Persona 6 Should Keep Tabs on Metaphor: ReFantazio’s Followers

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home November 6, 2024 11 Views 8 Min Read
Persona 6 Should Keep Tabs on Metaphor: ReFantazio's Followers



Key Takeaways

  • Persona 6 may benefit from Metaphor: ReFantazio’s Follower system’s accessibility and streamlined experience.
  • Metaphor: ReFantazio’s Follower system introduces quality-of-life features like Followers’ Echoes to enhance player interactions.
  • More’s quests in Metaphor: ReFantazio reduce grinding and integrate seamlessly into the game, offering a more rewarding experience.



Persona 6 hasn’t been outright confirmed, but there is little reason to suspect it isn’t in development and nearing release. After all, Atlus likely knows it would be leaving money on the table after the massive success of Persona 5. As such, assuming it is currently in development, Persona 6 could stand to take some notes from Atlus’ most recent title, Metaphor: ReFantazio, and the quality-of-life improvements its Follower system made to Persona‘s Social Links and Confidants.

Persona‘s Social Link and Confidant system has been fine until now, as Metaphor: ReFantazio introduced some quality-of-life improvements in its Follower system that Persona 6 shouldn’t think twice about implementing. These improvements specifically make Metaphor‘s Follower system a more streamlined and accessible experience — a characteristic Persona 6 may need to attract newcomers.


Closeup of Metaphor ReFantazio's protagonist's eyes

Related
How Metaphor: ReFantazio Incorporates Themes of Anxiety Into Its Gameplay

One of Metaphor: ReFantazio’s overarching themes is anxiety, and the game incorporates that theme into its gameplay through a variety of features.

One of Metaphor: ReFantazio‘s most significant quality-of-life features that Persona 6 should take note of is the Followers’ Echoes ability, which players acquire from Gallica not long into the game’s main story. With the Followers’ Echoes ability, players can hear the voices of their Followers when they wish to speak with the protagonist, thereby triggering Metaphor‘s version of a Persona Social Link or Confidant event. Once players are notified that a Follower wishes to speak with them, they can simply access the Follower menu, select the Follower in question, and instantly travel to their location to speak with them and trigger the event.

To make the experience even more streamlined, players don’t necessarily need to hear from their Followers first before they can travel to them, as
Metaphor
makes it possible to travel to any Follower at any time via the Follower menu.


Moreover, in the Persona series, players have been required to first speak with their Social Links and Confidants to discover which Social Stats need improvement before players can increase their bond with that Social Link or Confidant. Metaphor: ReFantazio, on the other hand, allows players to see which Royal Virtue (Metaphor‘s equivalent of Persona‘s Social Stats) is required to increase their bond with a Follower without speaking with them first. If players attempt to visit a Follower via the Follower menu before they’ve heard that Follower’s Echo, Metaphor: ReFantazio will simply inform them that the Follower might not have much to say given the current state of the Royal Virtue required to advance their relationship with said Follower. Persona 6 should consider implementing a similar feature to cut down on players’ travel time in the game.


In Persona‘s Velvet Room, things can get a bit grindy when it comes to Attendant Requests. While Velvet Room Requests generally begin as simple fetch quests, they eventually become more complex and require players to create certain Personas by fusing others. Unfortunately, without a guide, attempting to create one of these requested Personas is where the grind truly begins, as it typically requires a lot of experimentation. This, as well as the often mundane tasks of acquiring specific items for Velvet Room Attendants, can make for a lackluster and time-consuming experience compared to how Metaphor: ReFantazio handles its version of Persona‘s Velvet Room Requests.


In Akademeia, Metaphor: ReFantazio‘s equivalent of the Velvet Room, players will find More, an enigmatic young man with a profound expertise in Archetypes. Not only can players study new Archetypes with More, but they can also complete quests for him that are both materialistically and narratively rewarding. Where More’s quests ultimately improve Persona‘s Velvet Room Requests is that they are usually integrated into regular gameplay, so players don’t have to focus on completing specific objectives but simply playing the game and enjoying all that it has to offer. This is especially preferable to the experimentation often required by the Personas that some Velvet Room Requests call for.

In addition to being integrated into regular gameplay, More’s quests also help to flesh out his character as they are completed.

There are many quality-of-life improvements Metaphor: ReFantazio makes to Persona‘s formula, but those changes its Follower system makes to Persona‘s Social Link and Confidant system should be study notes for Persona 6. It would be nice to see Persona 6 be the most accessible Persona game to date, and Metaphor: ReFantazio‘s Follower system holds at least a portion of the solution for that.


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