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.

"The prince is a really good guy! Like he thinks non-royals are also kinda people! Like, he's only partially as horrible as all other royals" ok then.

Metaphor in 2026 is odd in general. I don't think they could've predicted it when they wrote it. My expectations for princes are so low right now, basically they are probably not as bad as this dystopian timeline if they are not sexually assaulting people on a private island.

I'm absolutely loving the regional UK accent variance in English voice acting here, the best part is all of them enunciate as well as you'd expect from professional voice actors.

I never found UK accents challenging regardless of the region. I struggle with people who don't believe in opening their mouths once in a while when speaking. No it's not an accent issue. It's a individual issue.

So far I feel like all of the main cast are super bland, and the one person I want to hang out with isn't interested in joining the main cast.

Which is fine, I'm getting into it thinking about P4, and you can only have so many I REALLY NEED TO PEE kind of party members.

I decided this is a personal affront that my protagonist was sent to bed because tomorrow is a big day of the tournament.

I want to cook before big days. Let me in the kitchen. If I don't do commercial cooking, I spontaneously combust.

I'm probably seriously missing the point here, I don't get what's the point of Knight class, except to prepare for the royal archetype.

The thing about tanking in this game is, there's no point to it. You lose a turn for damage dealing, the tank isn't really more enduranced than anyone else, and still are faced with same weakness exploits. It would make way more sense to have low HP squishy tanks with unique skills that bypasses weakness/nullify Crits than anything else.

Instead I just get this thing that can't tank, can't melee DPS, can't mage DPS, and can't heal.

Sometimes I forgot how unpleasant all Persona games truly are to play. Say, you have a time limit to get out of a dungeon. Take a wild guess how will you waste most of time?

The answer is, mandatory fight with longest ever, most boring to watch animations in each attack that is in the timer, and cannot be turned off.

This whole surprise mandatory royal archetype is actually the worst thing. Now everytime I get someone, I have to look up a guide, which usually gives me spoilers of other future archetypes, which are the sort of thing that I want to have the joy of discovering myself. It's not like wait until midgame and all are unlocked is plausible, as the game expected you do somehow know exactly what route to take 100 hours before telling you it's a thing.

Not saying it ruined the game but, it kinda did.

How to play a Persona game.

Boss: 9999HP, 2x adds 5000HP each
Must kill adds or wipe
Killed add, got one hit on boss
Adds regenerate
Grind for an hour
Boss at 100 HP, surprise cutscene fully heals the boss

Games like this don't need an "easy mode", because easy mode is only mildly less tedious. It needs a walk simulator mode. As in removing the gameplay altogether would've been an improvement.

Now something Atlus/SMT excels at: monster design in the pure aesthetics kind of way. You'd think I've seen all there is to be seen, but without fail every boss ever in any SMT and derivatives are just a different magnitude of brilliant.

The narratives... This is a Persona game. As in I remember Persona fondly but in a "I liked it but I just couldn't love it" kind of way. Here is that again, it almost always touches something unique and interesting but always backs off the last second. Which is very different to SMT main lines, I only played IV and it broke me in ways no other fictions ever did and I couldn't touch another one. And I played it pre Trump.

With monster aesthetic designs, I frequently feel "this is cool", but Persona/Metaphor kind of, "holy shit what is this I'm looking at? How? Even... What?!" Almost never happens.

This is my holy grail of monster aesthetic design. I don't want to describe them because the impact of seeing them is the point.

I'm only partially joking when I say that I'm so fucked in life that I'm thinking about just do a hyperspecialised degree in videogames monster aesthetics design*.

The monster designs here. This is the level I want to eventually achieve.

(*Yes it's a thing. Yes I know you don't need a degree for that shit. I have this formative-years acquired mental illness called raised as Traditional Asian, and all my rebellion went to the oppositional defiant queer with lifestyle of an ibis going through trash cans thing. Academic external validation is something I lost my battle on not giving a shit over, normal people don't even need to have this issue)

I get that Bardon is a really nice bro who genuinely cares, and as a command he kept on closing wall holes instead of commanding, which in a village of like four people it works, and I love him for it and all

But I was not expecting how literal the supportive Commander weapon is a floor mop

I support you with my mop!

That is the real deal, folks. None of that hero fantasy shit. Don't fight for me I can fight for myself. Please mop for me, you have no idea how incompetent I am at mopping

It's worrying that I like Louis more than just about anyone else going after the throne at this moment. Especially way more than any of the hereditary royals.

Catherina is cool. Clueless but cool

I have to Guide Dammit here more than any other games, specifically because the game doesn't know how to communicate anything well, and punishes you for it.

Is "Mausoleum" the same as "Catacomb"? Not telling. You can enter and find out. Congrats you lost a full day. Now try a different location that may or may not be "Mausoleum" as I've unlocked multiple tombs already. Congratulations you have timed out, game over.