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 today's subject has put me in such a rotten mood that I can't be bothered to even entertain the idea there's anything redeemable about it. In short, Metaphor is everything I despised about Persona 5 again, now with the added insufferability of a director/writer so high on the success Sega bought him that he thinks he's some irreplaceable virtuoso who's beyond all reproach. Well, he's not; he's an arrogant hack who thinks getting a faint whiff of limelight means he doesn't have to try ever again. His latest dungheap is just another retread of the same 18-year-old Persona formula; race against an arbitrary time limit through brainless dungeons comprised of linear corridors, exploit elemental weaknesses to knock down the enemies and get free turns, hit the I Win button once they're all down, repeat until it gets stale, then continue repeating for another 100 hours. Because games aren't games anymore unless they're also at least 80% busywork. Yawn. The only difference between this and P5 is now there's even more obnoxious distracting visual effects and word bubbles in 35 different fonts constantly popping up to assault me with some of the worst writing I've ever seen in any medium, let alone video games. All of the dialog feels nothing like real conversation and entirely like one chronically online chud arguing with their sock accounts. Every character, regardless of upbringing, social status or education level, speaks with the exact same smarmy tone, sixth-grade vocabulary level and rapid-fire cadence, and every line is overwritten to crowbar in clunky exposition and clichéd turns of phrase and snarky quips and glib one-liners in some desperate attempt to appear 'witty'. It's all about as believable as a 17-year-old 4chan addict using a thesaurus a dozen times per post to prove how "cultured" and "well-read" they are - embarrassing for them and doubly so for anyone dumb enough to actually buy it. Certainly doesn't get me invested in the preposterous story or its contrived, disingenuous 'message' either.
Metaphor's central morality play unfolds in the most simple, childish way possible. Good and evil are clearly defined polar opposites with no nuance or ambiguity whatsoever, or so we're told. All the heroes are presented as infallible selfless übermenschen who always have completely correct information and invariably make the right decisions, so logically anyone in their way must be the complete opposite. We certainly never see any evidence to the contrary; all the villains ever do is commit heinous acts without any hesitation and love every second of it. They also proudly spell out their big genocidal racist ethos to the player in plain, unambiguous language just to make sure there's absolutely no doubt in your mind that they're completely irredeemable scum and you're supposed to hate them. That's because none of Katsura Hashino's writing has any nuance or humanity whatsoever. Every character he writes is either his own self insert, one of the main's idiotic cheerleaders or a straw man for him to point at and say "Sure I never do anything that isn't cowardly, manipulative or self-serving, but I'm not as bad as THESE guys so therefore I'm a good person!". Likewise, there isn't a single scene in the game that showcases any genuine knowledge, unique insight or plan of action regarding the social topics it's spotlighting, just empty speechifying about how everyone else needs to be kind and selfless and colorblind just like him and he'll continue his self-appointed role as the world's morality police until they do. Much like Persona 5 no thought is ever spared for how violence and mob justice just beget more of the same, or how innocent people suffer most when giant egos clash, or that there's any degrees of severity between crimes and criminals (I remind you that rape, murder, fraud and cheating in a video game are all equal sins in the eyes of Hashino), or how taking one problematic person out of the equation doesn't immediately solve systemic prejudice; nope, everyone instantly joins hands to sing Kumbaya and bow to our heroes in reverence and never stray from the righteous puritan path again after they punch the latest cardboard cutout baddie around a bit and spout off a lame, overly simplistic PSA message afterward. Lame-assed, hypocritical Saturday morning cartoon bullshit at its worst.
Nothing said or done in Metaphor qualifies as storytelling, or even as having a writing process behind it. It's just one man transcribing all the half-baked lore and loaded arguments and witty banter and juvenile messiah fantasies going through his own head every minute of every day so he can show off how amazing he thinks he is and how shallow, stupid and immoral he thinks everyone else is. Forget being insulting, he's openly contemptful 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 the thing 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. Literally every dialog 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 no, I withdraw that comparison; at least Dora's creators practice what they preach and their characters manage to talk like real people rather than charismaless Beetlejuices. This is a Sonichu comic with a budget. There, that's better.
People who write smug trash like this are self-serving grifters, without exception. They've never led by example nor made any earnest attempt at changing anyone's views or ways. They've also never once gone after any of the real high profile shysters and hate-peddlers or attempted to refute any of their talking points, because they have zero interest whatsoever in affecting real change; just in amassing popularity for personal gain. That's why all they do is make up the whole debate in their heads, project all their lame straw man arguments onto the nearest easy target and whip up a hate mob to go cut them down - so they can all score more social currency by making a conspicuous show of what 'morally righteous people' they are, actual facts of the matter be damned. Every one of them honestly believes they're the very first people ever to come up with incredibly easy solutions to complex social issues but they mysteriously never have any time or inclination to actually implement them, just showing off the work of other people who actually try and congratulating themselves for 'inspiring good' because they make shitty derivative art about it once every decade. Don't think any of Hashino's little toadies will ever practice his preaching either, because all they ever do is emulate him and become more social chiropractors only interested in making sure their marks feel better and never actually confront the underlying issue; otherwise they won't keep coming back complaining about the exact same symptom and handing over more money to get it 'fixed' again. Hashino has corrupted Persona - formerly a brilliant and poignant franchise about being true to yourself and finding value in life, relationships and humanity despite their inherent flaws and finity - into a feedback loop for narcissists with delusions of grandeur, and that's just pathetic. The fact that Sega has the gall to charge you $70 for this trash is just shameless too, especially in an era when you can log on to any social media platform and get your fill of grievance-milking charlatans for free.
Oh and you can spare the lame fallacy about how I just hate this game because it's "woke"; 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; you can find many examples on this very website if you actually bother to look instead of just cherry-picking enough out-of-context quotes to whip up another lynch mob on your Tumblr page. I just hate when corporate toadies like Hashino broad-brush social issues, offer overly simple, reductive solutions to their problems and coat it all in a thin veneer of art so they can score brownie points with idiots who think 'winning the argument' means being the loudest hypocrite, not in refuting misinformation and making persuasive arguments to change minds. Hell, Hashino doesn't even believe in the 'social movement' he's selling you; it's all just part of his greater scheme to build a bigger pre-installed audience for his next game and reap more profits for the rich conservatives that hold Sega stock (who, surprise, don't believe in it either) so he can keep living the sweet life as an overpaid duplicitous hack. Any positive outreach or acts of vicious harassment and violence 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 finance someone else's personal propaganda mill, why not donate some of that money to MSF instead. Or buy something made by a talented indie dev or musician or artist who could probably really use that money to pay rent and afford groceries; way more than any of the empty suits running Atlus and Sega could, for sure. Or hell, even drop a few dollars into a random person's Ko-Fi or Gofundme with no expectation of anything in return. Any act of charity, no matter how small, is infinitely more noble than jerking off and calling it altruism any day of the week...
Developer: Atlus Studio Zero
Publisher: Sega
Released: 2024
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, XBox Series
Note to publishers: If you want to give the impression that your game's really 'progressive' and 'woke' and avoid attracting the worst people on the planet to it, maybe don't have it describe an idealized utopia using phrases that sound uncomfortably similar to racist/colonial 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 big important message about unity, tolerance and caring for others...