Finished
Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Overall I was pretty happy with it, I can understand why it won so many GOTY awards.
I do wish it got a little further away from Persona's schedule mechanics, or iterated on them better, but for the time being at least it was relatively forgiving on schedule stuff and threw some curveballs that kept things interesting. While I can appreciate that Metaphor goes for bold new designs (re: UI, transition screens, enemies), I didn't actually like the styles all that much. I did like the characters, and the various peoples of its world and their interactions are well done, it feels real even if it explicitly presents itself as a fantasy.
Interestingly I think Metaphor iterates on many of P3/P4/P5's themes with (mild thematic spoilers)
Anxiety being a theme throughout all three, and being a major theme in Metaphor as well.
In P3/P4/P5 it is more specific (death/perception/oppression) but in Metaphor it is more directly story relevant
I'll be interested to see what comes next, although I need a break before another meaty game. Even if it's snappier than P5 (...and I haven't even tried Royal yet), it still got to be a bit of a slog and took me two months to complete.
