Persona director says making beautiful menus is ‘actually really annoying’

Persona is one of the rare video game series where people actually talk about the menus. They’re functional, sure, but they’re also so incredibly stylish that you almost don’t mind constantly pausing to equip gear or heal your party. So when I had the chance to talk to longtime Persona director Katsura Hashino about his new game, Metaphor: ReFantazio, which continues this tradition of beautiful menus, I had to ask how they do it.

The answer, as Hashino explains it, is simply a lot of work:

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. But maybe the reason that we’ve achieved both [functionality and beauty] is that we have unique...

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