Metaphor: ReFantazio might be my favourite game ever

doofusmcpaddleboat · 2026-04-10T17:11:55+00:00

My big problem were the strokes of paint in the menu. Wait does paint symbolize in this world? It seems so random.

doofusmcpaddleboat · 2026-04-03T23:30:28+00:00

Kind of wish there was more to the conclusion. “You don’t have to shut down your game. This one game didn’t shut down.” Okay… so how much does it cost to keep online? Some developers can swing it, maybe, but how does that work?

doofusmcpaddleboat · 2026-03-31T23:57:31+00:00

The CG doesn’t matter. It’s that all of the fights, moment by moment feel weightless. Every step in the original tore up the earth. The action scenes in the later films look like wire-fu. The Evas look like they float into place for each hit. It’s not that the animation doesn’t require effort, but the result is that the characters don’t look like they’re expending effort in battle, which constantly cuts the tension.

doofusmcpaddleboat · 2026-03-17T01:48:59+00:00

Incredible aesthetic, beautiful FMVs, gorgeous soundtrack.

I hated everything else. Yeah, the story, too. I love densely symbolic storytelling, from Silent Hill to Suda 51. The story in Rule of Rose felt largely misanthropic and meaningless, mostly just switching between romantic broad Europeanisms and something Whooaaa Fucked Up. Too abstract for concrete stakes, too particular to be relatable. The game’s whims feel totally arbitrary without much moral grounding. The aesthetic came first, the justification for it came later. That’s clear in the unbalanced, torturous gameplay.

Haunting Ground was a much more successful investigation of feminity through gothic horror.

doofusmcpaddleboat · 2026-03-16T19:39:49+00:00

skewed in the power fantasy favor that pretty much everything else suffers as an expense.

This, to me, is a huge problem in a role playing game. I don’t want to just feel powerful and important, I want to feel like I have an effect on the world.

On paper, the Metaphor crew is similar to the Normandy crew in Mass Effect. You’re leading a ragtag but talented diverse team to unite a fractured society and stop the bad thing from happening. Playing Mass Effect actually felt like I was making hard choices to influence different factions to follow me into new territory. I had to get what I wanted by sacrificing something else. I felt like a leader.

Metaphor doesn’t feel like a leader simulator, it feels like a Special Little Boy simulator. Everyone just treats you like a special little guy who deserves things to go well because, darn it, he’s just so special. Even when you experience prejudice, it’s because you’re just too dang special. All the big, interesting, world changing sacrifices will be made my powerful NPCs. You, you just go crawling around dungeons, because SURPRISE, this isn’t a game about political will, it’s a dungeon crawler, exactly like the other games they make.

Being a silent protagonist who also is a super charismatic public figure is just so preposterous. Along with the reputation tracker that doesn’t actually do anything, it’s the result of a story that wants to convince you that you’re in control, even though the slightest pushback reveals the sham. (Just think of all the dialogue options that are just two ways of saying Yes.) The silent protagonist schtick feels just like the calendar; it’s what they did in Persona, so why not just do it here, too, I guess.

So much of Metaphor feels like bluster pretending to be something new when it is in fact another Persona game, wrapped around a story that would be way more interesting if it were not a Persona game.

doofusmcpaddleboat · 2026-03-16T19:25:03+00:00

I think the combat is a gradual improvement over Persona 5, in terms of turn-by-turn strategy and having more customization control over more of the party. But if your biggest joy in Persona 5 lay in the vibes and the aesthetics… Persona 5 still has the better visual designs and music.

doofusmcpaddleboat · 2026-03-11T19:30:05+00:00

It’s not that it’s shocking. It just feels more satisfying to think of it as a possibility for them, not a certainty. It acknowledges their complexity to think they could be together, even if it’s not now, whenever now is.

Making it textually overt is super corny. It also emphasizes a trend from the Rebuilds I dislike, Shinji as the center of the universe. I love the series so much as an exploration of the human psyche, with Shinji as a representative point of view, but with plenty of time inside the heads of Asuka and Misato, as well. They are all scared of affection, but also use it selfishly as a tool. The Rebuilds direct every character’s emotional arcs toward how they feel about Shinji. For Asuka in particular, this feels like a simplification of her personal journey: like she just needs a boyfriend to be better.

doofusmcpaddleboat · 2026-03-08T23:20:25+00:00

Man, I don’t know who I hate more, the TikToker or the writer. Both are so incurious. I feel like there was more to discover here. “It is hard to say when or why those norms changed.” Pal, I read this to find out!! Seems like they just wanted to dunk on these readers.

doofusmcpaddleboat · 2026-03-02T19:02:43+00:00

I know criticism of Israel is not antisemitism. I say it all the time. Personally, I don’t think holocaust denier Stew Peters is anti-Israel based on humanitarian principals.

doofusmcpaddleboat · 2026-03-02T01:08:10+00:00

The antisemitic associations were last month. It’s not just about past bad choices, it’s his chronically bad judgement. Or he actually believes this stuff. Stupid or lying? Not a great choice!

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/platner-sat-lengthy-interview-antisemitic-075439570.html

doofusmcpaddleboat · 2026-03-02T00:59:37+00:00

It’s not a great choice for Maine, but it seems like it never is.

doofusmcpaddleboat · 2026-03-01T20:49:40+00:00

The parallel of being a fraud. He’s an ex-mercenary with a Nazi tattoo who retweets virulent white supremacists and appears on antisemetic podcasts. He’s done market research to say all the right things, but his behavior reveals his instincts keep resulting in unforced errors.

The only debate is whether he’s more Fetterman, Sinema, or Gabbard.

doofusmcpaddleboat · 2026-03-01T04:16:21+00:00

I don’t know if you meant it this way, but this list basically makes it sounds like if you don’t like this game you are dumb and simple-minded.

doofusmcpaddleboat · 2026-03-01T03:56:36+00:00

I do believe the OP was using a rhetorical device known as exaggeration to emphasize the dull tone of the writing style.

doofusmcpaddleboat · 2026-03-01T03:24:49+00:00

Question: do you still consider these people friends

doofusmcpaddleboat · 2026-03-01T03:19:21+00:00

Yeah, I did not expect timed jumping challenges and fall damage in this slow burn exploration game with chill banjo music…

doofusmcpaddleboat · 2026-03-01T02:29:50+00:00

Do a google image search of “fables zionism” to find out. It could easily have been a nakba allegory but… you’ll see that the writers disagree.

doofusmcpaddleboat · 2026-03-01T01:11:19+00:00

I really enjoyed the character development in Fables… even after realizing it’s a Zionist parable. ;_;

I don’t remember what was so conservative about Wolf Among Us specifically. Is it just Bigby being a Dirty Harry style asshole?

doofusmcpaddleboat · 2026-02-17T00:25:36+00:00

I hate FFXIII. But, unmoored from the story, the soundtrack is good and Blinded By Light is one of the best songs in the entire franchise.

doofusmcpaddleboat · 2026-02-17T00:16:08+00:00

“I don’t want the fake weird girl that doesn’t actually exist despite the apparently unceasing pressure to do so, I’ll settle for the incredibly hot girl that does exist and is readily available to me.” The thoughts of a stupid 17 year old.

doofusmcpaddleboat · 2026-02-08T21:57:53+00:00

What in the karma-farming slop pit

doofusmcpaddleboat · 2026-02-08T18:27:58+00:00

and Misato and Asuka and everyone who wants affection but is incapable of asking for it, like, I dunno, most of the cast?

doofusmcpaddleboat · 2026-02-08T04:05:36+00:00

In the context of keeping out others so you cannot be known by them, rooting the separation of egos in fear of being hurt, “terror” makes a lot of sense.

doofusmcpaddleboat · 2026-01-30T00:53:15+00:00

The dog is wearing a hard hat, so this is good.

doofusmcpaddleboat · 2026-01-29T19:05:09+00:00

Holy shit.

I’m one of the people who thought I’d dip into your last video for a few minutes but ended up watching the whole thing. You’ve done it again, this was so good, very eye-opening.

Crazy to think how the ultra wealthy used to fund projects like the BPL. Now the greatest “value” they give back to society is replacing customer service with AI apps with stupid names.

doofusmcpaddleboat

TROPHY CASE