ReFantazio Shows Persona Formula Can Still Work Without School

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home November 17, 2024 8 Views 6 Min Read
ReFantazio Shows Persona Formula Can Still Work Without School

It’s hard to deny the similarities between the Persona series and Metaphor: ReFantazio given they are both cut from the same Atlus cloth, with Director Katsura Hashino leading the development of the modern Persona games and this latest title. However, it’s clear where Persona and Metaphor: ReFantazio diverge to become their own separate games with unique identities. Part of what helps set Metaphor apart from Persona is its setting, taking place in a fantasy world rather than modern-day Japan.




Although fans of Persona‘s modern setting might miss it in Metaphor, the game shows it’s surprisingly adept at restructuring classic features like Persona‘s calendar system to work within this new world. One longtime Persona feature that gets discarded in Metaphor: ReFantazio is the school life side of the series, which has become an expected part of any Persona game. Even without these segments, Metaphor: ReFantazio succeeds at translating the other elements it pulls from Persona to its unique world, showing that Persona‘s school life isn’t a necessary part of the franchise’s winning formula.

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Metaphor: ReFantazio’s Broad List of Support Skills Puts the Ball in Persona 6’s Court

Now that Metaphor: ReFantazio has introduced a new array of tactical skill effects, future Persona entries shouldn’t ignore this mechanic’s growth.


Persona’s School Life Segments Are Iconic But Repetitive

A core part of the modern Persona series is the balance players must maintain between their character’s school life and the dungeon-crawling after-school activities they take part in. These two sides to the series, along with the limited time afforded by the calendar system, help give it the identity many fans have come to love. Being one part social simulator and one part dungeon-crawling JRPG helps distinguish Persona from other series in the genre, and it would seem like the series would suffer from having one-half of this formula removed.

However, the way in which the Persona series presents its social simulation aspect can get repetitive, as the life of a student means daily classes with only one day off a week, which limits the activities of players for a huge part of the game. Persona games tend to lock players into the typical routine of participating in a daily class, whether that be answering a question correctly to earn points towards Social Stats or just listening to a lecture. It’s not until after the school day ends that players get the choice of an activity to participate in during their free time.


Despite having to attend school for most of the day,
Persona
still offers players two free time slots afterward: one “after school” and one “evening” time slot.

Metaphor: ReFantazio Supplements School Life With More Variety

Although Metaphor maintains the daily free time structure of Persona, granting players two free time slots a day, it does a better job of breaking up these activities with the school life side of things removed. The main problem with Persona using school as the framing tool for its calendar progression is that attending school can be tedious for players, and no amount of interesting trivia delivered via class lectures can help with that tedium. In Metaphor, rather than having to sit through mandatory classes to reach free time, players are given that time from the start of each day, albeit with the occasional twist.


Metaphor: ReFantazio allows players to embark on excursions to dungeons outside the hub city they are currently in using the Gauntlet Runner, and while activities on the Gauntlet Runner are limited, they still allow players to raise their Social Stat-like Royal Virtues in the interim between destinations. These Gauntlet Runner segments act similar to school life in Persona games, wherein players’ activity is limited during the days they are traveling. However, the fact that players can choose when to travel, and the lack of lecture dialogue during these periods of travel, make Metaphor‘s answer to Persona‘s school life feel much less restrictive and repetitive.

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