I don't know how else to describe it. So far Metaphor felt like a stronger narrative title than than any Persona to date, but also it's noticeably less of a "my" game than Persona.

Though one particular structural mild spoiler makes me think there are also legit poor decisions made about Metaphor's playability.

@BigShellEvent And it's so incredibly variable across the US.

Where I grew up in the Midwest, people are phobic as hell and they'll talk all the time about gay people or trans people or mexicans or whoever else. They'll have toxic opinion after toxic opinion and never think twice about it.

But will they do anything about it? Will they actually hurt you? No. The #1 social rule in the US Midwest is "Don't cause a scene." The last person anyone wants to be is the person other people look at and blame for making everyone else uncomfortable. As long as you're acting "normal" enough, if someone is yelling slurs at you, everyone will look at them as the problem. But there's a decent chance they'll still agree with the slur and hate you behind your back.

But in rural Texas, it's a totally different calculus. I transitioned in one of the major Texas cities and never got any guff from anyone. (I'm white but I was also very clocky for a while there.) I might have gotten a strange look or two but no one really seemed to care. The moment I strayed outside of a few metro areas, though, and then the slurs come and who knows what worse could happen. If you're driving from Austin to Dallas, you stay on the fucking interstate until you get there.

In Portland, Oregon, they claim tolerance and probably won't hate-crime you (though it does happen on rare occasion) but they're still racist as hell. They love diversity, but only so they can claim their white ally points. They also think they're diverse but it's really in the sense that the white people dress a bit differently there than in other US cities. But if you don't look like a straight white girl appropriating lesbian culture, you're not going to get anywhere socially.

My sense is that California is a mix between Texas and Oregon but I've only ever visited, not lived there.

I could go on and on and this is only the stuff I've noticed as a white girl. I'm sure a well-traveled non-white girl could tell you a lot more.

Yeah, that country is fucked up.