I dropped Metaphor after the main character's identity was revealed.

There I was, after 50 hours in a JRPG with stereotypical villains and more interesting characters, thinking I was experiencing a story where the despised eld ends up in a more respected position than the angelically kind but personality-less prince. But no, in a single moment, they strip you of all the kingdom’s approval and shove it in your face that, essentially, the player is just a puppet for the prince, and all the credit will go to him. Of course, I disagreed with this nonsense, trying to sell me on some 1000 IQ concept, which led to me being sent to the main menu. And I don’t feel like my choice was wrong.

I know that in Persona 5, they also reset your progress to the beginning, but even there, it wasn’t done with such emphasis on the (false) main character being humiliated by their efforts. In Metaphor, it’s this character alone who gets revealed as a monster, even though there weren’t any hints to make such a development feel appropriate.

I didn’t continue playing after that, so maybe I don’t know the full picture. But that’s the problem with the story in this game: they throw plot twists at you without caring about logic or any setup leading to them.

The peak of my interest was during Louis’s fake death, and that’s where it faded. Louis, who started out as a lone fighter, ends up feeling like an example of a bad anime protagonist. He gets stabbed several times, beaten by the whole team, thrown off a cliff, and then out of nowhere, a necromancy fairy appears to heal him at the critical moment. And after effortlessly defeating his rival from the church, he says to the team: “No, you didn’t kill me. Go ahead and cry about it.”

I gritted my teeth and accepted it because they promised me one final, DECISIVE battle that would be entirely fair. But again, no. Our main character — Louis, finds some super-secret spell that turns this crucial moment into a circus and effortlessly neutralizes eld.

This isn’t a subversion of expectations; it’s disrespect toward the player. The runtime is stretched to reveal another “mind-blowing” idea, while the story essentially goes nowhere. Now I’m certain there’s going to be yet another “final” fight with Louis, for real this time...

I don’t know. I felt much better about the storytelling during the beginning and middle of the game than I do with these cheap tricks.