rotorfire
Member
I completely agree with this.
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Metaphor: ReFantazio Demo is dropping today on Consoles and Steam at 9 AM/11AM PT
- Thread starter adamsapple
- Start date
IlGialloMondadori
Member
So I tried latest nightly build for metaphor special k fix on deck, and it’s wild how big a diff it makes. The initial scene with the fairy was like 10fps. Now it’s locked 30 (I have 30 locked, high textures, 100%, no ambient occlusion). Desert first scene locked 30. Desert second scene dropped to 27 a couple of times, but mostly 30. City is the same deal. Almost always 30, some to 27. Second city has more dips, but ehhh. It’s okay.
The game should really run at 60fps on deck, but at least we’re getting into playable territory again.
The game should really run at 60fps on deck, but at least we’re getting into playable territory again.
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Mister Wolf
Member
Have any of you guys tried using the NVCP FXAA when playing the game to clean up the jaggies?
TheDarkPhantom
Member
Demo cleared, 8 hours clocked, felt like I was playing the full game and was annoyed when it ended. Did everything I could possibly do, listened to every NPC, read every lore entry. I've said many times this was one of my my most anticipated games of 2024 and I've been on media blackout for almost a year. I can't fucking wait to dig into the game but before then I have many thoughts!
I need to get this out of the way upfront, the "creative choice" to have detritus floating all over the screen at all times is one of the worst artistic decisions I've seen in my nearly 40 years of hardcore gaming. Let's all put our love of Atlus/Persona team aside and call a duck a duck; this is an ugly fucking duck. Yes, it's Magla, ever present throughout the world, cool visual of it being sucked up by machines in Grand Trad, we don't need to see it schizophrenically thrown all over the screen at all times, Jesus Christ. At best it's distracting, at worst it *ruins* the atmosphere, tone it down or give me an option to turn it off completely (won't happen).
This ties into a greater problem of "visual noise", the game is simply way too busy. Persona games have style for days but they never felt overwrought the way this often does. I don't need spastic, twitching text boxes, the beautiful character portraits are more than enough, less is often more. This is a beautiful game in many ways but also an ugly one, smeared with drab, low resolution environmental brush strokes against it's bold, striking character art. Performance leaves a lot to be desired too, no reason something that could pass for a PS3 game - and doing very little that could be seen as complex - can't run at a rock solid 60 fps on PS5, Atlus doesn't get a pass here.
All this is frustrating but it doesn't change the simple fact that I'm already in love with Metaphor. The Persona-esque gameplay loop has me hooked all over again, I'm already super attached to these characters (don't care much for the protagonist though...) and fully invested in the central narrative. There is A LOT of Persona DNA here (Akademia = Velvet Room, Archetypes = Personas, Bonds = Social Links etc) right down to many skills having the exact same name. Metaphor does enough to differentiate itself though, and I'm intrigued by it's varied world structure and main premise of gathering a following to become the next king.
The anime cutscenes that frequently pop up are beautiful and the characters all around have great voice acting and personality. The combat is fantastic, again, very Persona-esque with a couple of unique twists to the formula. Loving the synchronized attacks and hoping the full game will unlock something akin to 'All-Out Attack' or 'Showtime' attacks. The world map gives the impression this will be a grand adventure and the overall presentation is one of a tightly woven, epic fantasy, I can't wait to see where the game takes us.
Last thing before concluding this lengthy post is to praise the absolutely godly soundtrack. I thought Rebirth or Astrobot had OST of the year in the bag but this demo alone blows any Persona game out of the water, the music is that fucking good, competition just heated up! Velvet Room theme is classic but honestly, I think Akademia theme beats it, a true thing of beauty. Every single track is a winner though, already anticipating what else I'll hear in the full release!
Two weeks to go, already had my physical copy pre-ordered. Wouldn't have played the demo if progress didn't carry over, God bless Japanese devs for continuing to put out generous demos like this with that feature. After demo ended and cinematic kicked in I muted the TV and started composing this post to avoid spoilers, back on media blackout so to speak lol. Roll on October 11th!
I need to get this out of the way upfront, the "creative choice" to have detritus floating all over the screen at all times is one of the worst artistic decisions I've seen in my nearly 40 years of hardcore gaming. Let's all put our love of Atlus/Persona team aside and call a duck a duck; this is an ugly fucking duck. Yes, it's Magla, ever present throughout the world, cool visual of it being sucked up by machines in Grand Trad, we don't need to see it schizophrenically thrown all over the screen at all times, Jesus Christ. At best it's distracting, at worst it *ruins* the atmosphere, tone it down or give me an option to turn it off completely (won't happen).
This ties into a greater problem of "visual noise", the game is simply way too busy. Persona games have style for days but they never felt overwrought the way this often does. I don't need spastic, twitching text boxes, the beautiful character portraits are more than enough, less is often more. This is a beautiful game in many ways but also an ugly one, smeared with drab, low resolution environmental brush strokes against it's bold, striking character art. Performance leaves a lot to be desired too, no reason something that could pass for a PS3 game - and doing very little that could be seen as complex - can't run at a rock solid 60 fps on PS5, Atlus doesn't get a pass here.
All this is frustrating but it doesn't change the simple fact that I'm already in love with Metaphor. The Persona-esque gameplay loop has me hooked all over again, I'm already super attached to these characters (don't care much for the protagonist though...) and fully invested in the central narrative. There is A LOT of Persona DNA here (Akademia = Velvet Room, Archetypes = Personas, Bonds = Social Links etc) right down to many skills having the exact same name. Metaphor does enough to differentiate itself though, and I'm intrigued by it's varied world structure and main premise of gathering a following to become the next king.
The anime cutscenes that frequently pop up are beautiful and the characters all around have great voice acting and personality. The combat is fantastic, again, very Persona-esque with a couple of unique twists to the formula. Loving the synchronized attacks and hoping the full game will unlock something akin to 'All-Out Attack' or 'Showtime' attacks. The world map gives the impression this will be a grand adventure and the overall presentation is one of a tightly woven, epic fantasy, I can't wait to see where the game takes us.
Last thing before concluding this lengthy post is to praise the absolutely godly soundtrack. I thought Rebirth or Astrobot had OST of the year in the bag but this demo alone blows any Persona game out of the water, the music is that fucking good, competition just heated up! Velvet Room theme is classic but honestly, I think Akademia theme beats it, a true thing of beauty. Every single track is a winner though, already anticipating what else I'll hear in the full release!
Two weeks to go, already had my physical copy pre-ordered. Wouldn't have played the demo if progress didn't carry over, God bless Japanese devs for continuing to put out generous demos like this with that feature. After demo ended and cinematic kicked in I muted the TV and started composing this post to avoid spoilers, back on media blackout so to speak lol. Roll on October 11th!
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Punished Miku
Human Rights Subscription Service
P5 is a PS3 game, and they have mostly been doing asset swaps of that since. The OST isn't live instruments either.
I'm surprisingly into this, and will get it. But not for $70.
Very good write up, thanks. Maybe just would differ a little bit on music. While good, it’s kinda tropey for the moment and not that different from other fantasy RPGs
cireza
Member
Couldn't stand it. Be it the constant shit flying in the air, the overly bloated HUD or the distracting, moving windows. Unbearable.
Giallo Corsa
Member
acidagfc
Member
Absolutely agree on both points.
Floaters are way too noticable and should be made much more transparent.
And yes, the UI is certainly too busy. I honestly find the small font (for items or spell descriptions, for example) to be too small. Sure, my eyesight is bad, but come on, there is enough space on screen to fit larger font.
For me P5 was the perfect mix betweeen style and functionality, this one goes too far into style over usability.
TheDarkPhantom
Member
As always, amazing write up brother...
One of the best posters on GAF
Good to know it's appreciated, thank you, truly
ClanOfNone
Member
I was not expecting to like this, I bounced pretty hard off of P5, but free demo is free so I decided to check it out.
The presentation is a beautiful mess, I understand how people find it way too over the top, it is sloppy but I kinda dig the look and insanity of it.
The presentation is a beautiful mess, I understand how people find it way too over the top, it is sloppy but I kinda dig the look and insanity of it.
Fbh
Member
Gave the demo a quick try even though I'm not interested in buying the game at launch.
I'm probably in the minority but I don't like JRPG's demos that are just the beginning of the game, I'd rather get a quick vertical slice of the gameplay and combat instead of getting 2 hours of cutscenes and dialogue before you are even presented the core mechanics.
From what I played the combat seems quite fun. I agree with people saying it's similar to the SMT press turn but with a cool job system attached to it.
The plot and world also seems interesting, it has been a while since we got a more story heavy Atlus game that isn't Persona (SMTV being more gameplay focused, which is nice too) and the music is nice.
Visually it's a bit messy though, maybe bordering on being over-stylized. Also for something that often looks like it could be a remaster of a Ps3 game it seems quite poorly optimized, this should be running at rock solid 60fps with a nice clean image on Ps5 and instead the performance drops in a few spots and there's an insane amount of shimmering all over the place.
I'm probably in the minority but I don't like JRPG's demos that are just the beginning of the game, I'd rather get a quick vertical slice of the gameplay and combat instead of getting 2 hours of cutscenes and dialogue before you are even presented the core mechanics.
From what I played the combat seems quite fun. I agree with people saying it's similar to the SMT press turn but with a cool job system attached to it.
The plot and world also seems interesting, it has been a while since we got a more story heavy Atlus game that isn't Persona (SMTV being more gameplay focused, which is nice too) and the music is nice.
Visually it's a bit messy though, maybe bordering on being over-stylized. Also for something that often looks like it could be a remaster of a Ps3 game it seems quite poorly optimized, this should be running at rock solid 60fps with a nice clean image on Ps5 and instead the performance drops in a few spots and there's an insane amount of shimmering all over the place.
Thick Thighs Save Lives
NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
Atlus character design remains top in the biz.
Thick Thighs Save Lives
NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
Looks like Atlus is investigating the perf issues with the Steam version.
Skifi28
Member
Daaamn. I really need to fire up that demo in the weekend.Atlus character design remains top in the biz.
begotten
Member
Can't tell if you're trolling or not. Did they just run these through AI?
"Hey DALLE-E, can you give Hifumi from Persona 5 red hair and elf ears"
Also,
"Can you make a black version of her with white hair and random shit all over her face, thanks"
Thick Thighs Save Lives
NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
Skifi28
Member
TintoConCasera
I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
So it's medieval fantasy, but instead of orcs and dwarves you get cat girls and bunny girls?Atlus character design remains top in the biz.
pleaseinsertdisctwo
Member
This is so much more my jam compared to Persona.
TintoConCasera
I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
They are super cool. That's it, buy them all.
But seriously. Imo the best thing about Shin Megami Tensei, it's spin-offs (which includes Persona) and now Metaphor, is the combat system. Many turn-based JRPGs are either too simple or brain-dead easy, while SMT games usually not just offer a very fun and rewarding combat system but also a good challenge. That, plus other mechanics like demon fusion (replaced in Metaphor with a job system) make those games super fun and engaging to me.
They also usually have very good music and very good art designs and presentation, plus their stories are usually about phylosophy, religion and that kind of stuff if not other kinds of darker and more adult stuff. You won't hear about the power of friendship or defeating the great evil too often, but rather having to choose between "morally grey" options, power, freedom, betrayal, racism, reincarnation, that kind of stuff.
Thanks.
Jesus! That's what I want, it's strange that game makers actually knew what we wanted from the beginning and all this didn't just happen randomly.
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fallingdove
Member
I really wanted to love this. The character designs are fantastic, the lore is unique, the dialogue isn’t the sort of cringe I expect from modern jrpgs…
However, the loading screens are WAY too frequent, the amount of on screen text and general messiness of the hud is insanely distracting. The action combat lacks engagement (these enemies are some of the least interesting I have ever encountered), and the world/level design is not worth exploring.
If this had launched pre-FF7 Rebirth, FFXVI, Xenoblade, Gravity Rush, Tales of Arise, Granblue Fantasy Relink, or hell, even Genshin Impact I could have cut them some slack. The action JRPG bar is high and sadly, the Persona team seem to be in over their heads.
(This is coming from someone who has finished Persona 2 through 5, platinumed 4 and on my way to a platinum in P3R so I am not unfamiliar with the developer — this just feels like a late PS3/early PS4 level production)
However, the loading screens are WAY too frequent, the amount of on screen text and general messiness of the hud is insanely distracting. The action combat lacks engagement (these enemies are some of the least interesting I have ever encountered), and the world/level design is not worth exploring.
If this had launched pre-FF7 Rebirth, FFXVI, Xenoblade, Gravity Rush, Tales of Arise, Granblue Fantasy Relink, or hell, even Genshin Impact I could have cut them some slack. The action JRPG bar is high and sadly, the Persona team seem to be in over their heads.
(This is coming from someone who has finished Persona 2 through 5, platinumed 4 and on my way to a platinum in P3R so I am not unfamiliar with the developer — this just feels like a late PS3/early PS4 level production)
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SF Kosmo
Al Jazeera Special Reporter
Super, super different, Atlus J-RPG are very much their own flavor.
Most of them are based around the SMT meta, which mostly have either contemporary urban or post-apocalyptic settings, and have a dark tone or horror themes. Moral grayness is usually a big theme, as well and they usually explore a lot of religious and mythological themes.
It's a little harder to generalize about the gameplay as they're sort of all over the map, from first person dungeon crawlers, to hybrid social sims, to more open zone stuff. But they overwhelmingly have simple-but-rewarding turn based combat and system that reward players for smart party/character building.
Metaphor is sort of an outlier in that it's actually not set in the SMT meta and the setting is closer to sword and sorcery high fantasy. But despite that it shares a lot of tone, theme, and style of other Atlus games.
Arsic
Loves his juicy stink trail scent
Oddly enough people in here are complaining about the story but the longer I played the more I want to know. Like the monsters being called humans, the guy in Akademia being imprisoned and not having his memories thanks to the king, the kings insane spell at the end of the demo to create the main plot, etc. Folks here calling characters one dimensional yet knowing prior Atlus works means they get layers to themselves as the games advance.
Loving the story, world building, and mystery.
The combat I’m enjoying because it’s snappy and fun.
Soundtrack is stellar.
I love how the game looks, and the art style just layers the atmosphere.
Little Mac
Member
In the Grand Trad, after the fight with
, how many of these timed virtue side quests can I do before I screw up the main objective?
Zombie Grius
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Have you watched Berserk? If not, just watch the show, it's short, it's the shortest answer I could give.
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After it tells you that you have earned points, you use the d-pad to allocate the point.
I missed it the first time as well as the text size for that part of the menu is way too small.
Stafford
Member
Oh wow, ok. So this can only be done when it says that after battle?
Also, do you guys use the power attacks often? The attack that consumes MP? So far I don't seem to find many magla pills or potions so it seems I should find a balance between normal attacks and the power ones. But man, the regular attacks do shit damage, lol.
RobRSG
Member
If I had to guess I’d say they are not using UE4 as in their newest games, probably trying too much with P5 engine, which had very simple geometry.
The game is looking rough and increasing the resolution doesn’t help a lot.
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Shake Your Rump
Banned
The Reynatis demo saved me from wasting money on that game. Let’s see if this demo does the same.
fallingdove
Member
I've read your comment, you're criticizing gameplay and graphics agisim, I thought you were looking for plot details, I don't see your critics align with that type of world especially Metaphor.
Stafford
Member
Yep, I got it working for the protagonist. But what about my followers? Or can I not up their stats?
Vyse
Gold Member
I’ll chime in here. Playing Visions of Mana and the English VO is hit or miss for me. Some of the characters have a really bad southern accent that is really over the top snd IMO don’t match the individual.
In the demo, all of the characters seem to match the individuals and I love how it blends back and forth with the anime cut scenes.
Really like what I have played so far.
struggler_guts
Member
Damn I was hating on this until I tried the demo, its everything I wanted P5 to be!
Better music (hate jazz)
Non highschool setting
Fantasy world
More mature themes
Updated gameplay
Red as a main color
My only gripe was no romance but now it'll feel less awkward getting everyone to max social link
One huge hilarious moment though near the end was when Grius
Like right after meeting Maria too 
Better music (hate jazz)
Non highschool setting
Fantasy world
More mature themes
Updated gameplay
Red as a main color
My only gripe was no romance but now it'll feel less awkward getting everyone to max social link
One huge hilarious moment though near the end was when Grius
tells you his 'plan' that is straight suicide but you and everyone are like oKaY wE'Ll Be RiGhT bAcK
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Danjin44
The nicest person on this forum
That mostly represents “our world” more than being part of Persona world.Persona multiverse
Draugoth
Gold Member
Nice Accord profile picture
Danjin44
The nicest person on this forum
She is secret best girl.
StereoVsn
Gold Member
Yep, absolutely agree on both choices and it’s a bit puzzling that Atlus went this far into style direction without taking into account any sort of QoL issues.
Then again, that demo on Steam managed to f up DirectX implementation so it’s a mature hour throughout.
I am sure I will get this game at some point, but only after some technical fixes on PC since I doubt interface or the debris will get toned down. Much like with SE’s games, I refuse to buy them when the company refuses to correct common sense problems.
Danjin44
The nicest person on this forum
Playing the demo I completely understand why they didn’t include romance, the tone just doesn’t fit for it.
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Dirk Benedict
Member
Been playing this every night and grinding big time, Hard and on PC.
Very good experience with it. I’ve been going through it at a snails pace. A section a night I guess?
17 hours in.
Very good experience with it. I’ve been going through it at a snails pace. A section a night I guess?
17 hours in.
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