Metaphor: ReFantazio It's not a horror game, it's a fantasy RPG with a story that gets better as you go and a complex and satisfying combat system. But every time I encounter the “humans”, monsters whose visual design is nothing like any human I have ever seen, I feel Metaphor It belongs to both genders.
[Ed. note: The following contains spoilers for some of the enemy designs in Metaphor: ReFantazio.]
The first major dungeon you enter. Metaphor It starts with a bang. Soldiers charging ahead of you into battle are killed almost instantly by a huge floating creature with multiple humanoid arms and legs, a skull-like face with wings and horns protruding outwards, and a torso wrapped in a red shell-like shell. an egg
“There it is,” his new partner Strohl says quietly. “That's a… human.”
This is not the only type of human being in Metaphor: ReFantazio. Over the course of this dungeon, you will encounter other smaller humans who are lumbering two-legged creatures whose torsos are encased in huge white eggshells. And it's not just this dungeon. All towns and cities of Metaphor These humans terrorize them regularly and no one knows why. And somehow, each human seems stranger than the last.
The egg thing becomes a theme for human designs, as it is the design for one of the most surprising early human boss fights. Here's some official art for the egg monster in question:
I don't know what I was expecting when I cracked this monster's eggshell, but it wasn't a group of armored frog soldiers sitting around a wooden table. I'm about 35 hours into the game, and so far, the presence of these monsters (and the reason everyone calls them “humans”) has yet to be explained. They simply look like this. It's terrifying to behold and also quite impressive.
I was complimenting my colleagues on this game for its originality in monster design, only for them to immediately point out that these monsters are very clearly inspired by the works of 16th century Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch. Specifically his painting. The Garden of Delights Seems to have been a big influence on this game and its super creepy humans.
The original Bosch painting is enormous, measuring almost 13 feet wide; It is threefold, with the Garden of Eden depicted in the left panel, the human world in the center, and hell on the right. That far right panel is where the inspiration for the egg monster is depicted, along with many other strange-looking beings that seem quite suitable for Bosch's conception of hell.
I may not yet know what the fictional deal is with these monsters, but at least now I know where these designs originated, and it's been fun trying to find similarities between the various humans in this game and the designs depicted in Bosch. paintings. So if you are also playing MetaphorTurns out you've been getting a secret art history lesson.