It's hard to believe that it's been almost a decade since Persona 5 came out. To this day, Atlus' super-stylish RPG remains one of the most distinctive games on the market. Since then, we've seen spin-offs, remakes, and more cameo appearances than you can shake a Mara at, but there have been no new entries in the popular franchise. At first blush, Metaphor: ReFantazio might not seem like it is relevant, but it features much of the same production staff as Persona 5, so the more you look at it, the more familiar it appears. Is it Persona 6? Not quite. But it's as close as you can get without the tale being about a teenager in Tokyo.

Metaphor: ReFantazio is set in a fantasy world. In this world, people are divided into tribes, which are groups defined by traits like pointed ears, wings, or living to an uncommonly old age. Racial strife and discrimination are rampant, and the only thing holding the land together is its king and his powerful royal magic. Unfortunately for everyone, the king was assassinated, and as far as the world knows, so was his only heir. Upon his death, he evoked the royal magic to begin a contest: At the end of the trial period, whoever has the most support from the people of the land will be crowned the new king.

Players are thrust into this mess in the role of a young Elda boy, who is sent as a messenger alongside his fairy companion. The two are actually some of the thought-to-be-late-prince's loyal servants. The prince is trapped in a seemingly unescapable coma, and it can only be broken by finding the source of the dark magic. To do this and to preserve the possibility of a throne for the prince to return to, our hero enters the royal contest and must prove to the people that he has what it takes to be their leader.

I really enjoyed Metaphor's plot. It isn't anything groundbreaking, but it's a genuinely fun RPG adventure. It veers toward the generic compared to the modern-day settings of the Shin Megami Tensei series, but it works well. Near the end of the story, the heavily political drama takes a back seat to make room for the sheer power of shonen heroic friendship speeches, and that is certainly expected for the genre.

The cast is almost universally likable. They're mostly mature adults, which means that they are free to have their own plots and personalities that feel less exaggerated. Heismey is an older man dealing with the loss of his son, and his story feels genuine when it goes over how a parent moves on without their child. By the time the story was over, I really liked each character, and they're probably my favorite cast in a Persona-style game.

If I had one real problem with the story, it is that it feels like it lacks its own personality. The game is filled to the brim with callbacks to other Atlus series, including Shin Megami Tensei, Persona and, in one incredibly blatant example, Etrian Odyssey. At times, it can feel like a greatest hits, so things feel more familiar than fresh. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it feels like the developers missed the chance to create something that stood on its own instead of feeling like a spin-off.

One area where I think Metaphor is a huge improvement over Persona 5 is in pacing. Metaphor takes place over a shorter period of time than Persona 5, and a significantly shorter period of that time is wasted. You don't ever have to take off a week for a sports festival or anything of the sort. The plot keeps moving forward at a rapid clip, and there's significantly less filler. This means the game is shorter than Persona 5 but not necessarily short. It took me about 50 hours to finish it, and the bulk of the difference is that I didn't have a lot of wasted time.

In terms of actual gameplay structure, Metaphor is almost identical to the Persona titles. Your everyday events are governed by calendar days, with each calendar day allowing you to do one thing during the day and one thing at night. During that time, you'll spend your time exploring dungeons, befriending characters, or leveling up your Royal Virtues, which fill the same role as social stats from the Persona titles. If you've played any of the last three mainline Persona games, you will be ready for the day-to-day gameplay in Metaphor.

There are some twists. Since Metaphor is set across a kingdom instead of a single land, you'll need to travel from location to location, and you'll need to take that into account. While traveling, you can spend your days doing certain things, like raising social stats or having discussions with allies and friends, but a good chunk of the content will be unavailable. While this might sound punishing, it isn't too bad since you'll unlock the ability to instantly teleport to any of the main cities, so the travel time is only one way.

Likewise, there are more activities that let you do multiple things at once. Completing side-quests rewards you with social stats often, and taking on bounties will take you to dungeons to explore in addition to giving you courage when completed. The amount of social stats you get goes up rapidly as the game progresses, so you don't have a special need to grind out the next level of Royal Virtues.

The Followers system, which is the game's version of Social Links, has also seen some significant changes. The most notable is that every visit to a Follower now earns you a level. Dialogue options exist, but they mostly reward you with a small amount of bonus MAG if you say something the character likes. There are also fewer levels (eight instead of 10), and every level has some sort of bonus that ranges from more powerful classes to free MP re-gen after every fight.

Overall, I like the changes to the Social Link dynamic. Being able to make your own choices is a lot more fun than feeling obligated to say what the characters want to hear to get the maximum number of points. The game can also play around with the structure more, such as by limiting Follower advancement until you progress in the plot. Ultimately, it's very much the same formula the franchise has been following for a while.

The developers perhaps went a tad overboard on the free time in the game. Metaphor's calendar is shorter than the standard Persona one, but there's no wasted time for school festivals. There's so much free stuff and so much free time that I was able to easily max out all my Followers and clear every dungeon even though I had roughly 20 days of in-game time remaining. It makes the time limits feel vestigial, but there's still a good reason to optimize anyway.

In another deviation from Persona, Metaphor doesn't have a Mementos-style grinding area. Instead, each dungeon is handmade, usually with their own gimmicks. The big dungeons are usually the most complex and feature everything from hiding from a dangerous shadowy monster to avoiding Etrian Odyssey-style FoEs. The smaller dungeons tend to follow a more basic template but have something fun, like a dungeon full to the brim with mimics or a dungeon where you hunt down monsters to lure a bigger and more dangerous baddie out of hiding. The dungeons are short and sweet, but there were a few times I wished they were more substantial.

The combat system in Metaphor is also familiar but not necessarily in the way you might expect. It's divided into two types of combat: an action combat system and a turn-based system. If you played the recently released Trails Through Daybreak, it's a very similar concept. When wandering around dungeons and dangerous areas, you can attack enemies by slashing at them, and they can do the same back to you, so you need to dodge their attacks. Some enemies have simple attack patterns, while others might fill the surrounding area with fire or try to ambush you. You're given a clear indicator of when to dodge, but if you rush in, you can get hit very easily.

The outcome of the fights depends on how powerful you are compared to the enemy. If you're much stronger than the foe, you attack them enough, and they die, you get instant rewards. In this situation, enemies who hit you will damage you somewhat, but that's about it. If the enemy is as strong or stronger than you, however, you can't damage them. You'll stun them, allowing you to start the turn-based battle with a one-turn advantage. If they hit you, they'll be the ones who get that advantage instead. Your ability to attack enemies depends on your protagonist's weapon. Swords are reliable at close range, crossbows can hit from a distance, mage staves can hit in an area around you, heavy weapons are slow but stun faster, and so on.

This system is reasonably fun, but it runs into the same problem Daybreak had of being too basic. It turns every encounter into a game of hitting an enemy enough to stun them, and then hopping into the fight and dropping as many nukes as possible during your first turns. It's a slight improvement over Daybreak's similar system in that enemies have more complex patterns and interactions, and you can instant-kill weaker foes, but it still feels like it's lacking something.

Squad Battles use the Press Turn System found in the recent Shin Megami Tensei games. Both you and the enemies have one token for every character in the fight, and taking an action uses one token. If you strike an enemy's weak point or get a critical, you only use half a token, so you can use that same token to take another action (but not to gain another bonus token). If an attack is blocked, dodged, nullified or repelled, you can lose Press Turns, so proper team building can be the difference between victory and defeat.

Unlike in Shin Megami Tensei, you don't collect demons or Personas. You have archetypes, who are heroic spirits who you can call to your side to empower your characters. I know this sounds a lot like Personas, but they're notably different. Archetypes are both more limited and more varied than Persona. There are far fewer in the game, but each one is a lot more meaningful. Every party member can equip them — not just the main character — but of course, some character's innate stats or special attributes reward certain types more than others.

As the game progresses, the archetypes get more complex and varied, including a Merchant class that spends money to attack or a Masked Dancer class that can equip masks of another class to gain their abilities. You'll also be able to transfer up to four abilities from one class to another, so you can customize and optimize your classes. Some classes even require you to master multiple classes, such as the powerful Dragoon job class asking you to dip into Gunner, Knight and Mage job trees before you can even unlock it.

I really like the Archetype system. It feels like a nice way to trim down Persona-style quantity for quality. Each class stood out as distinct, and it made me glad for each one I got, compared to Persona where half of the Personas filled out the compendium and did little else. There is less of a thrill in the possibility of creating something brand new, but I'm well in favor of the quality over quantity approach.

Metaphor adds some interesting twists to the combat design. Enemies have different personality traits that impact how you may fight them. In one particular nasty bit of detail, goblin-style enemies are intelligent enough to recognize anyone with a staff or mace is probably a mage or healer and will become enraged, attacking the poor squishy as a top priority. There are relatively fewer enemy types than in Persona, but they tend to be distinct. The stars of the show are the humans, who serve as strong antagonists and the bosses. However, humans aren't generic boilerplates but are rather living, breathing horrors who are ripped from the canvas of Hieronymus Bosche paintings. Not only do they represent fun boss fights, but they are also terrifying to see in motion.

Metaphor nailed the fun and engaging combat. My only complaint also applies to many of the recent Persona titles, which is that it is a little too easy — especially if you're keeping up with the various bounties and side-quests. It's one I would recommend starting on Hard mode if you're a longtime fan of Atlus' games. There is a Regicide difficulty level that is unlocked once you beat the game, and a part of me wishes it were available from the start. The gameplay is still plenty of fun, but don't expect to be punished too much for mistakes.

Metaphor follows very closely in the visual style of Persona 5 and Persona 3 Reload. The character models and animations are nice (if occasionally a touch basic), and they're bolstered by some incredible art design that is often jaw-dropping to see. The entire game is intentionally styled to look like a painting, and that generally works strongly in its favor. The music, which eschews the peppy and poppy Persona style in place of ominous Buddhist chants and orchestral songs, does a fantastic job of setting the mood. The voice acting is similarly solid and makes the characters instantly likable and enjoyable.

Metaphor: ReFantazio is fantasy Persona. Familiar mechanics, familiar concepts and familiar design all come together to make something that doesn't escape from the shadow of its predecessor. Almost all of those things are executed extremely well and add creative twists and new ideas to the formula. Even the simple setting change does a lot to keep it feeling fresher. It's a genuinely fun experience, even if it isn't the most distinct one. It isn't Persona 6, but it's a darn good replacement. Every RPG fan should play Metaphor: ReFantazio.

Score: 9.0/10