Thank you @neatchee I'm sold.

Persona ish series are always odd. When they want to make good social commentary they are always spot on, but then they'd just do a whole subplot about sexual harassments and effect on teen girls, immediately followed by a skit where the player would give three options of a "joke" and all of them are sexually harassing your friend who is still dealing with the aftermath like WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS

I vaguely remember there were some comments about Metaphor has a build problem that if you got into it blind, the game can become unplayable later on. I also don't want to look it up because people are shit at spoilers.

So.

Is that true? What do I need to be careful about?

Huh protagonist's fairy is Misty from Pokemon???

#metaphor

On one hand, Psyduck doesn't wear shoes to bed.

On the other hand,

HEY LISTEN
HEY LISTEN
HEY LISTEN
HEY LISTEN
HEY LISTEN
HEY LISTEN
H

#metaphor

FUCK YEAH THE MONSTERS HERE ARE "HUMANS" I WAITED FOR THIS DAY FOR SO LONG

#metaphor

While Atlus isn't what I'd call the peak interesting game system creator (that's TriAce), I have to say that when it comes to UI plus style, Atlus is on its own league.

There are better UI and there are better style. Atlus got the mixture down to distinctive functional art form.

#metaphor

You cannot convince me that Metaphor verse isn't a mirror of Persona verse. Akademia is where they kidnap humans from Tokyo to turn them into Pokemon, like what Velvet Room does.

Shin Megami Tensei series are something else altogether. I got to the obliterate everything ending in IV and decided I can't deal with that degree of depressive media. And I'm raised on pre Soviet depressing Russian novels.

#metaphor

Kitty!!

#metaphor

Hold on is this a normal rat (pest), a supercharged rat (pest), or a protected species of indigenous massive rat (not pest)?

Only asking because I have ran into protected large white tail rats in urban settings before.

Metaphor so far:

Royal = good
Lineage based authoritarian state = good
Being completely subservient to royal = good
Low born working their way up = evil

That scene where that The Substance styled giant face coming down from the sky was hella cool.

I hope Grius stays dead. I really don't like him. He's the worst at this whole assassination business, worse than Tetsuya Yamagami.

Not a fan of how every cat/dog/foxgirls only have two breasts

Probably why I'm never allowed to do furry arts

I do find Metaphor pretty good for what it is, I just absolutely cannot with royalty and to say that I give less than 0 shit about the everyone's motivation is too much shit to give.

I just miss the flavour of Persona. Give me an urban fantasy any day over this.

Just give me Chie Yukiko and Yosuke baaaaack

The cast feels like Persona 3. I could never get into Persona 3, even though nothing was wrong with any of them really, they were coworkers who have a job to do. I just never felt that anyone ever became friends even til the end. Just, ok clock off, hide the evoker so we don't get arrested for carrying, see you tomorrow.

Something Americans got right that the Commonwealth hasn't, is the idea that with diversity Americans are about "acceptance" while Commonwealth is about "tolerance". Which is rather aptly named in Metaphor given the setting.

Needless to say not a fan. But also I guess thank you for tolerating my existence like I'm a mildly discomforting haemorrhoid?

Royal Capital Grand Trad has THE WORST corpse handling capacity, for a large city that has disproportionately number of corpses. Or maybe they just look disproportionate because no one deals with them so they accumulate.

I'm waiting for the fantasy desentry wave.

I swear Metaphor is so strong at stuff Trails in the Sky is super weak at, and vice versa

And I saaaaad because they both could've been so strong

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.

I really like the voice acting for everyone except Gallica and Protagonist.

How do I turn Gallica off and Gallica only? She's a homage to HEY LISTEN HEY LISTEN HEY LISTEN but like, excessive parody.

The distinctive design philosophy of Atlus SMT games are, a "hard" battle is one that the boss has many many HP and it takes for forfucking ever and you are expected to mostly grind them down.

Which is ok, you'd get into an Atlus game expecting this. Also entirely not my style. I much prefer the rapid fire of minutes of intensity. Think of FFXIII where a battle can go anywhere between an hour to minutes based on how well you strategise. Or VIIRebirth, man what a game. Or Resonance of Fate wooooooah I love how it feels so much and it's been a decade.

FFXIV is the oddest because based on which cluster of battles they are, they can be anywhere between digging a hole with a toothpick, to legit rapid don't-fuck-up-a-step. I still loved Eden Titan and Eden Ifrit-Garuda for the speed.

I really can do with a child character who isn't just a generic child.

I can think of one well written child in all media in my life, that isn't a child-audience based work. Which is pretty worrying.

Maria is not that example. Nor is Nanako Dojima. Weirdest being Marlene Wallace: where Nanaki was such a well written pre/early teen, Marlene is like a talking lamp post.