Metaphor: ReFantazio Review - The RPG Files

From Metaphor: ReFantazio’s first moments depicting the assassination of a King, I was hooked. In a cutscene that plays even before the game brings you to the main menu, the gritty, dark fantasy world of Euchronia is brought into full light. It’s an unequal, harsh, and dangerous world where the strong — and those privileged enough to be born into the right tribe — survive. This introduction to the story I would spend the next 70 or so hours over course of the last few weeks was brutal — yet immediately made me want to learn more and more.

Developed by the minds behind the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei series, Metaphor: ReFantazio trades the modern-day and supernatural settings of its predecessors for the medieval fantasy-flavored world of Euchronia. As mentioned before, it’s a darker setting steeped in inequality and injustice, and this is noticeable at every turn. The Clemar and Roussainte dominate politics, while the lesser tribes like the Paripus and Mustari are ostracized and downtrodden. 

Our protagonist hails from the Elda tribe, a group of people who are seen as the lowest of the low and, as has been constantly reminded through nearly every interaction or piece of dialogue while passing NPCs by on the street, the Eldan people are often blamed for causing calamity and misfortune. 

The main story picks up after the assassination attempt, with the Kingdom of Euchronia embroiled in a succession crisis. With the King gone and the world unaware that his young son, the Prince, long thought dead, is actually alive, this sparks a power void that power players are all too eager to fill. Yet, the King seems to have held aspirations of preventing a tyrant and, even more importantly, a dream to create a more perfect, equal society, so an election to decide who the next King will be is forced using a spell cast by the King in the event of his death.

Dennis from Monty Python and the Holy Grail's dreams just came true.

Metaphor refreshingly wears its worldview on its