Celebrating Metaphor: ReFantazio's Greatness, Criticizing Its Faults, And More Of The Week's Top Takes

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ReFantazio's Greatness, Criticizing Its Faults, And More Of The Week's Top Takes

This week saw the release of Metaphor: ReFantazio, the long-awaited new release from the folks behind Persona. It’s a game bursting with big ideas and rich themes, and we’ve got a lot to say, both about the things it does well, and at least one area in which it falls short of one of its predecessors. On top of that, we’ve also got a hands-on preview of Sunderfolk, an upcoming game from ex-Blizzard-CEO Mike Morhaime’s new company Dreamhaven. And we’ve got recommendations for a host of hidden narrative gems that deserve some attention. Click on for all this and more.

A group shot of a crow, deer, polar bear, bat, weasel, and salamander all in traditional rpg class get up

Few things are harder than trying to get your friends into tabletop RPGs. The rules are complex, set up can be a pain in the ass, and you’ll need to carve out more than a couple of hours of time for a proper play session. Sunderfolk, the first video game from developer Secret Door—one of two studios under ex-Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime’s company Dreamhaven—is hoping to make that barrier to entry a little lower. - Willa Rowe Read More

Over the years, Persona, Atlus’ high school social sim RPG series, has captured my heart as the quintessential “power of friendship” games. The games have meaningful things to say about human connection as they follow high schoolers trying to save the world and still study for their final exams. But even when the series has touted progressive ideals like accepting your true self and taking down corrupt systems, it’s always found a way to attack people it should be advocating for. I was concerned that Metaphor: ReFantazio, the new fantasy RPG about a high-stakes election, would fall into the same trap. I’m happy to report that it doesn’t, and actually goes out of its way to subvert the tropes its predecessors fed into. - Kenneth Shepard Read More

The protagonist, Maria, and Gallica read a book.

Metaphor: ReFantazio, the upcoming fantasy political drama RPG from Atlus, is only a few days away from its October 11 release date. Broadly, the game takes the social sim and time management mechanics of the Persona series and fine-tunes them to make a truly exceptional RPG that represents a step forward for the studio in a lot of ways. Still, having played both it and Persona 3 Reload earlier this year, I’ve got one nitpick: I wish Metaphor: ReFantazio had more voice acting. - Kenneth Shepard Read More

I am 34 years old and I will still randomly blurt out a soundbite from a game that was released when I was seven. A “That’s my sister!” will escape my lips when I reunite with my younger sibling after not seeing her for months, or I’ll utter an “I like candy, everybody likes candy” while walking through the confectionary aisle in Walgreens. Those ear worms that have remained steadfastly bored into my brain for close to thirty years are from Backyard Baseball, a point-and-click sports arcade game first released in 1997 that just dropped on Steam by way of publisher Playground Productions. - Alyssa Mercante Read More

Hurricane Milton, one of the biggest storms in recorded history, is set to make landfall in Florida on October 9. It will likely cause tens of billions of dollars of damage and could kill or injure many people who are unable to evacuate Tampa Bay and the surrounding region in time. - Zack Zwiezen Read More

A sheep with awful teeth grins directly into the camera.

In 1439, a goldsmith named Johannes Gutenberg was working on an ill-begotten project to create polished metal mirrors designed to capture the holy light from religious relics, to be sold to pilgrims visiting an exhibition in Aachen, Germany. However, after flooding led to the event being delayed by a year, Gutenberg found himself out of money, and instead turned to his other project, a press that would use movable type to mechanize the process of printing books. - John Walker Read More

A group of nuns with halos laugh at a halo-less nun

2024 has been a year of many big releases, and I’ve played quite a lot of them, which means plenty more games inevitably fall through the cracks. It’s rare that, during a busy release year, I get a chance to check out a game months after it came out, and it’s even more rare that I fall in love with it. But that’s exactly what happened when I got around to playing Indika, a third-person adventure game that was released back in May. Now, I can’t believe I waited so long to experience it. Indika is one of the most fascinating releases of the year, blending friction-filled gameplay with a narrative that dissects religious trauma. - Willa Rowe Read More

A man wearing glasses and a red button up stands in front of a red background

One of the most well-known principles of theatrical storytelling is widely referred to as “Chekhov’s gun.” The principle suggests that if some element is introduced to a story, even in a casual, offhand way, by the end, it had better prove significant. Or, as it’s often summed up, if a gun shows up at some point in your story, by the end, it had better go off. So, when a gun shows up early in my playthrough of narrative game Apartment Story, you can imagine where my mind immediately went. - Willa Rowe Read More