2053 A.D. The last bastion of humanity flees Earth as it’s caught up in a conflict between two unknown alien factions. The White Whale mothership crash lands on the seemingly habitable planet of Mira where humanity has a chance to begin again, but their struggles are far from over. Two months later, you’re discovered in a drop pod without a single memory save for your name. And so begins Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition - easily one of the best RPGs (role-playing games) I’ve played in recent years.

As the newest resident of New Los Angeles - humanity’s massive home base that successfully landed on Mira mostly intact - you’re swiftly encouraged to join BLADE (a handy shortening of Builders of the Legacy After the Destruction of Earth), an elite force tasked with everything from exploring Mira and subduing threats to gathering resources and keeping the peace on home ground.

Within your first hour, you’ll select one of eight BLADE divisions to be a part of, each specializing in a particular field (though these are fairly inconsequential outside of the online modes which I wasn’t able to try for this review). These include Pathfinders who specialize in deploying FrontierNav probes to expand the map, and Interceptors who’re tasked with handling dangerous fauna. No matter which division you pick, you’ll still get to explore Mira in pretty much any way you like.

While Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition does have a main story to follow, it’s not as much of a focus compared to the other three games in the series. Instead, you’ll be spending the bulk of your playtime ticking off side quests and party member affinity missions (of which there are plenty of both) in order to meet requirements for unlocking story missions and expanding your home base of New LA.

On paper it sounds like a slog - and indeed many quests can boil down to simple item fetches or enemy hunting. Thankfully, the context of each quest makes almost all of them worth doing. Each one meaningfully expands the lore of Mira and its many alien races. There’s also a fantastic feeling of progression here, as a good amount of quests will unlock more features in New LA as well as allow these other races to gradually inhabit the city.

There’s a real feeling of growth and community that’s seldom seen in the genre. And, if you’re paying attention, you’ll notice the various races co-existing. They’ll form their own friend groups, frequent commercial establishments, develop romantic relationships, and contribute to New LA in their own ways. It’s not a real-time simulation by any means, but it all still adds so much detail and flavor to the world around you.

In summary, I love the world of Mira, and I love Xenoblade Chronicles X’s approach to character development and overall progression. Sure, the lengthy gap between main story missions won’t sit right with everyone. Think of it like a hot bath; dipping a toe in can be intimidating, but if you allow yourself to slowly settle in, you’ll find an incredibly rewarding and satisfying experience. It might well be a re-release, but Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition is handily one of the best Nintendo Switch games today.

The world’s your (extremely dangerous) oyster

Besides the hub of New LA, Mira is split into five distinct (and utterly massive) biomes. Bordering the city is Primordia, a lush grassland dotted with lakes and mountains. To its west is Noctilum, a labyrinthine forest that combines wide open spaces with plenty of narrow pathways to explore. In the east you have the desert-like Oblivia, then off to the north is the ethereal Sylvalum and then bordering that is the volcanic region of Cauldros.

While these all sound like your cookie-cutter video game biomes, each has unique touches that help them really stand out. Noctilum, for example, is dense with large coral-like structures. Oblivia is dotted with towering ruins of an ancient civilization. Cauldros is heavily industrialized, having been largely taken over by the antagonist Ganglion race.

As you might expect from the Xenoblade series, there’s no shortage of breathtaking vistas to discover and the sense of scale is truly unmatched. The old adage of ‘if you see it, you can go there’ is often claimed but rarely actually true. However, in Xenoblade Chronicles X, you’d better believe that this is absolutely the case. Especially later in the game when you unlock the Skell, a flight-capable mech that greatly enhances your traversal options.

What’s especially great about Xenoblade Chronicles X is that you’re free to explore much of Mira from the off with your party of four including the player character. At first, your key objective in exploration will be finding FrontierNav sites at which you can unlock new fast travel points and reveal surrounding points of interest such as treasure locations or powerful Tyrant-class enemies.

On the topic of enemies, you’ll swiftly find that Mira is an incredibly dangerous place. High-level mobs are abundant, often strategically placed to discourage careless exploration. Xenoblade Chronicles X is not a power fantasy; you will frequently fall foul of enemies more than happy to ambush you when you least expect it. Thankfully, punishment for a full party wipe is lenient, simply taking you back to the nearest landmark or fast travel point.

Enemies are also surprisingly dynamic in their behavior. Many only appear at certain times of the day. They can also change their approach to you depending on your mode of travel; some may be perfectly willing to leave you be if you’re on foot. But in your Skell, they might be more hostile. Skell travel, while convenient, isn’t exactly a free lunch, either. Skell fuel is a limited resource and certain airborne mobs will attack if they spot you flying around.

This may sound super frustrating, but the flipside is that eventually, you will be able to fight back against enemies that previously gave you a hard time. It’s so satisfying to plow through an area that was at one point impassible due to the level gap. As you continue to improve your ground gear and Skell builds, you’ll gradually find that more of Mira opens up to you in a very natural way.

Guns, blades and indigens

Describing Xenoblade Chronicles X’s combat in full would require at least another 5,000 words and my boss would hate me, so I’ll do my best to detail the highlights instead. In short, X’s battle system is rich in depth and so incredibly fun once you get your head around it. But thanks to Definitive Edition’s better tutorialization, things are generally much easier to learn.

You and your party members will have access to a pool of Arts (read: skills) depending on their class (you can freely upgrade and switch yours as you progress, too) which you’ll assign to one of eight slots on the Arts Palette. Arts are color-coded; orange and yellow are melee and ranged attacks respectively. Green Arts provide support such as buffs or healing. Purple Arts typically apply debuffs to enemies, while Blue Arts grant the character an ‘aura’ which provides various temporary benefits.

What makes combat in X so engaging is you can’t just be throwing out Arts willy-nilly. Most will be more potent when used under certain criteria, such as hitting an enemy from its side, or activating the Art while you have an Aura active. It’s largely up to you which Arts to put on your Palette, but the game strongly incentivizes using Arts that synergize with one another.

A new ‘quick cooldown’ button has been added to Definitive Edition, too, which lets you immediately use an Art without waiting for its cooldown. The Art usually won’t be as powerful in this state, but it’s a very handy thing to have if you’re clearing out a group of weaker mobs or looking to quickly reapply a debuff.

That’s most apparent with Xenoblade Chronicles X’s coolest combat feature: Overdrive. Unlocked early on in the story, Overdrive is a massively powerful party-wide state. It lasts for about half a minute, during which time your Arts cooldowns will be greatly sped up and the party will be able to access a variety of bonuses based on the Arts you use.

In Definitive Edition, it’s easier than ever to tell which Arts to use, thanks to a color-coded chart displayed on-screen during Overdrive. For example, using three melee Arts in a row will boost the experience gained from the fight. Using a Blue and Green Art in succession will provide healing, and using a Green Art followed by any other will double its hit count which increases your TP (the resource required to enter Overdrive in the first place) gain.

Ideally, to get the most out of tough encounters, you’ll want to get your TP back up to 3,000 within your Overdrive window in order to activate it again, replenishing its timer. If managed correctly, you can keep the Overdrive state active throughout an entire fight. Pulling that off feels so, so satisfying and in the late game, it became the reason why I think X has the best combat system in the whole series. It’s up there with Xenoblade Chronicles 2’s take on the Chain Attack system for me.

As great as the on-foot combat is, I unfortunately can’t say the same for Skell combat. It’s as slow and clunky here as it was in the original. Skells feel incredibly floaty, and the Arts provided by its equipment typically have much longer cooldowns. You also can’t use the quick cooldown feature while in your mech. They can certainly be powerful, and hopping into your Skell if you’re running low on health is a viable tactic, but I do wish developers Monolith Soft could’ve taken the time to tighten up Skell combat as it just doesn’t provide the same rush as the on-foot Overdrive loop.

The fairest of them all

While Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition is certainly a little dated in the visuals department, by no means does that make it an ugly game. On the contrary, it provides some of the most gorgeous environments I’ve ever seen rendered on Nintendo Switch. Improved character models and an overall bump in resolution also help Definitive Edition look much sharper and cleaner than its Wii U counterpart.

As ever with the series, draw distance is incredibly impressive for a Switch game. However, some pretty egregious object pop-in is still an issue, especially in the busy hub of New LA. Non-player characters (NPCs), objects, and moving vehicles can materialize right in front of you. This can also happen out in the open world; I’ve had many times where I’ve descended onto a seemingly empty patch of earth to grab a treasure or open up a FrontierNav site, only for a group of high-level enemies to spawn in and obliterate my Skell in an instant.

In better news, performance is a mostly stable 30fps (frames per second), only rarely dipping when loading into a new area after fast travel. Load times are also impressively quick for the Switch; it wasn’t often that I had to wait longer than 10 seconds to beam into a new location, making general exploration extremely quick and convenient.

Lastly, I have to make a note of Xenoblade Chronicles X’s god-tier soundtrack. Composer Hiroyuki Sawano - well-known for his work on Attack on Titan and Kill la Kill - provides a legendary score for this game, and he’s back with new music for Definitive Edition, too. His work here does feel distinctly anime, with epic, sweeping tracks for the game’s biomes and vocal-driven battle themes that I never get tired of listening to.

Should I play Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition?

Play it if...

Don't play it if...

Accessibility

Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition is unfortunately very minimal in terms of accessibility features. You’ve got subtitles on by default and you can adjust dialogue text speed, but that’s really about it. There are no colorblind options, which would have been helpful to some players given the battle system’s reliance on color-coded Arts.

How I reviewed Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition

My playthrough of Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition lasted around 80 hours. This included the main story, most side quests, a good amount of affinity missions, and the new postgame content. I unfortunately wasn’t able to test the game’s online features for this review, as these will open up on release day.

I played the game on my Nintendo Switch OLED in both docked and handheld modes. I found it to be surprisingly playable and stable in handheld mode despite the drop in overall image quality and resolution, but still looks noticeably less soupy than other Xenoblade titles on that OLED screen. For docked play, I played on an LG CX OLED TV primarily with a GameSir Nova controller.

First reviewed March 2025

As a lover of Obsidian Entertainment’s catalog of incredible role-playing games (RPGs), I think Avowed is absolutely another feather in the developer’s cap. Taking place in the Pillars of Eternity universe, Avowed offers plenty for series fans to chew on lore-wise, while being a rich and inviting gameplay experience for newcomers.

You’d be forgiven for thinking Avowed is a Skyrim-esque experience with its first-person perspective, flexible build variety, and a focus on real-time combat. But that’s really where the similarities end; Avowed is very much its own beast. And while it might not hold a candle to the breathtaking immersion offered by an Elder Scrolls game, it handily trumps them in regards to both combat and the overall quality of the writing. Witty, engaging, and dripping with tidbits of lore at every turn, it’s certainly up to the usual Obsidian standard.

It is, however, fair to say that Avowed won’t be for everyone. Omissions like the complete absence of a day/night cycle and the inability to pickpocket do hamper some avenues of role play. And even though the game has a satisfying compact 25-30 hour runtime, the occasional filler quest can slow pacing to a crawl.

These complaints aside, Avowed is still definitely worth checking out if you’ve got a fantasy RPG itch to scratch, and it’s a fantastic start for Xbox Game Studios’ 2025 output.

Voice in my head

The player character in Avowed might just have the most unenviable set of tasks I’ve ever seen in a fantasy RPG. As the envoy of the Aedyran Empire, you’re sent off to the untamed, largely lawless frontier of the Living Lands. It’s a seriously dangerous place that folks nonetheless try their luck on in order to build a new life for themselves.

Unfortunately, the locals aren’t best pleased by the presence of the empire, and most NPCs treat you with the appropriate amount of suspicion. The empire also isn’t doing itself any favors, as it attempts to bring order to the Living Lands through authoritative measures.

As the envoy, you’re thrust into the center of proceedings. Officially, you’re here to investigate and quell the Dreamscourge, a spore-like plague that can turn people and creatures into uncontrollable, murderous lunatics. However, as the game progresses, you do get the feeling that this is just a front for the empire’s true intentions of control and dominance.

You’re also a godlike, a person born with unique powers and a connection to the Adra, a crystal-like substance that has a consciousness all its own. This entity makes itself known as a veritable voice in your head, and much of the intrigue in Avowed comes from you deciding just how much you can trust it - especially as it seems to regard the Dreamscourge as a boon rather than a plague to be eradicated.

It’s an involving setup that leaves plenty of room for you to make your own choices. And while not every decision you make from quest to quest is directly consequential, there’s enough for you to decide how to conduct yourself and shape the future of the Living Lands. Do you represent the empire with unwavering loyalty, or grow sympathetic to the land’s resistance factions? It’s all presented through Obsidian’s expert penchant for writing, and I found myself eager to keep playing throughout as a result.

And my axe

So how does character building work in Avowed? Well, there are three distinct skill trees you can invest points into upon leveling up, covering the fantasy RPG trifecta of fighter, ranger, and wizard. Each has myriad perks to help make your character stronger, with new perks opening up as you reach level thresholds.

What I will say is that sticking to one particular archetype (say, exclusively two-handed weapons) isn’t the best idea. Avowed can be a surprisingly difficult game, and given that you can swap between two distinct weapon loadouts at the press of a button, you’re strongly encouraged to mix up your build.

I opted to go for a mix of everything, with a sword and shield as my primary set, and a pistol paired with a grimoire of spells as my secondary loadout. With this I was able to cover practically all bases; strong offense and defense for up-close encounters, as well as two ranged options for crowd control and keeping a distance. What’s great is you’re not locked into any specific archetypes, with point respeccing costing only a small amount of gold.

While you can of course hard-focus your character down a specific skill tree if you’re wedded to a certain weapon type or armor class, I personally loved being able to adapt on the fly, especially as battles typically come against large mobs of enemies. Enemy packs do tend to show signs of organization, too, with pesky ranged units peppering you from a distance while chunkier shield-bearers getting up in your grille. Being able to respond with the same - hopping from a flaming sword to explosive crowd control spells - is where I got the most from Avowed’s combat.

And to be frank, you’ll need all the skills you can get. At launch, the combat AI of the companions you acquire in the game leaves a lot to be desired. It was all too often that I’d witness a close-range tank like Kai (the first companion you’ll meet close to the start of the game) either fail to close the gap to enemies or simply not bother to attack. It was a rare occurrence that companions left an encounter without being incapacitated first. Your party members can’t die, thankfully, but it would be nice to see improvements to their combat behavior in future patches.

With a little help from my friends

Your party members aren’t much use in combat, then, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love them. Each of Avowed’s primary companions brings a unique, fleshed-out personality, and there’s plenty of banter to enjoy between them a la Dragon Age or indeed Baldur’s Gate 3.

Kai is the first one you’ll join up with, and contrary to his gentle giant appearance and mannerisms, he’s actually pretty loose-lipped which can hilariously cause more problems than it solves. Yatzli, meanwhile, is an absolute delight. Genuinely funny and perhaps ever so slightly unhinged, she became a staple in my party of three (that’s yourself and up to two companions) simply because I couldn’t get enough of her dialogue.

Your companions do have their own skill trees for you to invest in, which include passive perks and active skills they can perform on command which does lend them a bit of usefulness in combat. Typically, these skills are good for crowd control, such as Kai’s ability to stun enemies, or Marius’s trap-laying skills that can hold enemies in place for a good chunk of time.

A land worth living in

In Avowed, the setting of the Living Lands is genuinely breathtaking. More ‘open zone’ than ‘open world’ (like The Outer Worlds, you’ve got a lot of individual areas to explore separated by loading screens). However, each is richly dense with meaningful side quests, opportunities for exploration, and no shortage of jaw-dropping vistas to gawp at.

You have the bustling city of Paradis, itself replete with enterable buildings and winding side paths. It’s a labyrinthine city in nature and it’ll take some time for you to get your bearings there, but that’s partly why I love it; I simply didn’t know what to expect around every corner.

Emerald Stair was another highlight for me, an area absolutely dripping with a morose atmosphere - its deathly quiet farmlands and surrounding forests genuinely left me feeling unsettled. It has an almost dreamlike quality to it, making exploration in itself feel plenty rich and rewarding.

The maps of Avowed are quite large and there’s plenty to explore in each. You’ll be encouraged to, as well, as you’ll want to find valuable resources to craft and improve your gear to keep up with enemies that increase in strength as you progress. Avowed doesn’t employ cheap level scaling, thankfully, and it’s quite easy to wander into areas filled with powerful enemies you’re just not ready to take on. Exploration overall, then, can be as dangerous as it is rewarding.

Over on the performance front, Avowed does occasionally buckle under the weight of its busy, richly detailed areas. I ran into frequent frame rate hitches on PC, but the game was more stable on Xbox Series X. On console, I felt that the 30fps (frames per second) Quality mode was a little too choppy to be enjoyable, but the 60fps Performance mode was much smoother - even if the overall impact on lighting and image quality was quite noticeable.

Should I play Avowed?

Play it if…

Don’t play it if…

Accessibility

Avowed has a good amount to offer in the accessibility department to accommodate players of all kinds. On the camera front, you can adjust the head bob and camera shake strength (or turn them off entirely) if you’re prone to motion sickness. For the user interface, you can adjust text size and there are plenty of subtitle options, from displaying a speaker’s name to adjusting subtitle background opacity. There unfortunately doesn’t appear to be any colorblind options available at launch, however.

There are also five difficulty settings: Story Time, Easy, Normal, Hard, and Path of the Damned. So there’s plenty here to tailor a difficulty experience that’s right for you and, they can be changed at any time.

How I reviewed Avowed

My time with Avowed lasted roughly 25 hours across both PC and Xbox Series X Digital Edition. I was able to carry my save between platforms thanks to the Microsoft account functionality.

Playtime included a full playthrough of the main campaign, as well as a generous helping of side quests and exploration to improve my character’s gear. I predominantly played with an Xbox Wireless Controller on Xbox Series X, and the Razer Wolverine V3 Pro on PC. On console, I played on an LG CX OLED TV.

First reviewed February 2025

Shin Megami Tensei and Persona series developer Atlus is back with its first original franchise in years in the form of Metaphor: ReFantazio. This new game trades in the modern-day Japan backdrop for a decidedly dark fantasy setting - something we haven’t really seen from Atlus since the Etrian Odyssey series.

However, Metaphor’s take on fantasy is remarkably different from its peers - and it’s highly ambitious. The game presents a world racked by discrimination and a broken class system in which church and state very much operate hand in hand. It explores how peoples’ fear and anxiety can be weaponized against them - and how that can cause people to confidently act against their own best interests time and again.

This - paired with an evolution of Atlus’s challenging ‘press turn’ battle system that merges the best elements of the developer’s other franchises - makes for a constantly engaging role-playing game (RPG) that never once grew stale across its mammoth 80-hour runtime. With all that said, Metaphor: ReFantazio is easily the best RPG of the year, one of Atlus’s best games to date, and shouldn’t be missed whether you’re familiar with the developer’s back catalog or not. 

Fight for your right

Metaphor: ReFantazio’s world is inhabited by numerous humanoid tribes, each with their own defining features such as horns, wings, or facial markings. Most of the tribes tend to keep to themselves, with rarely a nice thing to say about one another. Most have also fallen into the teaching of the Sanctist Church, which also acts as the world’s primary governing body.

Our protagonist hails from the eldan tribe, a near-extinct race defined by the fact that they have no, well, defining physical features at all. They are the closest to resembling real-world humans and thus are the most shunned of all of Metaphor’s societies. What the game refers to as ‘humans’ are instead towering, demonic monstrosities that roam the land, terrorizing countryside and communities both. You can see a bit of meta-commentary starting to form there, then, but to divulge more here would be to encroach on spoiler territory.

The story in Metaphor begins as the world is thrust into a rite of royal succession. The culprit is a high-ranking military man known as Count Louis. After assassinating the king in cold blood and placing a curse on the prince that puts him into a coma, we, as the prince’s aide, are tasked with bringing the Count to justice. However, that’s much easier said than done; while the populace knows Count Louis to be the culprit, discontent with the royal family and the Sanctist Church have made him a popular figure and thus a frontrunner to succeed the throne.

Much of Metaphor’s narrative revolves around the ‘Tournament for the Throne’- a contest set into motion by the deceased king. It’s here where our protagonist and his band of comrades must make a name for themselves in order to be considered worthy of Louis’ attention.

It’s an eclectic and diverse bunch, too. There’s Strohl - a nobleman’s son bent on killing Louis after razing his village to the ground - as well as Hulkenberg, a decorated royal knight who blames herself for being unable to protect the family in her charge. And that’s just the first two party members; the rest each have their own vibrant personalities, motivations and backgrounds that are equally rich and tragic. I’m also a huge fan of the wide variety of British accents used in the game’s English dub, ranging from East London ‘cockney’ and Welsh to Irish and Liverpudlian.

Overall, Metaphor: ReFantazio presents a constantly gripping story that I found incredibly difficult to step away from. It’s a veritable virtual page-turner where I often found myself playing into the wee hours of the night just to unfurl the next chain of unpredictable events. 

Royal beggars

The flow of gameplay in Metaphor: ReFantazio feels like a broad mixture of systems from other Atlus games. Like the Persona series, Metaphor features a calendar, but it only covers about four months as opposed to a year. The tradeoff there, then, is that you’re not attending school in Metaphor, and therefore there’s more you can do in a single day. Days are broadly split into two halves; day and night. Performing an activity consumes one of these halves, unless you’re exploring a dungeon, which will take up the whole day.

Metaphor repurposes Persona’s social link system as ‘Followers.’ There are 14 of these that’ll gradually unlock over the course of the game, and includes your party members and non-player characters (NPCs) that play a key role in the narrative. Improving your standing with your followers is crucial, as you can unlock various benefits such as increased battle experience, cheaper rates at shops, and new Archetypes to take into combat (more on those later).

You’ll also have opportunities to perform activities that increase the protagonist’s five Royal Virtues. These are Courage, Wisdom, Tolerance, Eloquence and Imagination, and upgrading them is essential to unlocking further bonuses with your Followers. My tip would be to spend your free days improving these, if you don’t have any dungeons to explore or present Follower conversations to see to.

Tasks like these will most often be done in the days you have before a plot-crucial deadline, which usually comes in the form of clearing one of the game’s major dungeons. I often found myself planning out my days in advance, and there’s a great deal of satisfaction in clearing up your to-do list with enough time to spare.

What's your Archetype?

Metaphor: ReFantazio employs Atlus’s ‘press turn’ style of battle system most commonly found in the Shin Megami Tensei series. Essentially, on your turn, you’ll have up to four actions based on the number of characters in your party. By attacking, guarding, or using an item, you’ll consume one of these actions by default. However, hitting an enemy’s elemental weakness (or passing a character’s action onto another) will only consume ‘half’ of it, thus increasing the number of actions you can perform in a whole turn. On the other hand, if an enemy dodges, blocks or repels your attacks, you’ll lose precious actions or possibly even your whole turn.

As a result, battles will typically either be a resounding success or a crushing disaster. Mercifully, Atlus has thrown in some lifelines this time. You can choose to restart a battle at any time (with enemy weakness and resistance analysis carrying over), and the game isn’t instantly over if the protagonist dies in battle.

The real genius of Metaphor’s battle system, though, is Archetypes, which feel more like traditional RPG classes that each bring their own sets of skills and abilities.These are Persona-esque summoned entities in appearance, but they really feel more like Shin Megami Tensei’s demons, with all the customizability and player expression those bring.

Also, there are zero restrictions on party members equipping different Archetypes. Unlike Persona, it’s not just the protagonist that gets free reign. As a result, different quests and dungeons will typically require you to change up your party and Archetype composition each time. For example, some enemies may be susceptible to a specific element, encouraging you to bring along magic casters. Others, rather humorously, might be enraged if they so much as see a staff, implying you should bring along a number of melee-based Archetypes.

Now, party members do have base stats to consider. Hulkenberg has high Endurance by default, making her excel with tankier Archetypes like the Knight or the Brawler. Heismay (a former knight hailing from the mouse-like eugief tribe) is physically weaker but has naturally high Agility, meaning Thief and Gunner Archetypes are perfect for him. Strohl is something of an all-rounder, making him handy for trying out specialist Archetypes like Merchant (which has attacks that literally cost money) and Faker (which specializes in applying debuffs to enemies).

Archetypes also have some leeway in which skills they can equip with up to four free slots with which they can inherit skills from others. This means that you can carry over skills that you regularly rely on should a quest or dungeon require you to change up your Archetypes. Each also has its own set of resistances and elemental weaknesses, which you’ll need to take into account to avoid enemies getting too much of an advantage.

To summarize, I think this is Atlus’s most rich and in-depth battle system to date. You simply can’t plow through the entire game relying on the same handful of Archetypes; you’re constantly asked to adapt to the situation at hand. This means you’ll get plenty of use out of every party member (there’s little room for choosing favorites here), and discovering which Archetypes are best suited to each - not to mention unlocking more powerful versions of them - is an adventure in itself.

Delightfully dystopian

While not the most visually stunning game on the market, Metaphor: ReFantazio nonetheless sells its setting with incredible art direction. The brutalist architecture of the royal capital of Grand Trad is striking, as are its dingy alleyways where the least fortunate in society congregate. Even in more seemingly well-to-do areas like the castle town of Martira or the port of Brilehaven feel like they’re subtly stagnating, helped in part by the deliberately drab color palette that goes a long way to sell the grim fantasy setting. It’s certainly Atlus’s grittiest-feeling game - probably since the PlayStation 2’s Digital Devil Saga.

The game’s soundtrack is also a highlight with renowned composer Shoji Meguro returning for the score. Here, he trades in the infectious pop beats of Persona and the grimy rock sound of earlier Shin Megami Tensei games for something more orchestral and offbeat. The battle themes are the crowning achievement here, for sure; while they took some time to grow on me, the fast-paced, almost overbearing chanting really helps drive battles forward.

Unfortunately there are some performance issues that Atlus should look to iron out with future updates. Atlus targets 60 frames per second (fps) here, but it can chug as low as 30fps in busier city areas and when traveling between zones. It does hold up better in battles and in dungeons, but overall performance is currently a blemish on an otherwise pristine package.

Accessibility

Metaphor: ReFantazio has no dedicated accessibility features, though it does have a robust difficulty selection for those who want to tailor their experience. Players can also choose to enable a network function that shows how others spend their in-game days, offering a handy bit of guidance in case you’re torn between multiple choices.

Should I play Metaphor: ReFantazio?

Play it if...

Don't play it if...

How I reviewed Metaphor: ReFantazio

My full playthrough from start to credits for Metaphor: ReFantazio lasted around 85 hours on the Normal difficulty setting. During this time, I was able to max out all Follower ranks, unlock most Archetypes and complete most side quests in addition to completing the main story.

Being a fan of the RPG genre and having played almost all major Atlus releases since the PS2’s Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne, I’ve been able to experience the developer’s growth of its turn-based battle systems and storytelling over the years. With Metaphor: ReFantazio, I found a relatively much more mature story and arguably its most refined battle system to date.

I played through the game on PS5 on an LG CX OLED TV, using a DualSense Edge controller, occasionally playing with a JBL Quantum 910P gaming headset which really helped the game’s soundtrack to pop.

First reviewed October 2024.

Granblue Fantasy: Relink is finally here, and regardless of whether you’re familiar with the franchise or not, it’s been worth the wait for what is ultimately an unmissable experience for action role-playing game (RPG) fans.

Relink’s flow is fast and energetic - something that you’ll feel throughout every aspect of the title. That goes for story progression, combat, side quests, and even cutscenes. The action RPG rarely feels like it’s dragging its heels, and this is accentuated by a compact 15-20 hour campaign that’s delightfully eager to get you to endgame content as soon as possible.

Even if you’re only staying for the story, you’ll still get an excellent slice of well-told narrative and blisteringly-paced combat that only gets better as you upgrade your favorite characters and weapons. However, you’ll likely find you want to stay with Granblue Fantasy: Relink for the long haul, as the base game has an exceptional amount of content before we’ve even had a whiff of post-launch extras or downloadable content (DLC). 

Skies unknown

Granblue Fantasy: Relink takes the series’ protagonist (Gran or Djeeta, who you’re freely able to switch between) and their crew to the Zegagrande Skydom - a mass of floating islands in the sky - in their continued search for the fabled land of Estalucia, said to be a utopia among the clouds. It’s a tale that carries on the events of the original mobile game’s story. And while having some prior knowledge here is nice, it’s far from essential outside of understanding the occasional reference.

That’s because Granblue Fantasy: Relink boasts a newcomer-friendly narrative that’s still plenty entertaining. Plus, a fully-featured glossary will get you up to speed on any concepts or terminologies that may be foreign if you haven’t engaged with the series to date. Unsure as to what a ‘skydom’ even is, or want to learn more about the races that inhabit them? The glossary’s got your back. The pre-established lore can be daunting, but the game supports you entirely when it comes to learning about the wider franchise.

Regardless, Granblue Fantasy: Relink’s story is simple but effective. It’s primarily concerned with hopping the player from place to place and keeping a brisk pace while doing so. This focus means that its cutscenes and writing, while excellent on their own, don’t overshadow the best part of Granblue Fantasy: Relink; its phenomenal combat. 

Steel resolve

Granblue Fantasy: Relink sees you taking a squad of four characters into its various missions, but you’ll only be controlling whoever’s in the lead slot. In single-player, your other party members are AI-controlled. This feature isn’t as much of a hindrance as it may sound, though, as you’re able to swap other characters into the lead slot any time during a mission. And you may want to, as the AI can often forget they have access to crucial buffs and skills and, occasionally, stand directly in front of oncoming attacks without even attempting to evade them which did lead to the occasional frustrating death.

Most characters have a suite of bread-and-butter combos, which are usually a string of basic attacks followed by a strong attack input. This attack style is universal across the cast, but each character also has their own traits and powerful skills to set them apart. The protagonist’s main gimmick, for example, is that their skills become stronger (up to four levels) as you dish out combos.

Most others on the cast are just as unique and interesting. Narmaya can swap between two unique stances for what is essentially two different move sets, similar to how she plays in Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising. Vaseraga, on the other hand, is a juggernaut who can land charged attacks to build up a gauge that lets him access even more potent abilities.

The main takeaway here is that Granblue Fantasy: Relink simply feels excellent to play. I had a blast playing with the immensely varied roster of characters and working out how their playstyles could best synergize with a party of four. There’s so much experimentation here that allows you to shape an ideal group. You can have dedicated healers and support characters among your ranks. Or if you’re feeling bold, go all-out offensive with powerhouse characters to rinse bosses quicker at the expense of the team being more vulnerable.

Completing quests and objectives affords you mastery points, which can be spent on every character's exhaustive skill tree, each of which is split into offensive and defensive skills and stat boosts. On top of that, characters’ weapons can be forged, leveled up, and affixed with items that add more stat modifiers. Then there’s sigils, which are essentially equippable motes that offer further stat upgrades. And these are essential for shaping character builds to your liking.

That said, Relink isn’t solely a numbers game. Stats help, of course, and beefier characters are required for more challenging quests. But evasive options like dodges, guards, and parries mean that skilled players are rewarded for getting right in a boss’ grill without backing down.

It certainly can be a lot to take in, though, especially as you begin unlocking new characters. It can take time to figure out where to invest your mastery points and upgrade materials best. Thankfully, Relink does a solid job of introducing all these systems over time. And quest rewards are typically plentiful, meaning you’ll be doing very little grinding even in the early stages of its endgame. 

A picture worth a thousand words

Granblue Fantasy: Relink provides an excellent entry point for series newcomers, and presents slick combat with a moreish progression loop. To top it all off, the RPG is incredibly beautiful. Despite being fully 3D, Relink nails the painterly look of the mobile game. 

Characters feature detailed cel-shading with hand-drawn touches like armor and weapon wear, and they’re brought to life by fantastic motion capture during cutscenes and superb voice acting across the board in both Japanese and English. The voice cast is also retained from the mobile game and Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising, so if you’ve gelled with these characters for a while, you’ll feel like you’re being reintroduced to old pals in Relink.

Environments look similarly exceptional, with breathtaking vistas and skyboxes that offer an immense sense of scale, despite most maps being relatively small. It’s a wonderfully colorful game, too, really popping with HDR enabled, and bound to shine on any of the best gaming TVs.

Performance is a big winner here, too. On PlayStation 5, there are options for fidelity (4K at 30fps) and performance (1080p at 60fps) modes. I primarily played with the latter and never once encountered noticeable frame drops. Even split-second performance dips are quite rare against the game’s most monumental boss fights.

Overall, Granblue Fantasy: Relink adds another quality product to the franchise that’s been steadily growing in popularity in the West. It puts forward a confidently fast-paced combat system with layers upon layers of customization and depth. Its extensive endgame will keep you coming back for more, long after you’ve rolled credits, with no shortage of challenging boss encounters. If you’re a series veteran or simply an enjoyer of action RPGs, Granblue Fantasy: Relink makes for essential play. 

Looking to build up your gaming library? Be sure to check out our guides to the best RPGs and the best PS5 games for more titles like Granblue Fantasy: Relink.