Atlus's flashy, colorful menus are 'actually very annoying' for the design of Persona series director

Atlus RPGs are bold in their aesthetic choices, and this includes the menus. Atlus' interfaces are modern art, not just menus. Other games may rely on the tried and true rectangle. They're arranged in a jumble of elements, tumbling on the screen at odd angles. In Metaphor: ReFantazio they might be embellished by runic transcriptions encoded Esperanto. They're beautiful, they're satisfying and, according to Persona series director, Katsura Hashino, they're kinda hard to make.

Hashino stated in an interview with The Verge that Atlus, like any other game developer, must balance aesthetics and usability when designing their menus and user interfaces. Hashino explained, however, that the studio has chosen the most difficult balance by creating bespoke interfaces and layouts for each menu.

Hashino said, "We make unique designs for each menu." This is really annoying.

Even worse, each of these menus is run by its own software. Hashino added, "We also have separate programs running on each of them." "Whether you're looking at the main menu or the shop menu, there's an entirely separate program that's running and a different design. It takes a long time."

Hashino says that the process hasn't been any easier, as Atlus's menus have become increasingly abstract. Early versions of Persona 5 menus were reportedly difficult to understand. Hashino explained that the menus were initially difficult to read. "We did a lot of tweaking and adjustments so it became legible."

Atlus's designers canfall back on the faithful rectangular, but I cannot imagine a world that would be better if fewer artists followed their unnecessarily complicated visions. At the very least, there would be a lot less glyphic Esperanto.