Metaphor: ReFantazio gets mega-trailer and October release date - good news, brawler-only parties are viable

rockpapershotgun.com:

As one of the Treehouse's resident Atlus sickos, I was incredibly happy to wake up to 25-minutes of Metaphor: ReFantazio's director Katsura Hashino talking us through some new footage. We get a look at a new rural town and the activities you can get up to, like bounty hunting. Travel on your magic mech is compared to "camping", which I wasn't expecting. And there's lots of combat on show, with transitions from real-time to turn-based battles outlined in a bit more detail. Oh and it's coming out in October, which gives me plenty of time to clear my JRPG backlog before this inevitably takes over my entire existence for the foreseeable.

Atlus already briefed us a little on what to expect from Metaphor's fantasy JRPG-ing, especially in how it compares to Persona. But in its latest stream, they delved into those aspects in a touch more detail, kicking off with some travelling around the world map.

The player ends up in "Martira", an "old castle town", where they scroll through some bounties. From the looks of things, you'd pick one of these up, then head out on foot into the "Wasteland" to track these beasties down. The "Wasteland" encompasses the dangerous zones between major towns, cities, and the like, and is something you'd typically travel through on your super-mech called the "Gauntlet Runner".

Much like Persona, where time is a limited resource to be spent wisely, Metaphor grants you a set time frame to complete the main story quest. There's a look at the overworld map from about 13:44 in the video, where the player sees that it'll take one day to reach some woods where the bounty lies, which eats into their predetermined travel schedule.

When you travel between zones in the Gauntlet Runner, you're actually able to explore inside and use its facilities (you can see this in the video at around the 15 minute mark). "Cooking, conversing, camping, and more", apparently. What's quite amusing is Hashino pointing out the washing machine and cleaning supplies. In Persona