Metaphor: ReFantazio - Switch 2 Review

Altus released Metaphor: ReFantazio two years ago and it has finally come to the Nintendo family of consoles. The king was murdered and left no heir living to replace him on the throne. A last act of magic was placed into the royal sceptre that appointed the next ruler based on the will of the citizens, with a grand challenge that spans the entire kingdom being available to anyone brave enough to enter. A giant rock in the sky is ever-shifting, with the faces of the highest-rated candidates to ascend to the throne. An eclectic cast of characters will support your claim for the throne, as you try and aim for your own secret mission to succeed in the background.

The Good

In a world of fantasy that’s filled with monsters, different races of humanoids, magic, and the humans are abstract monsters that kill on instinct; our world must seem like a fantasy novel to them. The player character comes from the most hated race of people, called the Edea and has with him a storybook about our world portrayed in a positive light filled with harmony across the world. The contrast between the in-game world, full of racist undertones and the world of the storybook is brought up multiple times throughout your adventure. Each individual bond you make has dealt with a variety of oppression and prejudice in their lives. There are a lot of key concepts in Metaphor: ReFantazio that are difficult topics but important ones to reflect on in the real world.

Atlus has been knocking their visuals out of the park consistently and that is no different here, especially in the UI. Although the archetypes do carry less iconic designs compared to the individualised designs of personas in the partner franchise, they carry another aspect of anyone being able to embrace these powers and take up their mantle, which is reflected in how they’re all designed in a similar manner. What stands out the most, though, are all the human and boss designs, truly some of the most creepy and unsettling enemies that really sell the monstrous nature behind these creatures.

Playing Metaphor: ReFantazio in docked mode is reaching levels just shy of the PS5 version of the game, which is highly impressive. That means not only is the quality at a similar level, but you also have the ability to play the game undocked, which is one of the best ways to play turn-based RPGs in my opinion. Only a slight minor graphical downgrade is the deciding factor between which port of the game you purchase.

TL;DR

• Stellar story
• Visually impressive
• Well-made port

The Bad

The Switch 2, while powerful, does struggle a bit in handheld mode to have a good draw distance. More so noticeable in the graphical mode over performance, where I had carriages be greyed out until I was close enough for the textures to just pop into existence; although in docked, this is a mute issue, even in the graphical setting. If you don’t mind a bit of visual blur on textures, you can always put it in performance mode, but during battles and cutscenes, which is where the main spectacle of the game is, the draw distance doesn’t matter.

There are a lot of ways to minimise the grind, such as killing enemies in the overworld instead of in battle, auto battling if you do get into encounters, and having enemies respawn after a period of time. What makes Metaphor: ReFantazio grindy is there are some really large level jumps at certain stages that'll result in you having to grind levels at a lower section of the dungeon or in a different area to keep up with the difficulty spike. And don’t get me started on grinding each of the different classes and their own individual levels.

TL;DR

• Pop-in can be very noticeable in handheld
• Very grindy

Final Score: 9/10

While Metaphor: ReFantazio has been released for a little over two years now, the Switch 2 port giving players access to play off the TV is a good enough reason for people to come back for a second playthrough or for new players to choose this version over the other options. A fantastic story that holds a mirror up to our own world, asking you to reflect on everything happening, while simultaneously weaving an intriguing tapestry of its own. While handheld does come with some minor issues, any RPG fan or Persona fan should get their hands on and experience this intriguing world.  

Thank you for checking out our Metaphor: ReFantazio Switch review, thank you to Sega (via Five Star Games) for providing the review code and thank you to our Patreon Backers for their ongoing support:

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