u/Whimsispot

For context, I'm a big Atlus fan. I love both the Shin Megami Tensei and Persona series. I've played a lot of SMT games and all of the Persona games (although, to be honest, I still haven't finished SMT: If because, well... fuck the Sloth dungeon).

I bought Metaphor around the end of 2024 during a sale, played it for a while, and then dropped it. I came back to it in 2025, played some more... and dropped it again. Now I've picked it up for a third time to try and finish it and made it a bit further, but I don't know, I just don't really feel like continuing.

At first, I thought the problem might be the difficulty, so I lowered it to Normal (I was playing on Hard), but that didn't really help. The game isn't particularly fun for me, and honestly, it doesn't even feel that hard. I feel like whenever I know what enemies I'll be facing, I can prepare accordingly, which is fine, I enjoy that aspect in SMT as well.

The problem is that something about Metaphor's class system feels off to me. Compared to other job-based games I'm used to, like Bravely Default or FFV, it feels much more restrictive. I get the impression that the game sacrifices some of the freedom that usually comes with class systems in favor of a more trial-and-error, knowledge-check approach, similar to the monster exploitation mechanics in SMT and Persona.

I'm honestly not sure what to do. Story-wise, I'm curious about where things are going, and I do like some of the characters, especially Catherina and Alonzo, but overall, playing the game has felt more like a struggle than something I'm excited to come back to.

I'm currently about 44 hours in. I just made the poison to kill the tree and am about to start the Dragon Temple dungeon. By Persona standards, I feel like I might be around halfway through the game.

So I wanted to ask: did anyone else feel this way while playing Metaphor? Does the game change significantly from this point onward, or should I accept that it just might not be for me? I keep seeing so many people praising it, and I really want to like it, but my experience with it has been... weird.

(For reference, here's my current save file. I'm at the Dragon Temple on Hard difficulty with around 44 hours played.)

 in the 4 minutes and 11 seconds following a jackpot, Commando is effectively immortal (please forgive my shit aim)

The more I think about Dark Arisen, the more I feel like one of its biggest opportunities is not just adding new content, but smoothing out some of the rougher design decisions in Dragon’s Dogma 2, like they are already doing with the tittle updates. And I think vocations should be a major part of that.

To be clear, I do not think every vocation needs to be perfectly balanced or equally strong. In fact, part of the fun of Dragon’s Dogma is that vocations have very clear identities, strengths, and weaknesses. Fighter and Warrior lacking good ranged options, for example, makes sense. It can be annoying sometimes, but it also fits what those classes are supposed to be.

The problem is that some vocations do not just feel limited — they feel unevenly designed.

Magick Archer is a good example. I like the vocation, but in DD2 it often feels less like a creative hybrid class and more like a “spam your strongest master skill” button. That reminds me a bit of DD1 Magick Archer, which was also insanely strong, even if I doubt that was fully intended. Then you have Thief, which feels like the spiritual successor to Strider in the sense that it is still absurdly effective compared to almost everything else. It has mobility, damage, survivability, and utility, all packed into one vocation.

But the vocation that stands out the most to me is Trickster.

I understand what Trickster is trying to be. It is supposed to be weird, indirect, and different from every other vocation. That is not a bad idea at all. Honestly, I like that they tried something strange instead of just making another damage-focused class.

The issue is that Trickster feels like it was designed in a vacuum, without fully considering the actual structure of the game around it. Dragon’s Dogma 2 still has quests, forced encounters, pawns that can be unreliable, and occasional situations where the player is expected to handle things directly. In that context, a vocation with basically no real personal damage can become frustrating very quickly.

The 1v1 situations are probably the worst example of this. They are already not the strongest part of the game, but playing them as Trickster feels especially miserable. It is not just that the class has weaknesses. It is that the entire vocation feels like it needs extra work, extra setup, and extra creativity just to reach the baseline functionality that other vocations get naturally.

Most vocations have a few situational skills. Trickster feels like the whole kit is situational.

That is why the new smoke claw skill from the trailer caught my attention. It looks like a direct offensive ability, which is interesting because that would be a pretty big shift for Trickster. Maybe Dark Arisen is going to loosen the “pure gimmick” identity of the vocation and give it some actual damage options. Not enough to turn it into a standard DPS class, but enough to make it feel less helpless when the game puts you in situations where illusion and aggro manipulation are not enough.

And honestly, I think that might be the right call.

Trickster does not need to stop being weird. It should still be strange, supportive, deceptive, and unique. But it also needs to feel like it belongs in the same game as the other vocations. Right now, it feels like a cool concept that was forced into a game that does not always support that concept very well.

So I am curious: do you think Dark Arisen will actually rework Trickster in a meaningful way, or do you think the DLC will only give it one or two new tools without changing its core problems?