Metaphor: The ReFantazio demo reveals the most critical information: the hero’s canonical name

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I don’t mind continuing the Atlus tradition of not giving their hero a real goddamn name. It was all fine and dandy when there was no voice acting in JRPGs, but that’s no longer the case! Even when Square Enix refused to hit everyone with the Tidus name in Final Fantasy 10 – although it may have spared us the awful “official” pronunciation – it irritated the hell out of me.

I’m a canon names player. I don’t call my heroes Farts McGee or John Persona here. I want it official name, Kid. I was fooled in Persona 5 when the manga stated that the Joker’s name was Akira Kurusu, but each subsequent media outlet decided it was Ren Amamiya instead. I won’t let that happen to me with Metaphor: ReFantazio, Atlus’ latest JRPG that aims to give us a nameless hero and declare that we’ll do it ourselves.

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For some reason, I foolishly assumed that this time we would get some official name, and the main character would also be fully voiced for a change. As you may have already guessed, this is not the case, and I have been eagerly awaiting any media outlet to tell me what name I should give my main goober for the next 150 hours.

Well, we have it now thanks to the demo version. Well, that’s if you can trust your system settings at all. You see, if you change the language from the one you originally selected in the save file, you will get a default name for the hero and yourself. If you switch to English from any other system language, the hero will be named Will, and you will be given the very appropriate name Ty.

(Image: Atlus)

Does this mean Will is the definitive name for the main character? Maybe not. As I said earlier, Atlus’ character names have evolved before with the advent of recent media, and with the advent of a manga adaptation on the horizon, we could very well end up with something else.

It’s also worth noting that according to this Post on Redditthe names are different in many different languages. Dutch changes the character’s name to something like Wilhelm, while French throws a curveball with Éric. The previous footage we saw showed that Default Japanese name but there was also Will another screenshot from the PlayStation Store six months ago also showed it to be Rene.

I kind of like Will. It’s almost comically straightforward, especially in a world of Hulkenbergs, Heismays, and Strohls (though, to be fair, his real name is freaking Leon). I don’t exactly think “Will” when I look at the main character, but I’m definitely a fan of canonical nicknames. That is, until the inevitable anime adaptation turns everything upside down.

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