Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Metaphor: ReFantazio vs. Persona - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

Thanks For The Support! Run of Show - 00:00:00 - Start 00:01:50 - Housekeeping 00:03:40 - Metaphor Updated Thoughts 00:26:04 - TOTS: Persona vs Metaphor 01:10:08 - Batman Arkham Shadow Review Update Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yo, what's up? Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Thursday, October 24th, 2024. I'm one of your host's Blessing, Adelia, Jr. I'm joined by the persona Fantasia. Barrett Courtney. Listen, I thought it was good. No, that was bad. Because your persona fan...

How do you feel about doing two shows back to back with two bald white men? How do you feel about that? A lot of people say I look like, you know, a younger version of Gary. Which is saying something about old Gary Woodrow looks. I mean, fuck you, dude. You set me up too well. You set me up too well.

I'm sorry. All right. You see me jumping towards the fucking hoop. You throw me the ball. I have one option. And it's to dunk it. What else do you want me to do? Not on me though, Blas.

Not on me. Fuck. Fucking team fire over here. I'm sorry. But no, it's fun. It's the thing where this isn't where I foresaw my life going, you know? Just doing one-on-on-ones of Gary, followed by one-on-mo bear.

This is a rare day for me. I feel like it came together kind of last minute too. And like I'm very excited for this episode because I feel like me and you are the big persona fans in the office. Hey, Barry, how do I open this? So I asked Roger to make me coffee once we got the show going on. So you just go like that. Oh, okay. It's a twisty.

I was pulling out things. I was going to break. Welcome back to the next gen podcast. Welcome back to the next gen podcast. Let's get into it. All right. Remember, this is kind of funny gamescast. each and every week that we get together and talk about the biggest reviews, previews, and topics in video games live on YouTube,

Twitch and on podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, support us with the kind of funny membership on Patreon or YouTube to get all of our shows ad-free, watch us record them live and get a daily exclusive show. Everybody reacting to Roger not being able to open that mug. For a chase of your part of the show, submit your thoughts and opinions as YouTube super chats as we go. Housekeeping for you. Of course, we're an 11-person business, all about live talk shows. you just got KFGD

and we talked about what Barrett we talked about yakuza like a dragon is that what we talked about on that show we talked about snacks yeah that is really

what we talked about that'll definitely be put on the kind of funny highlights channel will Roger put the kind of Munchy's intro on it who knows

now the the title is going to be Gary Ruins kind of funny games daily that's a good that's a good that's a good one we talked about

curly whirlies and Tim Tams and Hey Tim Tams are goaded truly goaded I don't know if I've had a Tim Tamp I'm hung out with Tim Gettys and Timor

At the same time That's why I like their parian games Daily back in the day Because we would call them Tim Tim. There you go Of course the stream after this is going to be Alien isolation If you're a kind of funny member

You can get today's Gregway And you can get Venon the Last Dance In Review this afternoon And tomorrow on YouTube And a podcast services I Not to fully spoil The vibe of Venom

In Review later today But I will say Nick Scarpino came into the office yesterday, it changed man. Oh, yeah? And that's all I'm going to say. Which way has he changed? I don't want to say, but there was a moment where I looked at him in the eyes and I could

see something in his eyes. And I don't know if I liked what I saw. This is what I'll say. I overheard somebody asked Greg how the movie was and you started laughing. And so prepared for that in review. Thank you to our Patreon producers, Delaney Twining, and Carl Jacobs. Today we're brought to you by New World Eternalm, Fasmaph,

Marvel Snap and Shady Raids, but we'll tell you about that later. For now, let's begin with what it is, and forever we'll be, the topic of the show. Tats, Tots, Tuts, Tuts, Tuts, Tuts. So again, there, it's me and you. It's a one-on-one. We're talking about persona,

and we're talking about Metaphor Refantasia. The topic of the show that I've pitched is, is Metaphor ReFantazio the best Atlas RPG? Gotcha, gotcha. Now, I want to start off, just talking about, about the world. Really quick before you go on,

because I've seen a lot of people who are concerned, obviously, about spoilers, because metaphor has only been out for, it's been less than a month at this point. Yeah, no spoilers. It's an 80 to 100 hour RPG. There's going to be no big spoilers. I may mention a character name or two

that I might have not have felt comfortable mentioning on the review. Okay. But I'm not going to go into like, oh, and their entire story is this and all this stuff. I can't even think of a character name. That would be a spoiler if I'm being honest. Yeah, exactly.

It was just, there was a character that like doesn't really get into the spotlight past a certain point. Yeah. And for the review period, Atlas asked us to not talk about past that certain point. So there's little things like that. But, uh, yeah, we're not going to spoil the metaphor. And I think for persona, we're not going to spoil. No, we're not going to go out of a way to spoil persona. But I think there might be points where maybe if we are, we can say, hey, personal, spoil it for persona.

It's a weird thing of, you know, you know. They've been out for a while. They've been out for a while. But I know that there's a new audience with, we're going to talk about persona three and stuff. I don't think we're going to need to talk about twists, maybe. No. And like,

that's my thing is, it's not really, I don't think it's spoilers to talk about characters and like how much you like a character or like what you like about the character. You know, if we're going to get to spoilers, we're going to,

we'll be mindful. Yeah. But definitely, we'll definitely be the most mindful of metaphor because we know that's the new hotness. 1,000%. Everybody's playing. So before we get too into it,

I want to talk. about how much the world has changed since our metaphor review. When I say changed, mainly just how much people love metaphor. The streets are popping. Like, I knew Janet was interested in it after she had played it at SGF, but like learning how much Janet loves metaphor refentazio is like really cool. Tim Getty's. Tim Getty's playing. He's like four and a half, five hours into this game, which I never thought I would see in my lifetime, him being five hours deep into an Atlas game. Greg is kind of back on the Atlas train, right? Like Greg started popping back into...

I mean, Andy played enough of it. Yeah, Andy played like fucking 10 hours of it. Like, people are really interested in this game. And it's been really... It's been like heartwarming to see of like, oh, I'm not alone and like absolutely fucking adoring this game. Yeah, so right now on Metacritic, it is sending out a 94,

which is one of the highest Metacritics of the year, and is an extremely high Metacritic number. IJN gave it a 9 out of 10. GameSpot gave it a 10 out of 10. The game's passed 1 million sales on day one. Previously, Persona 3 reload was Atlas's fastest selling title surpassing a million sales five days after its release. And so metaphor is now the fastest selling

Atlas title. Crazy. Also really quick, Roger, thank you for the coffee. Which, you know, I guess, again, brings us to this place of, man, good on them. Like, congratulations, Atlas, congratulations to the studio that made metaphor. I was definitely concerned about that in terms of like, I felt, we talked about this on the review of like the marketing feeling so Xbox heavy that I kept seeing people thinking that this was an Xbox exclusive. I didn't feel like it was being marketed like up the ass,

but maybe that was just like the feeds that I was seeing and stuff like that. And it being like more high fantasy and you know, less of what, you know, people know the persona kind of stuff to be about. Like I was just a little bit worried of like, what's the actual interest? What's going to be the return on this?

And it's been really cool to see of like, the streets are fucking talking about this game. I think it's a combination of a few things. I think the demo does a lot for it, right? Yes, that was a smart move. Any game like this deserves to have a demo coming out before it's released that allows you to transfer your save and allows people to try it out, see what it is. I think also Atlas has made a pretty good name for themselves in terms of what they're able to deal with JRP's. And this studio in particular, not that everybody even is aware of what P-Sudio is versus other studios within the Atlas team or Atlas organization or whatever, right?

But, like, I think the fact that you can make a game that is metaphor, have it be a persona successor in terms of mechanics and how it plays and all that stuff. And people get it, right? Pursona 5 was huge. Yeah. And so my concern was that, man, all right, persona was big, but Metaphorie Fantasia as a brand name, as a world, is not going to resonate with people. Right.

It seems like the recognition is there from the audience that, oh, this studio is making another game. It's going to be more of what I love. Do you think, because the one, One thing I've been here, I listen to some podcasts, right? I listen to Minmax. I listen to the besties every once in a while. I listen to Giant Bomb. Shout out to Jan Ochoa. And the one thing I consistently hear is that

it's a bad name for the game. Do you think it would have been better if they had dropped the Refantazio and just call it metaphor? Just metaphor would be sick. But at this point, like the fact that it's selling really well, I don't think it matters as much anymore. I do think just metaphor would be a very

clean name, but I think adding to Refantatio does add a level of uniqueness to it. Yeah, people are like, wait, what the fuck? Kind of like, it makes it stand out a little bit, but yeah. Yeah, like, everybody's just going to call it metaphor anyway. If we get more games in this franchise, right, I think you then do metaphor, colon, some other

word. Like, metaphor, I think, is the franchise name. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, I, I like, I think now that we're seeing the success, I'm fine with the title. Even though Refantasia doesn't really roll off the tongue as much as I wanted to.

Fantasia. You know, it's unique. It's cool. And I think it fits within the theme of the game, I'd say. So yeah, is it surprising to you to see how well this game is doing? Yes and no. Like, I think a game that, for the most part, people understand is a follow-up to Persona-5. You know, a good amount of the leadership who made the original Persona-5 game.

making this new thing. I think there's definitely interest. Like Persona 5 blew up in a very big way. You know, us being kind of part of that, right? I know you were into Persona 4 and all that stuff beforehand, but like me especially like Persona 5 grabbed my attention and so many other like normies, I would say, at the time's attention on like how stylish it was and all this stuff.

And so I think people kind of like remembered that and we're like, oh, these are the people. persona guys, yeah, I want to check this out at least. And so I think, and then the fact that, you know, 40 hours into the game, I'm like, damn, this game is fucking cooking. I did kind of like, think to myself of like, if the people who are into Atlas and invested into Atlas are talking a lot about this game, I think it's going to pick up. Yes. Whether it's slow or fast and stuff, I think a million in a day, I think, like, that was, I was not expecting that for sure. If you don't mean a million within a week

I'd be like sure The fact that it's within a day I thought that this would have been a slower burn I thought this would have required the word of mouth People getting far enough into it And telling their friends Hey you need to check this out It is more persona

It is exactly what you want It's a really fun game All this stuff but yeah I think it coming out like this makes me really Fascist to see what numbers it does Over time and like you know By the time when it's all set and done How are we going to be looking at this

In terms of the hierarchy of IP That Atlas has Interesting Which is what we're going to get into a little bit in this show. I want to talk about my updated impressions, a metaphor refa-fay-fay-a-o. Because we did our review. By the time we did our review, I was about 70 hours in. You had finished the game in, what, like 85?

It was like 87 hours. 87 hours. I have played probably about like 12 more hours or so, 12 to 14 more hours. Still haven't beaten it, but I'm knocking on the door. I know where you are and you're in that last... Like not even last leg, you're in that last toe. Yeah, like literally, I think I have a day left in this game. And, yeah, based on what you told me, it's like I have a few hours left to finish this game.

Which saddens me because in the, again, 12 to 14 hours that I played since our review, it's not like my view was drastically changed about the game, right? Like, I think I gave it a 9 out of 10 on the review. I'd stay by that 9 out of 10. But it's more so the thing of being, I've been trying to make these last few hours, It's the way in which we talk about how we have friends that'll, like, not read the last book in a series or not watch the last movie because they don't want it to end. They don't want it to end. That's kind of where I'm at with metaphor, where I'm like, man, I'm having such a good time. You gotta see it to the end though, man. It's so good. I've been trying to savor these last 10 hours so much because, you know, I'm in a place toward the end of the game. Of course, periodically you have side quests to open up. You take bounties. Like, we know how metaphor works. Yeah. There's a handful of side quests that you get toward the end of the game that really, up the difficulty. Oh, yeah.

And when I tell you that that has made me appreciate the combat, even more, because already I was so on board. Yeah. Already, I think I let off. We're not talking about, like, this game kicking your ass. Like, I meant that shit. Yeah. And I think I let off my portion of the review saying that, like, in terms of combat,

I think this is better. I like this better than persona. I like the party development aspect of this game better than persona. I like this. It's on the very high end of my, like, turn-based GRPs for me when it comes to, like building a party and like combat and the strategy that is involved in that. And the last few side quests that I've been, I've been doing,

I've been working on for the last, I'll say like eight hours or so, 10 hours, um, they push the difficulty to a place where I would even describe it as unfair. Oh yeah, a hundred percent. It's unfair in a way that I fuck with.

Yeah. You know, it's one of those ones where it is obviously it's optional content. You don't have to do it. I could just go. I could have finished the game at any point. Yeah. Um,

but I am so in love with, with like the options they give you to build the party, spend the, um, was it magla? Or the, I guess just mag, right? Yeah. When you like are unlocking new archetype or whatever. Spending mag to acquire like the, um, inherited skills that I want, figuring out like, okay, like, it's unfair, but it's doable. And it's, it's all about how to, it's unfair right now, but how do I balance things out

within my party as a whole, not just the four people on the board, but, uh, possibly backup members to make it fair. It's the thing where they give you, yeah, it feels unfair, but they give you so much power as like somebody who can organize your party where it, the challenge becomes how do I fight fire or fire? Like, how do I turn the tables on like what they've done with these bosses, what they've done with these enemies that I'm fighting? Exactly.

And I, one of the things I really adore about metaphor re Fantasia, especially now going through these last side quests of it, is how much like the status stuff really does matter. there have been plenty of GRPDs that I play where it's oh man you have the option to lower the defense of the enemy all right, give me the attacks every once in a while it's like all right like you're doing yeah oh someone's confused

or whatever yeah but like in this game I legitimately I'm at the point now with my party where I have two characters that I don't have them attack whatsoever you're on healing you're on statuses and then my other two characters can attack or whatever but I'm thinking so much about like all right the enemy has

you know two defense not just high my attack is two things lower. Oh man, their agility is up. And so, like, there's a good chance that I might miss them. So I need to think carefully about that. Because if I miss them, that means that I'm going to lose out on two of my, like, turn icons. And if I do that, like, that's going to turn the tables. I'm thinking about the turn order.

And I'm thinking about the statuses in ways that I do not think about in these kind of games typically. Like, maybe I'll lightly think about them. Yeah. But there are moments in Personnel 5 royal moments where you think about that stuff. But in this game, it is so cool. once you get into that late game and I'm loving that, loving it so much. Yeah, loving that.

I have gotten to the place now where I've finished pretty much all the side quests. I actually learned that there is like, I texted you because I got the trophy that was like complete all the side quest shit. Then I learned that I have like one quest chain left that I'm not going to do

where it's basically got to, it's an early one, right? You got to cook a bunch of stuff for our lady. Yeah. And I somehow... Wait, so you still got that trophy though? Oh, interesting. She doesn't count or something?

I don't know if there's a different kind of side-class. There's a lady that you'll meet throughout the game that you got to make dishes for. Yeah. And like I never made her like her first dish because no, actually I did. I just never got back to giving it. I was like, oh. It wouldn't have taken up any time in the day either. Legitimately, I was like, that's fucking crazy.

I'll get to this later. I thought I didn't have it. And turns out I had it the entire time. I just didn't feel like wasting time before. And so I didn't mind it. And then I finally did it as my last thing. And then she popped up again. And I was like, oh, fuck, there's more.

to you. And so I was like, fuck it. But yeah, complete all a side quest. I just, man, I just love existing in this world so much. I think that's where I've landed on so far. I'm very excited for you to finish it. Yeah, it's definitely... And persona three reload. In my, like, top 10 games, I have it in my top two, probably number one, right?

Like, I want to see how I feel toward the end of the year, but it is high up on my list. Now, Barrett, that brings us back around to the question posed and the topic of the show. Is Metaphorie Fantasio the best? Atlas RPG. To start off with this, I want to talk about just Atlas RPGs in general. Because of course, media, we played persona. We played Meta40 Fantagio.

We dabbled in SMT5. We dabbled in SMT5. But there's a long list of Atlas RPGs. I am pulling from Siliconera.com where they have an article that was published May 30th, 2024, titled, Here are the 10 Best Games Atlas Ever Developed. Damn.

The list goes like this. At number 10, Tokyo Mirage Sessions. F.E. Encore. This is one I believe that Goldfarb keeps telling me to play, I think. This is the one

that came out on Wii U, and I was super fascinated about it. And I think I begged for it to come to Switch, and then it came to Switch, and then I didn't play it.

That's how that works. At number nine, you have trauma center under the knife. At number eight, you got Etrian Odyssey Four, Legends of the Titan. Shout to an Etrion Odyssey.

At number seven, you got Catherine Full Body. Which you've played Catherine, right? Yeah, and I've played the full-body version. At number six, you got Shinemogami Tensei-3, Nocturn HD Remaster. Look at that pose. At number five, you got Devil Survivor Overclocked.

At number four, you got Persona 3, FES. Okay. At number three, you got Shin-Magami Tensei 4. At number two, you got Persona 4 Golden, and at number one, you got Persona 5 Royal. Of course, this has came out earlier this year, and so obviously, it's not going to include metaphor of Fantasia. Surprising that there's no Persona 3 reload. because it came out this May so they updated it

right after that yeah and they had a reload image like kind of near the top of the article too so I wonder if it was like they wrote the article and like they weren't done with reload or maybe they personally don't believe that reload is the best version

I don't know maybe yeah hold on I'm getting a phone call is from my intro go I thought I was good of Andrew Park so I wanted to bring up that list just to have like some of our bases covered because of course again me and you persona metaphor now like

that's kind of the franchises that we fuck with you play Catherine although I don't know if that would be you wouldn't categorize that as an RPG would you no no that's more of a puzzle game it's got like it's very story heavy it's kind of got not fully social sim elements

but there's a little bit of like you hang out at a bar you talk to friends all of this little stuff and then you have nightmares where you're a in your underwear and you have to like do puzzle elements to climb up like a wall that's constantly like moving while you're being chased by

forget if it's a big monster or something but it's been a couple years. I played Catherine in the middle of like my fugue state of playing through a bunch of persona games which led to a persona in every persona ranked. I was thinking of including Catherine on it just because it was also the persona team that made that. But I ended up not doing that.

I saw somebody, Shadow Trickster in chat says, what about Persona Q? obviously shoutouts to shoutouts to like the whole Atlas catalog right I want to give a shout out because it's not listed but like

obviously I loved I say obviously like everybody knows me but I love 13 sedentals that each's rim that's one that was published by Atlas vanilla where developed

but like I throw that in the conversation just as far as like good also made a unicorn overlord I believe earlier this year that people are really loving

yeah shout out soul hackers too shout out soul hackers too nowhere near the list But shout out to it. Man. I wish that game was better.

Yeah. I thought that game was going to be what metaphor was. Yeah. That was definitely like it definitely felt like that was a much smaller team trying to see if there was interest in that franchise after not having a game for decades. And it was definitely like a cool vibe futuristic. Like I was interested in the story. But then once you got into that dungeon gameplay loop, I was just like, oh man, this is so. a very washed down version of any other Atlas RPG.

So would it be fair to say for us sitting at this table, right? If we're talking about kind of funny's best Atlas RPG, it comes down to metaphor versus persona. And when I say persona, I mean like the persona franchise. Because I think even within persona, we're going to have a conversation, Barrett. Because Persona 5 Royal, I think it's probably the contender within the personas. but I know you're a fucking big old Persona 3 sicko.

I'm a big old Persona 4 Golden Sicko. Yeah. Yeah, I think for us, for kind of funny, for the sake of this conversation, right, for the sake of this headline metaphor versus persona, right? I think it's, yeah, metaphor is kind of fighting a bunch of different games like Persona 3, 4, and 5.

I think in general are kind of like the big three for Meta4 to kind of go up against, which I think it makes sense. It was the persona-led team who made those games that made this game. I don't, there's, there's a lot of conversations. I think personally for me, because, you know, to spoil a little bit of this show here, ladies gentlemen, NBs, we're going to get into categories very similar to the PSI Love You's

where we would do kind of like God of War was last of us and go through all these different categories and stuff. I don't think persona four wins any of these categories. I'm going to be real. I'm going to be real. I'm going to be real. I'm just, and here's the thing I regret. I have to say this on air. you know, spoilers for every persona game ranked.

My one regret is that persona four I should have moved down. Pertona two, Innocent Sin should have been number three and persona four, Golden should have been number four. I'm sorry. I can do this to reset. All right, how are you going to do this to fucking, the Yukiko, the Chi A? I've never seen your face make that movement blessing.

Like, you had this movement of like, like your eyes was twitching and stuff. It was insane. I'm so glad I had the one. on you. That was wild. But also, bless, you haven't played persona two, Innocent Sin. So like, I mean, you're right. There's, it's a similar small town vibe. There's similar, like,

friendship things going on there. I think a more, like, a heartbreaking, like, intimate story that I think is, like, much more interesting. P persona 4 is scoob in the gang. Yes, it is. It's, it's, it's, it's, cute, it's a cute game, it's a good game. It's foggy. People are fucking dying and shit. It's so good.

Bubbs in chat here says in some ways are like four more than five. I'll say right now, when I first played through persona five, I'll, when I finished it, I was like, oh, persona four is still better. It took it, it took persona five royal for me to be like, no, this is better now. Like, persona five royal definitely like cleared persona four for me. But persona four is up there is one of my favorites,

like favorite games here, not just like personas or GRPGs. But yeah, like, I think that's what it comes down to for us. Okay, here's another thing. It's a murder mystery and it's a bad murder mystery. Listen, I was surprised. I, No, I clocked that shit like an hour into the game.

Just saying. Come on, dude. What are you talking about music? Naniko is great. She is a great, fun little sister character. Naniko's fantastic. I think Chi-A is great. I think Yuki-Kil is great.

What do you guys say about Chi-A? Chia is fine. She is a good best friend. Yoste, we have to fucking talk about. Yose-Kay sucks. Yoseke sucks Amaran said that Yoseke was better than Ryugi the other day and that's

fucking insane. Yoseke sucks the same way that Ryugi sucks the same way that Junpeh sucks all of those best friends Junpe clears I'm going to be real All of the blonde June pay clears because he's not your best friend Yes and you know what? That makes him more interesting and more like

But Junpe still sucks though He's fucking annoying the whole He's falling in love with every other character It's like get it together bro All right she doesn't want to He starts, but where he ends, plus you got to beat persona three really. I'm getting there.

So, okay, let's get into these categories. Okay. Because I do have categories listed out. The categories are story, music, characters, social sim mechanics, which is hard to say,

combat and dungeons. I think each of these were going to assign a winner to. And of course, chat, I want to hear from you, super chat in with your thoughts, with your votes for each of the categories to,

I guess you don't have to super chat with your votes, but super chatting in with your thoughts. Let me know and chat what your vote. quotes are for each of these categories. We can keep an eye on it. How long are we into this episode, Roger? We are 25 minutes. Yeah, we got time. Okay. All right. Before we hop into these categories, I want to tell you about patreon.com slash

kind of funny and YouTube.com slash kind of funny games where you can go and get the kind of funny membership, which allows you to get shows ad-free. And speaking of ads, let us tell you about our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Phasmophobia. The genre-defined horror game is finally coming to consoles on October 29th, 2. 24. What did you see? Never mind, we're coming.

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And one thing I wanted to mention, I actually forgot to mention, Barrett, you know, recently, the Shimagamintense 5 Vengeance came out and after, like, being at the end of metaphor in it right now and not having so much hell

with the combat, part of me is like, damn, what if I go back? Do you give it another try? What if I give Shimagamintense a chance? Because I know like the combat system, at least the turn icon system is, is from Shimagamintz. It's similar, yeah.

I wouldn't say it's one to one from what I remember playing with that. But I'm like, man, I could go for some more of this. And so I was thinking about it. No promises, obviously. You know, games are. coming out left and right probably will never get the roommate high him I believe reviewed vengeance I forget what he

gave it though it was a I know he really dug Shimagama Tensei 5 when it came out so I'm sure he liked Vincent's dude I'm just gonna do a new game plus of metaphor eventually all right so metaphor refiantasia versus persona we're going category by category who and like it's funny because this episode started off as and it's I think it's like it's stacked against metaphor

because I think the realistic conversation like we were just having is that like it's going up against several different personas that's the thing is this episode started off yesterday when when I was like prepping it as metaphorie Fantasia versus persona five royal. And then I ran that by you and you're like, throw three in there. And so we're like, all right, cool. And then I just like deleted the five off of the headline.

Yeah, the deleted the five on the headline. But then I looked at it. I was like, all right, metaphor versus persona five versus persona three. Then I thought about it. And I was like, yeah, but I also love four. Like four is also, I like four more than three. And I think that's going to, even when I beat three, which again, I'm only like 10 hours away from beating three.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to like four more. Like there's something about three. And we'll talk about as we get into the categories. Yeah. Yeah. I like it a lot, but it's not hitting as much as a five or a four for me so far. But let's start off with our first category. Story.

Which of these games has the best story? Oh, fucking Christ, man. Oh, God. Yeah, chat, no SMT because this is me and Bairts. Yeah, this is like our... And we tried SMT. Didn't work for us in the past. But now I do want to try it again.

Don't leave the hate comments. We already got it when we did a, like, impressions video. And here's the thing. This leaves the door open because we can now probably do another one of these episodes maybe a year from now. If I beat SMT by then, do it again.

I'm not going to play SMT. What are you feeling right now? For best story? Yeah. We're also, we said at the top of the show, we're not going to talk about metaphor spoilers. Yeah.

Let's talk about in vague terms of themes and characters and stuff. It's tough because there are things I do like a lot about the persona story compared, or like Prisone 5 Royal story compared to the metaphor or Fantasio story. The

Maruki, like him being added in Royal and his whole arc, I think is fucking fantastic. I don't know if I would say anything in metaphor hit for me on the level as that arc. And then individual, other individual arcs within Metaphor, within Persona 5 Royal specifically.

Like the whole, like, it's starting off with Kamashita and like that whole thing, I think, such a strong start. And I think those individual arcs hit. Metaphor Re Fantasia was like a full story. I think it's really, really good though. Yeah. I would say thematically and like the commentary that the story of metaphor is about, I think is really strong. And like it's, it's really funny that that like the last game these kind of leads worked on was Persona 5 that came out in 2016, 2017, a game about fighting against corrupt adults coming out in the like the 20s, during the 2016,

kind of election fallout. And then you have this game coming out. Their next game, eight years later, about literally an election during another fucking exhausting election cycle. And the commentary of that of like kind of the two main choices being not great. And then, but the chance of like, well, anybody can actually do this and run. And how do we break out of like this formula of like the leader of a religion? and a war monger, right?

And that stuff, I think, is so strong and so powerful. And it's commentary on collective action and race, I think is so fucking beautiful. But, like... When we talk about this, because I know a later category we have is social sim mechanics. Do we include the social links? Like, the follower stuff in there? I would include that more in characters in terms of, like, the stories of the social links. because I think that's all that's mainly like character work what I think of story I'm thinking about like the main story what is like the first act second act third act kind of thing okay because if we're talking about that like social sim elements in relation to like bonds and social links and stuff I think about more like mechanically in the flow of it and stuff like that because if we're not including like if social links is more of a character thing and if we're talking about overall story from beginning of

middle end, I think I do lean probably towards metaphor because I think metaphor I think thematically oh man, this talk has both P5 and metaphor, I think thematically have a lot of power to them. But like metaphor feels very well, it feels like a very good analog. I really like where they take it as far as

you know, us being introduced to this world that is what you think of when you think a typical medieval fantasy, you know, royalty being passed on to Osserring or whatever, like it being more of a right that's passed down from generation as a thing as opposed to a thing that's controlled by the people, them being introduced to this

like a system, a democratic system and having to figure out like, all right, what does this mean to people? What do people actually care about? Like, what do you, and like getting into the side stuff, again, no spoilers, but like getting into, you know, I'll do the thing where I go up on the podium to increase my eloquence or whatever. And like, actually seeing the conversations they have,

like being real conversations. Like, yeah, if you actually debate somebody on that stage. Yeah, and they're talking about real issues. And, like, there are so many analogs and stuff that we talk about in the real world that they're trying to invoke. And I think successfully invoke in metaphor. I really like how they tackle a lot of that stuff. And I think it's a very smartly written game. It's actually when you take that and then bring in the humans aspect to it and, like, what they're building off of with, like, the old role or like, like, you know, being like, you know, us having the question of, all right, what the fuck are humans.

Like, in this world, they're monsters. Like, what the fuck? It's a metaphor. A metaphor. It's a metaphor. I like a lot of those questions. I like a lot of that stuff. Really quick, because I know the chat is now tearing itself apart.

I think the game is more so commenting on a two-party system and being able to fight against a kind of broken two-party system. I'm not trying to equate it to any sort of specific election. But that's neither here nor there. But yeah, I think there's interesting stuff there. Now, granted, the human stuff, I almost wish, this is a tough. fun to talk about without spoilers. I wouldn't talk about it.

Yeah. Really. Because I might, I think I, the only thing I'll say about it is I could have seen them going further with some of that stuff in the, in the end. I could have seen that stuff being a bit more like,

I don't know, dove into in a way that like, because I think a lot of the ideas are interesting, are really cool. But they don't, they explore it, but they don't explore it as heavily as I would have wanted them to. With such an interesting idea is what I'll say.

Okay. That being said, though, for me, I think... So are we going, like, objectively? Are we going, like, with our hearts? I mean, talk through it.

Because, like, for me, emotionally... Like, I think metaphor probably has the strongest stories, strongest written, strongest themes, the way it's able to all come together in really interesting ways and deeper levels. Like, even within its, like, gameplay and certain elements that just, like, really sparked the,

kind of the first question that's asked to you in that game of like do you believe what is it fantasy is limited like fantasy can't you know affect reality and stuff like that which I think is like really beautiful but for me emotionally

I think persona 3 reload is is my favorite I think the theme of persona well not just relay like persona 3 in general like I talked about this on the review so it's like very very like semi spoilers but

nothing specific is like that game is a lot about loss and grief and death. And there are so many story moments that strike to for myself in losing others in not seeing your own life as valuable and learning through others the value your own life has. that it's just Persona 3 is my second favorite game of all time for that reason and it's like the characters

and all that stuff like the what that team goes through I think is I don't know persona 3 means a lot to me and you know we talked about like there was one social link in persona 3 I know this is more character stuff but just again this one kind of ties back more into the themes of the story.

There's a person who knows that they're going to die. They have like an illness and stuff. And like I couldn't, I knew where that story was going because I'd played Fez. I couldn't replay that in Reload because I knew where it was going. And, you know, a friend of ours was also kind of in the middle of that process in real life. And I've had a lot of stuff like that throughout my life. since I've been way too young dealing with that type of shit

and persona 3 is just kind of let me process a lot of that through the fucking three times that I've played it at this point and I feel like I take something new away from it each time so I think metaphor on a technical level I think is the strongest told story I think

all that but for me personally persona 3 I think is is still the number one in my This is a really tough one because I could see it going Like either way, right? Like I think what you're talking about with persona 3 and what in your take away from it is super powerful But then like you know, we've not gotten deep into persona 5 either which like yeah the setup and like pay off of persona 5 You want to talk about like how like your dissatisfaction with how persona 4 handled its mystery or whatever

The way that persona 5 sets itself up in the beginning and like when we loop back around to yeah the stakes that are like clearly made at the beginning yeah How that hooks you in, I think is so expertly done. It's so expertly done. I like the world of Persona 5. In like, you know. Japan. Tokyo. I mean, Tokyo, yes, but also like persona 5's Tokyo, right?

Like the style of it, the attitude of it, the, you know, there's like a personality that I think is uplifted by its art style, which I don't know, do we have that as a category? Style. Style or art style. I feel like style. You got to add it. Yeah. We're going along on story, but we got to add another.

I'm adding a style at the end. But I really like the moment to moment of Persona 5. Persona 3 is not in Tokyo. Just heads up. I think persona 3 and persona 4 are both in fictionalized. Yeah, Persona 3 is in a fictionalized town. That's why Persona 5 was like, I remember when that came out, it was like an interesting one for fans because they're like,

oh, this is the first time that they're doing like a, like first time in a while at least or something like that. Like they're doing like an actual location. Is there a way to do a straw poll? Because I think, oh, my answer. You can do a straw poll in YouTube, I believe. just like polls in YouTube and Twitch shot. Because I might go

fuck. Damn, I might go metaphor. It's tough though. I think all them are, I would give them all like the same score in terms of story. What do you want the poll to be? Let's do metaphor versus persona versus persona 3. Yeah. Which is tough on the audience because I know most of them haven't beaten metaphor. Yeah. Yeah. It is what it is.

It is what it is. I'd be happy either way. I think both are incredible games. Incredible stories. While you do that, I want to read some super chats. Arcombe lover 14 wrote it and says, I just got both Persona 3 reload and metaphor for my birthday. Hell yeah. Which do you recommend playing

first? Much love to CEO Jr. and the second king of Halloween after Greg. Reloaded metaphor. That's tough. I think mechanically oh man. I'd say you should play both. I'd say metaphor because of zeitgeist right now

would be my answer. There's the zeitgeist. It's just one of those things where I think persona 3 mechanically might be it might be tough to go to persona 3 after playing metaphor you know because we'll talk about gameplay in a little bit here

and then Josh EG says real question when are we getting metaphor re-dancing all night 90-o so that was something that I remember seeing a lot of comments on a review of like oh they're just going to put out a different remastered version of metaphor in a year or two anyway

and something I miss that people were bringing up was that apparently Atlas is trying to move away away from that formula of like doing persona three and then like a persona three fez or persona four and then persona four golden that's why we've been getting like dLC for persona three reload and specifically like you know the answer being or episode I guess being like a packed in like or a like a DLC added to persona three reload rather than you know waiting a year or two and getting like a new skew with episode Igus in it or something like that. I think, I forget when they talked about

this, but apparently that's like something they want to actually like pay attention to moving forward. Nice. So. All right. I think we got the results of the poll and running away with it. Metaphor refaintasia. I'll give it to. Yeah. Which surprised me. Yeah, that was with 55 votes.

Metaphor got 79% of the votes. And it surprises me because like I would imagine that most of you haven't finished metaphor yet. But also you can be in the thing. So many people, even in that first week we're posting so much from the early hours of the game that I feel like are resonating with a lot of people. So by now, right, you have to imagine people are halfway through the game. Most people

are halfway through the game. Yeah. Like, it doesn't surprise me that they're at the halfway point and they're like, fuck, this is amazing. So, next up, music. I'm gonna tell you right now. There's an, there's an answer to this. It's easy answer. It's not persona four. You're right, that it's not persona five. It's not persona four. But like, I don't like you counting it out like that.

Here's the thing Perseur 4 has a banger soundtrack They all have banger soundtracks But persona 4 has Here's what I'll say Persona 4 soundtrack Better than metaphor soundtrack See yeah

This is the one We're like Roger Let's play the metaphor Fight track If we can for like 30-ish seconds This is fucking fighter And this is taking over the streets

This is what got Tim Gettys To play this game This is the best song in the game By far Oh it's so good And Roger, you hear that track every time you have the advantage in a battle. And it's fucking awesome. And I love it so much.

Outside of that, outside of the kind of like old school kind of like Viking rap type of stuff that they're doing with the battle music, I think Metaphor's music is really good. But I don't think it stands out amongst like the persona stuff. And like I think they're really like touching moments in some of the music that like harken back to like sometimes persona. three and persona five in really fun ways. But then that just makes me think of those games soundtrack. That's my thing. It's an unfair competition for metaphor because

like metaphor, it's obviously, it's going for fantasy. It's going for a different vibe. And like the vibes of P3, P4, P5, what you can do with music and with those worlds? Come on, man. Like, the last, you want, even if you want to talk about just battle theme, last surprise. Oh, so good. And then you get out of that and you get into, like, what's the song they play in?

the gun store. Like, uh, layer cake. Yeah, yeah. Layer cake's good. Layer cake's good. But, but, you know, uh, Percent of three reload comes out earlier this year. Obviously, already has kind of an established soundtrack, established vibe.

And I was honestly very impressed with what reload did to kind of bring that into the modern, uh, modern day and still kind of capture that like kind of cringy, but kind of fun early 2000s, like hip hop where everybody. thought they could like rap and stuff like that. Roger, play the track from Persona 3 Reload that I have because this is the song of the, uh, this was the song

of, oh, color your night is like one of the bottom of the year. And you're right. For the days ahead of us, put your hands up, wave aside aside for good luck on. Here's the thing.

Me and the inside. Um, all throughout our Tokyo trip, we're singing this song. And like, Roger just had to sit there and witness this, right? Because I had this on my... I had like a Tokyo playlist when I went there. And yeah, this was high up on the playlist.

What's this? What is this? What is this from? Roger, what are you doing? You know the song, buzzing. Oh, yeah, this is the Sonic. This is from Sonic Adventure. This is Poppican Hill.

This is Knuckles song. It's same shit. You know what I mean? Yeah. Same shit different day. But like the color of your night is so good. There's like a cover on it on YouTube that I implore. Everybody Look Up.

It's like an acoustic cover. Yeah, where there's a girl singing it. It's so fucking good. And I like it. I think there are some tracks that I prefer the original Persona 3 soundtrack for, but there are some, a lot of tracks for reload that, like, I do prefer as well. I think it's a really good mix. We got to be real.

There's an answer. We got to be real. Roger, please play. Come on. They invented jazz. You know. It's crazy that, like, this game came out and then jazz became a big. And the way, this is, I believe, which is like a huge song near the end of the game.

And the way this guitar brings it back to one of the first songs that you hear in the fucking game. Are you kidding me? Listen, this is what I'll say. This is what I'll say. When did Persona 5 come out in Japan? 2016. The original one? Yeah.

Yeah, 2016. Do you know the, let me go. It was like November 2016. That's what I thought. It was like a round then. except it was in the like second half of the year for sure it was like it was October November time

um do you know what came out in December 2016 Lala Land and like that's all you got to know man ooh yeah yeah yeah yeah they invented jazz they invented jazz oh dude come on think about think about this think about

going on the New York City train station and having your Vita open and playing the first 10 hours of this game think about that think about that and like maybe put this on the list. I'm saying. Like, Rivers in the desert, like, that's the thing is I can open up the Spotify, like, album for Persona 5. I go back to Persona 3's soundtrack more,

just because I think it's a vibe, it's something easy to listen to. Yeah. But I cannot deny Persona 5 easily is the thing that clears here. So, for story, I would include Royal in that. I think the new music added in Royal is so good. I believe was the song that we played that specifically for Royal.

But yeah, you have the kind of chill walking around music when you're in social sims situations in persona 5 and you're just walking around the city and you have like different versions Yeah beneath the mask and you have different versions on it of depending on if it's raining or like time of day

and all that shit and every version fucking hits the the dungeon music the boss fight music like it's all so fucking good we don't talk about um those the fucking robot johns in the space Hope less is being sarcastic about jazz no I'm not being sarcastic No they invented jazz

They invented jazz jazz didn't exist did not exist. I know you think you're from another dimension that you slipped into this dimension. Persona 5 invented jazz. Real the fuck up. Sorry, what were you saying? I keep in that.

Persona 5 just has like bangor after bangor after banger, whether it's like a chill fun, just like hang out a banger when you're just hanging out in LeBlon stuff that gets you hyped up, all that stuff. So I think Persona 5 has a whole spectrum that I think just is, it's unparalleled.

So for store where you got metaphor from we got persona 5 royal characters is the next one this is what I'll say I metaphor for me isn't even in the running here I think persona 5 royal

clears in characters I even think persona 4 golden is up there I say even as if like persona 4 isn't my favorite but like yeah I think for me if I'm picking between the games that are like in contention for me it's persona 4 and persona 5 and I think persona 5 is the winner

So I'm trying to Think specifically just so like about the individual characters And sort of four has Notico though You know And it has character arts character development I'm thinking about all that stuff What was Nonico's dad name? What was his name? He's your uncle

I forget his name It starts with the D I think I want to say Dojima but that's not it right? Is it? Might be Dojima It's something similar Rio Taro?

Oh, it is Dogemon. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's my thing. I think it's metaphor. I think metaphor has the strongest cast of, like, written characters that are so much more complex than a lot of the persona characters we've seen throughout the persona franchise. And none of it feels like it's in service for you. A lot of persona, and I love persona.

Don't get me wrong. I feel like a lot of persona in the way certain character, a lot of characters are written, is fully about how they feel about your relationship and it's all about like you're my best friend and kind of stuff. And that's why I really like Perotone of 3 because it doesn't feel like a group of best friends.

It feels like acquaintances. Yeah, colleagues essentially. So it doesn't feel like it's constantly catering to the main player about like, you're the best man. And like there's a bit of that in metaphor for sure, but I feel like the characters aren't written specifically in service for that.

They're written with very complex backgrounds that, you know, they still try to fight against their kind of shitty situations in really powerful, strong ways. Again, this is a name that we could not mention on the review, or I didn't feel comfortable mentioning on the review, and I'm not going to mention anything about their story. But Basilio is legitimately now one of my favorite fictional characters ever.

I love Basilio and what he, brings to that story Fidelio as well if y'all have met both of them and like obviously the main core cast right with like Halkenberg and Stroll and Hysmey like when we got to

Heismay's story again not speaking to what any of it is about that was when I told you of like okay this game's got the fucking sauce you know and like everything around that like I think I think metaphor's got the strongest characters Heismay definitely is like

probably my favorite character in metaphor, like in terms of the side character. Like, I really like his story. I like his design. I like his voice acting. Like, that is, as soon as I got to Hizma, I was like, now we're cooking. Yeah. Like, as soon as you got to him, I was like, we're cooking. I think for me, the reason why I go with Persona 5 Royal is I like so many of those

individual arts that those characters broke through. Like, Maruki, I think overall might be my favorite character. And that's my thing. I think Maruki outshines any character in metaphor. And then I think you go down the list. and I really, I really like, like, I don't know, Makoto's struggling with sort of like the imposter syndrome and, like, you know, her having to live up till the standard set by her sister and all that stuff.

I love Mikoto. But then she does end up being a cop. Yeah, but even still, right? Like, listen. I'll fix the system. Listen, you're in an election, all right? You're fucking working for the government. None of us are innocent here.

But you have her, you have fucking, like, I love what, like, again, you want to go back to that first arc with Kamashita and what on is going through with her friend and like where they take that is so like fucking wild but also like very deep and also I think informs her character so strongly going forward um again another thing with um morgana and like what morgana goes through in terms of trying to figure out belonging trying to figure out where they come from all that shit right like but he's so annoying for those that 10 hours look you're talking to somebody who played persona five maybe two years after i played persona four that had teddy or like a year don't even get me started on teddy you want to talk about annoying like

Oh my and and and and Yoseke and like maybe Chi a little bit and and uh she's awesome and like honestly I think the strongest characters sorry now in this kind of trashing on persona four but I think the strongest characters are the two characters and I'm blanking on their names right now are the two that like don't have the cleanest landing in terms of nowto nowto and oh me I'm the cool guy who's also was by Troy Baker. God it's been so long. How do I not remember his name? I'm blanking on his name. Keep talking. I'll remember it. The blonde punk dude. Conji. Thank you.

I think those are the most interesting characters in that game. And like even then, like I feel like where they end up is like, uh, can I see where you're going here, but I don't feel like we've ended the plane very well in terms of their story. It's definitely a weird one because it's like, it's messy. It was one of those ones where it's like, man, I understand it was a different time, but like, this is so weird. Like you're playing this game in like 20, I played it in 20.

16 on the bus on the way to work on my Vita a lot. Playing it, I was like, all right, we gotta do, but even persona five struggles with some of that shit. Oh, 100%. You can date your teacher like 15 hours after the comic sheet arc. That's insane. That's fucking insane. All right, so you're going with metaphor.

I think I'm going with persona five. Roger, if you want to put another poll in there, and as you do, I'm going to read some more super chats for you. Let's see here. C.J. Splits the right sentence says, now you can properly enjoy Balders Gate 3 bless Stratt Poppy I don't think it was like

the strats necessarily are fucking up Balders Gate 3 because like I understood what Baldersgate 3's combat like wanted me to do I was more so like commenting on like stats in GRPGs but I feel like I don't know I really like a metaphor approaches that stuff whenever I get back to Baltimore Gate 3 because I will someday I'm just turning that shit to easy

I think Garrett in the chest says I think P5's downside is the secondary social links in my opinion are weaker than persona three or metaphor. I will say, yeah, that is one thing that, like, is it Mishima? Who's the fucking nerd who's like, oh, you're one of the Phantom Thieves, right? And he, like,

helps you out with the fan site and stuff like that. Sure. Fucking one of the most annoying written characters ever in a video game. You're right. Secondary Social Links metaphor, I do think clear, persona five. And, like, Persona 3 is what, like the old couple? You want to tell me about the fucking old couple? The little girl in Persona 3,

which would beat the shit out of Anonico from Persona 4? Like, Come on, man. Come on. There's a duty meeting metaphor that's like, I was like, you're the, you're one of the hardest people

I've ever met in one of these games. Like, me, it's just a fucking, I'll, I'll tell you this name later, but he's fucking, this man.

Well, do you feel like it's a spoiler? I guess it's not, just say the name out of context. Why can't you think it was a name? Oh, God damn. God damn it.

Oh, God damn it. I'll look up the characters. But as I'm doing that also, let me look up what other superchats we got here. Mara says, I've secured the route to Maru K's treasure and I don't know if I'm ever going back to finish P5R

because of how much more I'm enjoying metaphor. Oh, finish Persona 5 Royal. What the fuck are you doing? You have like two hours left in that game. Maybe. Finish that. What are you, that's like, that's not even like, oh, I'm leaving the final book in the series

because I don't want it to end. That's like you got halfway through the last chat. What are you doing? Fuck. It's so good. Oh, is that it? Hold on. No, that's not him.

Oh, you're looking at L. characters. It's okay. Tell me later. I can't see his face. I can't think of his name off the top. Let's see where we're at with the pole. Metaphor looks like is winning this thing. We're admitted in, 43 votes. Metaphor.

I think Metaphor is one. With 70% of the vote. Hell yeah. Let's go. Ken in the chess is Barden. I like Barton. Barn is cool. He feels like Metaphor's version of the kind of annoying, cringy, like what the are you doing kind of character.

But the way they write it and like, it's very good. I won't say anything more about Barton. Who I didn't discover was a bond until like 10 hours after that. Alonzo. Oh, yes. I'm like, there's no, like,

Alonzo, it's like, yo, I can't hang out with you, man. My parents might get mad. Dude, Alonzo's my fucking dude. And there was one specific thing I wanted from his story that I didn't get. I was kind of disappointed by, and, like, he even, like, makes a joke about it at the, like, at a certain point.

And I was like, God, fuck you game. Yeah. Just give it to me. Just give it to me. Fuck, he's so cool. He's so goddamn cool. I love him. All right.

Next time, we got social sim mechanics. So, yeah, I wanted to bring this in as a category of just, like, the flow of, you know, going around, walking to, you know, stores to, you know, like, collect, like, items and all that stuff. the tasks that you're doing to bring up your social stats, the actual mechanics around hanging out with social links and bonds and all that stuff. Here's what I'll say.

Metaphor is the most streamlined. Polished, yeah. And it's a tough thing of just because it's streamlined, does it mean it's better? And I ask that because I think metaphor is a different, it's funny because it's the same kind of game as Prisona, but in a way it's a different kind of game in terms of metaphor feels a bit more like hey this is we're this is us flexing what we can do with dungeon crawling

and combat and all this stuff like obviously we're going to have the social stuff for you here but it feels like them leaning off of the social stuff a bit and like going how do we make that combat dungeon experience party development experience as deep and as satisfying as possible whereas persona i feel like persona is more so a game about hanging out with the characters and building that social stuff and i think the reason why you have it like you in persona you have to have like the right, Arcana equipped to then get like the more amount of like, you know, XP yeah, friend points. Yeah, get more friend points and all that shit.

And they keep a lot of that stuff big, right? Like in, um, when you're leveling your social stats in persona, for example, they don't tell you where you're at. They don't show you the exact bar. And metaphor they do. And I think it's an emphasis thing. I don't think just because metaphor is more like streamlined with it necessarily makes it better.

Like there's something about hanging out with people in persona that I think I still prefer in persona five in particular. yeah for me it's metaphor everything you just said is like why i prefer metaphor i like being able to see the line tick up on my social stats i like that there are no friendship points and that uh like the hanging out like the point the bonus points you do get by saying something that uh your confidant or your bond uh likes actually serves more into the gameplay which has always been what social sim elements in these types of games are it's all fluid it's all trying to build into each other

and I think the way that metaphor does it while yes also streamlined definitely I think is also just like I think it's just more beneficial for the player overall that being said it's hard to argue against

the I would say the vibes of the social sim elements of persona 5 or uh Roger you might put it up another poll because my thing with persona is I almost like the fact that you don't know when you're going to level level something up.

It drives me insane. Like one, you don't know when you're level something up. Two, you don't know, like, I don't even know if I'm going to finish a lot of these social links in persona. Like, I don't think I've ever... Yeah, and I hate that. I want to see everybody. That was, I was stressed out with metaphor.

Thankfully, I was able to get everybody in a playthrough. That's my thing. It was with metaphor. Yeah. I didn't need a guide to finish all my social links in metaphor. Whereas persona, it almost feels like a... It feels like your playthrough. It is something...

Like, you have to, like, hear a bit more about these characters because it is, all right, maybe I'm not going to finish on some. social link, but I need to make sure I finish Bacotos because I care about this character. Like, I think that, for me, that speaks a bit more powerful in terms of the choice of it. That's a, it's a strong argument. Yeah, it's going to have to go up to the poll. I would accept it either way. Yeah.

Which one did you put up there specifically? Persona 5 Royal versus metaphor in it. I wrote persona, but yeah, persona 5. Yeah, persona, yeah, persona implies persona 5 for the people that are voting right now if you're watching. Also, it is possible to do all of it in 5. I know it is. It is, but you have to have a guide. You have to have a guide.

You can't do it without a guide. Yeah. And like, especially if you're going in blind on like your very first play through, like, you're not doing that shit, you know, unless you have a guide brought up. And the one that you definitely need a guide for is persona three. And I, oh, God. The amount of like friendship math I had to do blessing to figure out how to fucking max out all my social links to get the platinum for Fraternity Reload drove me insane.

There was a good week where I was just like, fuck, I fucked it up. Now I gotta go back a month, like, go back to an old save from like a month ago in the in-game calendar to like fix it all and all this shit. God, insane. Yeah, I mean, yeah, like I think one of the things I appreciate about Persona 5, I guess goes back to the how vague it can be. One of the objectives you get all the time is just take your time or like live an honest

student life. Yes, yeah, I like that. And I really like it because legitimately is, I think the more you can just play the role of being this student in person of the more you get out of it. Hey, I'm gonna study today. I'm gonna go to the library. Casper brings up that I like that I feel like it would be in favor

of my argument is no romance has actually been so nice because I feel like it's distracting so I appreciate it so far in metaphor. I would like I get the romance stuff for like a high school setting and stuff. I do prefer the no romance stuff because I think just from a writing

perspective I think there's something that you could do there if you feel like your protagonist would have a relationship or some kind of kinship like that with another specific character. I think there's something more interesting in the writing for that. That's why, like, you know, Final Fantasy 7

Remakes slash rebirth isn't like on that same level of social sim dating stuff, but I think there's more being written about those characters that makes the kind of like love square, I don't even know, triangle like interesting to me so that's that's one thing it came down to very close will at this time

oh shit with 57% of the vote metaphor wow I really thought they're going to take it to persona I thought that like you made a really strong case appreciate it thank you because I was like damn I do like that was a really fun time like playing percent of five for the first time playing even three and four for the first time

which four like it's tough to compare four now because reload like like gave up or gave like all of the kind of quality of life updates of like knowing where people are knowing what time that they're all hanging out whereas like in the old versions of like persona three and persona four it's like you just kind of have to figure out that she is fucking hanging out on this city on this street at night it's like fuck oh god oh shit cool all right next up we got combat which i feel like this could be a quick one this is metaphor yeah it's metaphor it clears it's so like persona five

definitely added the kind of like speed and fluidity to this type of combat but I think metaphor is kind of strategy and layering of like the archetype system being able to play around with that which I think just goes directly into combat

I think is just it's to the point where it's not even just like my favorite combat system and like an Atlas thing it's probably one of my if not maybe my favorite turn-based combat system in the RPG the combat is it's so primary reason why I want to do a new game plus run because I just miss like playing in the

Next up, Dungeons. So, Persona 3, throw that out the window. And 4. Because here's the thing. No, here's the thing is that Persona 3 and Persona 5 have a very similar thing. Or Persona 5 has something very inspired by Persona 3, which is Mementos. And Persona 3, it's Tartarus. Tartarus is the only dungeon in Persona 3.

Yep. But once you go up a certain amount of levels, the theming changes. And it's like, oh, it looks a bit different. or oh now I'm not in like a school now I'm in like this crazy gold palace looking thing or now I'm in like a weird sci-fi very colorful looking thing and all this stuff right and Mementos is kind of similar to that but you still had like dungeon you had actual organized Dungeons Persona 4 has dungeons but it's just Tartarus just like chopped up into pieces at least there are better themes though come on come on

yes they tie in thematically to those stories but like you're still going up fucking randomized levels that look the same over and over again. I fuck with that though. I hate it. I like procedural generation, all right. But yeah, you're right. Like, it's between persona five and metaphor. No, I think it's persona five easily. Like, I

like Metaphor's Dungeons. I think they do a really smart thing of kind of mixing up the pace of dungeons because there's some things that like I wouldn't consider dungeons, but their dungeon likes in big kind of story stretches. Yeah. I think like the, I think metaphor's alternative to a mementos, I think is much smarter of just like having

dungeons that have like, you know, you go there because of a side quest that like actually mean something to a character for a specific story beat, uh, like a side story beat and you go there and it's not just like one continuous big dungeon that goes on forever, um, for like level grinding and all that stuff. Um, and so, because I, I think I, I hope they let go of that. I hope Persona 6 doesn't have something like that where it's like, hey, this is like the dungeon where you go to grind. I just don't think that's a very like natural way to do that

to make it interesting. Yeah. But like the design of the persona 5 dungeons. That's my thing is I like, I think are so fucking cool. I think the main dungeons in persona 5 are better than the main dungeons in metaphor. The one thing I'll give metaphor though is that I like the how they did the side stuff compared to Memetos. 100%. Like I like I like the fact that you're going to

unique locations and like they have unique bosses and like the missions or more specific might not be the way to put it because you really are doing the same thing in all these dungeons to just find the boss but it feels like you're getting a unique designed experience every single time so persona 5 for the dungeons

and then lastly we got style which come on I know this is another one that comes down between five and metaphor I am way on the side of 5 though I think persona 5 in terms of style is a bit more cohesive and interesting partly because it

takes place in a modern in like modern to And so I think there's a lot you can do with that. Whereas metaphor, I like the character models. I, of course, love the key art of the characters. But there's something about the environments that look a bit messy to me. There's something about it that's, like, not as pleasing on my eyes. Whereas persona 5, I feel like, is a bit more clean in its art style. Yeah, it's definitely more cohesive.

I would say persona 5, for sure. We'll say metaphor is menus. Great. Metaphor has. menus are fucking great and like I can't even argue really persona three and I think that's primarily because like they really made that game I believe in unreal engine it's not the same engine that like they made persona five and maybe even metaphor I'm not entirely sure if they did that in unreal or not or if they did that in the same engine as persona five and katherine but there's just something about

like there's an added layer of like polish in persona five and metaphor that persona three reload I don't quite has and I think it's because it was that teams like first like hey we're not using the proprietary engine for the very first time we're actually going to use this main engine and there's just some things that like I love the style still of reload but there's just some

things where I'm like oh this could have been touched up here or you know little things like that yeah um yeah this is more of this is like a messy personal taste one I think this has to go to five um personally for me I think I definitely see the appeal of

metaphor. I don't mind the messiness of metaphor as much. I think it kind of fits into that world and I kind of dig it for that. I think the menu stuff in metaphor is fucking awesome and chaotic and soul. If there was a menu category, metaphor is clearing that. Yeah, but I feel like that it's

just kind of tie into the style, but I think persona 5 in particular takes it. So, that is our final category for what is the best Atlas game? Metaphor or one of the persona games. As we go through, starting with story. Story, metaphor

took it. Okay. Music, Persona 5 Royal. Okay. Characters, metaphor. Social Sim mechanics, metaphor. Combat, metaphor. Oh shit. Dungeons, Persona 5 Royal. Okay.

Style, persona 5 royal. Which means with four votes. Out of the seven. Out of the seven, you have metaphor, Refantadio. Taking it. Pesona 5 Royal got three. I like that.

I was like, let's include the other persona games and then they didn't even win any. Yeah, they didn't even like come into play as much. I did present an argument for persona three for story though, so. Congratulations.

The metaphor of Re Fantasio. You've been crowned the best Atlas title. Alex dies twice as recency bias, but I don't know. Maybe, I don't know. Maybe, but also you know, because it's the most recent game

where they have learned so much through the process of making persona 3 4 and 5, I think it'd be kind of a letdown if it wasn't the best game so far. Yeah, I think it's a good point. You know, it's all subjective and all that stuff anyway. Who gives a shit? We're just doing this for fun for the sake

of the conversation. Do I still personally like persona 3 reload more? I think yes, that game will always mean so much. That's going to be my number two game of all time. Personally, I still like persona 5 Royal more than metaphor, right? But it's fun doing this as as an experiment. I love to revisit this.

Again, I would love to play Shimigami Tensei 5, vengeance. He wanted to say re-vengeance. Maybe one day. And then we can do this again. And we can have on Michael Hyam and we can have a old battle right out. But until then. But, Barrett. Oh.

I want to close with... An update? We started with an update with you giving your metaphor update. We have one last update. I reviewed Batman Arkham Shadow earlier this week. We didn't get co-reviewed code until like Thursday. It was also a tough weekend for me to review a 10, even a 10 to 12 hour game to get a review, a full review up by the time of embargo,

which ended up being Tuesday morning. So to start off this update, I have finished Batman Arkham Shadow since our review on Tuesday. It was, I had two hours left. And like, it was pretty much one play session. I got an hour and a half into that play session. And the quest was like, I'm dying. Please charge me. I was like, fuck.

So I only had like 30 minutes left. and I finally beat it, I think, yesterday morning. And so, to kind of start off my updated thoughts, I want to take it back, actually, Roger, and let's show the highlight here of my initial review score of Batman Arkham Shadow. I want to take it back to Dan Stapleton's review of Arkham Origins. Batman games are like pizza.

Even when they're not very good, they're still pretty good. I would equate Arkham Shadow to a Kellsone. It's the same ingredients given to you, in a different method. Some people like calzone. Some people just want their pizza. Ladies gentlemen, NB's, I really like Calzone. And I really, really like Batman Arkham Shadow.

And so far, nine and a half hours in, I would give it an solid eight out of ten on the kind of funny scale. It's a Calzone, man. It's a great Calzone, everybody. To follow that up, I was, to give some context before that review so far, I was between an eight and an eight

five. I would say a lot of the problem, this being a game, um, following up, uh, Arkham Origins, I would say on a technical level, even though it's a different platform, even though it's been 11 years, a different, uh, developer, all that stuff. It has a lot of like the same technical hiccups that Arkham Origins has, like a lot of gameplay, a lot of little bugs that, like, kind of add up here and there, a lot of like input for combat that I found a little bit too chaotic and too annoying where like, the game wouldn't process like, hey, I just use my cape to try to like stunned somebody, but you didn't register that, and that's kind of a little shit like that

that added up. And like, enemy AI, like, definitely like, the last, like, stealth part of the game that I played yesterday, like, the enemy AI is, like, kind of stupid. And so it's like, uh, all right, but I can kind of see past it, but it was a little too much. So, like, it was definitely an

eight at the time without having finished the story. Now having finished the story, this is going to an 8.5. It's a great game. It's not, I wouldn't put it up to a nine amazing because I still think the technical things are still a little kind of weigh it down a bit, but like

the last, like the first thing I played after reviewing, doing the review so far, I was like, fuck, I wish I played this before talking about it at all. I played through some of the coolest sequences in any fucking Arkham game, uh, in this game. And like, I was really

wowed. And I think that was kind of the thing that like, it's, you know, it's an 8-5, and it was originally an 8, and I think another part of that was that, like, I talked about in the original review, there being a

kind of moment right before the title card that, like, made me pop, and I was like, oh, shit, we're adding this kind of level of depth to this character in the Arkhamverse that I wasn't expecting, and I thought that was, like, really cool, and I want to see more of that, hopefully one day. And I didn't have quite a moment like that. Like, there's still interesting stuff happening

throughout the story. Until like my last play session where I was like holy shit look at all of this stuff that is really cool There's a sequence where like I knew immediately where it was going. I was like fuck I don't want to do this in VR This is gonna be Not fun specifically in VR, but it was still like really cool like not fun in terms of like I'm nervous about it But in like there's so many cool sequences in the last hour and a half that I was like gasping You know the the the drama the juice

And, like, Tim asked me on the Tuesday review, would you be able to make a video essay about this? And I was like, maybe. I don't quite see, like, where they're going with the themes and all this stuff. And I see it now. And I'm really fucking impressed. I think camouflage should be very, very proud with what they've done. So, yeah. Very, again, I said this on Tuesday, and I'll say it again here.

This is a very solid chance of making my top ten. That's awesome. Holy cow. The rare adjusted review score. You know, I feel like usually, I feel like usually when we're doing the review. It's only a 0.5, but still, it's still big. Like, I feel like usually when we do the review in progress, I feel usually feel pretty settled in.

So it's cool to see that by the time you finish, so you're like, oh, snap, no, actually, this is even better than I felt originally. And so there you have it, the updated Batman Arkham Shadow Review, the final review from Barrett. I'll never talk about it again, ever. Oh, you will. You will.

The first week of January. Also, oh, last thing, I know we got to close out, but honestly, for the ranking, because for my Batman Arkham videos, people wanted me to rank them. Yeah. And I didn't think that was very interesting because I would always know my ranking. And so to update the ranking, right, Arkham Knight at number one, because I'm a fucking sick freak.

Crazy. Number two, Arkham Asylum. Because I think that's just such a, it's such a magical game. Arkham Knight, there's just like something about that. Like, take away the Batmobile argument. There's just something about that being, I think, the fully realized Batman simulator that I truly adore. Also, I think the story is great. And I think the problem with it was more so the marketing.

the Arkham Knight being a character shouldn't have been revealed until we got the games in our hand. Number three, Arkham City. Number four, Arkham Shadow. Number five, Arkham Origins. And this was something I mentioned in the review on Tuesday. I think Arkham Origins bit off a bit more than it could chew in terms of size, exploring an open world and all that stuff.

I think the team had camouflaged made a very smart decision on what to actually do and adapt an Arkham game into VR, and I don't think they, I don't think they bid off more than they could chew and smartly put in so much love and effort into the size of this game. So, yeah. Here have it. Of course, this has been the kind of funny games cast. Each and every weekday, we get together and talk about the biggest reviews, previews, and topics in video games live on YouTube, Twitch and on podcast services around the globe.

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