Metaphor: ReFantazio’s Zorba Is The First Big Challenge, But We’ve Got It

In retrospect, it is a little weird how that otherwise ridiculously generous multi-hour demo for Metaphor: ReFantazio just kinda decided, “You’ve had enough,” after a random boss in Regalith Grand Cathedral. Over a million people have since told Atlus, “We’ll tell you when we’ve had enough,” and bit the bullet on the full game. That’s excellent news for us JRPG sickos, but that demo might give you delusions that all the bosses are just random collections of minions. That is quickly dispelled when you hit the game’s first real challenge.

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Suggested ReadingZorba—looking like one of the sexiest goths ever drawn, and sounding like Drew McIntyre—is waiting at the top of the Cathedral, and he’s brought a whole lotta dead guys with him, who hit harder than you think. But remain calm. Zorba ain’t a huge deal, so much as a place to practice good synergy. We’ll show you how to take him down.

Zorba’s abilitiesYou gotta admire a man with a plan. Zorba’s first move, every time, will be Corpse Puppetry, where he raises a Corpsethrall out of the ground. His second move? Raising another Corpsethrall. If you kill one of the Corpsethrall, guess what his next move’s gonna be? You got it. If you’re a Corpsethrall fan, you’ve come to the right place.

Once he’s got two corpses up, though, his next move will be setting his new rotten buddies up for success with Madness Curse. That inflicts them with Rage, meaning when the corpses hit you, they will hit HARD. If both enraged corpses are still up and shambling while he’s got turns left, then finally Zorba will get down to the business of dealing with you personally, by tossing some magic your way, usually either Mudoon (darkness), Kandera (lightning), or Bondage Curse, which hits one of your party with Paralysis.

Recommended Archetypes

Screenshot: Atlus / Kotaku

Your pointman on this one is the Warrior. All of its Slash moves do decent damage to Zorba and the Corpsethralls—a killer name for a band, I might add. If you can get Fire magic equipped—either through Inheritance, or with an Igniter—even better, since Zorba’s corpse friends don’t much care for being set on fire, and they’ll take a big chunk of damage.

Your second-in-command here is gonna be the Healer. The healing is certainly a big help, but on top of that is the fact that the Healer can cast Hama (Light magic), which the corpses are also weak to. Hama is also one of the only magic spells that can damage Zorba in a pinch, which is nice.

Lastly, bring a Knight. That’s primarily because you want the Knight’s Synthesis move with the Warrior: Jump Thrust. That move lays the hardest smackdown on Zorba in general, but it also lowers Zorba’s defense, which will make this whole thing go by even faster. The Knight also provides insurance against your biggest weakness in the fight once there are corpses around, which is that the Healer’s weak to Strikes, which the Corpsethralls will use all the damn time. Using Knight’s Proclamation to draw aggro will be the only way to keep their filthy hands off you. The Knight will take hefty damage that turn. Good thing you’ve got a healer then, eh?

Defeating Zorba

Screenshot: Atlus / Kotaku

When the fight starts, you’ve got a free set of turns to do some damage to Zorba. Your Healer can let loose with Hama, your Warrior can use Slicer, but whatever you do, when you get down to two turn icons left, pass your turn over to your Knight and use Jump Thrust. That’ll start this fight off with Zorba in a bad way.

When it’s his turn, of course, he’ll raise his first corpse. By and large, that first phase is the general template for this whole fight. That is, you’ll want to do as much raw damage as humanly possible to the corpses, until you hit two turn icons, then hit Zorba with a Jump Thrust. The corpses being weak to Fire and Light magic means you’ll easily get three or four big hits in before that point.

If you did a little extra grinding before you got to this point, you might just be dangerous enough where you can take down a Corpsethrall in one go, and in which case, if you’ve brought down Zorba’s defense more than once, the Warrior’s Slicer does absolutely brutal damage to that poor, pretty bastard. But if you’re just going about your merry way through the game, chances are good you’ll end the turn with the corpse low on health but still standing. Zorba will use his time to raise another corpse, but the remaining corpse will lash out at one of your crew for a bit of damage. Let him have a free one, it’ll be his last. Even if he hits your Healer, Zorba won’t have enough of a turn left to do anything worrisome.

Obviously, start Round 2 by taking out that first corpse, then focus on the second. If you decide to get fancy, you can use the Warrior’s Round Slash to hit all three targets at once, though it’s a bit pricey on the turn icons and MP. Use discretion. Lather, rinse, repeat. Main thing is that somewhere in this cycle of violence, you’re gonna have to sacrifice your Healer’s turn to actually heal, especially if you’re unlucky enough where one of your attacks is a miss. If you’re ever going to end a turn with two corpses standing, especially if Zorba gets to cast Madness Curse, it’s time to let the Knight do their duty for God and country. Make sure the Knight gets the last turn, use Knight’s Proclamation to eat the incoming attacks, and have your Healer recover them after.

The tl;dr with all of this is to keep Zorba so busy spawning new corpses that he doesn’t have time for anything else. That means a strong focus on getting at least one corpse out of the picture at all times. Shit does happen, however, and you need to brace yourself if you get well and truly unlucky. If you have a choice between letting the Healer do damage or topping off your team’s health, choose the health, unless Zorba’s down to the last sliver. Still, if everything goes smoothly—and 90 percent of the time, it will with this plan—it doesn’t take more than five or six goes around to take Zorba down for good, liberate the Cathedral, and hear Hulkenberg walk Zorba down with some of that, “You have offended my family and the Shaolin temple” good stuff. Enjoy that.