Metaphor: ReFantazio lets you snag thousands in fantasy dosh pretty early on, all you have to do is smack some dogs and worms around with an abacus

If you've been playing Metaphor: ReFantazio, like me, you've probably been trying to stay frugal while you bid for democratically-elected place in the monarchy. It can be a little hard, even if you shop on Idlesday, given your funds will be spread between items, armour, blessings, and appraisals.

Short of starting a lemonade stand in Grand Trad, I actually stumbled (alongside a lot of other savvy adventurers, mind) into an easy money-making scheme during the early game. And by early game, I mean the first couple of dozen hours—this is an Atlus RPG, after all, everything's relative.

I'm talking, of course, about the Merchant archetype. You unlock this bad boy by getting your Wisdom to level 2 and bonding with Brigitta, who you unlock as a follower after completing «A Bullish Embargo», which is an optional dungeon that's given to you around the same time as the first major one in the city.

If you're anything like me, you'd have seen this Archetype and gone «pshh, hogwash, a class that uses money to attack? Useless!» Okay, you might not have said hogwash, but the Merchant is absolutely easy to underestimate. What makes this thing sing is its hero passive, Alchemy.

The passive reads: «Chance of winning a small sum of money each time an enemy is stunned or defeated in overworld combat.» Big whoop, one might think—only, the «chance» bit is sort of a lie. If you're of a high enough level to instagib a mook in overworld combat, you're pretty much guaranteed to get a bounty of 500 reeve.

This doesn't seem like a lot at first blush, but keep in mind that doing so only takes a second. So if you go to a place with enough enemies, farming up thousands in fat stacks doesn't take that long at all. I marched my merry butt along to the Tradia Desert to tidy up the «Man's Not-So Best Friend» bounty, which had been collecting dust in my log, and got to whacking.

There are a couple of reasons why this place is great for exploiting this passive—it's flush both with sandworms and packs