Metaphor: ReFantazio battle system revealed
Atlus has revealed more details for hugely anticipated new RPG, Metaphor: ReFantazio, this time focussing on the battle system.
We recently got a confirmed October 11th release date and a look at the collector’s edition, but this new information shows that the game is going in new directions. The “Fast & Squad” battle system allows players to change between real-time action that can directly attack enemies while in the dungeon (that’s the “fast” part) and the more traditional turn-based combat fans might be used to (“squad”).
Basically, if you’re in a dungeon and see an enemy that’s lower-ranked and something you’ve already faced, you can use the fast combat style to lock on, evade, and dash, and you can take them out without having to go into full turn-based combat battles. Apparently the “fast” attack style depends on the archetypes that the player has equipped, so finding the right style plays into how it all works when going through a dungeon.
If you see enemies that are indicated yellow or red, you’ll have to use the squad combat, which is exactly what you would expect. All of this comes together under an ability called “Fae Sight” which is an ability that Gallica, the fairy partner character to the main protagonist, and it lets you see surrounding areas and danger levels of enemies that might be around. Using that ability you can parse whether you want to use a fast battle type, or will have to face them in squad battle.
On top of that, we also know that parties will be up to four people in size, and that the party number will go up to seven as you play through the story, and that the combat will be streamlined from navigating menus to being single button presses to do actions, or commands. The option seen in some Persona titles to hand over a turn is back, and you can also switch between the front and back rows. Interestingly, Atlus says the game is intentionally designed to be hard to make each battle feel like an accomplishment.
Elsewhere, we now know that there are towns to visit like the The Old Castle Town Martira, and there are events within these towns such as the bounties which sound like they’ll act as side quests, with valuable rewards on offer. It also seems there will be fast travel, and the new info drop mentions a time limit relating to the story of “about six months”.
Metaphor: ReFantazio is coming to PC, PS4, PS5, and Xbox Series S|X on October 11th.
