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The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.
GamesRadar+: To start, how did this team of veteran developers come together within Atlus?
Where did the desire to make a game like this come from?
There’s a lot of people, we’re all friends, we’ve all worked together forever.
A lot of people were all close.
And a lot of people raised their hands.
It’s not like we wanted to distance ourselves from Persona or anything.
What kind of knowledge and experience do we want to use in this game?
It was an interesting process that involved us being really curious.
How do we handle this in a fantasy game?
Hashino:The short answer is that we really didn’t.
We never really felt weighed down by things that were done in the past.
It’s not like we wanted to distance ourselves from Persona or anything.
It sounds like this game has been refreshing to make for your team.
Hashino:It was kind of like a journey into the unknown, but we really enjoyed the process.
Until now, we’ve made a lot of modern games set in the modern world.
We’re making this fantasy game and creating a completely new world.
It was a really fun experience.
Why was that bang out of relationship not right for Metaphor?
What teenager doesn’t want to have romance in their life?
It’s part of the realism of the setting.
It’s about a person trying to become the ruler of the land.
They are more focused on the relationships between a ruler and the people who support them.
You gain these Archetypes that you bring into the game world.
It’s more focused on those relationships rather than the back-and-forth of romance.
Now I really need to talk about the UI in this game, the menus.
How did you reach this style?
Because it’s clearly been refined game over game over game.
That’s the experience you want people to enjoy.
It’s so much of a core element.
That’s one thing that inspired us to put so much effort into the UI.
Because this is one of those games that’s so loud and characterful in its menus.
Hashino:It’s kind of hard to speak about.
A lot of times, UI is such a basic part of the game.
It’s not exciting, it’s not flashy.
But it’s so integral to the experience.
It’s your vehicle for playing the game itself.
If that vehicle feels good, it adds so much to the experience.
If it doesn’t, it can distract from it.
It’s hard to give it the spotlight because of that, but it’s really important.
Especially for our games.
But it’s not just that they look amazing.
It’s a seamless experience.
We’ve talked about the people who signed up for this project.
It feels like the kind of thing you could only make when a studio can retain that talent long-term.
Hashino:I think the fact that you think that is encouraging.
We need a group effort to make this, so that’s encouraging for us.
There’s a vision here, there’s a lot of people working toward this goal.
We hope the games we make can be that sort of game.
Hashino:I apologize if this is a really basic answer.
Some are negative about the concept.
I think it’s up to the individual.
It’s up to each person to tune into what they like and what they want.
For us, we don’t think about JRPGs, we don’t think about RPGs.
We just want to make a fun game.
That’s all we’re trying to do.
you could call this a JRPG if you want.
They’re a Japanese creator giving to the world.
Hashino:[In English] I’m sorry!
I’m going to give you an excuse once we finish this question.
Metaphor seems more welcoming.
What are the most extreme challenges in Metaphor, and how hard do you think these games should be?
They’re completely intertwined.
Shin Megami Tensei 3 is the hardest game I think I’ve ever made.
I felt like it needed to be a hard game.
The Shin Megami Tensei series in general is quite hard.
I felt like 3, specifically, we wanted to make it hard.
The reason for that is the concept of the game has elements that make it more difficult in general.
But also, don’t worry, we have multiple difficulty modes.
And one fast question here at the end.
Am I close on that?
We were worried about everyone who plays this game having the exact same party.
That would be boring.
Metaphor: ReFantazio is set to release on PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC on October 11.
While you wait, you could always check out what we consider to bethe best JRPGsto play right now.
