Metaphor: ReFantazio continues Persona’s nice handheld heritage

Atlus’ Persona franchise is basically a console collection, however it has a robust handheld heritage. There have been glorious moveable variations of Persona 3 and Persona 4, and Persona 5 Royal on Nintendo Swap was nice, too. Metaphor: ReFantazio is a brand new fantasy JRPG from the crew behind these beloved Personas. And whereas the sport takes place in a special universe, most of the core components are current in Metaphor — which signifies that it’s simply as nice of a handheld expertise.

I may be understating it to say Metaphor is Persona-like. The sport’s UI is exceptionally flashy. You’ll spend a whole lot of time speaking together with your allies and bettering your bonds with them. Days tick by as you navigate sprawling dungeons and spend time together with your companions earlier than a looming deadline. The primary characters even undergo epic transformations the place they brutally rip an organ out of their physique as a mysterious voice talks in “thous” and “haths.” As soon as, whereas taking notes concerning the sport, I known as it Persona as an alternative of Metaphor. It’s that related.

However which means a lot of what makes Persona video games nice moveable titles works for Metaphor, too. Battles are typically fast, which means if in case you have a couple of minutes, you’ll be able to blast via a number of to clear a dungeon ground. Doing actions in a single in-game day is sufficient to really feel like progress. Some elements of the sport characteristic lengthy bouts of textual content, however once I’m enjoying simply earlier than I fall asleep, seeing what occurs subsequent can really feel like an thrilling chapter in an incredible e book. 

I’m enjoying Metaphor on the Steam Deck. The sport is listed on Steam as Playable as an alternative of Verified, and whereas it’s certainly playable, efficiency is inconsistent, particularly on the town areas I’ve visited. (The cities are fairly busy locations, with a lot of characters and issues occurring.) I truly capped the sport at 30fps in settings, though it will possibly run increased, simply because I didn’t wish to cope with various body charges.

However fortuitously, Metaphor isn’t a sport that calls for good efficiency. In dungeons, you’ll be able to assault enemies in actual time to attempt to get the bounce on them, however I discovered that body fee dips didn’t hinder my skill to tug off a profitable barrage. All battles are turn-based, anyway, and a few body drops didn’t make a lot of a distinction to me there. 

I’m greater than fantastic coping with some points; having the ability to take Metaphor wherever I would like is superb. I play the sport just about each night time earlier than I go to sleep, I play it on the sofa on the weekends whereas my new child naps, and I even took my Steam Deck on two latest enterprise journeys simply so I may sneak in some periods once I had spare time.

There’s yet another approach Metaphor is just like the Persona collection: it’s completely huge. However a sport that’s dozens of hours lengthy is much more manageable when you’ll be able to play at any time when and wherever you need.