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Finally, Fantasy.
Metaphor: Refantazio is an amalgamation of many ideas throughout the Megaten series that is nearly mechanically perfect. In terms of story, it's inspired. It is always compelling, the characters are great, and the calendar creates a great amount of friction and tension to shoot you towards the game's epic conclusion. I've always wanted a Persona game set beyond the confides of a Japanese highschool, and this game is exactly that, barring the romance, which I never really cared for. This game's pacing is nearly perfect. I was surprised by how well the game paces its challenges and progression, and in lacking a Mementos-esque dungeon, it prevents you from just steamrolling the game once you reach a level of power that lets you kill enemies in the field without engaging in combat. Aside from the first dungeon, I never struggled to finish a dungeon in one day, but it felt like a genuine, well-balanced challenge, and it didn't rely on the really obnoxious progression blockers that inundated P5R's palaces. Clearing a dungeon in these games in one day always felt like a massive accomplishment, one that allows you the freedom to increase your social links, virtues, and prepare for the next dungeon, and that is still very much the case here. With that being said, once you figure out The Method you can grind your way past literally any challenge the game tries to throw at you***.
You can stop reading this review now and play this game, or you can be smart and wait for the inevitable Atlus Re-release that they're so fond of that tidies up every rough gameplay edge but adds some story contrivance that shoehorns in a new social link and an ending that is somehow even more bombastic and over-the-top than the base game's.
I do have some qualms with the game. I will now list a series of complaints that make it seem like I loath the game, but in reality I loved my time with it, and I believe its merits speak for itself, and I think it's worth buying and finishing. You should stop reading now and buy the game, and if you return to my ramblings you might agree with the complaints I bring up.

1) This game looks like a switch game. Having typed that, I realize this isn't fair, because both P5R and SMTV on the Switch had greater graphical fidelity than Metaphor does on my PC, and on the PS5 and Series X. The textures are blurry and lacking in depth and detail, flora and foliage are either non-existent or look like they've been ripped from Ocarina of Time, animations on non-Archetype and Boschian inspired characters look stiff, Crowd shots consist of thirty bodies and there are 5 different models that are pasted just far enough apart in the hopes that you wont notice, and the basic enemies and dragons are all the most stock, uninteresting designs, rendered in less graphical fidelity than you've ever seen before. Environments are also ugly, whether they be major cities, dungeons, or the terrain you travel past on your gauntlet runner. It all looks shockingly lackluster. This game's environments are completely bereft of the interesting geometry, color, and character that make up nearly every other Megaten game. I have no idea what happened to make this game look so low-fidelity since it was announced to be in development back in 2016, but I would not at all be surprised if some assets for this game were over a decade old at this point, but for a 70 dollar Megaten game, I'd expect much, much more from this department
I want to make something perfectly clear, this game's overall aesthetic and style is as immaculate as always, the UI is flavorful and functional, the character portraits are gorgeous, the hand-drawn map is lovely, the Boschian enemies are nothing short of inspired, the bosses look great, and the music is IMMACULATE. It's a shame that the overall fidelity of the game's presentation has the flashy UI working double overtime to pick up the slack. I think they should have the 3D models on hand-drawn landscapes to more aspects of the game, like they did with the landmarks you can visit in the game, kind of like what Bravely Default did with its major settlements.
2) Speaking of other Megaten games, this game's monster variety is ABYSMAL. To reiterate, having enemies that are inspired by Hieronymus Bosch's Triptych "The Garden of Earthly Desires" is absolutely inspired. It is very surreal to see northern renaissance Christian art be depicted in this JRPG, even moreso than the already worldly roster of cryptids and myths featured in Megaten games, and it makes them feel truly uncanny and otherworldly in the best way possible. I have some very minor nitpicks with some, and the lack of certain creatures that are present in Bosch's works and the complete lack of any of artists who were inspired by Bosch, but even the original Boschian monsters concieved for this game look great and incorporate a lot of the elements present in Bosch's works. With that being said, the rest of this game's monsters are painfully uninspired. DOG. BIRD. SKELETONS. WORM. SNAKE. MOTH. OGRE. MINOTAUR. GRIFFIN. COCKATRICE. SLIME. GOBLIN. DRAGON. These are creatures that have appeared in other Megaten games, for example, remember SMT IV's minotaur, and how awesome it was? This game's minotaur is exceptionally, excruciatingly vanilla. Their mundanity does nothing to elevate the eccentricity of the Boschian monsters, if anything, the presence of the Boschian monsters does nothing but make the roster of vanilla western fantasy staples even more boring, because you've seen what these guys have created before, you're seeing new, wild creations in this game, but you have six to seven flavors of DOG and GOBLIN and SKELETON and DRAGON to slog your way through. I know it's unfair to compare this game's roster to Megaten, when the series' iconic lineup of nearly 1000 demons, monsters, and personas have been built up over several decades of iteration and polish. But this game is inundated with one of the most egregious cases of recolors I've ever seen in a JRPG, side dungeons are 100% reused content or content that will be reused, and it brings down the fantastic parts of this game's enemy lineup. Main bosses are exempt from this critique.
3) The ranking system is obtuse and entirely progress gated. If you see it appear, and the number doesn't go up, then you've reached the cap. and must progress further in the story. This seems like a huge missed opportunity. Maybe if you don't do everything it matters more, but I was always hitting the ranking's arbitrary cap.
4) The final deadlines are obscenely generous. Ideally, it would allow you to tie up the last few tiers of four or five social links with a few days to spare. but THIRTY DAYS is MORE THAN ENOUGH TIME to complete literally everything . I loved the calendar in this game, especially during early and midgame, because every decision had to be weighed by their opportunity cost. I thought I was going to end this game with a missing social link or two, and maybe three of the five virtues capped out, but the OBSCENELY GENEROUS final deadline gives you enough time to do literally everything this game has to offer. I have other qualms with the endgame, but overall, the story nailed the landing and the final bosses were fantastic.
I've nominated this game for GOTY. This year has seen some incredible competition, Black Myth: Wukong, Another Crab's Treasure, Nine Sols, Unicorn Overlord, Balatro, Tekken 8, Silent Hill 2, Shadow of the Erdtree, Hades 2, P3R, SMTV, The Thousand Year Door, and those are only some the games I've been able to play. Yet, in spite of all of the peak I've been exposed to, my thoughts continually return to Metaphor. It is, having reflected on it for the past month, a masterpiece.
*** except the Devourer of Stars. Fuck the Devourer of Stars. Even the superboss wasn't as hard as that bastard.
My favorite Megaten game is Devil Survivor. Devil Survivor fans rise up.