs, so there's that, at least.

If I have any sort of real quibble it's that not all your party members or important NPCs are as equally interesting. There's one standout party member I won't name here but when acquired, his storyline made me eager to see it through to its end, a rarity among NPC party members for me in the genre. Some of the other party members are bland in comparison but still completely solid.

The music too is sometimes a pretty big swing and a miss, but it's always interesting and unique. That uniqueness also applies to a certain class of enemies - which again, I don't want to spoil here, but which play a pivotal background role to the game's lore. Someone on the design team was told to make those special enemies as weird and wild as they could, and damned if it doesn't work. I love it.

It's a fever dream of an RPG, one I cannot recommend enough. Give it a shot if you need proof that the JRPG is alive and capable of flourishing in 2024.

Let's keep it short, starting with cons:
- Terrible performance. Like, it looks like early PS3 game (with your favorite brown-yellow-green filter), but I never had a stable 60 FPS anywhere, while having a decent rig. Also looks pretty bad without 200% render (game on 200% looks like it should look on 100%). It was wild to get a game in this kind of technical state after getting Persona 3 Reload earlier this year
- Something near 4 graphical settings on release, so additional community tweaks were needed to get rid of some questionable stuff (yeah, motion blur, i looking at you)
- Not really optimized for a Steam Deck. Having a Atlus JRPG which for multiple reasons are barely playable on portable is a huge bummer for me personally. Yeah, it IS playable, but tiny text and low resolution combined with game performance could make your experience miserable
- Royal Archetypes execution is a bit odd to my taste. I mean, I love the progression system overall and leveled up all RAs anyways, but the fact the game punishes you for assigning any archetypes you want on any characters is somewhat disappointing. Gameplay spoiler: I can build a Mage Strohl, but what's the point of it, if his pinnacle archetype is Warrior, just like his starter one?
- Dungeons architecture is a bit boring. We have a cave, a sandy cave, a fleshy cave, a cavy cave. Sometimes we have a tower. Not bad, but wanted something more

Aaaaand that's honestly all with cons, nothing more to say. But all I said earlier just fades if you'll look at other sides of a game:
+ Yep, I said Royal Archetypes execution is a bit odd, BUT it's very good overall anyways. It was truly engaging to unlock new archetypes and combo them into sometimes broken builds. And if you interested in doing side-activities, you'll have some exp to spare for your experiments
+ Combat system inherited from Digital Devil Saga is just a best, hands down, feels great
+ Story about fantasy elections feels really fresh and delivers it's message without aggressively trying to shove it into your throat
+ Every character you'll meet along the way is worthy of your time in my opinion. Hell, I would love to see some of them as a detailed followers. And yeah, no boring "social links" here
+ Artstyle is a godsent. Sights and villages backgrounds, portraits, character designs. Everything is pure eye-candy, really enjoyed it
+ Music slaps
+ English dub is exceptional, probably the best ENG dub of JP game I've ever heard

Metaphor: ReFantazio kept my attention through the whole journey around Eucronia, showing me mesmerizing sights of it's nature, telling me the stories with More's soothing voice, and channeling great music right into my brain with Gallica's magic.

While being very skeptical about the game from the very first glimpse on it, I'll say with all confidence this is the best ATLUS game so far and probably the best starting point if you always wanted to tried their other JRPGs. So, yeah, this is my Game of the Year, would recommend.

Best game i played this year. Louis Guiabern is so hot.