Normally I open these reviews with some kind of rhetorical question about the game and then give my opinion out in pieces over the course of several paragraphs, but I don't see any reason to beat around the bush this time. To be blunt, Metaphor is everything I despised about Persona 5 again, now with the added insufferability of a director so high on the success Sega bought him that he thinks he's some saintly virtuoso who's beyond all reproach. This is just another terrible retread of the modern Persona formula, now with even more obnoxious, overblown visual effects and word bubbles in 35 different fonts constantly popping up on screen coupled with some of the worst writing I've ever seen in any medium, let alone video games. The dialog feels nothing like real conversation and entirely like one stupid teenager arguing with their sock accounts on Reddit - every character speaks with the exact same cadence, pattern and limited vocabulary in the same snappy back-and-forth style, and every exchange is stuffed to the gills with clichéd turns of phrase and snarky quips and glib one-liners in some desperate attempt to sound clever. All the villains do heinous things without any hesitation and proudly spell out their evil ethos for you in plain, unambiguous language, because none of Katsura Hashino's antagonists ever have any redeeming qualities, nuance or even humanity whatsoever; they're just straw men for him and other armchair culture warriors to point at and say "Sure I never do anything that isn't manipulative or self-serving, but I'm not as bad as THESE guys so therefore I'm a good person, now worship me!". Likewise, there isn't a single scene in the game that shows any genuine wisdom, insight or plan of action regarding the social topics it's spotlighting, just empty virtue signaling. No thought is ever spared for how violence and vengeance just beget more of the same, or how innocent people suffer the most when giant egos in positions of power clash, or how taking one bad person out of the equation doesn't solve systemic problems; nope, everything gets wrapped up quickly, cleanly and with no loose ends whatsoever once you go punch the latest smirky straw man around a bit. This isn't storytelling, it's just Hashino transcribing all the loaded arguments and witty banter and juvenile power fantasies going through his own head every minute of every day so he can show off how awesome he thinks he is and how shallow and amoral he thinks everyone else is. Forget being insulting here, he's actively scornful of his audience's intelligence; rather than letting you intuit anything through subtext or even context, the game constantly shows you a thing, then a character explains it to you in simple words, then another character (or two, or three) has to tell it to you again five seconds later just to make sure you get it. Seriously every other scene goes exactly like this:
Game shows the player a map
DIPSHIT FAIRY: This is a map! Boy it's a well made map! You know what a map is, right Main Character?
OTHER GUY: This map will show us to our destination!
YET ANOTHER GUY: Our destination is here! Click the location on the map to lead us there, Main Character!
This is an M-rated video game, not Dora the Explorer. Actually I take that back, it's demeaning to Dora; at least the characters on that show act like real people and not charismaless Beetlejuices. This is a Sonichu comic with a budget. There, that's a better analogy.
Metaphor, much like Persona 5 (and Sonichu) wasn't made because it had a poignant or personal story to tell, anything intelligent to say or to showcase any fresh, interesting ideas; instead it's just another soapbox for its writer to bellow about how cool and smart and heroic they are and hear it back on command from their imaginary friends. They've never once led by example and never will, they just earnestly believe they're the first to ever come up with such amazing concepts as "equality" and "social justice" and expect you do all the hard work to make them a reality while they get rich and famous making shitty derivative art about it once every few years. Don't think Hashino's fanboys/enablers will ever practice his preaching either; all they ever do is emulate him and become more reality-detached idea guys who conflate talking about a thing (or doing it in a video game) with actually doing it. He's twisted Persona - once a brilliant and poignant franchise about being true to yourself and valuing your existence despite its flaws - into nothing but empty self-aggrandizement, and the fact that Sega has the gall to charge you $70 for the privilege of sitting through 100+ hours of this narcissistic bullshit again is just plain insulting. Fuck that; if I want to watch smug bluster masquerading as virtue I can go on Youtube anytime I want and get my fill for free.
Oh and you can spare the lame ad hominem argument about how I just hate this game for 'being woke' or whatever; I'm about as left-wing as you can get. I've also consumed plenty of media that espouses leftist views and given many of them positive appraisals, because they did so in an intelligent, empathetic and sincere way. I just hate when corporate toadies like Hashino oversimplify and exploit the current political climate and coat it in a thin veneer of art so they can score brownie points with idiots who think virtue is measured in arbitrary status bars and social media Likes. Hell, Hashino doesn't even believe in the 'movement' he's hyping up; it's all just part of a grand scheme to build a bigger pre-installed audience for his next game and reap more praise for himself and profits for the rich conservatives that hold Sega stock who, surprise, don't believe in it either. Any positive actions or instances of hate-fueled harassment his works inspire are completely incidental to his own self-dealing, and there's about 500,000 times more of one than the other (I'll give you a hint: the good one ain't winning). So instead of spending $70 to watch some conceited asshole masturbate to the sound of his own voice, why not donate some of that money to MSF instead. Or buy something made by an indie dev or musician or artist who would kill for a tiny fraction of the revenue this garbage will generate. Or hell, even drop a few dollars in someone's GoFundMe with no expectation of anything back. Doing one legitimate good deed, no matter how small, makes you a better person than winning by default against your imaginary straw men any day...
Screenshot removed because looking at this game gives me a migraine
Developer: Atlus Studio Zero
Publisher: Sega
Released: 2024
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, XBox Series
PS: if you want to give the impression that your game's really 'progressive' and 'woke' maybe don't describe your idealized utopia using phrases that sound like fascist slogans; like, say, "one united tribe". Or have a guy whose previous games contain homophobic and transphobic prejudice he's never apologized for deliver your message about unity, tolerance and caring for others. Just sayin'...