2024's Best RPG Is a Must-Play for Fire Emblem Fans
A little road tripping is just the thing boost your reputation
There have been plenty of RPGs over the years that include an arena combat segment. It's as much a staple of the genre as a sewer dungeon and a prison break. But most of the time, it's just a brief diversion from the main quest of saving the world and/or killing a wrathful god. That's not the case with Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave, whose first act lets you experience Dagsion's Heroic Games through the eyes of four rival contenders. If you're enchanted by the concept of an RPG centered around a high-stakes tournament, you absolutely need to check out Atlus's 2024 banger, Metaphor ReFantazio.
The story opens with the dramatic assassination of the current king by the dreamboat psychopath Louis Guiabern — who bears more than a passing resemblance to Dietrich in Fortune's Weave. At the funeral, Louis makes a claim to the throne. Not so fast, pal! The royal palace levitates into the sky with the recently deceased king's face carved into the rock beneath it. The king's spirit decrees that a Royal Tournament will be held to determine the next ruler, who will ultimately be chosen based on the will of the people. That's where you come in. As Will, a young man with a mysterious past, you're tasked with assembling a crew of fighters, raising your reputation, and thwarting Louis's bid to take the throne.
Metaphor ReFantazio is a dungeon crawler as opposed to a tactical RPG, but other aspects of the core gameplay loop are surprisingly similar to Fortune's Weave, beyond the tournament framing. Both games include calendar and reputation systems, and you'll be given big chunks of free time to use in a variety of ways. In Fortune's Weave, you can explore the vast world map, get into small battles here and there, and develop relationships with your teammates and prospective recruits. At the end of the month, you'll have a challenging tactical battle in Dagsion's arena.
While you can't recruit as many party members in Metaphor, you can forge "follower bonds" with a couple dozen characters, including your own teammates. If you like the support system in Fire Emblem, Atlus's game goes even deeper, with eight conversations for each follower. Here, you'll also explore a top-down world map at your leisure, tackling side quests, finding items, and getting into little skirmishes. You'll have to complete a dungeon crawl by the end of each month, and you can choose to tackle it in chunks or do the whole thing in one go.
Fortune's Weave is a beefy game, which will take close to 150 hours for many players to complete — and that's assuming you don't do all four routes. Metaphor ReFantazio is "only" about half as long, clocking in at roughly 80 hours for the main story and some (but not all) of the optional content.
So if you're loving spending time in Fortune's Weave's vastly detailed world and hanging out with its eclectic cast of characters, Metaphor ReFantazio absolutely needs to be on your radar. It's already out on PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. A Nintendo Switch 2 port will be released on Nov. 12, allowing you to ignore the GTA 6 maelstrom and spend the remainder of the year ensconced in anime RPG bliss.
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