Metaphor ReFantazio Beginner Guide Master the Essentials

Metaphor ReFantazio Beginner Guide Master the Essentials

Dive into Atlus's Metaphor ReFantazio! This guide covers setup, exploration, combat, and the Archetype system to kickstart your adventure.

As Atlus's ambitious new fantasy RPG, Metaphor: ReFantazio builds upon the celebrated traditions of the Persona series while pushing boundaries with its stunning art direction and captivating combat. Ready to navigate this vast new world? This comprehensive guide will illuminate your path.

I. Getting Started Settings and Difficulty

Your grand adventure begins with a few key tweaks for an optimal experience.

• Graphics Settings: It's recommended to set the "Render Scale" between 150% and 200%. Adjusting this higher, according to your PC's capabilities, will significantly enhance visual fidelity.
• System Adjustments: Turning off "Screen Shake" can greatly improve your experience when traversing the map. For the "Run Button," changing it to "Hold" instead of "Toggle" offers better control over movement, helping you avoid unexpectedly running into monsters due to limited visibility.
• Choosing Your Challenge: The game features five difficulty levels. The highest, "King of Kings," is unlocked in New Game+. Apart from the initial and highest difficulties (which are locked in once chosen), you can change the difficulty at any time in the settings. Note that enemy stats and overall combat difficulty are higher compared to the Persona series. However, achievements are not tied to difficulty, so feel free to pick what suits you best!
• Naming Your Hero: Think carefully when naming your protagonist, as this cannot be changed later. A name you like enhances the dialogue experience.
• Saving Your Progress: While there's an auto-save feature, it's wise to manually save at critical junctures (e.g., September 25th) to be safe.

II. The Sands of Time Exploring the Vast World

Metaphor: ReFantazio boasts an enormous world, with a quick playthrough taking around 80 hours and a deeper dive potentially exceeding 100. Time management is a crucial mechanic.

• Time Progression: Many actions consume time, indicated by clock icons in dialogue boxes: a white icon means half a day, and a red one signifies a full day. Daytime activities consuming half a day will advance time to evening.
• Day and Night Cycle: Nighttime offers encounters with different characters, opportunities to deepen bonds, and access to "Contraband Shops" for powerful early-game items. However, dungeons can only be entered during the day and doing so consumes an entire day.
• Timeless Actions: Interactions without a clock icon, freely roaming the overworld, and fast-traveling to previously explored areas do not consume time. After reaching June 29th in the story, you'll unlock teleportation, allowing instant travel between major cities at no time cost.
• Time-Frozen Zones: Dungeons and similar areas function like instances where time is effectively paused. You can explore them thoroughly, and time (one day) is only consumed upon exiting. It's advisable to stock up on resources before entering to maximize your gains in a single run.
• Special Dates and Weather:
  • Rest Days: Shops will have sales, marked by red icons on the map. While early discounts might be modest, every bit helps. Improving your relationship with Brigitta to Rank 5 mid-game can lead to even better deals.
  • Weather Effects: Inclement weather increases the magical concentration in dungeons, making monsters stronger but also yield more EXP. Some town facilities might close, but certain merchants (like the "Mongol" merchant) may offer better prices for your goods. Mid-game, you can find a fortune teller in town to get weather forecasts and plan accordingly.

III. The Five Social Stats Path to Potential

Your character has five core social stats: Courage, Insight, Magnanimity, Eloquence, and Creativity. Each can be leveled up to five times.

• Purpose of Stats: These are essential for unlocking facility functions (e.g., equipment purification requires Insight Level 2, unlocked at the church for appraisals) and advancing "Supporter" (akin to Social Links/Confidants) relationships.
• Supporter Rewards: Leveling up Supporters unlocks high-tier Archetypes (classes/jobs), powerful combat abilities, permanent EXP boosts, or other combat enhancements.
• Methods of Improvement:
  • Map Icons: Interacting with specific NPCs marked by icons will raise stats. Dialogue choices can affect the amount gained (usually within a 3-4 point threshold). Certain late-game periods offer increased stat gains.
  • Efficient Tips:
    1. Complete Bounties: Accept bounties from the "Kingdom Army Recruitment Office" found in major cities. Completing them yields money and a fixed +4 Courage. You can max out Courage in one playthrough just through main/side quests and bounties.
    2. Read Books: After unlocking the "Chariot," you can find books on the bookshelf in the Recreation Room. Reading is an excellent way to use travel time to boost stats. A new book becomes available with each new party member. Each book grants a fixed 3-4 points to a specific stat, plus a bonus for finishing it. Books are re-readable for further stat gains.
    3. Engage in Debates: If you see someone giving a speech on a rostrum in major cities, you can join in a debate. Winning boosts Eloquence and another stat.

IV. The Art of Combat Blending Action and Turns

Metaphor: ReFantazio's combat system is a hybrid of real-time action and turn-based strategy.

• Real-Time Combat:
  • You can directly attack enemies on the field. Weapon range and damage vary, and specific weapons require corresponding Archetypes. Damage scales with character level.
  • Enemy Indicators: Blue-marked enemies can be defeated directly in real-time. Yellow or red-marked enemies require you to deplete their "Break Gauge" (a yellow bar next to their health).
  • Break and Initiative: Depleting an enemy's Break Gauge stuns them. Approaching them then triggers a QTE, leading to a turn-based battle where you get a first strike and an entire party turn while the enemy remains stunned (effectively three consecutive attacks). Conversely, if an enemy hits you first in real-time, they get the first turn in combat.
  • Combat Tip: The Artillery Archetype is recommended for ranged exploration mid-game. A sparkle icon indicates an incoming enemy attack; dodge to avoid being hit and losing initiative.
• Turn-Based Combat (Chase System):
  • "Chase" points are essentially action points. A party of four typically starts with four Chase points. Running out ends your turn. Chase points can be temporarily increased via skills or equipment. The core idea is to allocate these points to characters who can deal the most damage.
  • Combat Commands:
    1. Weapon Attack: Costs no MP. Damage is based on equipped gear. Can critically hit for double damage and halves the Chase cost for that attack (effectively an extra action). Generally used for managing resources or clearing weaker foes.
    2. Skill Attack (Archetype Skills): Consumes MP and has various elemental properties. Hitting an enemy's weakness triggers a "Weakness Attack," which, like a critical hit, halves the Chase cost for that skill. This is often easier to achieve than critical hits. Use the assist function or "Analyze" (unlocked July 17th) to identify enemy weaknesses.
    3. Fusion Skill: Powerful combo attacks involving specific Archetypes. These are fixed combinations and cannot be learned through leveling. Activating them consumes resources and Chase points from the involved members (clearly shown on selection). Fusion Skills are also affected by the weakness mechanic, potentially halving their Chase cost. They are generally high-cost moves best used as finishers once weaknesses are known.
    4. Defend: Significantly reduces incoming damage and prevents enemies from reducing their Chase costs through critical hits or weakness attacks against the defending character. A vital tactic against strong opponents.
  • Strategic Options:
    • Swap: Costs half a Chase point. Allows the next character in the turn order to act sooner, enabling crucial skill usage.
    • Formation (Queue): Can be adjusted in party setup or during combat. Front-row characters deal more melee damage but are more vulnerable; back-row characters have no damage bonus but take less damage.
  • Penalty System:
    • If an attack is nullified or evaded by an enemy, the Chase cost for that attack is doubled (this also applies to Fusion Skills).
    • If an attack is reflected or absorbed by an enemy (more common late-game), you lose all remaining Chase points, and your turn ends immediately. This also applies to enemies, so later in the game, exploiting enemy weaknesses and your own resistances/immunities becomes a key offensive strategy.

V. Myriad Forms The Archetype System

"Archetypes" are character classes or jobs. Once acquired, they must be manually learned to unlock their respective weapons and skills.

• Acquisition: All Archetypes are unlocked by progressing your affinity with "Supporters." There are 39 learnable Archetypes in total.
• Archetype Examples:
  • Merchant: Obtained early. Lacks strong offensive power but significantly increases money dropped by defeated enemies. Ideal for farming money in low-level dungeons via real-time combat.
  • Sword Master & Sniper: A potent mid-game duo. Excellent for exploration and reducing MP consumption.
  • Warlord: At max level, learns "Megidora," a full-screen Almighty magic attack costing only 20 MP, making it an incredibly efficient clearing skill.
• Advanced Mechanics (Unlocked Mid-Game):
  • Inheritance: Allows you to transfer learned skills to any Archetype (e.g., give Warlord's Megidora to another class).
  • Special Experiments: Unique enhancements for the Masked Dancer and Summoner Archetypes, boosting their multi-elemental capabilities.
• Hidden Archetypes: Unlocked late-game through high Supporter affinity. These are very powerful, feature impressive fusion animations, and are prime end-game goals.

VI. Handy Tips for a Smoother Journey

Here are a few extra tips to make your adventure more manageable:

1. Dungeon Maps & Hidden Paths: When in a dungeon, open the map and use the controls (often on the left) to switch between floor levels. Pay close attention to entrances and exits to orient yourself. If you're stuck, hug the walls and look for hidden passages not marked on the map; interacting with them will reveal them.
2. Infinite Enemy Spawns: Early on, you'll encounter red crystals in dungeons. If you don't destroy the crystal itself, it will endlessly spawn enemies. With an Archer or Merchant Archetype, this can be exploited for EXP and money farming.
3. Fast Archetype Leveling (Heroic Radiance): Mid-game, a side quest will lead you to the "Blind Faith Tower." A specific area here has infinitely spawning skeletons. Use real-time combat to defeat them repeatedly for substantial resources and EXP (even more in bad weather). Archer-type Archetypes are efficient here. When an Archetype reaches max level, further EXP earned converts into "Heroic Radiance" items (1000 EXP per item), which can be used to level up other unlocked Archetypes. Note the item stack limit is 99.
4. Supporter Fast Travel: Once you can access the Supporter panel, you can see which Supporters are available for interaction that day. Selecting one allows you to instantly travel to their location.
5. The Informant ("Shunfeng Er") for Secrets: If you're struggling with a dungeon, try visiting an informant in a tavern to buy information. They offer hints on difficult sections and enemy weaknesses. Some mid-game side quests also require purchasing info from them to unlock.
6. Quick Equip: Equipment upgrades become frequent mid-game. Instead of changing items one by one, open the menu, go to "Archetype & Equipment," select a character, and at the bottom of their equipment page, choose the "Strongest" option. This will auto-equip the best gear currently in your inventory for that character.

Metaphor: ReFantazio is undoubtedly a remarkable offering from Atlus, appealing to both Persona veterans and newcomers to JRPGs. It masterfully blends familiar elements with fresh innovations, delivering a rich experience spanning nearly a hundred hours. While its dungeon design might lack a strong incentive for repeated exploration, the overall quality, stunning visuals, and engaging animations make it an adventure worth losing yourself in. Enjoy your journey!