John, the whole “our reality is their fantasy” thing is not trying to say that our world is perfect with no division. It is LITERALLY their fantasy. It’s an idealized fictional society born from an author’s imagination. A hopeful aspirational utopia. It’s not a realistic depiction of our world. It’s fantasy. It’s an analog to how a lot of our fantasy stories have idealized worlds. This game reverses the roles, so it also reflects the unrealistic, idealistic nature of how people view fantasy.
I'm still expecting there to be a twist that the world in the book was the world's history. The reveal could be the utopia somehow fell apart due to the desire to learn magic and it caused all the people to mutate with the "humans" getting the worst of it. And of course you could learn the eldas' ancestors were the cause of it.
yeah, on top of that the character More who is the writer of the book is a reference to Thomas More, the author of the book Utopia which have been criticized and seen as flawed
"OH NO IT'S AN ACTUAL DOG MAN, THATS TERRIBLE" "is that like a bull man? That pretty alright" amazing how quickly John was able to adopt the canonical racism of the setting
Best way I could think of to describe this game compared to SMT/Persona is kinda like how Bloodborne was like coming from dark souls. It’s familiar enough that you’ll feel right at home for the most part, but it adds enough that it’s definitely not the same
Although maybe a better comparison is more like Elden ring, since this feels like a culmination of everything that came before it. Push turn from SMT, UI and social links from persona, time management like persona, formations mechanics kinda like persona 2, the legally distinct velvet room. From what I heard this was supposed to be a 35th anniversary celebration game and you can definitely tell.
46:22 "Behold, a feather-less biped: Man!" Also, this game actually portrays racism the best I've seen for a jrpg. This isn't some paltry "call the elves 'knife-ears' racism", it's full on "We don't serve your kind here, our state religion says you will not see heaven, the army is segregated, mixed-race couples & children are sometimes killed in race riots" racism. Shit's fucked. It's also realistic in that not everyone is a caricature; plenty of individual people you meet aren't racist, esp. among the lower class, but the *state* as a whole is. There's even "you're one of the good ones" racism thrown in there as well.
@@markclinton9088 … That man had his morning black tea with no milk or sugar, and didn’t even raise his pinky finger. Then he ate the blood sausage, *after* plain scone with no jam and butter. What a menace! D^B(
The core staff of this game started working on it since Persona 5 Vanilla got released in Japan in 2016. This game has not been in development for 4 or 5 years. It's been in development for 8 whole years by now.
OH GODS! The Emperorsenseishogun has been POISONED WITH SNAKE VENOM! Mascara Snake-kun! you have any idea who could have done this? You're in charge of the investigation! I trust nobody else with a task this grave. Ah yes, cackling manically and rubbing your hands together is your signature grieving process. I'll leave you to it.
I like how this game makes its protagonist look like a naive, wide-eyed kid. Persona protagonists are always designed to look like the coolest people ever even though their starting social stats imply they would suck at everything. Here? Gameplay and cutscenes clearly establish you’re a wimpy, inexperienced child that’s expected to become king of the world within a year (probably). And I’m all for it. I love games where you claw your way to glory from absolutely nothing.
Literally none of this is true lmao Dude is stated to be a good fighter and jaded by all the racism he's suffered in his 18 years of life, he's just doofy in his behavior, but he's certainly not a wimpy kid lmao
@@chrisdaughen5257 sure, cause that's not just a gameplay decision and he doesn't just handles them just fine in the dungeon lmao I also doubt they are coded to be lv 1, as they take way less damage than the low level enemies in the dgs
@@HayatoEvoker they're around level 8 and do a set percentage of HP as damage(~40%), the level ~30 manticore wandering around does 99%, and killing them gives you a line from Gallica but no rewards :(
Back in the day it was just kind of impressive/cool that the CD/DVD could hold cutscenes at all. PS3/PS4 is kind of when it became awkward and maybe now its sort of back to cool again I guess.
I would like to understand the complaint, but some art is more objective than others. Almost all of the cutscenes in P5 are like the PS2 Persona games. The only time they aren’t is when major events happen or the 2D animated cutscenes happen. Same with P3 Reload, and that has its own issues since it has to be compared to the movies and the original. Saying the 2D Animation looks like a Netflix product is a poor description and an insult to those who worked on the Cutscenes. 2D also allows for characters to have more exaggerated facial features in certain moments. For example Gurren Lagann. You have a robot, in a robot, in a robot, in a robot. Or a robot that has sunglasses that it throws at the enemy, and pierce through them with a giant drill. Gurren Lagann wouldn’t have the same effect in 3D.
I find it weird that a lot of people who watch the streamers play this game miss the point of the opening monologue and they say the game is "up it's own ass". The game is literally asking the player if they feel that the fantasy genre is worth anything. Because really the most you can get out of fantasy is, well, a metaphor for aspects of our reality. It's not going to show you a high school that is possibly a 1:1 depiction of your life that you can then have a power fantasy about. This world is detached completely from your world and the only similarities are in how people act towards each other. Either the player sees worth in fantasy storytelling or they see it as mindless fluff. They are asked this up front because by the end of the game, you will experience things that bear some similarity to the prejudices of our world. And either their game is a success or it is "just a game" and, therefore, a failure. Also, the Utopia depicted in More's story is not supposed to be Earth. It is, however, close enough to Earth to be a fantasy story for the in-game characters AND to provoke the same response from the player as the characters (ie: "This would be amazing but there's no way we could ever have a world like this")
I know a lot of people have issues with calling this a Persona or SMT game… but there's a lot of things about Metaphor that's extremely weird and make me and my friends think it's probably connected to them, either through a prequel or just by being in the same cosmology. EDIT: we have a lot of theories, some more likely than others, with some being crackpot as could be.
It probably doesn’t mean anything, but your suspicions remind me of the intro to P5 when the game requires you to acknowledge the game is a work of “fiction” before you even start playing. And I don’t see a Joker look-a-like yet.
@@chrisdaughen5257 I'd honestly prefer it not to be tied into Persona, but SMT myself. Although the real longshot one we all want is the secret Last Bible prequel. Or a hidden superboss version of Akemi Nakajima, to make the game one big Nakajima Moment.
I mean the game is called Metaphor:Re-imagining(literal meaning) I think the implication that it's means "Persona Re-imagined" is pretty clear. Especially once you play and see just how many Persona Parallels there are.
I've been playing the demo slowly trying to stretch it until the game offically drops on oct 11. It feels like this is the natural progession of "personas" its not simply i summon something. It is you becoming said thing body and soul and that part makes it so interesting! On top of that the whole humans are these monster creature. Plus us having to put our name in the game. I eat that shit up!! My theory is that there going to be some powerful human with your name on it. And im gonna scream when or if it happens.
Atlus was eventually going to run out of historical/mythological figures to base main Personas off of. Archetypes are a great attempt in making the concept have a little more freedom.
They've done this concept before in Digital Devil Saga, actually this game is way closer to DDS than persona The 3 person party The combo attacks Press turn (although most SMT games use that) The characters turning into the demons The way you level them up through a skill tree. All it takes from persona is the out of battle stuff
Damn lol loved the gameplay, but it sucks someone in chat telling you the fix for fps, you reading the fix out loud, but then forgetting to do it and continuing to play with bad frames. For anyone curious - lower the rendering scale. The difference visually isn’t super noticeable, and it massively affects performance. I went from 20 fps to 80-90 by going from 200% to 100%.
just got to all the twists (near the end game), oh boy this game is such a big journey and the twists a lot I sort of see it coming but didn't expect this much and such a short time frame as well. just damn
33:53 You do realize back when we thought this game was never going to come out. We only knew that our real world is there fantasy. It’s a fundamental concept of the game and not at all supposed to be a twist. To put this in perspective, it would be like acting shocked that chess is a stagy game.
True, the book was basically the first thing you saw that was actually of the game. The people in the medieval costumes, the French knight eating the pigeon, even the panorama shots of the forest in the very first "reveal" trailer of the project, all of that was just concept stuff. The book was the real deal though, and it basically has the same design that it had waaay back in the day.
Most creators take pride in their work and put effort in the content that they make, unlike many youtubers that put out stuff they know is low effort garbage and actively despise.
Maybe it's just me talking out of my ass, but I've noticed a pattern of how Japanese writers tackle subjects. If it's something they have intimate knowledge of (loneliness, societal pressure, corporate fatigue), they can handle it so subtly to the point of being unnoticeable to people who haven't lived through it. On the flipside, subjects that aren't that relevant to their day-to-day experience (racism, organized religion) they make it so in-your-face it's funny
Organized religion is kind of its own joke at this point. This game doesn't really come down hard on "church bad" (at least not where I am about 50 hours in). The racism is, SURPRISE, not real actual racism...not really. It's complicated. It's actually about tribalism which CAN mean racism, sure, but it really means how people make factions out of themselves in ways that are not only completely artificial, but most self-destructive. The Clemar are not really the "whites or Japanese" they are the privileged class. The story is a metaphor so you may see the Clemar as being analogous to the wealthy or maybe even ACTUAL aristocracy. It's flexible in that way. Is a mixed tribe baby a metaphor for straight up interracial mating or is it a forbidden mingling of a rich woman and a poor man? It could honestly be either, or both. That's a long winded way to say that this game really isn't in-your-face or poorly written in any way. They want you thinking about how human beings treat each other and why we create the divides we do. If you look at the tribes and see racism, I'm sure the writer would be satisfied with that. If you see the haves and have nots, that's fine too. The game is not without criticism of the Utopia More wrote about. Each character kind of doubts that any group of people could stop hating each other for long enough to form that kind of society. Also, just a side note, but not every Japanese person has the same life experience. If you are a Japanese man who married a Chinese woman, I f@#$ing guarantee you that racism is relevant to your day-to-day experience. In a way the insistence that a nation experiences the same stressors as every other person in that nation is kind of an expression of the kind of tribalism this game rallies against.
I think its really hard to play story heavy RPGs on stream. Seen a lot of people play and miss alot cause theyre reading chat. But John will play this a million times if he ends up liking it so, nothing lost i guess 😅
regan mp while also grinding for exp is some next level grinding while grinding for the other persona . you use mage to get back 1 mp for each enemy killed on the field .
It's always characters like Captain Klinger that I wish would join the party or at least be allies, and then they either never do or you end up fighting them later for whatever reason...
A few months ago, I was completely uninterested in this game. Now, I’ve played through the demo twice and preordered. I never preorder. I’ve also never paid more than $30 for a game in like 15 years.
Hello Mister wolf who has an eyepatch and is very regular. I am almost done with the demo, after 36h of playing it in Japanese as a part of my immersion studies of it. Will be very happy to watch the English version here with a fellow nerd- is there anywhere that you post full vods?
This game has so many elements from both other Atlus games/series & some Square Enix series with some Yoko Taro-isms sprinkled on top that its very diminutive to just call it Persona IMO.
I'm so happy to hear John say that the anime scenes don't look good because I immediately felt the exact same thing. The hand-drawn scenes just aren't good. The in-engine scenes are all WAY better. The actual graphics look unique and interesting and the anime scenes look like some generic Isekai shit from 2011.
That was true of Persona 3, 4 and 5 too. In ten years the 2D animation barely upgraded, whereas the in-engine cutscenes looked pretty good (for Catherine and Persona 5)
@@DirectorHatman This too. One of the chatters even brought it up in the video, that the anime cutscenes used to feel special, but now they're playing practically every five minutes, and all I can see is that they're just inferior to the in game graphics.
I have no idea why people are getting into their feelings about this being compared to Persona when the game reuses so many mechanics from 3-5, as well as how they frame the archetype awakenings, same with the menu that's stylish to the point of inconvenience (mostly from 5). They didn't even bother to change some of the spell names! The start of the game is just as sluggish as these games! TBH, I'm more waiting on Persona 6 than this, because I cannot stand Hashino's storytelling, and what you point out about racism in JRPGs is just straight up what he does in every game.
I do see where you're coming from with how insanely on the nose it is and how that's on-par with his usual writing. I don't think it's truly offensive but I don't think it's appealing either. It feels very much like the "self-appointed auteur game director who isn't really keyed in on social justice issues learns that racism exists, makes game about it", and it's weird how that happened twice. There's just a little bit too much of liking the smell of your own farts in the writing and the writing is just not clever enough to warrant that at all. It can still be interesting, good worldbuilding, good characters, good fun, but making good analogies to real social issues that actually hit in meaningful ways is another level of writing/directing that Hashino has never shown. Persona 4 and 5 show the same issues in how they deal with their characters' more nuanced issues, especially of those who aren't your average straight japanese teenage boy and wants the game's commentary on those issues to be more than they're worth. What's worse is that it very often fumbles the ball on issues of misogyny and queerphobia and usually goes "no, these issues aren't systemic actually, so we found a solution for this 1 character to better fit in with the rest of society. It's not that the system itself is bad, it's that there's a few bad people in power that are making the system look bad.". Like, imagine if a japanese game tackling teen life had a nuanced commentary on androphobia, a japanese cultural phenomenon that is frequently shown and doesn't have the same cultural nuances in other cultures(mostly seen as women having a rational fear of strange men or not trusting the actions of men in their lives, not a direct 'phobia' which is a lot more nebulous and a flaw placed on the person experiencing the phobia). But every time that issue is tackled it's just "I'm scared of men, I don't know why. Please fix me". But in order to truly comment on it it would have to comment on patriarchal standards and cultural oppression of women that disallow criticism of men and masculine behavior as well as oppressive expectations of heterosexual nuclear family traditions under threat of bringing shame to the family if the don't seek it, as being valid causes for women experiencing fear of half the population that they cannot place without a language for it, but it can't do that because it's written from the perspective of someone who enjoys the status quo and don't see any fundamental issues with it, but still want to write stories about teen rebellions and overthrowing power structures. As an analogy all it really does is point to a thing that exists in the world and says "this exists". It doesn't offer any real meaningful commentary on them and just throws its hands in the air and goes "wow, this sucks! what if the bad evil people who're surely the cause of all this could be defeated in anime battle?".
@@gwen9939 Could you elaborate on this game specifically, because I didn't think it was that bad. It is somewhat on the nose with some dialouge, but I did feel the opinion of npcs was made pretty nuanced. Like there are people that are gleeful about the death of certain tribes. Others that don't care. Others that have negative opinions because of their faith but don't wish death upon you. And some warn you but don't have anything against you. Eldar are disliked but are free to move, meanwhile the cat people are actively opressed and the zombie like people (forgot both of their names) are seen as an annoyance and probably also opressed. But still one of them says you are worse of, which might mean there is a specific cultural perception with being an Eldar. The baarkeep has nothing cat people and tried to employ a cat person but his guests actively protested so he couldn't really make change. The church is demonizing Eldars but lets them into their church, not unlike real churches who would let people in that go actively against their faith. There are other countries that are implied to have nothing against eldars. And Louis, the villain, bases his politics on equality and is no noble (which might of course and likely be a lie) with the other rulers seeming to have nothing against the opression and being upper class. Yes it's certainly not The Wire, but if they extrapolate on those ideas I could see it becoming pretty nuanced.
Before y'all call this Persona, know that it has Digital Devil Saga and SMT elements as much as Persona elements and a BUNCH of new ones. -The limited time quest system is something that has never been seen in persona (no, timed main quests do not count) -The battle system is closer to SMTV V than persona, press turn icons, special skill effects and limitations. -The archetype system seems like a blend of SMT 3 Nocturne and Digital Devil saga character progression, not persona or SMT. -You don't insta-game over when protagonist die, just like in DDS. I'd argue is more DDS than Persona, but anyways this is gonna be the best JRPG of all time probably
I have a running bet with THE WHOLE GODDAMN WORLD. That bet is that this game is gonna be a stealth sequel to persona 3 and that blue haired protagonist? HE'S DOOR KUN (persona 3 protag).
Every time a game that may have some type of same whatever with persona and gets compared, I could be rich. Like it's so annoying. Wow shocker, persona came out years before this, jesus every game gets compared to it and it's so annoying for someone who likes both games jesus christ.
We took the FF Job system, put it into the SMT combat system, tied progression to the Social Link system, and then replaced the Jungian psychology themes with fiction theory.
Whoa whoa like the cutscenes or not but to call the improvement of atlus's artist that used to be off model ugly little blobs- generic. Medial literary truely is dead if you think that. The models look exactly like the art and Atlus put alot of work into improving that style. Bad take alert.
@@ThomasUfnalCrowlake They didn't think that deep about it, they're just feeling defensive because someone isn't impressed by the unreleased game they already paid for
Do you mean to ask why they sound as if they were written *for* ten-year olds? It's because these games are made to target young adults. They're not going to be written in the same adult fantasy language as something like Pillars of Eternity. The writing is actually excellent and the writers get to show off their chops every once in awhile (I personally love the "lodestar" speeches the mysterious voice gives to each playable character when they awaken). The whole game simply cannot be written like this, though. Mindless little munchkins already skip dialogue like crazy, so they have to make most conversation repeat facts ad nauseum and use a relatively light and heroic general tone. Did you actually want to talk about writing, or are you just trolling because you have nothing better to do?
After John described the anime cutscenes as mid I can't unsee it. I dont think it's bad thing to expect higher quality cutscenes, these games are expensive and ATLUS doesn't promote discount sales as much as other game companies.
You know you can just form your own opinions right? If all it takes is for commentary youtuber #6383929 to call something you enjoy mid, to completely change your outlook on it, that seems really fickle.
I love John but he's insane if he thinks that it's just as easy and visually pleasing to have the in-game character models rigged for those complex scenes. Just creating that scene with Hulkenberg backstabbing that guy would take a ton of time and look so awkward, lol. The anime scenes are not there to make you go "wow, look at the budget!" They're there to create scenes where anime just works better than their admittedly clunky in-game models. Like, does he honestly think the "Showtime" effects in P5 would be better with in-game models? What?! I assume he's just not putting much thought into what he's saying during that scene because he would love Unlimited Blade Works or something (wouldn't we all, lol).
Is anyone putting off buying Metaphor until the inevitable rerelease, ala Royal/Vengeance/Golden/Fes? I mean the game will likely be a great experience and worth the price tag. Still, it dampens the enthusiasm thinking we're probably three years away from a definitive edition.
3 years is such a long time to wait. I don't think people realize what they're even saying when they bring this up. This isn't the typical thing where you wait maybe a year for a definitive/GOTY edition, but _three years._
Anybody who played Persona 4 knows Atlus isn't great at tackling anything more serious than "it sure is hard to be sad when you're young!" I bought the game because the gameplay and presentation are fantastic and I can't wait to see how it trips over its own feet trying to explain to me how bad it is to be racist and classist and sexist and all the other -ists these guys try to cram into the game.
You don't??? The "humans" are massive monsters but they're just the bosses the other enemies are normal fantasy creatures, hell you even fight a dragon
Kinda sad how hard the devs are tryihg to do their best to differentiate this from Persona but no matter how hard they try, people will only see them as the Persona guys.
@@1000Tomatoesyes it’s a new IP it’s just a JRPG. If square enix makes another turn based RPG it doesn’t automatically make it a fucking final fantasy game
@@dyinginfashion2558 I honestly speculated ever since the beginning they would just do a Megaten game but Fantasy even if they said otherwise. Me being correct is pretty vindicating, Atlus will stick with what works best for them just like how Bethesda and Rockstar do.
@@phillemon7664 I really don’t know how to react to that. It’s literally not a shin Megami game or a persona game. You’re just saying that because it’s atlus. Do you believe that red dead and GTA are the same just because they are similar? I wouldn’t call red dead a western prequel to gta. It’s dumb to say that
John, the whole “our reality is their fantasy” thing is not trying to say that our world is perfect with no division. It is LITERALLY their fantasy. It’s an idealized fictional society born from an author’s imagination. A hopeful aspirational utopia. It’s not a realistic depiction of our world. It’s fantasy.
It’s an analog to how a lot of our fantasy stories have idealized worlds. This game reverses the roles, so it also reflects the unrealistic, idealistic nature of how people view fantasy.
I have no idea how he got that from the story lol
I can see how he got confused at the beginning but then the game whent to extended lengths to clarify that this was a fantasy perfect world lol
I'm still expecting there to be a twist that the world in the book was the world's history. The reveal could be the utopia somehow fell apart due to the desire to learn magic and it caused all the people to mutate with the "humans" getting the worst of it. And of course you could learn the eldas' ancestors were the cause of it.
yeah, on top of that the character More who is the writer of the book is a reference to Thomas More, the author of the book Utopia which have been criticized and seen as flawed
@@lehwSwBp How so?
"OH NO IT'S AN ACTUAL DOG MAN, THATS TERRIBLE"
"is that like a bull man? That pretty alright"
amazing how quickly John was able to adopt the canonical racism of the setting
Versus Wolves finally paying off, he's caught Woolie's love for fantasy racism
ey brudda you know what dey say bout dog men eh? My friend Wakka told me you can't trust no dog.
Best way I could think of to describe this game compared to SMT/Persona is kinda like how Bloodborne was like coming from dark souls. It’s familiar enough that you’ll feel right at home for the most part, but it adds enough that it’s definitely not the same
Although maybe a better comparison is more like Elden ring, since this feels like a culmination of everything that came before it. Push turn from SMT, UI and social links from persona, time management like persona, formations mechanics kinda like persona 2, the legally distinct velvet room.
From what I heard this was supposed to be a 35th anniversary celebration game and you can definitely tell.
feels like xenoblade to me
2:08 Bro really looked at an old man in his death bed and his first instinctual reaction was to laugh and make fun of him 💀
such a babyface.
46:22 "Behold, a feather-less biped: Man!"
Also, this game actually portrays racism the best I've seen for a jrpg. This isn't some paltry "call the elves 'knife-ears' racism", it's full on "We don't serve your kind here, our state religion says you will not see heaven, the army is segregated, mixed-race couples & children are sometimes killed in race riots" racism. Shit's fucked. It's also realistic in that not everyone is a caricature; plenty of individual people you meet aren't racist, esp. among the lower class, but the *state* as a whole is. There's even "you're one of the good ones" racism thrown in there as well.
comparing it to final fantasy xvi is really something.
Imagine calling it Refantazma all stream
Oh no a griffith character, john will love it
"The new Persona RPG"
...
John, do you want to play omikron again?
It's a metaphor, get it? It's like persona
At this point I believe he secretly enjoyed the game like the absolute masochists he is
@@johnrivers3813No, that's a simile
@@blueSeele who's smiling?
Infinite Mascara Snake-kun is just like that. I think he skipped breakfast.
Didn't have his wheetabix
@@markclinton9088 … That man had his morning black tea with no milk or sugar, and didn’t even raise his pinky finger. Then he ate the blood sausage, *after* plain scone with no jam and butter. What a menace! D^B(
“I can take a lot punishment” JOHN!! You’re really not beating the allegations here.
The core staff of this game started working on it since Persona 5 Vanilla got released in Japan in 2016. This game has not been in development for 4 or 5 years. It's been in development for 8 whole years by now.
There are videos on RUclips from 2016 where Katsura Hashino talkes about creating a new fantasy RPG (Project Re:Fantasy) and departing from P-Studio.
OH GODS! The Emperorsenseishogun has been POISONED WITH SNAKE VENOM! Mascara Snake-kun! you have any idea who could have done this? You're in charge of the investigation! I trust nobody else with a task this grave. Ah yes, cackling manically and rubbing your hands together is your signature grieving process. I'll leave you to it.
26:29 You are never beating the masochists allegations 💀
20:06 "I LOVE HER!"
Same John, same.
She was my waifu within 5 secs and I still haven't played the game yet
I like how this game makes its protagonist look like a naive, wide-eyed kid. Persona protagonists are always designed to look like the coolest people ever even though their starting social stats imply they would suck at everything. Here? Gameplay and cutscenes clearly establish you’re a wimpy, inexperienced child that’s expected to become king of the world within a year (probably). And I’m all for it. I love games where you claw your way to glory from absolutely nothing.
Drip is immaculate though
Literally none of this is true lmao
Dude is stated to be a good fighter and jaded by all the racism he's suffered in his 18 years of life, he's just doofy in his behavior, but he's certainly not a wimpy kid lmao
@@HayatoEvoker You can't even fight the level 1 wolves in the intro.
@@chrisdaughen5257 sure, cause that's not just a gameplay decision and he doesn't just handles them just fine in the dungeon lmao
I also doubt they are coded to be lv 1, as they take way less damage than the low level enemies in the dgs
@@HayatoEvoker they're around level 8 and do a set percentage of HP as damage(~40%), the level ~30 manticore wandering around does 99%, and killing them gives you a line from Gallica but no rewards :(
I get the complaint about the animat cutscenes but they look markedly better in this game than they have in the past and I've been enjoying it
Back in the day it was just kind of impressive/cool that the CD/DVD could hold cutscenes at all. PS3/PS4 is kind of when it became awkward and maybe now its sort of back to cool again I guess.
I would like to understand the complaint, but some art is more objective than others. Almost all of the cutscenes in P5 are like the PS2 Persona games. The only time they aren’t is when major events happen or the 2D animated cutscenes happen. Same with P3 Reload, and that has its own issues since it has to be compared to the movies and the original.
Saying the 2D Animation looks like a Netflix product is a poor description and an insult to those who worked on the Cutscenes. 2D also allows for characters to have more exaggerated facial features in certain moments. For example Gurren Lagann. You have a robot, in a robot, in a robot, in a robot. Or a robot that has sunglasses that it throws at the enemy, and pierce through them with a giant drill. Gurren Lagann wouldn’t have the same effect in 3D.
I *really* hope this ends up being its own thing. If I see the Demifiend or Joker at the end of this game I swear to God...
You don’t mind how the MC and Strohl look like the P3 and P4 protagonists?
@@chrisdaughen5257 Archetypal shenanigans
As long as they are secret bosses, I'm fine with their appearances 😆
How about Nahobino?
He's stronger than Demi-Fiend
That title is some fucking FIGHTING WORDS and i love it lmfao
3:41 Scar from the Lion King is another Infinite Mascara Snake-kun
Final Gamer, please, now that spooky month is over, please finish this on stream, I'm begging you.
Time for Yoko Taro to make his Persona-like. Since this does feel very much like a Yoko Taro game, story-wise.
Please i want this.
He has been doing ads for this game
This isn't a Persona game, it's an Atlus game. It has DNA from Persona, mainline SMT, Raidou, Digital Devil Saga, and Etrian Odyssey.
Yeah. He said that in a shorter, simpler way.
@@Irrelevant66 I think talking about the stuff that's from other Atlus games beyond persona is neat
John you know you'll never ever start a stream with 0 issues. Garfield wills it, Kathy makes it material, Crow Mauler watches in deep anticipation.
I just now noticed I accidentally named the protagonists guide and the protagonist the same thing
Deltarune moment
For what it's worth, I'm having no issues with a 3060i so right now I'm not sure what's causing some people to have issues on PC.
Thanks for this informative video about Metaphor: Rephantazma, the new Persona RPG!
Haha look at him he said RePHANTASMA instead of the right name!
I keep accidentally saying Mezzo Forte instead of Re Fantazio.
I find it weird that a lot of people who watch the streamers play this game miss the point of the opening monologue and they say the game is "up it's own ass". The game is literally asking the player if they feel that the fantasy genre is worth anything. Because really the most you can get out of fantasy is, well, a metaphor for aspects of our reality. It's not going to show you a high school that is possibly a 1:1 depiction of your life that you can then have a power fantasy about. This world is detached completely from your world and the only similarities are in how people act towards each other. Either the player sees worth in fantasy storytelling or they see it as mindless fluff. They are asked this up front because by the end of the game, you will experience things that bear some similarity to the prejudices of our world. And either their game is a success or it is "just a game" and, therefore, a failure.
Also, the Utopia depicted in More's story is not supposed to be Earth. It is, however, close enough to Earth to be a fantasy story for the in-game characters AND to provoke the same response from the player as the characters (ie: "This would be amazing but there's no way we could ever have a world like this")
I know a lot of people have issues with calling this a Persona or SMT game… but there's a lot of things about Metaphor that's extremely weird and make me and my friends think it's probably connected to them, either through a prequel or just by being in the same cosmology.
EDIT: we have a lot of theories, some more likely than others, with some being crackpot as could be.
It probably doesn’t mean anything, but your suspicions remind me of the intro to P5 when the game requires you to acknowledge the game is a work of “fiction” before you even start playing. And I don’t see a Joker look-a-like yet.
@@chrisdaughen5257 I'd honestly prefer it not to be tied into Persona, but SMT myself. Although the real longshot one we all want is the secret Last Bible prequel.
Or a hidden superboss version of Akemi Nakajima, to make the game one big Nakajima Moment.
I mean the game is called Metaphor:Re-imagining(literal meaning) I think the implication that it's means "Persona Re-imagined" is pretty clear. Especially once you play and see just how many Persona Parallels there are.
I do think it’s pre-persona or something
I have a theory that Regicide Mode is you playing as Louis.
It's probably 100% incorrect, but the idea tickles me
I've been playing the demo slowly trying to stretch it until the game offically drops on oct 11. It feels like this is the natural progession of "personas" its not simply i summon something. It is you becoming said thing body and soul and that part makes it so interesting!
On top of that the whole humans are these monster creature. Plus us having to put our name in the game. I eat that shit up!! My theory is that there going to be some powerful human with your name on it. And im gonna scream when or if it happens.
Atlus was eventually going to run out of historical/mythological figures to base main Personas off of. Archetypes are a great attempt in making the concept have a little more freedom.
They've done this concept before in Digital Devil Saga, actually this game is way closer to DDS than persona
The 3 person party
The combo attacks
Press turn (although most SMT games use that)
The characters turning into the demons
The way you level them up through a skill tree.
All it takes from persona is the out of battle stuff
@@KatelynTea There's going to be 4 party members at max, there's only 3 in the demo because, well, that's how many you get at that point in the game
Atlus beating Toby Fox to the punch with the "the final boss is the player" twist, lmao
Damn lol loved the gameplay, but it sucks someone in chat telling you the fix for fps, you reading the fix out loud, but then forgetting to do it and continuing to play with bad frames.
For anyone curious - lower the rendering scale. The difference visually isn’t super noticeable, and it massively affects performance. I went from 20 fps to 80-90 by going from 200% to 100%.
13:25 "When I found out this was your magic power, I was like, that's kinda shitty, that's not a great magic power"
John. JOHN
YOU HAVE NO IDEA
This man skipping the diologue kills a fragtion of my soul EVERY TIME MY GOD WHYYYY WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS 👏 EVERY 👏SINGLE 👏TIME auuughhhhhhh
Ha I do this too. I read the subtitles too quick and move on to the next line
@@rabnessmonster25 yeah, but you don’t have an audience
You mean the voice acting? He's reading what their saying.
@@projectmessiah bro...
Yeah, I can't handle it when people cut-off voiced dialogue mid sentence cause they already read ahead.
Persona 6 here makes me feel like im playing an early 2000's rpg and i mean that in the best way possible.
just got to all the twists (near the end game), oh boy this game is such a big journey and the twists a lot I sort of see it coming but didn't expect this much and such a short time frame as well. just damn
33:53 You do realize back when we thought this game was never going to come out. We only knew that our real world is there fantasy. It’s a fundamental concept of the game and not at all supposed to be a twist. To put this in perspective, it would be like acting shocked that chess is a stagy game.
True, the book was basically the first thing you saw that was actually of the game. The people in the medieval costumes, the French knight eating the pigeon, even the panorama shots of the forest in the very first "reveal" trailer of the project, all of that was just concept stuff. The book was the real deal though, and it basically has the same design that it had waaay back in the day.
Seems like obviously no he didn’t know that based on what he said? Do you even have a point?
The music goes
SO
HARD
9:09 standard Hulkenberg reaction
Most creators take pride in their work and put effort in the content that they make, unlike many youtubers that put out stuff they know is low effort garbage and actively despise.
Maybe it's just me talking out of my ass, but I've noticed a pattern of how Japanese writers tackle subjects. If it's something they have intimate knowledge of (loneliness, societal pressure, corporate fatigue), they can handle it so subtly to the point of being unnoticeable to people who haven't lived through it. On the flipside, subjects that aren't that relevant to their day-to-day experience (racism, organized religion) they make it so in-your-face it's funny
I mean I think that's true of writers of every nationality lol.
Organized religion is kind of its own joke at this point. This game doesn't really come down hard on "church bad" (at least not where I am about 50 hours in). The racism is, SURPRISE, not real actual racism...not really. It's complicated. It's actually about tribalism which CAN mean racism, sure, but it really means how people make factions out of themselves in ways that are not only completely artificial, but most self-destructive. The Clemar are not really the "whites or Japanese" they are the privileged class. The story is a metaphor so you may see the Clemar as being analogous to the wealthy or maybe even ACTUAL aristocracy. It's flexible in that way. Is a mixed tribe baby a metaphor for straight up interracial mating or is it a forbidden mingling of a rich woman and a poor man? It could honestly be either, or both.
That's a long winded way to say that this game really isn't in-your-face or poorly written in any way. They want you thinking about how human beings treat each other and why we create the divides we do. If you look at the tribes and see racism, I'm sure the writer would be satisfied with that. If you see the haves and have nots, that's fine too. The game is not without criticism of the Utopia More wrote about. Each character kind of doubts that any group of people could stop hating each other for long enough to form that kind of society.
Also, just a side note, but not every Japanese person has the same life experience. If you are a Japanese man who married a Chinese woman, I f@#$ing guarantee you that racism is relevant to your day-to-day experience. In a way the insistence that a nation experiences the same stressors as every other person in that nation is kind of an expression of the kind of tribalism this game rallies against.
I don't believe it's a japanese thing but more like ATLUS is notoriusly bad at it, however this game does have better writting that I expected
I had a great time with the demo!!
Metaphor is kinda like taking what's good from SMT + Persona, then adding new things. I really like it
I think its really hard to play story heavy RPGs on stream. Seen a lot of people play and miss alot cause theyre reading chat. But John will play this a million times if he ends up liking it so, nothing lost i guess 😅
The demo had framerate issues on PC but the complete game is fine.
From all the characters I have seen in the game so far Brigitta and Louis have my favourite designs.
Ok I didnt know Regular Eyepatch Wolf existed
Most of the major human bosses designs come from Bosch paintings about sin
What if we had the combat of SMT mixed with the job system of Dragon Quest and the story & setting of a Final Fantasy?
This is an SMT ass SMT game with some persona elements scattered in
sad bro can't see real art
It’s hanged by the neck until dead as opposed to being hung then disemboweled while still alive
regan mp while also grinding for exp is some next level grinding while grinding for the other persona .
you use mage to get back 1 mp for each enemy killed on the field .
"Makes me seem insane". Seem... right...
I can't believe ATLUS said "I need 10 bad bitches and they all need to be emo"
I truly cannot wait to play this.
How did John mistake Louis for the Prince in the flashback? 😂
I am once again asking for American Mcgee's Alice, Day 33.
its Eldan John
Why does purple haired elf bandit sound like that?!
Huh, why play the game at all? All he's doing is mock the game for being "anime"
It's always characters like Captain Klinger that I wish would join the party or at least be allies, and then they either never do or you end up fighting them later for whatever reason...
A few months ago, I was completely uninterested in this game. Now, I’ve played through the demo twice and preordered. I never preorder. I’ve also never paid more than $30 for a game in like 15 years.
Hello Mister wolf who has an eyepatch and is very regular. I am almost done with the demo, after 36h of playing it in Japanese as a part of my immersion studies of it. Will be very happy to watch the English version here with a fellow nerd- is there anywhere that you post full vods?
Hobocrawfish should have been his name
bro got wormed
Gotta play SMT 3. It's an absolute classic.
this is giving rwby but only know rwby through the hbomb video
I can't believe John is the sort of person to skip the VO after reading the subtitles. A heinous creature. Respect the actor's performance.
They did their job and got paid. Whining for nothin
Clanky is cannon now.
This game has so many elements from both other Atlus games/series & some Square Enix series with some Yoko Taro-isms sprinkled on top that its very diminutive to just call it Persona IMO.
You have bad taste, the anime cutscenes are so good.
Galaga is my favorite Persona character
Nice vid
Lmao I did at the beginning too
SuperEyepatchWolf cannot read AT ALL
uahh im sustaining so much psychic damage from the way this game is written
I'm so happy to hear John say that the anime scenes don't look good because I immediately felt the exact same thing. The hand-drawn scenes just aren't good. The in-engine scenes are all WAY better. The actual graphics look unique and interesting and the anime scenes look like some generic Isekai shit from 2011.
generic, would be the thousand isekai we have now this is no where hear that level
That was true of Persona 3, 4 and 5 too. In ten years the 2D animation barely upgraded, whereas the in-engine cutscenes looked pretty good (for Catherine and Persona 5)
They're also way too numerous. The kind of game that's unplayable not because it's bad, but because they just don't let you play it.
@@DirectorHatman This too. One of the chatters even brought it up in the video, that the anime cutscenes used to feel special, but now they're playing practically every five minutes, and all I can see is that they're just inferior to the in game graphics.
That honestly is a fair criticism imo
Another ORPG for John
I have no idea why people are getting into their feelings about this being compared to Persona when the game reuses so many mechanics from 3-5, as well as how they frame the archetype awakenings, same with the menu that's stylish to the point of inconvenience (mostly from 5). They didn't even bother to change some of the spell names! The start of the game is just as sluggish as these games!
TBH, I'm more waiting on Persona 6 than this, because I cannot stand Hashino's storytelling, and what you point out about racism in JRPGs is just straight up what he does in every game.
The storytelling of this game is on point right now though. As a POC in a red state the protag is literally me.
The writing seems good so far, way more nuanced than most racism allegories.
I do see where you're coming from with how insanely on the nose it is and how that's on-par with his usual writing. I don't think it's truly offensive but I don't think it's appealing either. It feels very much like the "self-appointed auteur game director who isn't really keyed in on social justice issues learns that racism exists, makes game about it", and it's weird how that happened twice. There's just a little bit too much of liking the smell of your own farts in the writing and the writing is just not clever enough to warrant that at all. It can still be interesting, good worldbuilding, good characters, good fun, but making good analogies to real social issues that actually hit in meaningful ways is another level of writing/directing that Hashino has never shown. Persona 4 and 5 show the same issues in how they deal with their characters' more nuanced issues, especially of those who aren't your average straight japanese teenage boy and wants the game's commentary on those issues to be more than they're worth. What's worse is that it very often fumbles the ball on issues of misogyny and queerphobia and usually goes "no, these issues aren't systemic actually, so we found a solution for this 1 character to better fit in with the rest of society. It's not that the system itself is bad, it's that there's a few bad people in power that are making the system look bad.".
Like, imagine if a japanese game tackling teen life had a nuanced commentary on androphobia, a japanese cultural phenomenon that is frequently shown and doesn't have the same cultural nuances in other cultures(mostly seen as women having a rational fear of strange men or not trusting the actions of men in their lives, not a direct 'phobia' which is a lot more nebulous and a flaw placed on the person experiencing the phobia). But every time that issue is tackled it's just "I'm scared of men, I don't know why. Please fix me". But in order to truly comment on it it would have to comment on patriarchal standards and cultural oppression of women that disallow criticism of men and masculine behavior as well as oppressive expectations of heterosexual nuclear family traditions under threat of bringing shame to the family if the don't seek it, as being valid causes for women experiencing fear of half the population that they cannot place without a language for it, but it can't do that because it's written from the perspective of someone who enjoys the status quo and don't see any fundamental issues with it, but still want to write stories about teen rebellions and overthrowing power structures.
As an analogy all it really does is point to a thing that exists in the world and says "this exists". It doesn't offer any real meaningful commentary on them and just throws its hands in the air and goes "wow, this sucks! what if the bad evil people who're surely the cause of all this could be defeated in anime battle?".
@@gwen9939 Could you elaborate on this game specifically, because I didn't think it was that bad. It is somewhat on the nose with some dialouge, but I did feel the opinion of npcs was made pretty nuanced.
Like there are people that are gleeful about the death of certain tribes. Others that don't care. Others that have negative opinions because of their faith but don't wish death upon you. And some warn you but don't have anything against you. Eldar are disliked but are free to move, meanwhile the cat people are actively opressed and the zombie like people (forgot both of their names) are seen as an annoyance and probably also opressed. But still one of them says you are worse of, which might mean there is a specific cultural perception with being an Eldar. The baarkeep has nothing cat people and tried to employ a cat person but his guests actively protested so he couldn't really make change. The church is demonizing Eldars but lets them into their church, not unlike real churches who would let people in that go actively against their faith. There are other countries that are implied to have nothing against eldars. And Louis, the villain, bases his politics on equality and is no noble (which might of course and likely be a lie) with the other rulers seeming to have nothing against the opression and being upper class.
Yes it's certainly not The Wire, but if they extrapolate on those ideas I could see it becoming pretty nuanced.
Before y'all call this Persona, know that it has Digital Devil Saga and SMT elements as much as Persona elements and a BUNCH of new ones.
-The limited time quest system is something that has never been seen in persona (no, timed main quests do not count)
-The battle system is closer to SMTV V than persona, press turn icons, special skill effects and limitations.
-The archetype system seems like a blend of SMT 3 Nocturne and Digital Devil saga character progression, not persona or SMT.
-You don't insta-game over when protagonist die, just like in DDS.
I'd argue is more DDS than Persona, but anyways this is gonna be the best JRPG of all time probably
I have a running bet with THE WHOLE GODDAMN WORLD. That bet is that this game is gonna be a stealth sequel to persona 3 and that blue haired protagonist? HE'S DOOR KUN (persona 3 protag).
Cool
Man final gamer called it a persona rpg
#KATHYWOULDNEVER
Every time a game that may have some type of same whatever with persona and gets compared, I could be rich. Like it's so annoying. Wow shocker, persona came out years before this, jesus every game gets compared to it and it's so annoying for someone who likes both games jesus christ.
THIS GAME HAS BOTHING TO DO WITH FUCKING PERSONA ITS AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SERIES. GRRRAAAAAAHHHHH-
But yeah it's persona but everyone is The Fool
I dunno, if I squint it looks a lot like persona.
We took the FF Job system, put it into the SMT combat system, tied progression to the Social Link system, and then replaced the Jungian psychology themes with fiction theory.
then why is Jack Frost in it
Starting fights had the exact same sound effect as in P5!
it's not Persona, it's Metaphor.
that's an incredibly goofy title. metaphor: refantazio. just look at it
What is that music
Whoa whoa like the cutscenes or not but to call the improvement
of atlus's artist that used to be off model ugly little blobs- generic.
Medial literary truely is dead if you think that.
The models look exactly like the art and Atlus put alot of work into improving that style.
Bad take alert.
Yeah glad Eyepatchwolf isn't in the writhing room.
Calling the art low quality and bad is a very disingenuous take.
Yeah maybe bro should keep his glasses on.
The anime cutscenes look incredibly cheap but the portrait art and models all look great
@@violetshadowstone5250 ...I understand why you'd call it a bad take, but why would it be disingenuous?
@@ThomasUfnalCrowlake They didn't think that deep about it, they're just feeling defensive because someone isn't impressed by the unreleased game they already paid for
Do all of these Atlas games sound like a ten year old wrote them?
well you sure don't know how to write ATLUS
Do you mean to ask why they sound as if they were written *for* ten-year olds? It's because these games are made to target young adults. They're not going to be written in the same adult fantasy language as something like Pillars of Eternity. The writing is actually excellent and the writers get to show off their chops every once in awhile (I personally love the "lodestar" speeches the mysterious voice gives to each playable character when they awaken). The whole game simply cannot be written like this, though. Mindless little munchkins already skip dialogue like crazy, so they have to make most conversation repeat facts ad nauseum and use a relatively light and heroic general tone.
Did you actually want to talk about writing, or are you just trolling because you have nothing better to do?
After John described the anime cutscenes as mid I can't unsee it.
I dont think it's bad thing to expect higher quality cutscenes, these games are expensive and ATLUS doesn't promote discount sales as much as other game companies.
You know you can just form your own opinions right? If all it takes is for commentary youtuber #6383929 to call something you enjoy mid, to completely change your outlook on it, that seems really fickle.
I love John but he's insane if he thinks that it's just as easy and visually pleasing to have the in-game character models rigged for those complex scenes. Just creating that scene with Hulkenberg backstabbing that guy would take a ton of time and look so awkward, lol. The anime scenes are not there to make you go "wow, look at the budget!" They're there to create scenes where anime just works better than their admittedly clunky in-game models.
Like, does he honestly think the "Showtime" effects in P5 would be better with in-game models? What?! I assume he's just not putting much thought into what he's saying during that scene because he would love Unlimited Blade Works or something (wouldn't we all, lol).
Is anyone putting off buying Metaphor until the inevitable rerelease, ala Royal/Vengeance/Golden/Fes?
I mean the game will likely be a great experience and worth the price tag. Still, it dampens the enthusiasm thinking we're probably three years away from a definitive edition.
We might be lied to but Atlus claimed they are never doing that again. Only DLC from now on.
3 years is such a long time to wait. I don't think people realize what they're even saying when they bring this up. This isn't the typical thing where you wait maybe a year for a definitive/GOTY edition, but _three years._
Atlus has said they're not doing that anymore with SMTV being the last time because it was already in development
Anybody who played Persona 4 knows Atlus isn't great at tackling anything more serious than "it sure is hard to be sad when you're young!" I bought the game because the gameplay and presentation are fantastic and I can't wait to see how it trips over its own feet trying to explain to me how bad it is to be racist and classist and sexist and all the other -ists these guys try to cram into the game.
Game looks cool, but it seems boring to just fight regular humans
did you watch the actual stream? he is fought a fucking egg with eyes and an arrow in it and a fucked up sex goblin
You don't???
The "humans" are massive monsters but they're just the bosses the other enemies are normal fantasy creatures, hell you even fight a dragon
"Tell me you didnt play the demo without telling me"
@@YetiCoolBrother I don't understand what you want me to tell you, is this some kind of a riddle?
@@lowdownshakinchill No, it means that by your reply it's exceedingly obvious you don't know wtf you're talking about.
Dude this art is good! I would like to see you do a better job 😆
Kinda sad how hard the devs are tryihg to do their best to differentiate this from Persona but no matter how hard they try, people will only see them as the Persona guys.
Are they though?
@@1000Tomatoesyes it’s a new IP it’s just a JRPG. If square enix makes another turn based RPG it doesn’t automatically make it a fucking final fantasy game
@@dyinginfashion2558 I honestly speculated ever since the beginning they would just do a Megaten game but Fantasy even if they said otherwise. Me being correct is pretty vindicating, Atlus will stick with what works best for them just like how Bethesda and Rockstar do.
@@phillemon7664 I really don’t know how to react to that. It’s literally not a shin Megami game or a persona game. You’re just saying that because it’s atlus. Do you believe that red dead and GTA are the same just because they are similar? I wouldn’t call red dead a western prequel to gta. It’s dumb to say that
@@H3rmon861 if they wanted to differentiate this game from persona perhaps they should have considered not making this game exactly like persona
Who's gonna tell him its not actually a Persona game?
"New Persona RPG" when its a completely new franchise. New levels of idiocy
People who call this persona are not smart. They never say red dead is a western gta. Stop this nonsense.
damn never thought about it, I'll start calling it that to piss off red dead fans
This game is not looking good or interesting in my books... I'm glad you're having a blast, man
Me when I judge a 800 page book from the first 5 pages
@@phillemon7664 If an 800 page book doesn't hook you from the outset, it's not worth reading.
@@phillemon7664XD
@@phillemon7664 Yeah, literally Atlus magnum opus
@@phillemon7664 "It gets good after 40 hours bro. Souce? Trust me."
looks kinda AI made
where the hell is the AI that cooked the future best JRPG of all time? I must find it.