One in all Metaphor: ReFantazio‘s finest additions to the Atlus method was real-time motion fight that allow you to stun enemies and even utterly take out lower-level beasties with out ever stepping foot in a turn-based enviornment to keep away from the grinding drawback that is all too widespread within the style. However Atlus unintentionally went too far with the motion fight throughout growth and nearly misplaced “our method.”
In a panel from the Recreation Developer’s Convention 2025, Atlus veteran Kenichi Goto, who’s deliberate the battle programs for the whole lot from Persona and Shin Megami Tensei to Digital Satan Saga, defined that the crew needed to “scale back the variety of battles the place the results of who would win was apparent from the start” in its latest fantasy epic Metaphor: ReFantazio.
That is how its motion fight was born. “One of many primary causes turn-based battles have turn into much less well-liked is that battles begin to really feel like chores,” Goto mentioned. “Our reply to this chore drawback was the Quick and Squad battle system.” Primarily, as a substitute of partaking enemies in turn-based fight, you may merely slash away at them on the sector, however your complete system got here from the necessity to resolve the sport’s grinding drawback, “not as motion for the sake of motion.”
Issues shortly bought out of hand, although, and “shedding sight of this truth is what led to us shedding our method total,” he continued, explaining that, at one level, you may defeat enemies who had been across the similar degree or larger than you with sufficient time.
“Even for us builders, the extremely interactive nature of motion was plain, and it was additionally straightforward to provide you with contemporary new concepts,” so the crew let playtesters attempt it out and issues did not go to plan. Too many individuals “felt that resorting to turn-based fight was a type of succumbing,” which was clearly an enormous drawback for a sport (and a studio) that prides itself on turn-based encounters. “Gamers complained that it was arduous to resolve whether or not they need to go into flip primarily based battle or put within the effort and defeat the enemies on the sector alone, they could not determine which was appropriate.” Goto referred to as the fan suggestions “a crucial drawback”
That is when the crew scaled Metaphor’s motion fight again and determined gamers ought to solely have the ability to wipe out low-level enemies on the sector. “We made it clear inside the crew that motion solely exists to easily get the participant into the center of the sport, which is the turn-based battles.”
