Fantastic end to a fantastic game.

why is he not protected by those Kingly chains that prevent others from hurting him. Im super early in the game so this may be answered further down the story but that is a huge plot hole if it doesn’t.

Is it just me or is the Auto advance feature waaaaay too quick in spoken dialog? It feels to me like it’s so quick it basically cuts off the voice actor to get to the next line. Idk maybe I’m just picky but if they added an option to make the auto advance take somewhere around half a second longer to advance the lines it would make the game sound better on Auto advance. Anyone agree?

For some reason during one of the last updates the game made my NPCs are almost all Green

The Gauntlet Runner

Is this guide correct or is it something you unlock at a later time?

It says for quite a few things where you can buy but it also says "Purchasable from Gauntlet runner kitchen"

So this game is basically a parenting simulator mixed with buddy comedy ending racisim .

10/10 good game

I hate to say it, but the guys look like they have an allergy to testosterone. And the females, god forbid they have any kind of curve to them. I get art styles and design, but dang. Hard to relate to a character that looks like they never done a push-up but wants to join the military. Like wtf Atlus? The prince in the flash backs… common are they trolling me? Very questionable character designs in my eyes. Kinda sad and off putting.

Edit: I love how everyone turned it into a fap conversation. Golly, I guess it’s too much to ask why characters look so androgynous.

I mismanaged my time and was unable to complete both bonds and quests before the last free day.

After reloading to try both, I became aware that all weapon and accessory rewards for late game quests and activities (trials of the dragon, coliseum) are trivialized by gear which can be obtained in the final dungeon by unlocking 100% archetypes for each character. Ease of griding in this dungeon makes this quick.

Further, the 9999 damage synthesis, which becomes available upon maxing the royal archetypes for each party member, renders the final boss fairly simple. This is especially true if you combine it with the royal knight's omniguard, as well as her counter and thief's dodge (both of which cancel the boss's turn if they proc). To unlock this synthesis, all bonds must be raised to rank 8 (in order to access the requirements for the royal archetypes).

Accessories drop in the final dungeon which reflect either all physical or all elemental damage, which can be used to cover the weaknesses of party members for the last boss.

Lastly, the item from without the final dungeon I found invaluable was the utilitarian's manual, which enabled a cheaper cast of the 9999 dmg attack, as well as knight's omniguard.

Here's the final boss on ng hard (spoilers). He insta killed a party member at one point, but otherwise the fight went smoothly.

*** and if your party is underdeveloped for the final dungeon, sell enough mag (easily replaced in final dungeon) for around 200k money. Buy pristine clearwater, brocaded koi and monsterbone stacks, and make as many finisher noodles as possible. You'll need 3 gauntlet runner trips for a full stack, though you'll prob need less. These let you 1 shot enemies in the overworld. Using them in the final dungeon, you'll get to the appropriate level in no time (at which point you'll 1-shot the overworld mobs without the noodles). The only enemies worth fighting in squad battles in final dungeon are the large teeth (who drop reflective mirrors).

https://youtu.be/Wh29ueiZKDQ

Adding spoiler to be safe...

But I've got so many people mastered in abilities but my issue is, I'm lacking MAG! Where can I find a great place to farm MAG prior to entering the final dungeon/point of no return? Is there a best strat to do it?

Im still very early so please no spoilers, but it seems lik everyone and their mother can recognize at a passing glance that the PC is an Elda, but I thought the Elda had no distinguishing features? Is is because they dont have anything like horns or long ears and such that people can just use process of elimination to guess your Elda? Or is there something I mightve missed in an explanation early in the game?

I keep hearing people talking about how they're struggling to get enough MAG late game. How is this a problem? I was sitting on 100k+ from the third city through most of the rest of the game. The one time I dropped below that was when I spent a bunch all at once unlocking 3 different late game archetypes. There was a brief moment where I considered trying to max a few character's trees, but I quickly bailed from that grind, leaving me over 400k banked when I beat the final boss.

So what were you guys spending it all on?

So tomorrow, we go to fight Louis for the last time. I’m going around right now, doing the conversations and getting the trinkets. I get to Heismay’s and he says this:

“Previously, it mattered not when I died. But now that I’ve dedicated myself to living for my son, I shall no longer await death, but endeavor not to waste life.”

As someone with early childhood trauma, lots of health issues, and a long lasting struggle with suicidal ideation…this just hits home. My little sister who I barely got to know, died in a car crash a few years ago, and I’ve been struggling with how to process that still. I also have children, who have been my only light in the dark for a long time now

I shall endeavor not to waste life

Thanks, ATLUS

Does getting the trophy give you anything special in NG+? Obviously it makes you miss the weapons that the 6 sub bosses drop, so do you get anything in return? Checked over some NG+ posts but none mention the trophy either way.

Assuming the answer is no (especially since the mode sounds pretty bare bones), and that it will be better to just reload a previous save, get the weapons, and re-beat the game, but figured I would ask.

Love the game so far. I had a long weekend where I could game for a few days straight, which is extremely rare. Im still no where close to completing this game, even though I spend any extra time I have gaming, playing it. I'm about 30 hours in according to my save. I looked it up, I have a LOT of game to complete still. How is someone with a life, not to be rude, to complete this game within a year?

With the fanfic area of Metaphor slowly starting to move, i am curious towards what AU/fanfic ideas would like to witness in the future

(random screenshot for no particular reason)

After finishing the game 3 times now (call me crazy but I just loved it so much) I’ve started to go down the rabbit hole of trying to find all references the game makes to other media and everything that might have inspired it, or just general parallels I found while playing the game.

I’d love to hear what certain parts of the game reminds YOU of, because there seems to be so much left to uncover and so much we’ll probably never understand.

Let’s start with the more obvious things - the visual design of Humans in the game is clearly inspired by Bosch’s paintings and some of them are directly taken and adapted (like the cathedral’s main boss). On top of that the general vibe surrounding them (people being afraid of them, Grand Trad’s massive city wall to protect its people, their giant disturbing appearance) reminded me of Attack on Titan, this might be completely unintentional.

The King’s Face - the giant hovering stone face menacingly watching over Euchronia with a deadline really reminded me of the dread that Majora’s Mask made me feel about the moon. There has to be at least some kind of inspiration.

More’s character - He is obviously a reference to Thomas More from our world and his book Utopia. I bought the book last week and while I only barely started, I can already see the parallels to Metaphor’s ingame fantasy novel.

The Gauntlet Runner - when I first saw it I instantly thought of Howl’s Moving Castle.

Etrian Odyssey - I haven’t played a lot of it so you guys can probably find even more references, but I felt like the Lost City part below the Dragon Temple was almost taken directly from Lost Shibuya in one of the EO games. And I don’t think “Eht Ria” was a coincidence either.

Catherina - I don’t want to list all the Persona / SMT / etc. references because they are all very on the nose, but she seemed pretty interesting to me - her color scheme and name obviously reference Catherine and I guess that’s because the Metaphor team also worked on Catherine.

The candidates - Without going into detail, each of the crown candidates that you fight on your gauntlet runner or in the city debates clearly represents a political direction or movement from our world, which was a pretty cool way of making them unique.

9/11 - I think we can all agree that choosing 9/11 for the most intense chain of events in the game was fully intentional and I gotta say it kinda blew me away because I only realized it when the entire scene was almost over already.

This one is a big stretch and I’m 100% sure it wasn’t their inspiration, but Brigitta and the stolen puppy arc gave me John Wick flashbacks. I’m glad she didn’t wipe that Eugief village.

The obvious F1 names - Stohl (Stroll), Hulkenberg (Hülkenberg), Alonzo (Alonso) - coincidence? Maybe.

—————————

Now I’m curious to hear your takes on the game’s references - is there something obvious I missed (I’m sure there is), what did certain parts remind you of?

Am I the only one who had an odd experience with Melancholia Zorba boss?

First attempt: he mostly just spammed Lightning and Dark attacks and always stayed on his Attack form. Since I was constantly debuffing him, the fight was very easy. When he reached the last 20% HP, more or less, there's that small cutscene with him getting angry. After that, he spams Anxiety-inducing attacks for the first time and then powerful scythe skills that murder me almost immediately. I am like "Huh? This may be interesting after all..."

Second attempt: he probably behaved closer to what was intended. He actually switched from Attack to Defense forms but never used the scythe skills, only the Anxiety-inducing attacks mixed in with his usual magic. This time, he'd also constantly use All Reset, making my previous strategy moot. In any case, I kept at it normally and eventually killed him. He never entered that enraged state towards the end. I definitely brought him down to a similar threshold of health though - if not 20%, at least 22-23%, it was very close - then in the next turn, I killed him.

He felt like an oddly inconsistent boss. I was also expecting more from him at that point in the game. Any thoughts on this battle?

I’m in Edinburgh on holiday and every place reminds of the world inside metaphor 🔥 what curse ring/ necklace is in here😂

https://preview.redd.it/egl0snjpp10e1.png?width=245&format=png&auto=webp&s=cac9802f034a3c6eba3c32754e1abf65bd422488

where is my promised chibi Alonzo!! 20 minutes before the end of the game (peak btw)

!Or more precisely, as well as a 'Kingmaker'?!<

Basically, as the story goes, you could choose a relative-reasonable candidate(who would also be one of your special coop), as the king as well as key coop/alliance, participate in his/her growth, influence and ripen their idea,>!and finally make him/her as the new king.!<

Also a misleading prophecy would be present throughout the story, saying that >!the prince would see the capital on fire, with a champion with horn rose from army standing on the top of palace and claiming the end of dynasty(Could be Louis, or actually Strohl if you chose Strohl as the new lord)!<.

Even the final attack against the boss would be conducted by nameless citizens who was encouraged by protagonist(or player's version), with a fake game-over similar to Arkham Asylum. Their power and would make one giant archetype(like 'Kingdom') to take down the final boss once and for all.

So I just found out why I'm having such a problem with mag.

When you defeat enemies in turn based combat, especially when you don't take damage, you far outstrip the MAG you get in the overworld when you kill them. But as I was grinding one of the end game towers I just realised when the skeleton enemies went to blue for me, that after a run of the tower my mag income had just gone down by about 70%

Ironically, this game punishes grinding by giving you less rewards the more you grind..

No wonder Ive been having mag issues all game.