Stylish menus in Persona and Metaphor: ReFantazio "really annoying to do", says director

Atlus’ RPGs – the likes of the Persona series and this week’s Metaphor: ReFantazio – are well known for their stylish menus, but it turns out they’re “really annoying to do”.

That’s according to director Katsura Hashino who discussed the menu design with The Verge.

“In general, the way most game developers make UI is very simple. That’s what we try to do as well – we try to keep things simple, practical, and usable,” said Hashino.

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“But maybe the reason that we’ve achieved both [functionality and beauty] is that we have unique designs that we make for each and every menu. This is actually really annoying to do. We have separate programs running for each of them as well. Whether it’s the shop menu or the main menu, when you open them up there’s a whole separate program running and a separate design that goes into making it. It takes a lot of time.”