Metaphor: ReFantazio’s elaborate menus are designed to heighten your emotions

Video game menus tend to fade into the background â but thatâs not the case with Metaphor: ReFantazio. Like the Persona games before it, the fantasy RPG has an interface thatâs slick, aggressive, and certainly not the kind of thing youâll forget. And according to lead interface designer Koji Ise, the intent was to create […]

Mar 26, 2025 - 16:17

Metaphor: ReFantazio’s elaborate menus are designed to heighten your emotions

Video game menus tend to fade into the background â but thatâs not the case with Metaphor: ReFantazio. Like the Persona games before it, the fantasy RPG has an interface thatâs slick, aggressive, and certainly not the kind of thing youâll forget. And according to lead interface designer Koji Ise, the intent was to create menus that matched and enhanced what players were feeling at any given moment. âAs long as weâre able to identify âat this point the player should be feeling this,â weâre able to match our UI and animations to act as emotional accelerators,â he says.

Metaphor is developed by Atlus, and itâs a spiritual successor of sorts to the Persona series. Both are turn-based RPGs, but Metaphor shifts the setting from modern-day Japan to a new fantasy realm. That turn-based nature means the menus are integral to the experience. You donât skip past them to get to the action; they are the action. Since Persona 3, the franchise has become highly regarded for its stylized menus, and thatâs something Ise wanted to continue with Metaphor, though it was actually his first experience working in video games.

âBefore this I used to work on website designs, …

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