Katsura Hashino Made ‘Metaphor ReFantazio’ Political on Purpose

“Metaphor ReFantazio is fantasy Persona” is the sentiment that circulated widely before Atlus’ latest RPG launched on Oct. 11, 2024. It’s an apt description on the surface, but an unhelpful one for folks who haven’t the foggiest idea what a Persona game is. Sure, Metaphor ReFantazio shares some basic things in common with Persona. They’re both turn-based RPGs with a big focus on characters and a penchant for using psychology to inform their fundamental ideas. They even come from the same development team.

However, simply leaving the discussion at that overlooks how Metaphor ReFantazio innovates on what Atlus achieved with Persona to establish itself as one of 2024’s most interesting RPGs, both unashamedly voicey and political.

The parallels between Metaphor ReFantazio’s political setting, the rebirth and widespread acceptance of fascism in modern politics in the real world, and the growing divide between classes and races are striking and unsubtle, and very intentional from the game’s creator.

Rolling Stone recently spoke with the director of Metaphor ReFantazio, Katsura Hashino, about what sets the two projects apart and the work Atlus put into creating a fantasy allegory that he hopes will resonate with modern society.

What is Persona?

Persona is a spin-off from Atlus’ apocalyptic dungeon-crawling series Shin Megami Tensei. The two share similar elements, such as turn-based battles and fighting alongside deities and creatures from mythology, but where Shin Megami Tensei usually ends with player siding with the Judeo-Christian God or Lucifer to remake the world in their image, Persona places greater importance on interpersonal relationships and day-to-day life. 

2007’s Persona 3 was the first project that Hashino worked on with Atlus and the one that pushed the series further outside of its previous niche. It added a strong element of social simulation, whereas the previous three games were more aligned with classic RPGs, and it introduced a calendar system that gives major events deadlines. With people’s lives unfolding on defined schedules, every action costs time.

Persona 3 also established a popular convention called Social Links, which would be revamped as Confidants more recently in Persona 5 (2016). These are relationships the protagonist forms with other characters that center on a specific issue and explore how that individual overcomes it, pushing everyone to discover important new things about themselves in the process.

Modern Persona is, ostensibly, a teen drama about high school kids and the problems they face, from classes and peer pressure to friend drama and fumbling attempts at romance. However, the broader issues characters face are rooted in universal challenges everyone deals with in some capacity — including gender identity, balancing society’s expectations with one’s own desires, and, with 2024’s Persona 3 Reload, how to find meaning in life after suffering intense loss.

How is Metaphor ReFantazio like Persona?

Metaphor ReFantazio takes place in a fantasy kingdom after a powerful and cunning mage murders the realm’s king. An electoral competition ensues where candidates try gaining enough popularity by essentially showing off to the masses and hoping the people respond. The protagonist, a candidate for the throne, gathers Followers on his journey, which are Metaphor ReFantazio’s version of Social Links, and instead of confronting their personal darkness, the main cast confronts their anxiety to embody the heroism of yesteryear’s legends.

It sounds like a fantasy spin on Persona, and that’s by design.

“These mechanics are important elements that encourage players to think strategically and deeply connect the story with gameplay,” Hashino says. “And I think they help players to immerse themselves in the world and feel a connection to reality, especially when the fantasy setting encompasses themes that mirror those of reality. [We wanted to] create a work that would be a source of strength for modern people, a work that could be drawn because it was a fantasy play, not just a fantasy world or a flight from reality. As development progressed, we came to feel that it was important to include deeper themes and messages in creating a fantasy world.”

Those deeper messages include racism and injustice, among other things, because Metaphor ReFantazio is very political. For the throne competition, the protagonist — a member of a tribe deemed unholy by the in-world church and discriminated against everywhere he goes — builds a policy platform on the ideal of creating a society where everyone is equal and has a fair chance.

Atlus goes further than resting on shallow non-statements by having the protagonist and his entourage question what they read, debate about what justice might look like in a world where everyone doesn’t start from an equal place, and use other people’s philosophies to better understand their own positions. 

One candidate espouses a platform that punishes people who can’t work, and the protagonist and his companions then realize they need to make provision for those who can’t care for themselves, a social safety net that actually works, in other words. Another rival is an allegory for the cycle of cruelty and exploitation that minorities and migrant workers face, and the party understands just how complex the task before them is. They understand, but they don’t have an answer.

Metaphor ReFantazio doesn’t claim to know everything or even how to fix the problems it solves. Like a good play or novel, the goal is to make players think about how to make the world a better place and not just say it should be better.

How does Metaphor ReFantazio improve on Persona?

The way Metaphor ReFantazio handles these ideas is a far cry from the Persona games. Persona is structured like a wheel, with a central concept as the hub, and individual spokes branching out to explore distinct ideas. The problem is that the games often compartmentalize their themes and moments of character development as a result.

Persona 5, for example, has a series of poignant moments about mentors preying on their pupils’ passion and inexperience to boost their own egos without offering anything in return. It’s the focus for an in-game month and then never comes up again. Villains take the stage for an act, then disappear. Characters grapple with serious personal challenges, but they resolve themselves quickly while the games move on to the next big idea.

Hashino wanted to create Metaphor ReFantazio like a classic fantasy, a story that gradually evolves and becomes more complex over time, and he says its structure as a travelog helps make that possible.

“One of my favorite parts of Metaphor is the moment when the protagonist and the party first arrive in the next town,” Hashino says. “The base of operations shifts as the journey progresses, new encounters are depicted in these towns, and we prepared many scenes where the characters grow and their bonds deepen.”

This progression helps make Metaphor ReFantazio’s themes and even villains more poignant. Louis Guilabern, the primary antagonist, starts out as a caricature of Machiavellian principles, but the extent of his cruelty and depravity — and the hypnotic appeal of his charisma — gradually becomes apparent over time as the protagonist travels across the kingdom. What starts out as a small piece of commentary on populism turns into a full-blown indictment of racial privilege.

The social majority — the horned Clemar tribe and the elf-like Roussainte, in Metaphor ReFantazio’s case — fight to protect what they think are their interests, regardless of who it hurts in the process. Their desperation to retain their privileged position in society over the lesser tribes blinds them to the fact that the very candidate they support (that’s Louis) will ultimately strip them of their rights and establish an autocracy, something he makes no secret of. But he looks and thinks like them, and that’s enough reason for these people to happily sign away their freedom. 

Metaphor ReFantazio shows another facet of populism for players who take the time to debate other candidates at podiums scattered across the kingdom, a facet that’s both more pointed in its commentary and slightly more sinister. Rivals for the crown debate the player in front of a crowd and expound on their policies, which almost always center on a single, extreme idea, such as making booze free for everyone.

The concept is heavy-handed, and taken individually, these ideas seem shallow, not unlike some of Persona’s bigger statements that get left undeveloped. Metaphor ReFantazio builds up to a bigger statement with these points over time, though, about how easily politicians can manipulate people’s emotions and hide their true, self-serving intentions

The competition for the throne seems designed to expose modern electoral politics’ weaknesses as well. A church crier called Batlin keeps people informed about the competition’s latest developments, but over time, his role frequently blurs the boundaries between reporter and master of ceremonies. He stirs people’s emotions, encourages them to focus on personality over policy, and obfuscates the real issues facing the kingdom.

Electoral politics in Metaphor ReFantazio is a spectator sport where the odds are weighted in favor of the likeliest candidates from the most privileged backgrounds.

For example, the Sanctist Church’s wealth and connections give them an unfair advantage in deciding how the competition’s phases play out, and they’ll even cynically play on people’s faith and devotion to shift public sentiment in the church’s favor. The throne might be open for all, but as the competition wears on, it’s clear only a few ever stand a chance of winning.

Deftly spinning so many thematic threads, including several outside the main plot, is a new level of narrative sophistication for Hashino’s team, and it lets them experiment with bigger and bolder ideas than they’ve attempted so far in Persona.

For all the big ideas Hashino touches on in the game, naturally avoids mentioning specific lessons he wants people to learn from playing Metaphor ReFantazio — but he does hope players learn something.

“I hope that players will not only feel that they have simply enjoyed the game, but also that they will have gained a new perspective on the real world, even if it is just a little,” Hashino says. “I hope that you will not return to the real world unchanged from before you played the game, but that you will feel that your perception of the world has changed, even if only slightly.”