Atlus has made it very clear that Persona veterans like director and producer Katsura Hashino, character designer and art director Shigenori Soejima, and composer Shoji Meguro have been leading production on Metaphor: ReFantazio. Frankly, the publisher didn't have to say anything. Their fingerprints are all over this game; nobody else could have made it. Now that I've spent an hour with Metaphor at Summer Game Fest, this couldn't be clearer. This is the most Persona thing since Persona. But in many ways, it may well surpass what's widely regarded as the peak of the series, Persona 5 Royal. A once-inimitable style has officially been imitated. Metaphor: ReFantazio is, if anything, even more stylish than Persona 5 - not so much standing on the shoulders of giants as it is making those giants look smaller by the day.
I don't know what they're putting in the water at Atlus HQ - a blatant lie, it's called cultivating and retaining talent - but this crew has been putting out industry-leading UI for years. Metaphor: ReFantazio is its latest and potentially finest masterwork. Much was said of Persona 5's flashy, grabby menus, but I'd still argue that not enough was said. In turn-based games explicitly built around navigating menus, it's hard to overstate how big an impact that incredible menus - not good menus, not serviceable menus, not perfectly readable menus - can have. The UI frames and supports the world, and with a little personality - or two truckloads - it can elevate even the smallest interactions. Metaphor: ReFantazio has, by my rough count, at least three truckloads of personality, and its UI absolutely sings.
