Jack Zustiak and I adored Atlus’ Metaphor: ReFantazio when it launched on all platforms but Switch two years ago. I even went as far as to say it was the best game the company has ever made. I recently had the chance to dive back into the Tournament for the Throne with a port to Nintendo Switch 2, and while it is rougher than I would like, it still shines in many respects.
Jack Zustiak
Before we get into the nitty-gritty, the game itself is still phenomenal. If you haven’t had a chance to play Metaphor yet, don’t have another platform, or prefer portable gaming, do yourself a favor and pick it up. It’s an incredible, deep RPG with an overtly political story. While that story does pull a punch or two near the end, it remains a hopeful look at our current world. The game launches in multiple bundles on Switch 2, with one including some DLC and another including the guidebook (which we reviewed here), but regardless of if you choose a bundle or just the game itself, you’ll be getting the same core experience as other consoles and PC.
How that experience looks and runs is a different story. We previously covered the game’s demo on Switch 2, finding the resolution a bit rough and the framerate consistently hovering at 40 fps. As it turns out, however, the full game has three visual modes you can choose from in both docked and portable modes. The demo was locked to Balanced Mode, but you can also pick Graphics or Performance. You can watch the Short above for a look at Balanced Mode.
Graphics and Performance do what you’d expect, enhancing the visuals at the cost of framerate or increasing the framerate at the cost of lowered fidelity, respectively. I’m always a framerate person, so that’s the mode I stuck with for the most part, but neither mode is perfect. Performance will bump you up to 60 most of the time from Balanced’s 40, but with noticeable dips and the game can look like a blurry mess when running around dungeons. While Graphics cleans things up a bit, it bafflingly still targets 60 fps instead of capping the action to 30, leaving you with a messy 35 fps. Graphics doesn’t improve the visuals substantially enough as there’s still a ton of aliasing, so I’d recommend picking Performance and never looking back both in Portable and Docked play. In Portable especially, I couldn’t visually tell a difference between the three modes, and those extra frames can matter in the action-based Field Combat.
Whatever mode you choose, the game’s gonna look pretty rough. Textures seem to be a little lower res than other platforms, and the pulled-back camera angle during gameplay creates tons of aliasing, particularly on detailed objects like Strol’s jacket. Thankfully, a lot of cutscenes have a much closer view of the action, which is where this port really shines. When there’s not a ton on screen, the Switch 2 is able to render things in much more clarity and detail. It’s like constantly swapping the settings from low to medium/high on PC. You play through some weird soup visuals for a while, then are rewarded with crisp cutscenes to suck you back in.
Given the choice, however, I’d still probably go for the PC version over Switch 2. Metaphor on Switch 2 does offer better portable play over Steam Deck and some slick touchscreen support, which makes menuing a breeze, but it’s just too visually compromised. This port also lacks button remapping, which caused some muscle memory issues as I usually rebind the controls in turn-based combat to match that of Persona. That said, if you still want to play the game on Switch 2, I wouldn’t warn you away from it. It’s not a fantastic port, just serviceable, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad by any means. I’ll still definitely replay the game here, and having the game portably is very nice; portability is absolutely the main draw of this port. The issues aren’t negligible, but Metaphor is a phenomenal game and still shines despite them.
