After nailing his first JRPG, Metaphor: Refantazio Lead Ui Designer has a piece of advice for his old self: “Your PC will break in 2021. Do something!”
Metaphor: The main designer of the user interface of Refantazio, Koji Ise, thinks that success and failure have been a vital part of the development of the game, therefore – if we give them the opportunity – they would not give any advice linked to the game to a hypothetical self.
Since the gameplay of Persona 5 was revealed in 2015, one of the things synonymous with Atlus was the user interface and the absolutely sick menu. The incredible user interface was one of the benefits like the attackers Persona 5 and Persona 5 Tactica, then Persona 3 obtained a total menu overhaul for his remake, persona 3 recharging. The creator of Super Smash Bros. Masahiro Sakurai even said that that was what captured him most in the persona series when He was interviewed Before Joker, join Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (with its influence on ultimate menus being quite clear).
Unsurprisingly, the new RPG of The Minds Behind Behind Persona 5-2024 Metaphor: Refantazio – continues the trend by fleeing the style of each of its pores, with a fantastic user interface. But shocking, these menus were not manufactured by an industry veterinarian, or even the designer of Persona 5. The first game of the Koji Ise user interface designer was the metaphor: Refantazio.
“I used to work in the advertising industry by creating websites. At the same time, I have always felt a feeling of desire for the game industry – an industry that requires much more experience and creativity.” ISE told Gameradar + at GDC 2025, adding: “I was attracted by the development of the game because I wanted to explore and express these creative ideas that I had through a medium that made the fact.”
Naturally, as a designer for the first time, ISE had growing pain with the development of the game, saying: “Finding the means of acting the emotion – things that have aroused joy, excitement, accomplishment and even tension in the player – it was something that I struggled a lot at the beginning.
But even with development difficulties, ISE would not change the way things happened if the opportunity said: “I think that the different successes and failures themselves were an essential element of the development process, so I would not send a letter to my past to change the process.” Although he said that if he had to send a trick at the start of the development of the metaphor, it would be “your PC will break in 2021. Do something!”
We also asked Metaphor: the designer of the REFANTAZIO user interface on the RPGs that inspire him, and he dropped a ps2 SLEEPER HIT from 25 years ago
