Metaphor: ReFantazio, the brand new fantasy RPG from Atlus’ Persona workforce, is out at present. It’s a superb recreation that builds upon its predecessor’s foundations and manages to right some previous errors, as properly. However there may be one factor Atlus mentioned was going to be totally different on this recreation in comparison with Persona, and the workforce was upfront about it main as much as launch: Metaphor: ReFantazio doesn’t have romance routes for its varied relationships.
That is principally true, however now that the sport is out, I can inform you that it’s somewhat extra difficult than that. Given how individuals hate being shocked by romance, whether or not as a result of they’re compelled right into a relationship or unintentionally stumble into one, it’s best to know Metaphor: ReFantazio does have some romantic storylines that sneak up on you.
For a lot of its run, Metaphor: ReFantazio is a reasonably sexless recreation. Most of its relationships are platonic and constructed upon a shared trigger, studying its many fantasy cultures, or serving to people by way of political turmoil. However there’s not loads of smooching. Actually, I’m having hassle remembering if there are any scenes in Metaphor by which lips are locked. However that doesn’t imply love can’t bloom— whether or not you prefer it or not.
There are two follower bonds that gesture towards romantic curiosity between your protagonist and the lady concerned. Junah, the songstress companion you’ll recruit round halfway by way of the sport, and Eupha, the summoner who you’ll meet shortly after. Junah’s is generally flirtatious, whereas Eupha’s has a full-blown confession of affection (albeit couched within the lore and tradition of her individuals, the Mustari). To be clear, you don’t must play into both relationship if that’s not the way you need to roleplay. Nevertheless, Eupha’s story particularly did finish in a approach that felt extra compelled, with an interplay between me and her protecting brother nudging my protagonist as if there was a budding flame between me and the summoner regardless of my not leaning into it earlier within the recreation. Once more, I performed dumb to the most effective of my means, having headcanoned that my hero had been holding a crush for the swordsman Strohl the entire recreation, but it surely does seem to be Metaphor: ReFantazio has a relationship in thoughts, and doesn’t allow you to outright flip it down. You may nonetheless headcanon this as an ungainly interplay between her brother who is aware of Eupha has emotions for you, whether or not you’ve reciprocated or not. However the implication stays.
In the event you don’t need to mess with that in any respect, you can at all times simply not end Eupha’s follower bond. This was how many individuals dealt with Persona 3’s relationships when the unique recreation wouldn’t allow you to end any social hyperlinks with feminine characters with out getting into a romantic relationship with them. It’s not as overt as these, but it surely does harken again to that very same weirdness that I believed we’d gotten previous. Suppose you needed to make Eupha or Junah the canon love curiosity, wouldn’t it not have been simpler to codify it in some way within the story, not shove it into optionally available relationships that may take a participant without warning? Do with this info what you’ll, I simply didn’t need everybody to be ambushed by an surprising romance like I used to be in the event that they didn’t must be.