Metaphor: ReFantazio - To Slay or Sneak Past the Dragon? The Ultimate Guide!
Metaphor: ReFantazio's Sleeping Dragon: A Tough Choice!
Early on in Metaphor: ReFantazio, you meet your first optional boss—a sleeping dragon in the Nord Mines. This isn't some quick fight, either. It's an actual boss battle; a significant amount of effort to consider and many important details for success, if you opt to fight. Should you engage? This guide discusses this incredibly important early decision and presents different factors you should consider.
Optional bosses are standard fare in Metaphor, ranging from easily-defeated mini-bosses to insane hidden superbosses; these kinds of unique situations, involving a single encounter which determines the character's entire path forward, which requires some careful consideration from your end; even just knowing some basic information about which strategies might work before attempting is valuable information which affects your character.
The Fire Dragon Mauna rests peacefully atop a treasure pile near the second dungeon's end. Strohl and Grius warn against waking it, but Gallica spots that tempting treasure chest and thinks fighting the dragon might be worthwhile if you are really sure you can defeat it.
The Sneaky Route: Skipping the Dragon's Ire
Choosing to avoid this particular dangerous foe and its fire breath requires a little extra planning. There is a slightly longer path, circumventing Mauna's treasure-laden resting place. But here's the catch: You will need to also dodge Homo Tenta enemies! Get spotted? It means having to start this whole path over. Annoying? Definitely. But the tradeoff is worth considering, for the following reasons.
Sneaking past the dragon doesn't affect the storyline and doesn't affect your character progression, meaning it will only serve to simply increase those times needed for completing those kinds of dungeons and would only hamper overall time needed for completion. The only things you will really lose: some additional loot and EXP; this is significant but really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, considering many players only might encounter and interact with this creature a single time in their game and that is not a frequent encounter which players would repeatedly face and try.
Facing the Fury: The Dragon Boss Battle
Charge at it! Fighting the dragon is intense, yet very winnable (if you have a balanced team: at least one Seeker, Warrior, and Mage!). By this stage you will need these characters; it would be challenging to engage the boss using an unbalanced party composition without utilizing several unique strategies such as those presented below, especially the usage of Blizz!
Use the following strategy and these tips during combat.
- Seeker: Back row, focusing on healing and buffs (Tarukaja) – the key is to maintain your party’s hit points, particularly to minimize those extra turns taken by the boss. Use Guard on your last turn to evade potential extra damage
- Warrior: Use Diagonal Slash for steady damage. Attack the moment you can.
- Mage: Cast Blizz whenever you can to exploit the dragon’s weakness and earn an extra turn, creating further time to deal higher amounts of damage per round. Use Ice Chunks if short on MP.
With smart planning and proper usage of items and abilities; coupled with good use of those additional strategies during each character's turn and avoiding making fatal errors – defeat the dragon is guaranteed!
Rewards for Valor (or Lack Thereof!): The Loot and Experience
If you win you earn incredible rewards:
- Dragon's Indignation: A phenomenal greatsword (111 attack). Early game, this weapon absolutely shreds! Even if more powerful ones later appear, it easily carries your Warrior through early stages of the game; those kinds of incredibly valuable improvements and bonuses are precisely what many people look for!
- Crafting Materials
- EXP
- Magla (for upgrading)
Not fighting Mauna? These rewards coMPletely disappear and those are certainly things that could make or break your ability to be effective!
The Verdict: Should You Fight the Fire Dragon?
Unless you have specific reasons why this should not happen, I'd totally suggest you engage with Mauna! That Dragon's Indignation alone is worth it; the bonus attack alone gives an enormous amount of additional damage per turn and really impacts how long and intense any encounter will actually be. Even if you lose lots of MP, you can recharge afterwards and have that awesome sword! Those EXP and magla make further preparations easy for the later sections!
Conclusion: Weighing Risk and Reward in Metaphor: ReFantazio
Fighting Mauna is worth the effort. That sweet greatsword; plus all the goodies completely justify this. And this kind of decision perfectly showcases Metaphor: ReFantazio’s focus. It allows that level of freedom and flexibility. Some risk will result in much better, unexpected rewards! It remains an interesting early choice; making this an early defining moment of success which many players would definitely remember. Those kinds of memorable game moments are what helps this JRPG shine. Those clever decisions from the devs really enhance player agency.
