Does the story get any better?

[Zaum]

Playing through the demo... its ok. The serious tone of Persona is just not there yet. I loved the allegorical nature of Persona 5 with different castles and "sins" depicted on a rather good level writing-wise combined with light hearted usual anime stuff.

With Metaphor it feels like a very cliche fantasy good vs evil with not much depth so far. Gameplay might be good but an anime rpg stands and dies with its story for me. Whats your impression of the story after 20 - 30h so far?

[Darx]

im around 30h in.
not sure how far the demo goes, but yes it will get better

[PeRdY]

No. Actually it gets worse every step forward. Im in 4 city....and god...its a continue roll eyes atleast for my taste.

[Jawsofwar]

If you do not like the demo then I don't think you would like the game. Just being honest. I loved the demo and love the game but the rest of the game is very much like the demo except the gameplay opens up and expands.

[Murtoc]

The writing is atrocious and nonsensical.

[N/A]

The endgame should have been the turning point of the middle of the game. It is serious, I don't know what you are smoking to say p5 was more serious than this but whatever.

The end should have been the middle and they should have put waaaay more effort into the world building throughout but this is a a fault of it being like persona with the incredibly shallow s-links beside the main story and that's it.

For me personally it was horribly predictable to the point i was calling things out before they where even set up. Like I knew everything that was going to happen from the onset and was perpetually disappointed when I was proven right. The social commentary was a let down too because it's nothing I haven't thought of before.

There is no reason you shouldn't like this story quality wise if you liked p5 because they are of equal quality. If you don't like the social justice theme you should just leave right now because that's the whole thing.

[Kaelmato]

I'm 30+ or something hours in. The story has picked up a bit, I think, however I do think the main story is a bit basic (so far) and follows a more traditional JRPG formula. I do love the characters so far though and the (not)Social links are better written than in Persona in my opinion.

I don't know how far you are in the demo, but it's a very good indication to where the story goes (it really hasn't changed that much), in at least in my 30+ hours, so if you don't like it now, you probably don't like it later.

[archonsod]

Originally posted by Zaum:

With Metaphor it feels like a very cliche fantasy good vs evil with not much depth so far.

I'm not entirely sure where you could get the notion it's good vs evil from.

[KharnTheKhan]

Originally posted by archonsod:

Originally posted by Zaum:

With Metaphor it feels like a very cliche fantasy good vs evil with not much depth so far.

I'm not entirely sure where you could get the notion it's good vs evil from.

I mean Louis is 100% evil so is the leaders of the church so its easy to see where he is coming from

[Lynfinity]

Originally posted by Zaum:

...a very cliche fantasy good vs evil...

Is Persona 5 not just "We hate adults: The Game", then?

[N/A]

Originally posted by MagnusTheRedMage:

Originally posted by archonsod:

I'm not entirely sure where you could get the notion it's good vs evil from.

I mean Louis is 100% evil so is the leaders of the church so its easy to see where he is coming from

The difference is that they don't call them evil, lots of people dislike their actions but many more don't care. If it was disney style good guys and bad guys Louis would have zero support and they wouldn't entertain any of his ideas or even treat him like an equal but they do and many praise him etc.

Also all stories where the conflict involves people have a good side and a bad side, the good side is usually the protagonists side. Good vs Evil =/= Bad or bad story telling.

[Dao of Yakitori]

Originally posted by Zaum:

Playing through the demo... its ok. The serious tone of Persona is just not there yet. I loved the allegorical nature of Persona 5 with different castles and "sins" depicted on a rather good level writing-wise combined with light hearted usual anime stuff.

With Metaphor it feels like a very cliche fantasy good vs evil with not much depth so far. Gameplay might be good but an anime rpg stands and dies with its story for me. Whats your impression of the story after 20 - 30h so far?

Hello Zaum! I have 100+ hours in the game and am now on my second playthrough on Regicide difficulty.

I think that the story starts slowly but while it gets much better as it progresses, it did charm me from the very beginning. If you don't like the first few hours, don't bother buying the game and just find something else to play :) There is so much choice on Steam!

[archonsod]

Originally posted by MagnusTheRedMage:

I mean Louis is 100% evil so is the leaders of the church so its easy to see where he is coming from

Not really. Louis is a revolutionary, the leader of the church is a reactionary. They both actually have a point (to be fair, you could argue about their methodology since both are very much ends-justifies-the-means, although even then governments as a rule don't overthrow themselves).

[Rubyeyed]

Story itself isn't bad but every new antagonist they introduce after Louis and Forden is such a cartoonish mustache twirling clown it really takes all the seriousness out of the narrative.

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by Zaum:

Playing through the demo... its ok. The serious tone of Persona is just not there yet. I loved the allegorical nature of Persona 5 with different castles and "sins" depicted on a rather good level writing-wise combined with light hearted usual anime stuff.

With Metaphor it feels like a very cliche fantasy good vs evil with not much depth so far. Gameplay might be good but an anime rpg stands and dies with its story for me. Whats your impression of the story after 20 - 30h so far?

There is a lot of allegory in this game as well. The game is called 'Metaphor', after all.
P5 made most of the allegories extremely obvious so anyone could pick up on them.

This game's writing is more appreciative towards players with more experience in life or wisdom. It leaves many of the allegories and depth of meaning, in plain sight for the player to figure out on their own.

Whereas in comparison the Persona games try to make the wisdom or life lessons you can learn from it, as accessible to everyone as possible.

Originally posted by Zaum:

The serious tone of Persona is just not there yet.

Do you have selective memory? There are a lot of moments in Persona games where the games arent remotely serious and the cast often likes to mess around. On top of that, someone rarely dies or has something bad happen to them on screen. (instead of being talked about as past pre-game occurance)

In Metaphor you already see 2 people get killed in front of the protagonist in the intro.
There's some brutal scenes later on in the game. Outside of that, the cast doesnt joke around and if they have issues with each other it will be over things that actually matter. This game is a lot more serious then the Persona games ever were.

In terms of seriousness or depth, this game is basically Persona with the Kid Gloves off.

[Murtoc]

An example of something small and inconsequential having terrible writing:

Catherina is shown on bounty boards to be the rank 1 bounty hunter. Bounties mainly involving hunting monsters. Narratively you'd assume this character would be very strong. In most games if you encountered them this character would probably ignore you since you're a fledgling nobody. Maybe they'd belittle you or perhaps mentor you.

Your first genuine interaction with Catherina is finding her beaten up and near helpless in the first dungeon. You aid her in finding out what happened to a companion of hers when she is too injured to do it herself. You form a supposed friendship and bond with her after this.

But her next 3 or so interactions with you is to hunt you down and fight you because you're now a rival to her in becoming king. You beat her each time and after each fight she whines that she's weak and surprised at how strong you are.

It makes 0 sense that this character is ranked 1 on the bounty boards. She's written in more like a starting rival character to you rather than someone who should be holding that title. The easiest fix to this narratively would have been to have her say she was going easy on you each time in order to challenge you, or just don't have her be rank 1.

She even says after one of these fights "I'm ten times stronger than I was before but you're still on another level!" all while Gallica still remarks that you're on the bottom of the bounty board.

Don't even get me started on how badly executed the writing is on the second town.