Metaphor: ReFantazioborrows a lot from thePersonaseries, including in its social simulation elements. Developed by Atlus, long responsible fortheShin Megami Tenseiseries and itsPersonaspinoffs,Metaphorwears its inspirations on its sleeve. It carries over the concept of awakening and summoning Personas (here called Archetypes), blending it with the classicSMTPress Turn system to create strategic battles. It even reuses spell names and other concepts from thePersonaseries, including, perhaps most importantly, its Social Link system.
Personagames (sincePersona 3) have been more than typical turn-based RPGs: they’re half-dungeon crawlers, half dating sims. Using a calendar system, the player is free to decide how to spend their days and nights: studying, hanging out with loved ones (called Social Links or Confidants), or exploring deadly dungeons. Ideally, they want to strike a balance between all three, as leveling up the protagonist’s personality traits allows them to deepen their relationships, and deepening their relationships makes them stronger in combat.Metaphordraws on all of these mechanics, butits approach to romance is entirely different.
Does Metaphor: ReFantazio Have Romance?
Not Quite, But It Has Something Similar
Metaphor: ReFantaziodoesn’t have romance options in the sense that a typicalPersonagame does, but it does have a Social Link-inspired systemcalled Bonds. Bonds work almost exactly like Social Links do inPersona: players can choose to spend time with a particular character, watch a scene, and rank up their relationship by choosing the correct dialogue options. Each Bond is associated with and named after a particular Archetype (Metaphor’s equivalent to Personas), and as a player levels up a bond, they’ll unlock new abilities for that Archetype. There are eight levels to each Bond.
Will Metaphor: ReFantazio Be On Xbox Game Pass?
Metaphor: ReFantazio will soon be coming to all major platforms, including Xbox, but will it also become part of the Xbox Game Pass service?
New Bonds are generally unlocked naturally as the player progresses through the story. Some of them also level up automatically at crucial story moments, but for the most part,players must willingly spend time with their followers in order to advance their relationships. That may make it difficult to max out all Bonds in a single playthrough, but it should still be possible with careful planning.
While the party will occasionally move on from certain areas as the calendar progresses, the protagonist can always return to them (and the Bonds located there) using the fast travel system during their free time.
However,none of the Bonds ever turn romantic, even when leveled up to their maximum. The protagonist will forge close partnerships, even intimate friendships with his followers and other NPCs, but can never actually date them. However, there’s a perfectly good reason for that.
Why Metaphor: ReFantazio Doesn’t Have Romance
Not Friends, But allies
The relationships inMetaphorare of a different nature from those inPersona.Bonds are more like political alliances than personal relationships; the protagonist is recruiting supporters who will back his eventual bid for the throne. To that end, leveling up Bonds is more about impressing NPCs by exhibiting the virtues of a natural leader, and attempting to understand their own viewpoints and ideologies. While this does occasionally provoke personal revelations and other intimate moments, these never progress into full-on romances.
To that end,the protagonist’s Social Stats fromPersonahave been transformed into Royal Virtues. These are characteristics a ruler should ideally exhibit - Courage, Wisdom, Tolerance, Eloquence, and Imagination - and, much like inPersona, can be leveled up by completing certain tasks in-game. He’ll occasionally need to be of a certain level in a certain Virtue to level up a Bond further - for example, he may need high Eloquence to make an impression on a skilled orator.
So whileMetaphor’s approach to Bonds is quite similar toPersona’s approach to Social Links, the relationships they give rise to are completely different.Metaphor: ReFantaziomay not have romance, but the alliances players will form with their supporters are much more thematically appropriate.
Metaphor: ReFantazio
The creative team behind Persona 3, 4, and 5 present Metaphor: ReFantazio, a new fantasy action-adventure RPG game. The game’s development team includes the original director, character designer, and composer of the Persona franchise and is as a full fantasy-setting game with modern elements.
