I adore Metaphor: ReFantazio. Studio Zero's debut fantasy JRPG took me 87 glorious hours to complete, and even after it absorbed around two weeks of my life with non-stop playing, I immediately wanted to start New Game+ and experience the whole thing again.
And that I did, but there was one, tiny thought in the back of my mind when I dove back into Euchronia. 'Will I regret playing this whole thing again if I eventually have to come back a third time, too?' It feels like that could well happen if Atlus decides to follow the same path trodden with Persona 3 through 5, with an expanded re-release akin to Persona 5 Royal, and I just hope it doesn't.
Don't get me wrong, I'm very glad that the likes of Persona 5 Royal and Persona 4 Golden exist, and I'm sure any Persona fan would tell you the same thing. However, it's a lot easier for me to say that as a newer fan of the franchise. I started with Persona 5 Royal, so I never experienced 'vanilla' 5 prior to its expansion and improvements, which also means that I had the benefit of not having to play through a 100-hour JRPG twice to see all of it.
Take your time
The way that Royal's new content is integrated means that even those who completed the original can't just skip to the new stuff, because so many improvements and additions – including new Confidant characters – are integrated throughout the whole thing. Not only that, but the third semester of completely fresh story kicks off right after the base game's plot would have ended, so even if you skipped all the text to get to that point as fast as possible, it's not going to be a quick process. At the very least, Royal was released three years after the original, so it's not like fans were asked to dive back in immediately. But the point remains that 100 hours is a long time, and even if you love these games, it's a big ask for players to do it twice, especially when so much stuff will be as they remember it.
It's also hard to deny how outdated this approach feels now, especially when DLC expansions feel increasingly common elsewhere. Just look at the Pokemon series – Game Freak has been releasing 'the better version' of each mainline generation of its RPGs since the '90s, with the likes of Yellow, Crystal, Emerald, and Platinum sometimes arriving just a year after their earlier counterparts. But since the Nintendo Switch games Sword and Shield, it appears that that formula is a thing of the past for the developer, with the last two generations getting extra story and Pokemon added with DLC, instead. Not only is this kinder on players' free time, but on their wallets, too.
Based on Atlus' output this year, it's hard to tell if the developer is moving in this same direction. On one hand, we saw the release of Shin Megami Tensei 5: Vengeance – yet another expanded re-release, but one that offers a completely separate story route to choose at the start of the JRPG, along with a launch on platforms outside of the Switch. Then, on the other hand, we've got Persona 3 Reload, a remake of the original Persona 3, which has now been given a DLC expansion to include the extra epilogue content added in its own old re-release, Persona 3 FES.
Metaphor: Re-ReFantazio?
It's a funny position to be in, because right now, I'd love nothing more than to get my hands on even more Metaphor: ReFantazio content, and I can already see places where it could be expanded if the devs chose to do so. Those gorgeous landmarks you travel past on your journey that don't have their own dungeons? Hell, why not add them? For that matter, without getting into spoilers, there's a particularly important location in the second half of the game which isn't attached to a dungeon at all – that definitely wouldn't be worsened by having a bit more meat on it. There's also a handful of NPCs who would have made great Followers with their own Bond conversations, such as Fabienne and Batlin. It's not that the game feels lacking not to have these things, but they'd be easy expansion wins.
I can't deny that I'd play that version if it ever did happen, either, but how much Metaphor: ReFantazio is too much? Would I quickly get burned out playing a re-release if I've already played the original more than once? Would I ruin that experience for myself by spending so much time with the JRPG as it is now? It's clearly a concern shared by some Atlus fans, as I've seen plenty of people say that they're waiting for what they feel is an inevitable re-released version before they even play at all, which is a real shame since the likelihood of getting spoiled is going to keep increasing as time goes on.
"I'd much rather Atlus went with a DLC story expansion for Metaphor: ReFantazio, if anything"
It's for these reasons that I'd much rather Atlus went with a DLC story expansion for Metaphor: ReFantazio, if anything – be it a prologue to delve further into the backstory of certain characters, an epilogue to see what happens beyond the credits, or even a completely separate story scenario that runs in parallel to some of the main plot. Not only would it be a far more inviting and approachable way to offer extra content, but it would ultimately help the developer leave the old trend in the past altogether so that you don't get fans hesitant to buy the studio's JRPGs at launch in case they quickly become outdated. With that said, though, I do not-so-secretly hope that Metaphor gets the same treatment as its Persona predecessors when it comes to spin-offs. I'd be there day one for a Metaphor dancing game, just saying.
Be sure to check out our Metaphor: ReFantazio review to find out why it's one of this year's best JRPGs.
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