So the Persona team got tired of milking four different games out of Persona 5 and have finally decided to make a new game. That game is Metaphor: ReFantazio and it's Persona but set in a fantasy land. Otherwise it's the same damn thing. You're main character has the special agility to gather monster's powers, you have a mascot character that's fucking annoying, and you have to manage yourself in segments of time to complete goals, bond with allies, and power up social stats.
Effectively this is Persona 5 set in a D&D world. However I think by setting the game in a fiction fantasy land the charm and interesting bits of Persona get lost. Part of what I think makes Persona so good is the compelling reality of it. You are typically a young person facing larger than life problems within a real world. And the sort of real implications are easy to understand and help make the super natural shit make sense. However in a fictional fantasy land, It stops mattering because it's all magic and monsters, so the plight is normal for everyone in the world not just your team. Which sort of dilutes the concept, especially when you have to still do the "slice of life" activities. Again in Persona the slice of life works because you have to try to maintain a normal school/life/heroics balance because nobody in the world is aware of the dangers happening. In fantasy land everyone is very much aware of monsters and peril everywhere, so the slice of life stuff doesn't fit as well because you aren't trying to maintain a sort of "normal life".
The game plays great, the graphics are good, the game really loses me conceptually though because it's just generic fantasy game number #1311, and so far as the Demo is concerned (which is about 5 hours of the game), there isn't enough happening that pulls my interest.
Battles work just like Persona, with a bit of a thematic mix-up, so if you've played Persona 5 you know how this basically works. The enemies have more of a break system though, so instead of getting an extra turn by hitting their weakness, you instead may have to hit them with their weakness a couple of times to "break" them, which then grants you an entire round where that enemy can't do anything. This can help you lay out the damage on them if they are the only enemy present, or disable a threat for a turn so you can clear the less enemies in battle. I don't think this really changes anything tactically compared to the Persona games to be honest, it's just another spin on the same idea. It's still a good system though so I don't have an issue with it.
Effectively this is Persona 5 set in a D&D world. However I think by setting the game in a fiction fantasy land the charm and interesting bits of Persona get lost. Part of what I think makes Persona so good is the compelling reality of it. You are typically a young person facing larger than life problems within a real world. And the sort of real implications are easy to understand and help make the super natural shit make sense. However in a fictional fantasy land, It stops mattering because it's all magic and monsters, so the plight is normal for everyone in the world not just your team. Which sort of dilutes the concept, especially when you have to still do the "slice of life" activities. Again in Persona the slice of life works because you have to try to maintain a normal school/life/heroics balance because nobody in the world is aware of the dangers happening. In fantasy land everyone is very much aware of monsters and peril everywhere, so the slice of life stuff doesn't fit as well because you aren't trying to maintain a sort of "normal life".
The game plays great, the graphics are good, the game really loses me conceptually though because it's just generic fantasy game number #1311, and so far as the Demo is concerned (which is about 5 hours of the game), there isn't enough happening that pulls my interest.
Battles work just like Persona, with a bit of a thematic mix-up, so if you've played Persona 5 you know how this basically works. The enemies have more of a break system though, so instead of getting an extra turn by hitting their weakness, you instead may have to hit them with their weakness a couple of times to "break" them, which then grants you an entire round where that enemy can't do anything. This can help you lay out the damage on them if they are the only enemy present, or disable a threat for a turn so you can clear the less enemies in battle. I don't think this really changes anything tactically compared to the Persona games to be honest, it's just another spin on the same idea. It's still a good system though so I don't have an issue with it.