Revisiting ReFantazio: One Year Later, Director Katsura Hashino Talks Metaphor And More

It’s been more than one year since the launch of Metaphor: ReFantazio. In that time, how has the reception been from your perspective?
In the past Persona titles, a lot of the initial reactions and feedback that we were getting were things like the aesthetic or the sound or the characters – something that’s more on the surface – and then later on we would start getting feedback about the narrative and the story and how it resonated with them. But with Metaphor, maybe because it was a new IP, for this specific title, instead of getting feedback regarding those other elements, I think especially for the West, we initially got a lot of great feedback regarding the narrative and the theme of the story. That was a surprise to us, but when we are creating games, those things are really at the core of what we do. We put a lot of heart and effort into our story and narrative, so it was great to receive all that great feedback from users and media alike.

When we last spoke, you told me you were feeling a lot of anxiety in the lead up to Metaphor’s launch. Now that you look back on it, what were you most anxious about and how did it compare to the anxiety you’ve felt for your other games?