Katsura Hashino is extremely clear about his preferences when it comes to video games. In a world where frame rates and pixel counts are crucial, the renowned game director, who oversees the modern Persona games and, more recently, Metaphor: ReFantazio, believes that what matters most are the creators of the work.
I am looking for something that will show me a peek at the humanity behind it, no matter how rough, incomplete, or unfinished it is. He says, “I want to know who made it and to get a sense of the feeling that inspired it.”
He has found great success with this attitude over the past 30 years, which contributes to the devoted fan base of the Persona games. The characters that inhabit this fanciful story are what truly make a difference, even though the art direction and attention to detail, even down to the user interface, are flawless. Ann, Junpei, and Chie all have a genuine sense of personality, complete with characteristics and feelings that we can identify with; as a result, they seem more like old friends than video game characters. That is completely deliberate, and it is what motivates Hashino to create games. It is a personal approach that contrasts with some of the larger ventures that must satisfy the demands of both fans and investors.
Hashino has been a director at Atlus for a long time. He has contributed to multiple Shin Megami Tensei games, the popular role-playing games that blend the supernatural with more realistic environments. As a type of goth alternative, their popularity has slowly increased over time, especially in a world where “traditional” Japanese role-playing games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest are the norm.
After former Persona director Kouji Okada left, he assumed control of the Persona series with Persona 3. Set against a high school backdrop that struggled with mythic ideas like gods and demons as well as psychology, Hashino combined some of the darker themes from Shin Megami Tensei with Persona’s more stylish pop atmosphere. The result was a vivid anime-influenced look. It is a series that has made Hashino a well-known and respected filmmaker in the game industry. Gamexta had a conversation with Hashino to discuss his inspiration for game creation and his previous work, just before the release of Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Persona 3 brought the series to a wider audience and brought anime back into favor in North America. As Hashino explains: “I think the difference between the kind of reality of the characters themselves and the anime aesthetic is a really interesting and crucial component of the game.” Nevertheless, despite its cartoonish looks, the game has a lot of depth, especially concerning the characters. When you first look at these characters and their anime-style universe, you might be taken aback and intrigued to learn that they have a very real [world] foundation. One amazing aspect of our games is seeing through the animation to the realism.
It does not excite me when you have these incredibly well-made games that appear to have been created by a group of people in a CEO boardroom.
According to Hashino, every choice made during the design process—from general concepts to particular dialogue—is motivated by this realism or the effort he and his team make to make every character feel authentic. “There is this little girl named Nanako [in Persona 4] who is in elementary school,” Hoshino says. Her dialogue was originally written to make it incredibly adorable. However, after pausing, we realized, “Wait a minute, her phrases are so adorable and so well-written that it does not feel like any real human girl would [speak like that] at her age.” It was simply too much.
Instead of focusing on the possibility that Nanako’s speech does not sound entirely real because he is a video game character, Hashino and his crew return to the writers’ room. “Instead of putting too much emphasis on those cheesy sentences, we started to ground it in reality.” We therefore wanted Persona 4 to feel more like something that might be happening right next door, even though it is a modern fantasy game.
Speaking with Hashino reveals one thing: he genuinely cares about the welfare of the characters in his games. When asked about his favorite scene in Persona 5, he says it is when the characters hang out in the retro-style cafe that the Phantom Thieves have set up shop in Shibuya.
Hashino says, “A lot of the characters in Persona 5 do not have a place where they feel comfortable.” Thus, I set out to locate a location where they might go and truly feel safe. It is also quite difficult to locate that place in Shibuya, a neighborhood in Tokyo. Although there are numerous roads and hallways, there is not a location where you can just sit down and relax, using it as your headquarters. It is really hard to find a place [where] they would be welcomed. I therefore tried to create a welcoming environment for the Persona 5 characters.
Fans naturally share Hashino’s passion for the characters he develops, and despite Metaphor: ReFantazio departing from the well-known Persona setting—it takes place in a brand-new, fantastical universe instead of Tokyo—it shares many similarities with his previous games. In a similar vein, the characters in Metaphor experience many of the same emotional strains as the Phantom Thieves we know and love, despite their differences. These include prejudice, dread, and worry.
According to Hashino, “Metaphor is a game where the protagonists are around adolescent age, but they are not confronting [conventional] teenager problems,” suggesting that the issues these characters would face go far beyond the standard teen drama of romance and peer pressure. “They are dealing with anxiety and all these other major issues that impact everyone, regardless of their identity, location, or age.” Therefore, many of the concepts in Metaphor: ReFantazio are also present in Hashino’s earlier games, even if they portray a new universe with new people.
Indeed, understanding each character on a deeper level is essential to the experience, whether it be in Persona, Shin Megami Tensei, or Metaphor. Hashino says he enjoys projects where you can see the real selves of the developers and that this is something that originates from the individuals who build the games: “It does not thrill or intrigue me if you have these incredibly well-made games that appear to have been created by a group of guys in a CEO boardroom,” he says frankly. “But it truly gives me the drive to keep growing when I see these kinds of games [which disclose a little about the individuals who produced them].”
