Metaphor: ReFantazio director Katsura Hashino said the team decided to "abandon all of the inspirations" gained from researching material like The Lord of the Rings in favour of an "original creative endeavour" with stuff the developers actually liked about the genre.
Atlus has diverted from its usual high school/post-apocalyptic setting of JRPGs yore in favour of a more adult-populated fantasy in Metaphor: ReFantazio. It's relatively new ground for the developer to tread, especially when you look at director Katsura Hashino's 30-year history across Shin Megami Tensei, Catherine, and Persona.
So it's pretty understandable that the team would want to delve into a fair bit of fantasy media while shaping the world of Euchronia. As reported by GamesRadar, Hashino discussed the team's research and subsequent binning of it on an episode of the Official Xbox Podcast.
"At the very beginning of the development of Metaphor: ReFantazio, we looked into traditional fantasy culture, for example Tolkein with The Lord of the Rings," he said. Understanding both the writing and the author's intent was important to Atlus, with Hashino adding "So we did a lot of research, and we found a lot of very interesting background to it."
It seems like it started doing more harm than good, however, with Hashino saying that trying to add all of these classic fantasy elements wasn't working. "We realised we couldn't really make a game that was [traditional fantasy]. It wouldn't really feel original to us, it would lack that originality that defines us. We were also finding that it would be hard for us to bring out the creativity that we wanted in a more traditional fantasy world. So we decided part way through to just abandon all of the inspirations that we had and create something new."
Hashino continued: "We took things that we personally liked and we tried to find ways to bring it into the game, so it was kind of like a stopping of our research and a starting of this original creative endeavour."
As someone who hit the 100-hour mark in Metaphor: ReFantazio over the weekend, I'm glad Atlus pivoted. I've become rather engrossed in the United Kingdom of Euchronia's lore, pouring over the Memorandum—think Final Fantasy 16's fantastic Active Time Lore feature—and then proceeding to infodump on my poor partner about all the new things I learned. I'm not normally one to do all of the extra reading, but Metaphor well and truly has me in its clutches.
It's still got the classic fantasy trappings, of course—there are dragons, sorcerers, lots of magic, the whole shebang really—but it still has its own unique Atlus flavour I've enjoyed in its other JRPGs. The setting gives me big Final Fantasy 12 vibes in a way, with both games having fantastic lore and sprawling political narratives and its mixture of the old world with some modern sprinklings. Maybe that's why I like the whole thing so damn much.
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