861: REVENGEANCE | Metaphor: ReFantazio Reviewcast (No Major Spoilers)

<v Speaker 1>Hey, everybody, it is my birthday and welcome to Giant
<v Speaker 1>BombCast Revengeance, Episode eight hundred and sixty one. I believe,
<v Speaker 1>and the only way that I want to celebrate my
<v Speaker 1>day of birth is taking a nap. But we got
<v Speaker 1>a podcast, so I've decided to assemble the Oh god,
<v Speaker 1>accidents happening on the podcast already. I decided to assemble
<v Speaker 1>the best crew to destabilize governments and make myself believe
<v Speaker 1>in myself. Joining me cocap this ship Turbo Shawn Sean McDowell.
<v Speaker 2>Happy birthday, jam Happy five years old. You can finally
<v Speaker 2>rent a car.
<v Speaker 1>I'm sorry you shut the hell a precious baby. I
<v Speaker 1>looked at myself in the mirror and I saw a
<v Speaker 1>couple of white hairs, and I'm like, oh my god,
<v Speaker 1>I'm thirty three.
<v Speaker 2>I'm dying now, Sexy.
<v Speaker 1>Come on speaking about salt and pepper. He is the
<v Speaker 1>pepper to my salt. Michael him, Hey, what a do baby?
<v Speaker 3>It's your motherfucking buy. I know all about being thirty
<v Speaker 3>three because I once was, but I am no longer.
<v Speaker 1>So what it's Spoiler's dog show. Sorry, Uh, We've we've
<v Speaker 1>got the youngest person in all of games media. That's right.
<v Speaker 1>That's a bold declarative statement, and I'm going to keep
<v Speaker 1>running with it. The years will go by and she
<v Speaker 1>will stay young. Lex Luddie Yep, never gonna age. And
<v Speaker 1>John just for the records in case I ever need
<v Speaker 1>to get a job in America. I do not want
<v Speaker 1>to destabilize any governments speaking about de stable governments. She's
<v Speaker 1>destabilizing video game reviews all across the internet. Jessica Coggswell, Hi,
<v Speaker 1>happy birthday. Jan Oh oh, you're muted in my head.
<v Speaker 1>I'm sorry, that's on me. Everything's fine. Everything something.
<v Speaker 2>It was messed up.
<v Speaker 1>It was super messed up.
<v Speaker 4>Okay, yeah, yeah, I was talking about, you know, having
<v Speaker 4>a horrible birthday and not a really good one.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, well well well I'm kidding. It's fine.
<v Speaker 4>It's fine if it makes you feel better. I have
<v Speaker 4>so many like gray hair is coming in and I'm
<v Speaker 4>thirty one. So that's my on screen confession to you
<v Speaker 4>to make up for.
<v Speaker 3>Solidarity.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's Soliday solidarity right there. That that is an ally,
<v Speaker 1>Ladies and gentlemens and thems at home. That that's right.
<v Speaker 1>If someone tells you they're graying, you tell them you
<v Speaker 1>have more even if you have if you are a
<v Speaker 1>Mike Manatt, if you are a bald, if you are
<v Speaker 1>a Mike Manatti, hf rikers, if you're one of the
<v Speaker 1>ball when I can say that, I'm allowed to say
<v Speaker 1>that because I'm friends with the bald, and at one
<v Speaker 1>point I was bald. It's okay, folks were here to
<v Speaker 1>talk about metaphor Revantasio Atlas's newest joint, perhaps maybe the
<v Speaker 1>most tirelish and sensory overloading menu game of the year.
<v Speaker 1>In three of these fine folks have reviewed this game
<v Speaker 1>across the internet fairly, I believe, super duper high scores
<v Speaker 1>across the board, sean real quick progress check. Where are
<v Speaker 1>you right now?
<v Speaker 2>I am twenty five ish hours in. I was also
<v Speaker 2>playing Echoes of Wisdom, trying to juggle those you know,
<v Speaker 2>and a bunch of our stuff. Didn't have time to
<v Speaker 2>get farther into this as I'd like, I'm hearing that's
<v Speaker 2>somewhere around the one third to one quarter of the
<v Speaker 2>way through this game. So praise to enter for an
<v Speaker 2>Atlas RPG, I suppose, but yeah, really really enjoying it.
<v Speaker 2>For for the everyone else who is on the podcast,
<v Speaker 2>you'll know where I am if I say giant worms,
<v Speaker 2>you know the area? Uh, Jan, I'm curious, how where
<v Speaker 2>are you either have?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yep, that's right, but only with consent. God damn it.
<v Speaker 1>I'm about now fifty ish hours in okay, and in
<v Speaker 1>a normal video game, I would have completed it. And
<v Speaker 1>now I'm doing new game plus because this is an
<v Speaker 1>Atlas joint. Uh what what's the guestimation of my progress?
<v Speaker 1>I don't want to spoil too much because it's much
<v Speaker 1>further in the game.
<v Speaker 5>Where they said like, hey, don't talk about leaving this place. Yes, okay, okay, yeah,
<v Speaker 5>so you'll probably about halfway.
<v Speaker 1>Oh cool, sick sick? Nice? Great? It was mostly my
<v Speaker 1>marker because I remember, Jess, you had posted forty hours
<v Speaker 1>in and then the game finally has its its hooks
<v Speaker 1>into you. Sorry for blowing up close friends on stories.
<v Speaker 1>I'm so sorry, And I was thinking like, okay, cool,
<v Speaker 1>Am I done yet?
<v Speaker 2>No?
<v Speaker 1>Everyone else I'm talking to, Am I done yet?
<v Speaker 3>No?
<v Speaker 1>All right? Sick lex? What did you clock in afterwards?
<v Speaker 1>And what are your general feelings of metaphor?
<v Speaker 5>I'm like one of the five people who've got a
<v Speaker 5>PlayStation code, and so the the in game timer says
<v Speaker 5>one hundred and ten hours the or yeah, one hundred
<v Speaker 5>and ten. My PlayStation time says like one hundred and thirteen.
<v Speaker 5>I had a couple of real rough nights with that
<v Speaker 5>there towards the end. I think the the weekend before
<v Speaker 5>the embargo, I was on a show with you and
<v Speaker 5>I was like, Hey, I'm about like sixty hours in.
<v Speaker 5>Do you know how much longer is left? And you
<v Speaker 5>were like, yeah, Jess said, that's like halfway. So I
<v Speaker 5>had a real fun week which ended up with me
<v Speaker 5>in Mike Minardi's Twitch chat at seven am my time
<v Speaker 5>fighting the final boss, totally running out of items and
<v Speaker 5>any like way to regenerate MP and just like three
<v Speaker 5>hours against the same final boss. Talking to Mike MINARTI
<v Speaker 5>not not a way you want to spend your day,
<v Speaker 5>but I did. I did really love I did really
<v Speaker 5>love the game. I think I'm the only person Michael
<v Speaker 5>you were nine, right, Yeah?
<v Speaker 2>I gave it a nine.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, I was nine point five. The the only downsides
<v Speaker 5>that I have with it is like some very late
<v Speaker 5>game mechanical balancing problems, and when it comes to the
<v Speaker 5>game story, I actually think it's by far Atlas's best
<v Speaker 5>thing that they've risien.
<v Speaker 1>Quite just what how many hours did you clock in afterwards?
<v Speaker 1>End you gave it a ten? I want to say ten.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I ended up playing it for about seventy five
<v Speaker 4>ish hours. I think that's what my official time was.
<v Speaker 4>But I do also know that there were a couple
<v Speaker 4>of times when I quit out of the game and
<v Speaker 4>like went back and I lost probably an hour, So
<v Speaker 4>I would say it's probably closer to some like in
<v Speaker 4>the eighties. Okay, but okay, yeah, it's I I want
<v Speaker 4>like ham on this game.
<v Speaker 1>It was why I had.
<v Speaker 4>I remember Bless messaged me on Instagram from kind of
<v Speaker 4>Funny and he was like, it is so funny to
<v Speaker 4>see that you are the only name who has cleared
<v Speaker 4>so many of these dungeons because you are wild. Because
<v Speaker 4>so if you hit like the little middle button, it
<v Speaker 4>tells you like what everybody was doing, like what their
<v Speaker 4>party comp was when they did certain dungeons. And when
<v Speaker 4>there's only you know, however many codes in the wild,
<v Speaker 4>you see a lot of fellow reviewers and stuff that
<v Speaker 4>you know, and I guess, yeah, my I just looked
<v Speaker 4>like a mad woman because mine was showing up on
<v Speaker 4>all of these dungeons. Every time people went.
<v Speaker 5>In and I got whatever. I went into a dungeon.
<v Speaker 5>I was like, am I am? I the same level.
<v Speaker 5>Jess was like, will I be able to handle this?
<v Speaker 5>Will be paid in the ass, so you just get
<v Speaker 5>through it. And if your level was like lower than mine,
<v Speaker 5>I was like, well, I have no fucking excuse. I
<v Speaker 5>have to get through this.
<v Speaker 2>Uh quick. Aside, just what did you play on what platform?
<v Speaker 4>PlayStation five?
<v Speaker 2>Okay, that makes sense because on PC it was just
<v Speaker 2>player codes for all the airnet connected stuf during the
<v Speaker 2>review period, so I was like, oh, this must just
<v Speaker 2>not be implemented yet. Okay, that must have been fun
<v Speaker 2>to see, like friends, less people and stuff.
<v Speaker 3>Though.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Michael, yo, you gave it a nine on itea
<v Speaker 1>dot com. I did. Yeah, your your overall feelings from
<v Speaker 1>your review on on Metaphor.
<v Speaker 3>I love Metaphor very dearly. I think that Damn I'm
<v Speaker 3>blank and I was on I was on John Warren's
<v Speaker 3>own VGBS yesterday talking about talking about this game, so
<v Speaker 3>I'm like, Damn, what did I say? I love this
<v Speaker 3>game a lot. I think it's a it's a clear
<v Speaker 3>evolution of atlases like there, especially that team's bread and
<v Speaker 3>Butter I guess, So you know, the social mechanics are refined,
<v Speaker 3>the battle system borrows a lot from SMT, and the
<v Speaker 3>archetype system, which we'll dig into deeper later, is a
<v Speaker 3>very fascinating system and a great execution of a job system,
<v Speaker 3>so you're not going through the same motions as you
<v Speaker 3>do in an SMT. In persona combat plays like SMT,
<v Speaker 3>and there's some real wild things that you can do
<v Speaker 3>in combat. But at the end of the day, I
<v Speaker 3>will there are things I take away from Metaphor that
<v Speaker 3>that really affected me on a personal level. So Jess's
<v Speaker 3>review really resonated with me because I think we came
<v Speaker 3>at it from a similar angle, because of what it
<v Speaker 3>has to say about our favorite pieces of fiction and
<v Speaker 3>how they affect us and how they can affect the
<v Speaker 3>real world. And I know that there's been I mean,
<v Speaker 3>I mean there's people are sharing screen shot from the
<v Speaker 3>game during the review period, and a lot of us
<v Speaker 3>are talking about how it incorporates a lot of social
<v Speaker 3>issues into its story, because this is about this is
<v Speaker 3>one of the most like overtly political games. It's about
<v Speaker 3>an election, for one, but also two. In the first hour,
<v Speaker 3>they show you like, hey, listen, this place is fucked up.
<v Speaker 3>There's mad racism, there's hell inequality, there's poor people everywhere,
<v Speaker 3>and a bunch of people in power who are abusing
<v Speaker 3>their power. And so it's like, Okay, this is what
<v Speaker 3>we're getting into. You play as a character who is
<v Speaker 3>you know, discriminated against wherever he goes, and that's kind
<v Speaker 3>of like the base. Yeah, so that's like the basis
<v Speaker 3>of the story. So to me, I'm kind of like
<v Speaker 3>Atlas's stories have affected me in some very very personal ways,
<v Speaker 3>of course, but they're kind of treading into different territory,
<v Speaker 3>and I was a little hesitant.
<v Speaker 1>To be like or I was rather.
<v Speaker 3>Looking to see if they understood the material they were
<v Speaker 3>working with, because like, I don't go, I'm not going
<v Speaker 3>into metaphor for like, to confirm my political views or
<v Speaker 3>to be taught something that I don't already know. Rather,
<v Speaker 3>I'm going I went into this game looking for the
<v Speaker 3>way they're incorporating these themes and if they can demonstrate
<v Speaker 3>and an understanding of what they're working with to tell
<v Speaker 3>a powerful story. And they very much did. You know,
<v Speaker 3>there are a few things that held it back from
<v Speaker 3>being a ten, but we'll probably get into that a
<v Speaker 3>little bit later, but at the end of the day,
<v Speaker 3>metaphor is it's an important game, I think, or at
<v Speaker 3>least for me, it is.
<v Speaker 5>So Yeah, I think that that's a super important bit
<v Speaker 5>of like background on the game that I talked about
<v Speaker 5>when I was previewing the game, and I was super
<v Speaker 5>hesitant of it because of Studio Zo's track records. Like
<v Speaker 5>a lot of the Persona games for me, have really
<v Speaker 5>resonant themes, but then like Fumble in the final act,
<v Speaker 5>where you have like, you have a whole character in
<v Speaker 5>Persona five whose like mom is a detective or sister
<v Speaker 5>is a detective, and then her big revelation is like
<v Speaker 5>I'm instead of like realizing, oh, the cops are corrupt
<v Speaker 5>and this is bad, she's like, I'm going to become
<v Speaker 5>a good cop. You have the stuff in Persona three
<v Speaker 5>which is so bad that they basically had to like
<v Speaker 5>completely rework the beach scene, and I found that with
<v Speaker 5>the splithing of Studio Zero and kind of the younger
<v Speaker 5>Persona team.
<v Speaker 1>I really really.
<v Speaker 5>Enjoyed Persona five Tactica that came out last year, and
<v Speaker 5>I thought that game had like an incredible good game. Yeah,
<v Speaker 5>that game has incredible politics and a really strong message,
<v Speaker 5>and I was kind of like looking at this game
<v Speaker 5>in previews of like, I don't know if they're able
<v Speaker 5>to deal with the content that they're biting off here
<v Speaker 5>or that they have the follow through for Ash, And
<v Speaker 5>for the first thirty hours they kind of don't. There's
<v Speaker 5>a lot of like general, hey, this is bad, but
<v Speaker 5>it doesn't get into like why it's bad or explaining
<v Speaker 5>what it thinks to the people who are who are
<v Speaker 5>you know, causing this in Joe, and the game kind
<v Speaker 5>of feels like it doesn't have teeth in a lot
<v Speaker 5>of ways for the first quarter of the game maybe,
<v Speaker 5>And then as you get further into it and they
<v Speaker 5>really start to delve into the two major camps in
<v Speaker 5>this election, because the game is all like running this
<v Speaker 5>election and how similar the ideals are, but how vastly
<v Speaker 5>important the differences are. Then you start to see like, oh,
<v Speaker 5>Atlas really thought a lot about this, and it becomes
<v Speaker 5>like a sociology and political like examination of what it
<v Speaker 5>actually means to believe these different things, and it really
<v Speaker 5>interrogates both sides and opinions, which I thought was really refreshing.
<v Speaker 1>Let's talk about the battle system, and the battle system
<v Speaker 1>is Michael. He said it borrows a lot from SMT yep,
<v Speaker 1>and I.
<v Speaker 2>It basically is press turn as far as right.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Yeah. The thing I enjoy about it is that
<v Speaker 1>it feels like for folks that haven't checked out SMT
<v Speaker 1>in their or familiar with just your regular decular turn
<v Speaker 1>based stuff or personas of the past, it feels like
<v Speaker 1>persona Turbo just because you can just kind of like
<v Speaker 1>there's there's like a certain cadence to it where you
<v Speaker 1>can kind of just button through to everything. How did
<v Speaker 1>y'all feel about the archetype system? And for persona heads
<v Speaker 1>out there, these are basically your personas and being able
<v Speaker 1>to share that amongst the party and kind of like
<v Speaker 1>make up for deficits or like maybe make the most
<v Speaker 1>terrible team comp.
<v Speaker 2>It is funny that you can like change anyone to
<v Speaker 2>be anything you want, because I think there's a trade
<v Speaker 2>off there. I think it makes the protagonists less interesting
<v Speaker 2>because being the fool being able to switch between all
<v Speaker 2>the personas that you collect over the course of a
<v Speaker 2>persona game or you know, summoning demons a SMT. I'm
<v Speaker 2>a little less familiar with that, so I won't be
<v Speaker 2>talking about that series as much, but being able to
<v Speaker 2>have all these different options and combined with the one
<v Speaker 2>system of being able to just hit weakness after weakness
<v Speaker 2>in persona game is very interesting, and so the protagonist
<v Speaker 2>is a little less interesting. But being able to make
<v Speaker 2>your allies basically whatever you want, they clearly excel in
<v Speaker 2>a given path. Whatever they start as is what they
<v Speaker 2>will be better at. But you can change your team
<v Speaker 2>comp however you want. So maybe you just really like
<v Speaker 2>a character and you want them to go in a
<v Speaker 2>different past, so you basically give them a job like
<v Speaker 2>traditional RPGs have done, like Final Fantasy has done, so
<v Speaker 2>you can make them where you want, and that makes
<v Speaker 2>them more interesting. I think it's a balancing act there
<v Speaker 2>with the job system at least, and I think it
<v Speaker 2>plays into the press turn as is presented in here,
<v Speaker 2>because it does make it so that you can use
<v Speaker 2>the same character in multiple turns. You can do some
<v Speaker 2>interesting stuff with that that you're If you're kind of
<v Speaker 2>like me and you are more familiar or only familiar
<v Speaker 2>with Persona, it's gonna feel different. Not necessarily I would
<v Speaker 2>say even better or worse, but it feels different in
<v Speaker 2>a refreshing way, especially if you have been playing a
<v Speaker 2>lot of persona games like I have been recently.
<v Speaker 1>Jess Michael. The further you get into the game, how
<v Speaker 1>much more complicated does the combat get?
<v Speaker 4>It gets it gets hard. But I don't know that
<v Speaker 4>it's any more complex, I guess, is my thought. I
<v Speaker 4>don't know, like or do you disagree, I'm trying to.
<v Speaker 5>I think the two like drawbacks for the combat that
<v Speaker 5>I had were when you are specing into these different archetypes,
<v Speaker 5>which are really cool. They have preset requirements for you know,
<v Speaker 5>Magic Seeker requires you to be a level ten Mage
<v Speaker 5>and a level twenty Seeker, and each character eventually unlocks
<v Speaker 5>their own unique sort of final class, and you have
<v Speaker 5>to have pretty high requirements in different jobs basically, but
<v Speaker 5>you don't know while playing the game which jobs those
<v Speaker 5>are going to be. So towards the endgame, at a
<v Speaker 5>situation where I unlocked, you know, all these different characters
<v Speaker 5>final classes, but I've been specking them into the long
<v Speaker 5>job class basically, so I just had to grind these
<v Speaker 5>these sort of dungeons to level them up so that
<v Speaker 5>I could unlock their final class. And that's like the
<v Speaker 5>one mechanical thing that they don't fully explain to you that, well.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, that's like, what's one area. I think that there's
<v Speaker 3>there's definitely room for improvement because this is the first
<v Speaker 3>time that they've done this kind of system. I mean
<v Speaker 3>Digital Devil Saga has there's a lot of similarity to
<v Speaker 3>Digital Devil Saga, which I imagine like not as many
<v Speaker 3>people played, but the I think it's a it's a
<v Speaker 3>really interesting system and it's fun to mess around with
<v Speaker 3>when you start specing certain characters into their jobs and
<v Speaker 3>thinking about party synergy because now it's not like my
<v Speaker 3>party is stuck to a certain number of elements or
<v Speaker 3>like okay, like this character covers electricity and physical and
<v Speaker 3>this character is more fire and healing. Anybody can can
<v Speaker 3>do anything, and you can inherent skills from other jobs
<v Speaker 3>that you that you've leveled up, so you can There's
<v Speaker 3>a lot of flexibility, and I think that's important because
<v Speaker 3>the tougher bosses in this game have either specific gimmicks
<v Speaker 3>or they have no weaknesses, or they have they have
<v Speaker 3>like barriers you need to they have hoops you need
<v Speaker 3>to jump through in order to actually damage them. So
<v Speaker 3>there are certain bosses that are there. They're more complex
<v Speaker 3>than I've seen from other from other Atlas bosses, and
<v Speaker 3>I think it puts less emphasis on like, oh, I
<v Speaker 3>just need to have these certain elements covered. It becomes
<v Speaker 3>less and less about like, oh, this enemy is a
<v Speaker 3>weak to electricity. Everyone's gonna get their electricity spell and
<v Speaker 3>we're just gonna hammer away for eight turns because I
<v Speaker 3>can get an extra turn every time I hit that weakness.
<v Speaker 3>There are a lot of bosses where you have to
<v Speaker 3>think about debuffs and protecting your self and thinking steps ahead.
<v Speaker 3>So and they give you a lot more tools. So
<v Speaker 3>I think that the tool set that they give you
<v Speaker 3>through the archetype system gives way to more complex strategies
<v Speaker 3>because you have to do that if you're going to
<v Speaker 3>beat a lot of the some of the end game bosses.
<v Speaker 3>The game does get pretty hard if you if you
<v Speaker 3>keep going out of like a steady pace without like
<v Speaker 3>necessarily grinding or anything, the bosses will be challenging. And
<v Speaker 3>I like that about this game that you know as
<v Speaker 3>maybe they're trying to cast a wider net because they
<v Speaker 3>are doing a new ip, but they've really kept the
<v Speaker 3>level of challenging and almost up the complexity compared to
<v Speaker 3>Shinmagami Tense, which you know a lot of us who
<v Speaker 3>play SMT look at SMB like, oh no, that's the
<v Speaker 3>hardcore RPG. That's what that's what the real motherfuckers play, right, babies.
<v Speaker 5>I talked to some people that were guiding this and
<v Speaker 5>they were like, oh, yeah, if you put it up
<v Speaker 5>to hard or put it down to easy, they don't.
<v Speaker 5>Enemies don't get more or less health. They just are
<v Speaker 5>more aware of your weakness and target it more frequently.
<v Speaker 3>And enemies are smarter too, they know they know what
<v Speaker 3>you're against.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, I just linked in chat. But this game can
<v Speaker 5>kind of be bullshit in the way that SMT is
<v Speaker 5>bullshit of Like I uploaded a clip to Twitter where
<v Speaker 5>just four minutes of me not being able to move
<v Speaker 5>because my entire party was charmed, and so whenever it
<v Speaker 5>was all turned, we just attacked each other and then
<v Speaker 5>we all died eventually.
<v Speaker 3>Right, Yep, that'll happen. I'm glad that. I'm glad that
<v Speaker 3>they that Atlas did not forget its roots.
<v Speaker 4>So but yeah, yeah, no, I think you. I think
<v Speaker 4>you are right. I guess when you said complex, I'm
<v Speaker 4>thinking like almost confusing, because I feel like it does
<v Speaker 4>a very good job of having these building blocks and
<v Speaker 4>just kind of slowly like, Okay, now you know how
<v Speaker 4>to do this, and so if you you know, I
<v Speaker 4>don't know. There's a lot of synergy and a lot
<v Speaker 4>of flexibility, and I think that it just works really beautifully.
<v Speaker 4>I was obsessed with the archtypes. I can't talk archtype system.
<v Speaker 4>The only thing that would have made it better is
<v Speaker 4>like some Final Fantasy ten to two costume changes.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, I would have been a hop not okay. I
<v Speaker 1>know the age range of people on a podcast when
<v Speaker 1>someone will bring up Final Fantasy ten two and everyone's like, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>that's the right demo, that's the right demo. We're going
<v Speaker 1>for millennials, jail. Yeah, did you want to.
<v Speaker 2>Talk about the overworld part of the BATL system in
<v Speaker 2>this segment?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, that's that's probably the best place to talk
<v Speaker 1>to talk about.
<v Speaker 2>It's not I want to checko it, but yeah, I
<v Speaker 2>did want to bring it up because it's one of
<v Speaker 2>the things that I would say is actually a negative
<v Speaker 2>for me. Is okay, So people who maybe haven't played
<v Speaker 2>the demo, if you've just seen the trailers and stuff,
<v Speaker 2>may have been confused, like I was about Okay, they're
<v Speaker 2>doing some like action RPG hacken slash stuff on the overworld,
<v Speaker 2>but then it transitions into turn based How does that work?
<v Speaker 2>And so what happens is it's basically a consolidation of
<v Speaker 2>things that Sona has done, especially in five, a combination
<v Speaker 2>of being able to take out enemies that are weaker
<v Speaker 2>than you, being able to ambush enemies to gain advantage
<v Speaker 2>in battle. So turning all of that into one cohesive
<v Speaker 2>system that they present as action RPG adjacent. What happens.
<v Speaker 2>You know, use the phae vision I believe it's called Gallica.
<v Speaker 2>Your little fairy will tell you if an enemy is weaker,
<v Speaker 2>same level or a higher level than you, blue yellow, red,
<v Speaker 2>And so if they're weaker than you, you walk up
<v Speaker 2>to them and you know, press square basic attack, you
<v Speaker 2>just kill them missingly, get some XP, move on with
<v Speaker 2>your life. If they're at the same level or higher,
<v Speaker 2>that's when it gets more complex because it turns into
<v Speaker 2>a system where you need to lock onto the enemy,
<v Speaker 2>break their like guard meter, and if you successfully do so,
<v Speaker 2>you will basically ambush as you would in persona game.
<v Speaker 2>You will gain advantage. And it's even stronger here because
<v Speaker 2>the enemies will straight up have the stun effect on
<v Speaker 2>them four up to two turns. My problem is maybe
<v Speaker 2>just an expectation of mine. I'm a big character action
<v Speaker 2>game kind of person, and by EXTENSI I love action RPGs,
<v Speaker 2>and this feels like kind of a clunky implementation of that.
<v Speaker 2>I know it's not they're not going for action rpg,
<v Speaker 2>but it feels a little too in the middle for me.
<v Speaker 2>It doesn't feel like action RPG, but also doesn't feel
<v Speaker 2>menu driven, and so it's actually maybe it's a small
<v Speaker 2>thing in the grand scheme of the game once you've
<v Speaker 2>been playing for eighty two one hundred dollars, but it
<v Speaker 2>just feels wonky to me to be exploring a dungeon
<v Speaker 2>and kind of have to like press this attack with
<v Speaker 2>a little a little bit of input delay. Sometimes the
<v Speaker 2>character doesn't go quite where I want them to to,
<v Speaker 2>like actually hit the enemy. Sometimes the camera gets stuck
<v Speaker 2>on something when you're like locked onto an enemy and
<v Speaker 2>it doesn't know what to do, and then you get ambush,
<v Speaker 2>And like I think Michael was saying earlier, if you
<v Speaker 2>get ambushed in this game, you're getting fucked up, yeas
<v Speaker 2>beat Yeah, So that can be really annoying. But I
<v Speaker 2>would say in the grand scheme of things now that I'm,
<v Speaker 2>you know, more in the over twenty five hours in
<v Speaker 2>it's not super intrusive, so it feels more like a nitpick.
<v Speaker 2>But it was something that was really bugging me in
<v Speaker 2>the early parts of game. I don't know how the
<v Speaker 2>rest of you feel about that half ish of the combat.
<v Speaker 4>I love it because it totally allows you to I
<v Speaker 4>don't just like cheese your way through certain things, like Okay,
<v Speaker 4>so I went into one dungeon and there was minotaurs
<v Speaker 4>everywhere and they were kicking my ass, and so I
<v Speaker 4>switched to having my protagonist be a thief, which if
<v Speaker 4>you're a thief, you have throwing daggers.
<v Speaker 3>So if you hide behind.
<v Speaker 4>Walls and just throw daggers at things, you can get
<v Speaker 4>them to be ambush and then you can run into
<v Speaker 4>battle and you can take them down way easier. So
<v Speaker 4>like little things like that, or even if you know,
<v Speaker 4>there's a part end game where I was just like
<v Speaker 4>grinding up stuff so that could hit all of my
<v Speaker 4>party's like final archetype, and I was just running around
<v Speaker 4>an area with the throwing knives. I literally just would
<v Speaker 4>switch to that just to solely have those, and I
<v Speaker 4>was just running around just and just leveling up. It
<v Speaker 4>was fantastic.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, I just unlocked Deef, so I'm maybe maybe I'll
<v Speaker 2>like that a little bit more actually having an arranged option.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, the arrange option is so fun.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, Yeah, Sean, you just gotta just just do a
<v Speaker 1>good old drive by in a fantasy.
<v Speaker 2>Well. I mean that's what I like about Persona five.
<v Speaker 2>I think it was introducing Royal specifically where Joker just
<v Speaker 2>like rushes through the dude and it's like a monochrome
<v Speaker 2>you know screen where he just mess those people up
<v Speaker 2>and just get the rewards. I like that a little
<v Speaker 2>bit more than you know, just whacking them one my
<v Speaker 2>scepter and getting like too cold.
<v Speaker 1>A major huge thing in a lot of Persona games
<v Speaker 1>is your supporting cast on top of your main protagonist. Folks, friends,
<v Speaker 1>how did we feel about the party and the subsequent
<v Speaker 1>social bonds you wind up doing with the gang? Damn?
<v Speaker 5>It's probably the best artless characters have ever been, like
<v Speaker 5>overall when it comes to consistency, because I don't think
<v Speaker 5>there's a single one of those characters that you have
<v Speaker 5>a link with that doesn't have like something that genuinely
<v Speaker 5>affected me. I think the highlights are definitely Maria, heis May,
<v Speaker 5>and and those characters come through as like some of
<v Speaker 5>the best characters of the year in video games. And
<v Speaker 5>they're like even Maria as like a kid character, which
<v Speaker 5>are so usually just these very like dull and plain
<v Speaker 5>and way too innocent, and but the shades that they
<v Speaker 5>give to her as a character, and like the competency
<v Speaker 5>and the fact that they don't talk down to her
<v Speaker 5>in a lot of ways and makes that character incredible.
<v Speaker 5>And heis May is like one of the most heartbreaking
<v Speaker 5>side stories that.
<v Speaker 2>Precious Boy's great.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, my rat my rat man.
<v Speaker 5>Who is he?
<v Speaker 1>What is he in the mouse?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? Yeah, we see, yeah, we see he's a bat
<v Speaker 2>mouse yeah, bat mouse.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah.
<v Speaker 3>The I mean, it's the case with any any persona
<v Speaker 3>game with their social links or confidence, is that all
<v Speaker 3>of them are supposed to be vessels for you to
<v Speaker 3>kind of understand various aspects of the story it's trying
<v Speaker 3>to tell. But more so than any other game because
<v Speaker 3>you're not necessarily tied to like this Arkana system where
<v Speaker 3>the it's like, well there's twenty cards in a tarot deck.
<v Speaker 3>We got to have this many social links. So I
<v Speaker 3>think stripping down away, stripping down or stripping away a
<v Speaker 3>lot of the a lot of the tenets that are
<v Speaker 3>tied to persona kind of gives them the freedom to
<v Speaker 3>be more efficient. And you see this in how you
<v Speaker 3>go about your your calendar days. But I think specifically
<v Speaker 3>for the social links this or for the for the
<v Speaker 3>bonds and followers, it lets them focus on fewer things,
<v Speaker 3>go more in depth, and they're only up to rank
<v Speaker 3>eight so each story, but you get feel a little
<v Speaker 3>bit more purposeful, and then the.
<v Speaker 5>Time you visit them, you will level them up.
<v Speaker 1>You will level up.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you know that's very important. It's not persona where
<v Speaker 2>you need to have a specific persona equipped and that
<v Speaker 2>you need to get You also don't even need to
<v Speaker 2>get dialogue choices right to get more points with them,
<v Speaker 2>because you yeah, you just get a currency as a
<v Speaker 2>bonus if you say something that they like.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>So they strip away a lot of the a lot
<v Speaker 3>of the things that are kind of that can be
<v Speaker 3>frustrating and not even and like metaphor is a lot
<v Speaker 3>more clear in communicating your progress, whether it's your social
<v Speaker 3>stats or if it's your social standing with the characters.
<v Speaker 3>So it kind of cuts out a lot of the
<v Speaker 3>a lot of the fluff, a lot of the mystery.
<v Speaker 3>So it's very straightforward. It's a lot more efficient, and
<v Speaker 3>I think because of that, I finished all my bonds
<v Speaker 3>like well before the final dungeon without a guy because
<v Speaker 3>we're reviewing the game, so there's no guides out there,
<v Speaker 3>and I think that speaks to how much more streamlined
<v Speaker 3>this game is. But through that, you get to see
<v Speaker 3>all the characters all the way through, and there's some
<v Speaker 3>really really special ones obviously, like has May being a
<v Speaker 3>party member. Of course you want to like see his
<v Speaker 3>story all the way through in his social bond, but
<v Speaker 3>like having that context for his tragic backstory and then
<v Speaker 3>having him in your party, like you know, it all
<v Speaker 3>feeds into that, and like that's the case with anybody
<v Speaker 3>else but my precious war Boy. The first time I
<v Speaker 3>cried in this game was on his Rank eight scene.
<v Speaker 3>That's that's the first one that got okay and.
<v Speaker 5>Me and Jess we talked about this a little bit
<v Speaker 5>before the game came out, but like the localization is
<v Speaker 5>so fucking good for when you consider that this is
<v Speaker 5>a game being developed in Japanese primarily, and then it's
<v Speaker 5>being translated into English, and then they're working it into
<v Speaker 5>like this old English at the same time. And then
<v Speaker 5>it's the lines that they come out with, the fucking
<v Speaker 5>bars that some of these characters have, like they go
<v Speaker 5>so fucking hard, and I can't remember the Heisme one,
<v Speaker 5>but it's it's I'll try to pull it up if
<v Speaker 5>someone else wants to talk about it for a little bit.
<v Speaker 5>But there's some quotes that are just incredible.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I think that, oh no Osen says, I think
<v Speaker 4>that the biggest change obviously. I mean I don't know
<v Speaker 4>a lot of SMT. I've played a little bit, but
<v Speaker 4>like between persona and metaphor is obviously you go away
<v Speaker 4>from like this real world high school setting, and I
<v Speaker 4>think that that just helps so much, which is weird
<v Speaker 4>because I love Persona, like I genuinely like I love Persona,
<v Speaker 4>but it's so refreshing to play this game where one
<v Speaker 4>of your cam like Holgenberg very much implied to be
<v Speaker 4>like probably late thirties, early forties, like she's significantly older
<v Speaker 4>than the rest of the party, you know, And like
<v Speaker 4>that's how it is with Heismee too, Like Hisme is
<v Speaker 4>a father significantly older, and there's just a lot of
<v Speaker 4>I don't know, just different age ranges, and it doesn't
<v Speaker 4>feel like some of these social links are just there
<v Speaker 4>to be like a romantic interest, which is funny because
<v Speaker 4>I was totally like, I love romantic interest in games
<v Speaker 4>like give me that boyer where like yeah, So whenever
<v Speaker 4>I heard that there was no, you know, no Wai Fu's,
<v Speaker 4>I was like, well, I don't I don't know like that.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, you know where you lock it down.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, but I was like, oh, I don't know, like
<v Speaker 4>I kind of like that aspect, And then while I
<v Speaker 4>was playing, it was like, holy shit, this is so
<v Speaker 4>much better actually, because there's still like chemistry between the
<v Speaker 4>main character and a couple of the other characters where
<v Speaker 4>you're like, oh, like that could be a thing in
<v Speaker 4>the future. But it doesn't feel like it's all consuming.
<v Speaker 4>It doesn't feel like you're talking to like, okay, like
<v Speaker 4>I love, I love what is Itfumi is? Is she
<v Speaker 4>the chess player?
<v Speaker 2>Five?
<v Speaker 1>There? Yeah?
<v Speaker 4>So it's like it doesn't feel like you're just like
<v Speaker 4>doing these stories because you're like, oh, this character is
<v Speaker 4>kind of cute and kind of interesting.
<v Speaker 1>I almost see you.
<v Speaker 4>Like it's it's just all so much more meaningful and
<v Speaker 4>ties into the thematics and really, I mean like Brigita, right,
<v Speaker 4>like gorgeous love her, love of my life. But also
<v Speaker 4>it's not like you're going to her as like this
<v Speaker 4>older romantic interest. You know, you're you're going to her
<v Speaker 4>because she's she's going through a lot, you know, and
<v Speaker 4>she's been through a lot, and god, just some of
<v Speaker 4>the things that like, she she affected me so much
<v Speaker 4>with some of the things that she would say. It
<v Speaker 4>just about how life can make you very closed off
<v Speaker 4>if you let it, and very jaded and kind of
<v Speaker 4>seeing her try to pull herself out of.
<v Speaker 1>That was, Yeah, so good, she's there.
<v Speaker 3>There's a there's a lot of the bonds feel very natural,
<v Speaker 3>and I think that's what makes them, makes the characters
<v Speaker 3>stand out, especially if you're coming from this. You know,
<v Speaker 3>we played like how many fucking persona games at this
<v Speaker 3>at this point, So it's hard it's hard to be surprised, right,
<v Speaker 3>But I was surprised by because again, like you're not
<v Speaker 3>interacting with these characters, are like, oh, I want to
<v Speaker 3>be their friend. It's like you're kind.
<v Speaker 2>Of you, You're they're they're treating they're teaching.
<v Speaker 3>You a lot about the world as you as they
<v Speaker 3>walk through it with you, and so like Brigitta is.
<v Speaker 1>Kind of a parallel world.
<v Speaker 3>She like runs a weapons shop and she's like, if
<v Speaker 3>I could have it my way, I wish this world
<v Speaker 3>wouldn't have weapons, But this is the reality in which
<v Speaker 3>we work with work in, and this is my trade.
<v Speaker 3>So I'm kind of like stuck in. This is what
<v Speaker 3>I have to do, and there's no real real escaping
<v Speaker 3>and it explores that in a in a nuanced way, honestly,
<v Speaker 3>And so I think that that is one way in
<v Speaker 3>which this game kind of demonstrates like, oh, it's you know,
<v Speaker 3>it does understand these complexities. And then I won't say
<v Speaker 3>who the character is, but there's also one that focuses
<v Speaker 3>on like religion as an institution versus faith, and I
<v Speaker 3>think that's such a good vessel for exploring the Sanctish Church,
<v Speaker 3>which kind of dominates the kingdom in which this game
<v Speaker 3>exists in. And so you have this church, this institution
<v Speaker 3>that is all powerful throughout the kingdom, but then you
<v Speaker 3>have like the social bond where you kind of like
<v Speaker 3>see it on the ground level and then kind of
<v Speaker 3>see a lot of different like and like supporting characters.
<v Speaker 3>Their faith is tested in some really interesting ways, and
<v Speaker 3>the game is very smart about like saying it doesn't.
<v Speaker 3>It's not about like, oh, it is religion bad, is
<v Speaker 3>religion good? Or is having faith purposeful?
<v Speaker 1>Whatever?
<v Speaker 3>Like it doesn't. Those are very basic questions, and it doesn't.
<v Speaker 3>It goes past that.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, it assumes that you have already made up your
<v Speaker 4>mind on that. Like it's it's just examining it in
<v Speaker 4>different situations and kind of more nuanced conversations.
<v Speaker 2>It's not even try hyde. It's it's making an analog
<v Speaker 2>to Christianity, and like examining is you know, this being
<v Speaker 2>a very dominant thing in the world, you know, is
<v Speaker 2>this always? Yeah? No, no metaphors in this game at all.
<v Speaker 3>I think it's really funny this game is called metaphor because.
<v Speaker 2>It's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a lot on these things.
<v Speaker 5>Extremely I do think that a lot of that is
<v Speaker 5>able to do that way better in this game because
<v Speaker 5>of the structure of it, of having a main villain
<v Speaker 5>who you know from the beginning and kind of instead
<v Speaker 5>of the persona thing of it's almost like episodic in
<v Speaker 5>a lot of ways. There are segments of this game
<v Speaker 5>where you go to different areas and you spend time
<v Speaker 5>in different areas, but there is a very clear overarching no,
<v Speaker 5>this is the person who you're fucking with, and you
<v Speaker 5>want to deal with them real badly because they fucking suck. Yeah,
<v Speaker 5>having like the ominous government man who you never see
<v Speaker 5>until the final ten hours. In like a lot of
<v Speaker 5>Persona games, they just say, no, fucking this guy, this
<v Speaker 5>guy sucks.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah at the last moment.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, yeah, I would say. That's what I was hoping
<v Speaker 4>it would not do. I was like, man, if you
<v Speaker 4>just end up fighting like God or something like, I
<v Speaker 4>get it. But I was that I wouldn't do that
<v Speaker 4>because like Lise is just like this little Griffith bitch
<v Speaker 4>that I love.
<v Speaker 2>And I tell you from the opening cut scene before
<v Speaker 2>you press start what your goal is. It's yea, I
<v Speaker 2>love it.
<v Speaker 5>Yes, And like they wind up playing with it in
<v Speaker 5>some cool ways too, because they do something which is
<v Speaker 5>like it's fun that they there's a whole section where
<v Speaker 5>you're like, oh, am I doing something else in this game,
<v Speaker 5>like is the something else that's going on?
<v Speaker 3>And then they're like, nah, yeah, yeah, I guess since
<v Speaker 3>we're talking about characters, I guess I didn't really, it
<v Speaker 3>wasn't until like I really sat down for like a
<v Speaker 3>day after finishing the game, when I really appreciated Luis
<v Speaker 3>as a character, Like not that I like him in
<v Speaker 3>terms of like, oh that's my guy. That is not
<v Speaker 3>my guy at all, but I think because.
<v Speaker 2>Him in the next election, he's like he's kind of
<v Speaker 2>a JoJo's villain. You know, he's got charisma where it's like, ah, right,
<v Speaker 2>you're a good villain who I liked.
<v Speaker 3>Is a very good villain that I that is offered
<v Speaker 3>levels of complexity that is saw all the way through
<v Speaker 3>the game at various points, so it's he's it's a
<v Speaker 3>very consistent villain. I think Atlas has kind of had
<v Speaker 3>that problem in a way because I think like with
<v Speaker 3>Persona five, it's like flavor of the day villain as
<v Speaker 3>you go from one thing to another, which is good,
<v Speaker 3>which I think works for that game. Persona three kind
<v Speaker 3>of waits till the very end to like show its cards,
<v Speaker 3>which works for that what that is, But for metaphor,
<v Speaker 3>I think this is a very uh this is like
<v Speaker 3>a great like this is a great execution that is
<v Speaker 3>consistent that kind of drives You're like, this is a
<v Speaker 3>villain who drives you throughout the entire game and your
<v Speaker 3>relationship with that villain, like you never really know where
<v Speaker 3>you stand, and that's such an interesting part, like oh,
<v Speaker 3>what's the next happen? And you think this is gonna happen,
<v Speaker 3>but then it kind of changes into this and so
<v Speaker 3>it's it like it it compels me.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, And he's really good at like presenting his case
<v Speaker 5>in a way that a lot of ORPG villains aren't,
<v Speaker 5>where like even if the game is like no, he
<v Speaker 5>is objectively fucking wrong and we dislike what he's saying.
<v Speaker 5>He is very eloquent and like the performance is graceh
<v Speaker 5>and he's just like you can tell yeah, yeah, you
<v Speaker 5>look at him and you're like, oh no, this guy
<v Speaker 5>is fucking captivating, Like I can see why people follow this.
<v Speaker 2>Guy right, very creous.
<v Speaker 4>Oh yeah, like I would join that cult.
<v Speaker 2>I think all of this is because it's very important
<v Speaker 2>to point out the main character is not you. Your
<v Speaker 2>main character is a character who has existed in this
<v Speaker 2>world and has their story that you are influencing, but
<v Speaker 2>you are not them. And I don't know how it
<v Speaker 2>exactly all this plays agether, so don't ruin it if
<v Speaker 2>there's something there, but yes, you are technically someone in
<v Speaker 2>this game, and the protagonist is someone else. And because
<v Speaker 2>the protagonist has you know, we we obviously have things
<v Speaker 2>like Joker in Persona five having the backstory that sets
<v Speaker 2>up for everything, but otherwise fairly average, you know, teenage
<v Speaker 2>kid and the MC in this game having the background
<v Speaker 2>that they do. Simply having the race that they do
<v Speaker 2>and the way that everything weaves into that and how
<v Speaker 2>they are such an underdog in this story is what
<v Speaker 2>allows all these things to happen because you are guiding them,
<v Speaker 2>but they have their own voice, literally and figuratively. They
<v Speaker 2>are voiced for like the first time is fantastic. It's
<v Speaker 2>not just like you know, battle grunts and stuff. It's
<v Speaker 2>nice to see the person who you are guiding interact
<v Speaker 2>with all these other characters as if they are all
<v Speaker 2>real people. Because that's when the Atlas has always been
<v Speaker 2>really good, as like making these characters that feel real
<v Speaker 2>and finally your main character feels real as well, which,
<v Speaker 2>by the way, were on the topic, why did everybody
<v Speaker 2>name the protagonist Jan Jan? Of course?
<v Speaker 4>Okay, I always name my Atlas protagonists the same thing,
<v Speaker 4>which is hero with an I though I think.
<v Speaker 2>Your hero, Yeah, Hero protagonist.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, yeah, Les, it asks you for two names, Yes,
<v Speaker 5>it does. Yeah, So I did lex and then Lexi,
<v Speaker 5>which wound up that's funny.
<v Speaker 2>I know what Michael did, but I want to tell
<v Speaker 2>the audience.
<v Speaker 3>Yeh, good old Charlie Took who lives on yet again.
<v Speaker 1>The Ultimate Time Traveler.
<v Speaker 2>I went with Cyrus because it sounds like a masculine
<v Speaker 2>forum of iris and the main character has heterochromia, so
<v Speaker 2>I thought that was loo at you. Sean also got
<v Speaker 2>blue hair like Cyrus from Pokemon Diamond Pearl, so if.
<v Speaker 1>It the nerd uh folks friends were nearing the end
<v Speaker 1>of our time here. But but I just want to
<v Speaker 1>talk real quick about story in this game, and uh,
<v Speaker 1>you know Persona games there, they all got their stories,
<v Speaker 1>they all got their metaphors. But since this game is
<v Speaker 1>called metaphor, do you think since you three have landed
<v Speaker 1>or finished it, and Sean you're still in the process
<v Speaker 1>along with me, does it stick the landing? Does does
<v Speaker 1>it hit the metaphor? We've joked around that it's incredibly
<v Speaker 1>on the nose, But like the messages that the game
<v Speaker 1>has to tell it, does it land well? Has it
<v Speaker 1>resonated with y'all? Is it affecting y'all? Have you found
<v Speaker 1>yourself crying? Afterwards, we'll go around the room. Jess you first,
<v Speaker 1>if if you are, you're ready.
<v Speaker 2>Yes.
<v Speaker 4>The answer I guess to everything is yes, it's so good.
<v Speaker 4>I just I think that I grew up in my
<v Speaker 4>favorite games or like Final Fancy seven and then Final
<v Speaker 4>Fancy nine or like two of my all time favorite games,
<v Speaker 4>and part of the reason for that is just how
<v Speaker 4>deeply empathetic they are and how rooted they are, like
<v Speaker 4>just the context I guess surrounding them and metaphor is
<v Speaker 4>like that it reminded me in so many ways of
<v Speaker 4>playing those games that I grew up playing, and like
<v Speaker 4>just just like the way, like the storytelling, the way
<v Speaker 4>that you have Like sorry to like draw this parallel,
<v Speaker 4>but it's like, you know, I said that Luis is Griffith,
<v Speaker 4>but he's also like a very seph Roth character, right,
<v Speaker 4>Like it's a very like Cloud and seph Roth thing
<v Speaker 4>where it's like each one of them has an idea
<v Speaker 4>for how this place should be fixed, and they share
<v Speaker 4>a lot of similarities, but the way, like the things
<v Speaker 4>that happened to them completely altered, like what they think
<v Speaker 4>they need to do in order to reach that utopia,
<v Speaker 4>and so I don't know, it's just it's very compelling.
<v Speaker 4>It brought me back to those games that raised me,
<v Speaker 4>and in that sense, like it did have this really
<v Speaker 4>big emotional impact on me in a way that a
<v Speaker 4>game has it in a long time. Like my game
<v Speaker 4>of the year last year was Balder's Gate three, right,
<v Speaker 4>and that's a phenomenal game, and I loved every second
<v Speaker 4>of playing it, But it's not something where I walk
<v Speaker 4>away from it and I'm like, oh my gosh, I
<v Speaker 4>want to be a better person, Whereas like I played
<v Speaker 4>Metaphor and it just touches on so many things where
<v Speaker 4>like I don't remember who I was texting, but I said,
<v Speaker 4>it's like going to therapy where you hear your therapists
<v Speaker 4>say something and you're like, yeah, like I know that
<v Speaker 4>that's common sense, but if you hear it enough times,
<v Speaker 4>and if you hear it delivered eloquently, there's just like
<v Speaker 4>one of those times it just hits you and you're
<v Speaker 4>like that is right, and like I know that inside,
<v Speaker 4>but I needed to hear somebody else tell me that
<v Speaker 4>because I felt alone or like I felt I don't know,
<v Speaker 4>so and like That's how it was for me. Is
<v Speaker 4>I just I was playing it and it would say
<v Speaker 4>these things and sometimes it's cheesy, sometimes it's cliche, but
<v Speaker 4>then it just it'll just pack a punch and you're like,
<v Speaker 4>holy shit, Like I have become a jaded thirty year old.
<v Speaker 4>And you know, I remember when I was idealistic, and
<v Speaker 4>I remember how games moved me at one point, and like,
<v Speaker 4>I like, this is what games can be and I
<v Speaker 4>love that.
<v Speaker 5>X Yeah, I think I said it on Twitter, but
<v Speaker 5>like this game has a real anger to it. You know,
<v Speaker 5>it has it's not willing, it's very willing to say
<v Speaker 5>like what it thinks of certain people, and like it
<v Speaker 5>has contempt for people who have given up on, you know,
<v Speaker 5>hope in a lot of ways. The line I pulled
<v Speaker 5>up from Hayes May's side story, it isn't said by him,
<v Speaker 5>it's said by another character, but it's I don't know
<v Speaker 5>when it happened, but we stopped chasing hope. We've grown complacent,
<v Speaker 5>cling to the idea that is wiser to accept hardship
<v Speaker 5>than resistish and that like really fucked me up as
<v Speaker 5>someone who is very happy to look on the bad
<v Speaker 5>side of things or to be inactive and allow like
<v Speaker 5>negative things to happen because it just seems like the
<v Speaker 5>right thing to do. And this game, in a way
<v Speaker 5>that like very few other games have ever done, kind
<v Speaker 5>of motivates you and is a real direct dialogue with
<v Speaker 5>the player, basically trying to get them to believe in something.
<v Speaker 5>And it's aware that, like again, it's very aware that
<v Speaker 5>it is in fact a metaphor. It's aware that like
<v Speaker 5>this isn't like the real world, but that doesn't fucking
<v Speaker 5>madam man, and that it can still have power outside
<v Speaker 5>of ash, which I think is something really incredible that
<v Speaker 5>they are that self aware with this.
<v Speaker 1>So, yeah, it's where you're at in the story.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's just how it starts strong and it keeps going.
<v Speaker 2>I think the Persona games have an issue with their starts,
<v Speaker 2>Especially after playing Reload this year, I realized that Persona
<v Speaker 2>three probably gets off to the quickest start overall. You know,
<v Speaker 2>five starts very bombastic, but it kind of then has
<v Speaker 2>a huge exposition dump and not a lot happening until
<v Speaker 2>you get through the first dungeon and metaphor. You know,
<v Speaker 2>if you play that demo, you you know you're playing
<v Speaker 2>the intro area, like allot of the tutorial there, so
<v Speaker 2>a lot of people probably already know this, but it
<v Speaker 2>starts with just some heavy beats and it just kind
<v Speaker 2>of doesn't slow down. You know, is a hero's journey,
<v Speaker 2>so you will have some ebbing and flowing, but man,
<v Speaker 2>the highs hit really high. It's just it's all so
<v Speaker 2>well presented. The characters, like we already said, are incredible,
<v Speaker 2>and so even though I'm pretty early on in the
<v Speaker 2>grand scheme of things, I am loving the overall pacing
<v Speaker 2>of everything. I love how they are presenting what they
<v Speaker 2>want to say. They you know, they say it out loud,
<v Speaker 2>they say, hey, we don't necessarily need to condemn something
<v Speaker 2>straight out, but ask questions, you know, question is this good?
<v Speaker 2>Is this okay? Is Like, like we mentioned with Luis,
<v Speaker 2>even if someone's ideal is maybe on the right track,
<v Speaker 2>it's about the approach and the fact that this game
<v Speaker 2>is constantly asking these questions is what is stringing me
<v Speaker 2>along so much. It's what's making me fall in love
<v Speaker 2>with the plot of this game, because it is this
<v Speaker 2>grand epic tale that again like having a main character
<v Speaker 2>who is on this journey, not just to you know,
<v Speaker 2>by a bunch of high school drama stuff and then
<v Speaker 2>kill god. You know, as fun as silly as it is,
<v Speaker 2>may sometimes too silly. No, this is a much more
<v Speaker 2>grounded as ground as you can be in a fantasy
<v Speaker 2>world story of rising up through the ranks and overcoming adversity,
<v Speaker 2>and the way they go about it, I just think
<v Speaker 2>is absolutely fantastic. I'm loving it so far.
<v Speaker 1>Oh my guy, Michael, him take us home. Throw some
<v Speaker 1>knowledge of darts. Oh boy, the story here man that.
<v Speaker 3>It's hard to follow up on all those things because
<v Speaker 3>all y'all are all right and cover various aspects, and
<v Speaker 3>I think that speaks to how much you can take
<v Speaker 3>away from from this game. And I think I share
<v Speaker 3>similar sentiments as all y'all. But for me, it's there's
<v Speaker 3>there's a meta narrative to this game, and it opens
<v Speaker 3>with that, and for a long time you kind of
<v Speaker 3>wonder where it's going, what it does with that. I
<v Speaker 3>think that's one of the more interesting aspects about how
<v Speaker 3>this game does storytelling and how it is speaking to
<v Speaker 3>you in various ways directly to you as the player,
<v Speaker 3>and that adds a layer, that adds an extra layer
<v Speaker 3>that not I don't I don't know if I've ever
<v Speaker 3>felt from a game before, because not only are you
<v Speaker 3>going through this fantasy world that has has a lot
<v Speaker 3>of parallels that are reflective of the worst parts of
<v Speaker 3>our own world, giving you the power to fight at it,
<v Speaker 3>giving you the context to understand it, and compelling you
<v Speaker 3>in so many various ways as you reach the end.
<v Speaker 3>So in that extra layer, I think they're able to
<v Speaker 3>cut deeper than I had expected. And by the end
<v Speaker 3>of this game, sat, I sat. I was playing as
<v Speaker 3>Lucy's place. I sat in Lucy's couch and I sat
<v Speaker 3>there and I cried for an hour. And I think
<v Speaker 3>it has to do with man, it's really hard to
<v Speaker 3>talk about without giving too much away, but the way
<v Speaker 3>this game tells you that fiction can be powerful, that
<v Speaker 3>the stories you grew up idolizing, the fictional characters you
<v Speaker 3>grow up loving, like in a way a lot of
<v Speaker 3>you know, I think a lot of people feel embarrassed
<v Speaker 3>to say that, like, oh, this fictional character or this
<v Speaker 3>game I played, or this this hero and the story
<v Speaker 3>is that's my hero too, And it's like, well, don't
<v Speaker 3>you idolize like someone in real life or whatever, And
<v Speaker 3>like no, I think that there are a lot of
<v Speaker 3>fictional characters who have made me who I am. And
<v Speaker 3>it's really funny that this is coming from Atlas because
<v Speaker 3>Atlas games have affected me in a very big way.
<v Speaker 3>So for this game to reach out to me personally,
<v Speaker 3>it feels like reaching out to the player personally to
<v Speaker 3>tell them this story and to tell them that it
<v Speaker 3>is okay to to embrace the fiction that like those
<v Speaker 3>things that are core pillars to who you are, Like,
<v Speaker 3>let that be power in your own life too, Like
<v Speaker 3>it's these things and be moving as well. So there's uh,
<v Speaker 3>like there there's a there's an extra level to this,
<v Speaker 3>to this narrative, and I think it sprinkles that throughout,
<v Speaker 3>like it shows you like when you ever, whenever you
<v Speaker 3>visit academia and you like check on the book next
<v Speaker 3>to next to more and then it kind of like
<v Speaker 3>keeps minding. It's like, oh, you know this person named Michael,
<v Speaker 3>you know they were they were they were once influenced
<v Speaker 3>by like the stories of yours. Huh, I wonder what
<v Speaker 3>that's about. And I think, uh, it's like a it's
<v Speaker 3>a nice breadcrumb, it's a nice trail in addition to
<v Speaker 3>everything else that you're playing. So it's uh, it's very
<v Speaker 3>powerful in what it says about fiction. I say as
<v Speaker 3>much in my review because I think that is like
<v Speaker 3>the most important part is in addition to like the
<v Speaker 3>political messages, in addition to all the friendships that you
<v Speaker 3>make through the bonds and follower system and having your
<v Speaker 3>having such a strong RPG party, There's more to it
<v Speaker 3>than that, and I think that is one of the
<v Speaker 3>things that put Metaphor above many of the other RPGs
<v Speaker 3>that I love.
<v Speaker 1>Hell yeah, folks, if that is not a ring endorsement
<v Speaker 1>to perhaps explore the metaphor of Metaphor refantasio, I don't
<v Speaker 1>know what the fuck will fantastic game. I realize I
<v Speaker 1>haven't said much about the game, but I'm just absolutely
<v Speaker 1>giddy top to bottom experience with the game, the whole wrapping,
<v Speaker 1>the whole joint. I just love jumping into a battle
<v Speaker 1>and it says peril, Oh, dudet it.
<v Speaker 2>This is ui porn. It's so good, like you thought
<v Speaker 2>Persona five was good like this. Maybe doesn't have quite
<v Speaker 2>the same style, but damn everything is moving, Everything has
<v Speaker 2>a vibe to it, like which is I'm not just
<v Speaker 2>saying that because it looks good. It's important in is
<v Speaker 2>very important in a turn based RPG. Those menus that
<v Speaker 2>you were looking at for one hundred dollars, they better
<v Speaker 2>like damn good. And this game looks damn good. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>like the Oh the other day, Michael, you might remember
<v Speaker 2>when you tweet that picture of Lucy's cat. Well, you know,
<v Speaker 2>put the crossan emoji and I put the I put
<v Speaker 2>the golden ratio in like sta. It's because I had
<v Speaker 2>this game's you. I on the brain and I can't
<v Speaker 2>get off my head.
<v Speaker 3>If you look, you see a lot of like sheepe shapeliness,
<v Speaker 3>Lucy's cat curled up.
<v Speaker 2>On the corner.
<v Speaker 5>This game does a good cat.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, it does have a good cat. And folks, I
<v Speaker 1>want you to see the loose Lucy's cat the golden
<v Speaker 1>ratio within yourselves, and perhaps give a metaphor refantasio a shot. Jess,
<v Speaker 1>thank you so much for giving us your time. Lex,
<v Speaker 1>thank you so much for giving us your time. Sean thanks,
<v Speaker 1>Uh we pay you to be here. Uh, Michael, him,
<v Speaker 1>my boy, my lad, thank you so much for being good. Folks.
<v Speaker 1>If you're listening watching live, stay tuned, because I I
<v Speaker 1>I want nothing more for my birthday than to inflict
<v Speaker 1>pain onto Lucy.
<v Speaker 2>Speaking Lucy, She's gonna get blighted right after.
<v Speaker 1>An emotional roller coaster. Folks, we start with the news,
<v Speaker 1>we hit you, we roll straight through your heart with metaphor,
<v Speaker 1>and then we're just gonna deep dive it, nose dive
<v Speaker 1>into whatever the Blaked crew has planned for Lucy James,
<v Speaker 1>thank you so much for tuning in to BombCast Revengeance.
<v Speaker 1>We'll see you next week for another lovely episode. My
<v Speaker 1>birthday wishes for you at home to have a fantastic day,
<v Speaker 1>because y'all look grint fantastic. Keep recording. We're gonna clap
<v Speaker 1>after this, you at home. Pull up time dot Com.
<v Speaker 1>We're gonna clap two metaphors, social links. Oh maybe maybe
<v Speaker 1>this goes up in like the Mount rushmore of like
<v Speaker 1>DAPs or like handshakes and games with like the Bond. So, folks,
<v Speaker 1>we'll see you next week. I love you, good ju