Fr. Anthony uses metaphors to help us understand what healthy parishes should and shouldn't look like. This is the second part of a talk he gave at the 2018 Lenten Retreat in Bethlehem PA hosted by the Ukrainian Orthodox League (UOC-USA) and The American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of North America. Enjoy the show!

When I was reviewing Final Fantasy VII Rebirth a few months ago, it looked set to be my Game of the Year. Metaphor: ReFantazio was still a distant concept and, I thought, communication of that concept was anything great. It turns out that I was really underestimating Atlus at the time. It's been eight years since Persona 5, and maybe I had begun to forget its magic, because as a JRPG from the creators of Persona 5, the magic is undoubtedly there in Metaphor: ReFantazio.

When I was younger, I used to watch the Columbo series, where you know the culprit's identity right away at the start. Metaphor: ReFantazio is a bit like that, because the introduction shows the King of Euchronia (Metaphor's fantasy world) being murdered in his sleep by an ambitious aristocrat named Louis, which throws the whole country into turmoil. From there, the protagonist and the comrades he meets all have different reasons for sharing the same goal: to prevent the wicked Louis from seizing the throne.

As simple as it seems, the narrative has its fair share of surprises. This has to do with the tremendous wealth of characters in the game. Due to a certain magic, the race for the throne is turned into an election, in which the protagonists gets to runs. Adding to the eight playable characters, you meet several competitors and followers who back you. All of them have personal stories and strange personalities that make Metaphor's adventure strikingly vivid.

The sub-stories are quite interesting for most part, for they convey a range of different emotions: sometime are heart-breaking, sometime heart-warming or just purely fun, and they'll keep you engaged for hours. They often leave you in suspense, since the structure of the game has you experiencing them little by little. And, just like in Persona, you can spend extensive time with your allies in a whole lot of mini sequences that play a great part in making the cast truly unforgettable.

But that doesn't mean you'll forget about the main story. Metaphor: ReFantazio offers some fascinating chapters. Take for instance the Opera house one, it's a breathtaking chapter very reminiscent of the great Final Fantasy VI, absolutely loaded with memorable sequences, grandiose fights, and striking reveals. And in the end, the whole game is like that. The thirst for more is real, as Atlus always drops a little something to make you eager to progress and feel engaged - a new character, intense combat, a shocking truth, stunning landscapes, etc. Even the most common NPCs sometimes tell a tale that blows your mind. Metaphor: ReFantazio has so much to offer in terms of characters, creativity, and storytelling that I couldn't help feeling overwhelmed at times.

The incongruity of an election in a kingdom ruled by Royals for ages is in reality an occasion for the story to develop elaborate thoughts about democracy and society. The protagonist always carries with him a strange book about an ideal world, where people have equal chances, decide their own fates, and live in harmony. It's a dream-like realm wholly different from Euchronia, which is a medieval regime plagued by injustice, greed, and poverty.

But there are whispers of a past, of a very advanced civilisation that ultimately failed, creating a scenario that raises the question of the relationship between democracy and freedom. There are also different tribes in the game, and it's worth noticing that the protagonist's party has one representative of each tribe, like a call for tolerance in a kingdom known for its inequality. The narrative therefore has powerful philosophic elements - something that only the greatest works in JRPG history possess.

Metaphor: ReFantazio boasts world design like you seldom see, starting with the giant flying rock that has symbolized it since reveal. Here again Atlus' creativity is absolutely inspired. The designers left their comfort zone and came up with an innovative take on characters, meaning that they ditched the classical human hero or heroine. You befriend an elf-like girl, a bat-like character or a maiden with a third eye, but no real typical human. The result is a party that literally breathes fantasy, a bit like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance did in its time. Humans exist, though, but on the opposite side of the divide.

These so-called Humans are twisted and awfully misshapen creatures roaming Euchronia as dangerous enemies. Atlus went beyond the boundaries of the bizarre with these designs and the result is amazing. I could also mention the funny Runner, a land vessel with legs that the party owns. Just travelling with it feels incredible. There are numerous examples like this, but in short the world is packed with wonders that I've never seen in a game before.

As for combat, Metaphor: ReFantazio is a good old turn-based JRPG, where strategy and careful planning matter. Characters wield the power of Archetypes, abstract figures that party members turn into when attacking. Archetypes are essentially jobs, hence my mention of Final Fantasy Tactics above. You can equip a character with an archetype, and they then acquire attack and passive skills specific to that archetype. For example, the Gunner can deal what is called "pierce" damage from behind, the Warrior heavy "slash" damage with its greatsword, and the Mage masters the natural elements.

There are also very complex Archetypes like the Masked Dancer, which can wear different masks to mimic other Archetypes, or the all-powerful Summoner, who masters absolutely ever type of damage once you acquire the corresponding stones (needless to say, these are incredibly difficult to come by). Unlike Persona 5, every character can equip any archetype, so you can choose the allies you like the most. Besides that, the currently-equipped Archetype can also inherit a couple of skills or spells from another, allowing for very elaborate lineups.

Combat isn't simplistic or easy; basic skills won't do much against bosses or even the relatively big enemies within dungeons. For these, the player must analyze how Archetypes can cooperate. Two Healers can, for example, cast a light spell on all opponents, while a single healer only targets one. Three magic-type archetypes lets the Mage unleash the mightiest fire spell available, which comes in handy at times. Such cooperation skills take more than one turn crystal (as turns are represented in game), but you can save turn crystals by exploiting the enemy's weakness, like you can in Shin Megami Tensei and its spin-offs.

The possibilities offered by Archetypes are fantastic and their complexity goes well beyond anything I've experienced from Atlus thus far. You have several types of Archetypes that work against a set weakness (three Archetype lineages have fire spells, for example). So you can choose the ones that fit your current goal or preferences. Boss fights are no joke and it's a renewed pleasure to overcome the various (tough) challenges after devising the right strategy. Metaphor: ReFantazio also lives up to Persona 5 in two particular aspects: main dungeons are never short of surprises, and the presentation of the battle menu is once again fantastic.

Like in Persona, Metaphor: ReFantazio is played in limited time. There's an in-game calendar with deadlines set to clear the main dungeons. So you can't have everyone master every archetype - you need to choose and use every day wisely. Unlike Persona 5, which gives you fixed Personas that you have to figure out how to use optimally, building characters and Archetypes in Metaphor: ReFantazio must be planned well ahead of time. This a fundamental difference between the two and the reason why this new IP elevates Atlus' core gameplay conceits, which were already very good. Exploration is important and quite entertaining too: you can tackle tricky secondary dungeons, discover special shops, or visit your followers. 

The latter provide perks, like increased slots for inherited skills, greater experience gain and, most importantly, the ability to unlock advanced Archetypes. The Healer can become the Cleric, for instance, with far superior healing capabilities, and you can become a General after being a Commander, gaining powerful ice skills in addition to the potent fire skills the latter had.

The whole game must be seen as a wide array of possibilities, with the player finding their own way to victory with their choices and favorite characters. As far as I'm concerned, this feels rewarding beyond anything I expected. Overflowing with content, the game is very long (around 70 hours), even with Atlus allowing you save time (any low-level enemy on the map can be beaten instantly without entering a turn-based battle, and you'll still gain experience and materials). 

The visuals are Metaphor's clear weakness. The game modeling isn't what you'd expect from a PS5 game in 2024, and I'd say it's fairly underwhelming for PS4 too. The backgrounds aren't very sharp and you see aliasing here and there. Secondary dungeons look very common; actually, they don't look like much of anything really. And there are several towers to explore across Euchronia, but the interior of each tower looks the exact same everytime. This kind of reuse of assets is fairly disappointing for a game of this magnitude. I shiver at the thought of what Metaphor: ReFantazio could have looked like with a Final Fantasy-sized budget. I expect it would have been my first perfect score, but it looks like I'll need to withhold that one once again.

One aspect that does score perfect marks is the original music score. Here again, I was pretty sure that Final Fantasy VII Rebirth would be my soundtrack of the year, but Metaphor's music blows it away completely. Atlus' sound team has crafted vibrant choruses befitting the heroic fantasy genre, but with such unorthodox compositions that it felt fresh to my ears. Other vocals and melodies are bewitching to the point they lift your spirit in battle or dungeons. And there's the strange theme of Virga island, with its weird vocals and hypnotic murmurs. It sounds like a tribal chant from afar, a bit like what Genshin Impact achieved with the Natlan soundtrack two months ago. The music is a splendid journey in itself.   

Metaphor: ReFantazio is the type of game you feel was made to achieve something greater than just sales. It's a completely new world, boasting an immense wealth of gameplay, characters, locations, and music, redefining heroic fantasy like no JRPG has done for decades. Atlus' latest title is also a fantastic challenge for turn-based combat and strategy lovers, with highly enjoyable and rewarding dungeons. Put another way, Metaphor: ReFantazio is the golden age of fantasy JRPGs, revived from the ashes in all its majesty, no less.

During the day, Thomas is a normal account manager. But at night he becomes Ryuzaki57, an extreme otaku gamer hungry for Japanese games (preferably with pretty girls in the main role). He spends a lot of time on F2P RPGs, but never misses the lastest interesting releases. Feel free to contact on twitter at @Ryuz4ki57

Full Article - https://www.vgchartz.com/article/463032/metaphor-refantazio-ps5/

[s.l.] : Mohr Siebeck GmbH & Co. KG, 2023.

[s.l.] : Mohr Siebeck GmbH & Co. KG, 2023.

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From the submitter:

So I get up today and the kids are up before me watching TV. That's fine, it Sunday, got to sleep in, figured I go check my email and puts around online for a few. Later I go into the living room, to turn the TV so I can start watching Game highlights before the Super Bowl, but can not find the remote. I mean I searched everywhere. The usual places... In the couch cushions, under the couch, behind the couch and behind the TV.... nowhere to be found.

By Sr. Joan L. Roccasalvo, C.S.J.

It’s a wonderful phenomenon—yeast.  It permeates lifeless flour and causes it to rise and expand.  The power of yeast effects the brewing of beer and the making of wine.   The yeast plant is a fungus that grows without limits to its borders.  Only if yeast is alive and active will it interact with the dough.

On her TV program, “Martha Bakes,” the talented Ms. Stewart cannot contain her delight when she makes yeast dough: “Look at the sheen—so soft and shiny! The aroma is “bee-you-tee-ful,” and the fragrance gratifies all the senses!” Follow these instructions: proof active yeast, blend it into the flour mixture, and let it rise to double the size.  From yeast dough come baked goods such as breads, sticky buns and sugar buns, and monkey bread.  “Soo pretty, soo delicious,” Ms. Stewart swoons over her culinary works of art.

Yeast as a Metaphor

In the Matthean parable (13:33), the reign of God is like yeast that a woman took and kneaded into three measures of flour.  Eventually the entire mass of dough began to rise.  The image of yeast was a favorite in the Early Church.  Everyone understood the inner power of yeast with its limitless ability to make things grow, even in small beginnings with “three measures of flour.”  They grasped the comparison.  The yeast referred to the Church as an unlimited and growing reality, “destined ultimately to be present everywhere and to affect everything, though by no means to convert everything into itself” (Walter J. Ong, “Yeast: A Parable for Catholic Higher Education,” America Magazine, April 7, 1990).  The Church is catholic because it has always been expanding into new and shiny ‘dough’ without limit. Katholicos, from kata or kath and holos, means “through-the-whole or “throughout-the-whole.”

The Laity: Worldly and Yet Unworldly    

The laity are catholic, yeast in business and finance, entertainment, nursing and medicine, arts and science, law and law enforcement, politics, and sports.  They are the inner power with its limitless ability to make things grow, even in small ways. The laity find their holiness in the world with its financial concerns and family responsibilities.  Those who marry and have children become not just a family but also the Domestic Church.

In 1987, the Catholic Church held a World Synod on the Laity, one of many, beginning with Vatican II in the 1960s.  According to the synod’s final document, the laity are equal with clergy and consecrated religious in the life and mission of the Church.  

The call to holiness of the laity differs from the vocation of consecrated religious.  The laity are to be in the world in an unworldly way.  They approach life with wisdom that teaches the limited and relative value of material things. This would seem to be a contradiction in terms.  How to be worldly and unworldly at the same time?   It cannot be easy, for at times, the challenges seem insurmountable.  Yet, it remains for the lay vocation to find a theology of being present in the world. It is a practical spirituality of the family and the workplace.  For the laity, this is where holiness resides.*  

Holiness of the Laity

The holiness of the laity began with Jesus himself.  He was a rabbi and teacher, as were his disciples. Peter was a married man, and for all we know, so were the other apostles, the exception being John, the Beloved Disciple.  

St. Paul addresses and refers to those he evangelized as ‘saints,’ meaning that they were on their way to becoming saints.  In the Early Church, there were no consecrated institutes of men and women.  All Christians grasped the importance of living as disciples and ambassadors of the Lord.

As increasing numbers of Christians came to view the world as wicked, they flocked to the desert to live alone. When the desert grew so overcrowded with these solitaries, they came together and formed religious communities.  Thus, the start of monastic orders of men and women.

Prayer

Consecrated men and women, and especially those who live in cloisters, spend several hours a day in prayer.

This is not the way of the laity. Their days focus almost entirely on family and the means of supporting it.  Their prayer is measured not in hours but in minutes—two here, five there, perhaps a Holy Hour or Retreat Day on rare occasions.

The conciliar document on the sacred liturgy encourages Catholic families to pray portions of the Liturgy of the Hours (#102-111).  The Hours are not private or devotional prayer but the prayer of the entire Church, the Church at prayer.  Praying the psalms nourishes Catholic family life whose welfare is daily beset with conflicting external forces. If prayer is the underlying power of strong family life, then parents can find ways to incorporate parts of the Hours into their daily schedule. In prayer, married couples derive the strength of God’s grace to live their married vocation.  

As children mature, they too must learn to travel the road to discipleship in the Lord.  Small children can be taught to pray a psalm or two at bed time. If this is not feasible during the week, then prayer on weekend is an alternate possibility.  

A minimal and external Christianity will not fortify today’s Domestic Church but only a vibrant Christianity in which Christ is a living reality.  It takes a few minutes to pray short sections of the Hours, even on public transit.  It is a consoling thought to recall that “in him, we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).  

At Pre-Cana instructions, couples can learn the practice of making the Hours an integral part of their married life.

Can Yeast Corrupt?

The image of yeast is not always positive.  In First Corinthians 5:6-8, St. Paul mentions what all Jews understood.  At the Paschal festival time, they were to destroy all yeasted products because leaven was a metaphor for the corruptive influence of evil, for puffing up the self, leaving no room for God.   

Proofing the yeast in warm water will yield bubbles around the surface, and the yeast will become puffed up if it does not interact with the flour dough.  The puffed up yeast will die.  In this sense, neither the laity, nor any minister in the Church, can afford to be puffed up with pride.

Élisabeth Leseur (1866-1914) and Félix Leseur (1861-1950)

The story of Élisabeth Arrighi Leseur exemplifies the limitless power of marital love.  Élisabeth was born into a wealthy French Catholic family of Corsican descent.  As a child, she had contracted hepatitis, a disease from which she suffered all her life.  At twenty-one, she met Félix Leseur, a medical doctor, who also came from an affluent Catholic family.  Shortly before they were to be married, Élisabeth discovered that Félix was no longer a practicing Catholic.  Soon he became well known as the editor of an anti-clerical, atheistic newspaper.  

Despite the circumstances, the couple married, for Élisabeth was deeply in love with Félix.  They were unable to have children, a fact that made their marriage all the more difficult.  His attack on her religious devotion prompted an even more serious fidelity to the faith. She bore the brunt of his hatred of the Church with patient love.  At thirty-two years of age, Élisabeth experienced the grace to a deeper form of prayer.  She was convinced that her task now was to love her husband and pray for his conversion while remaining steadfast during his taunts against religion, and the Church in particular.

Homebound and Bed-Ridden

Élisabeth’s deteriorating health forced her to lead a sedentary life.  She received visitors and was able to conduct a vibrant apostolate from the confines of her home.  She became a devotee of St. Francis de Sales who wrote for the layperson in the seventeenth century. His Introduction to the Devout Life, perhaps the most famous spiritual guide of all time, is an offshoot of the Ignatian Exercises. During this period, Élisabeth kept a secret spiritual diary.  

When, at the age of forty-five, Élisabeth underwent surgery and radiation for the removal of a malignant tumor, she recovered and continued to receive visitors to her home. Three years later, she succumbed to cancer.  Her life has been recommended for sainthood. Why?  We turn the page to continue the narrative of her husband.

Dr. Félix Leseur

After Élisabeth’s death, Félix found a note addressed to him.  Not only did it predict his conversion, but he would also become a Dominican priest.  His hatred of the Church prompted him to expose her note as a fake, and he decided to do so at Lourdes, the famous Marian shrine in France.  There, something prevented him from carrying out his intended project—call it God’s intervening grace. As Élisabeth had predicted, he experienced a conversion and published her spiritual journal.  In 1919, Félix entered the Dominican Order, was ordained a priest four years later, and spent his remaining years speaking about his wife’s difficult yet remarkable life with him.  

In 1924, the future Archibishop Fulton J. Sheen made a retreat under Fr. Leseur’s direction.  It was at this time that he learned of Élisabeth’s life and her husband’s conversion.  In 1934, Fr. Leseur, O.P. worked to begin the cause for her canonization, and the Archbishop shared the story of this remarkable married couple in many presentations.  Élisabeth is currently a Servant of God, the first step in the cause for sainthood.

Élisabeth Leseur’s suffering was not wasted. On the contrary, her lifelong devotion to Félix was central to his conversion.  She became the yeast that permeated the lifeless soul of her husband.  It forever transformed his life so that he could affect change in the lives of others. Love begets love.

*The Ignatian “Prayer for Finding God in All Things” by Joan L. Roccasalvo, C.S.J. can help the busy person find God throughout the day.  Copies are available from the Institute of Jesuit Sources, Boston, MA.

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