GameCentral speaks to the director of Persona 5 and Metaphor: ReFantazio about the complexities of making a Japanese game that Western audiences will also enjoy.
The chance to speak to game developers about their work and inspirations is always one of our favourite parts of the job, but the truth is a lot of the time you never get a chance to meet them in person. That’s always the best way to conduct an interview but failing that a video conferencing call is the second best option. An email interview though, rarely results in anything very interesting.
We were due to speak to Atlus’ Katsura Hashino, who has worked on dozens of Shin Megami Tensei and Persona games over the years, about his new game Metaphor: ReFantazio but thanks to some technical problems (thanks for nothing Microsoft Teams!) it never happened.
Instead, we submitted our questions by email and while that usually results in rather anodyne, overly-considered, answers these are actually very interesting – particularly the ones about the early stages of the game’s development and how you go about creating a whole new IP and fantasy world while still ensuring it remains interesting to both Western and Japanese fans.
GC: Creating a whole new fictional universe and a new gaming IP must be a huge and daunting undertaking. How much planning is involved before you get to practical development? When it starts is it just someone with a pad and pencil noting down ideas or do you have an equivalent of a writing room?
KH: When I first asked the team members what kind of RPG they wanted to make, they all said they wanted to make a fantasy RPG, a genre they were familiar with from long ago. When we got into a deeper discussion about why they liked fantasy, no one had a clear answer, even though they had liked it for a long time. That was very interesting, and I remember being curious about why the world of fantasy unconsciously attracted us.
I remember that this curiosity was the starting point for everything. The starting point for the project was the production theme of, ‘If we could create a piece of work that would be of help to modern people, a work that would be a fantasy story rather than just an escape from reality or a pipe dream, wouldn’t that be a work unique to us?’
I think that establishing a concept like this is important for creating a new fictional world and game IP. In the early stages, the whole team brainstormed on this theme and exchanged ideas. Sometimes we wrote down our ideas using notebooks and pencils, but we often had intensive discussions in specific rooms. The planning started several years ago, and we spent a lot of time carefully creating the world, characters, and story framework.
GC: Given the global market, and Persona’s popularity in the West, how much consideration was given to making the new game more appealing to Western customers? To me, it doesn’t seem to have abandoned its Japanese roots but how does it seem from your perspective?
KH: While being conscious of the global market, it was also very important to preserve our Japanese roots. In order to incorporate elements that would be attractive to Western players, we took findings from cultural research and feedback.
However, we did not simply follow what you would see in a classic fantasy world for such things as tribe settings. Instead, we created our own original tribes based on such feelings as ‘not saying what you think’, ‘only listening to other people’s opinions and not having your own’, and ‘imposing old ways of thinking on the new generation’, etc.
These are personality traits and tendencies that people are often labelled with in Japanese society and, at times, become the inspiration for nicknames. We took these various characteristics – which aren’t just labels we place on others but those that, to a greater or lesser extent – live within as well, and used them as the foundation for creating unique tribes.
This is one example of how we tried to strike a good balance between the fantasy setting and also trying to incorporate our strengths in our unique storytelling. As a result, I believe we have created a very rooted yet unique piece of work.
GC: What was the decision process around deciding to retain turn-based combat rather than real-time? Was the latter ever a consideration?
KH: We considered very carefully whether to use a turn-based battle system or a real-time battle system. In the end, we chose a turn-based battle system because we wanted to put more weight on strategy and player tactics.
We also considered a real-time battle system, but we decided that a turn-based battle system was more suited to our game design. We wanted to provide players with the enjoyment of thinking about each move as they go along.
GC: The game features an election as a prominent story element, but that’s obviously coming at the same time as the American election. Will you be making any wider political points with the in-game election? You must be worried about it appearing too political but if it has no sociological element at all then it risks coming across as shallow.
KH: I made the election an important element of the story because I wanted to depict the complexity of modern society and how people’s choices affect them. This game does not deal with or address any modern political agendas or any stories behind them.
We simply wanted to provide an element that would make each player think about the heroism of influential figures in a fantasy world, as people entrust their anxiety to others and vice versa. By incorporating these sociological elements, we have given the story depth and ensured that players can draw parallels with the real world we live in.
GC: What have been your thoughts in terms of the amount of non-interactive story sequences versus combat and other gameplay elements? The Persona games can often go a very long time with minimum input from the player and yet despite their success that’s something that’s generally frowned upon in terms of Western game design.
KH: The balance between non-interactive story development and gameplay is extremely important. While building on the success of the Persona series, we also tried to increase the interactive elements, taking into account the preferences of Western players.
In order to immerse players in the world and story of the game, we deliberately added more story elements at the very beginning of the game. However, we also designed the game to ensure players would always be actively involved and make the story and gameplay sequences blend together naturally the further you progressed into the story – from beginning, middle to the end of the game.
GC: In gameplay terms how do you want the game to stand out in terms of Atlus’ previous work and role-playing games in general? How have you struggled with the temptation to stick with genre tropes versus creating new elements that people may not necessarily take to?
KH: While taking learnings from Atlus’ past titles, we also took on the challenge of incorporating new elements. We aimed to provide players with a new experience without being tied down or restricted by depiction that you’d expect to see in the genre that we’ve chosen.
The relationship between fantasy and reality, and the development of a ‘journey’ – an element we haven’t taken on as much in the past – are key elements of this game. I believe we were able to strike a balance between tradition and innovation as a result, takings parts that we inherited from our past works and incorporating new elements we built from the ground up to fuse into the themes we chose for this title.
Formats: PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC
Price: £59.99
Publisher: Sega/Atlus
Developer: Studio Zero
Release Date: 11th October 2024
Age Rating: 16
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