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Metaphor: ReFantazio’s soundtrack is world-building disguised as background music. Shoji Meguro designed an invented religious sound for the game’s societies, combined fantasy-scale orchestration with chant-like vocals, and used Esperanto-inspired language so the songs feel native to the setting. Director Katsura Hashino also asked for music that seems to play inside the protagonist’s head, making the score an expression of the hero’s fear, resolve and perception rather than an external cue pasted onto the action.
That approach explains the soundtrack’s unusual range: reflective travel pieces, town music and relationship scenes can coexist with battle themes driven by rapid strings, heavy orchestral force and a monk’s chant. The music does not merely label locations or announce combat; it connects the game’s political world, the elda protagonist’s viewpoint and its hybrid action/turn-based battles.
Why the soundtrack sounds unlike a typical fantasy RPG
When Meguro was introduced to Metaphor: ReFantazio as an epic high-fantasy role-playing game, he immediately imagined “grand orchestras playing.” The premise gave him room to write music he had not usually written, but an orchestra by itself did not feel sufficient. He also wanted the score to retain an unmistakable ATLUS identity instead of becoming a generic film-style fantasy soundtrack.
His solution was to build the composition around the idea of religious music. This is not an attempt to reproduce Christianity, Buddhism, Islam or any other real-world faith. Meguro has specifically said that the concept is invented for the game’s world and is not drawn from real-world religions. The result is music that suggests ritual, doctrine and collective belief without assigning the game’s fictional religion the sonic vocabulary of a real one.
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That distinction matters because religion is not decorative in Metaphor. The protagonist is an elda, a group branded “tainted” and discriminated against by the state religion. A score that imagines what worship, ceremony and spiritual authority might sound like can therefore reinforce the setting’s social conflict without pretending to represent an actual faith. The sound tells you that institutions and beliefs have shaped this society, even when no character is explaining its history.
How “music inside the protagonist’s head” changes the score
Hashino asked for another defining quality: the music should feel as though it is playing inside the protagonist’s head. Meguro has described the religious-music idea as his proposal and the interior perspective as Hashino’s request. Together, they give the score a partly diegetic, character-centered flavor. It still functions as gameplay music, but it can also be understood as the hero’s internal experience of a place or event.
That perspective makes the transitions between activities feel coherent. A road, a crowded town, a dungeon and a dangerous encounter do not need completely unrelated musical identities. The score can remain part of the protagonist’s mental journey while changing intensity to match uncertainty, discovery or threat. Calm material represents the mind taking in a new landscape; ceremonial or civic material reflects the pressures of the societies the party visits; battle music turns that same inward viewpoint into immediate danger.
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Why orchestration and chanting work together
Orchestral scale for a high-fantasy journey
The orchestra supplies breadth. Large string writing, brass weight and layered ensemble passages can make a landscape feel politically and geographically vast. That scale suits a game built around travel through landscapes, towns and dungeons, where the player is moving through a continent rather than staying in one neighborhood. It also gives major events and confrontations a sense of public consequence.
Meguro does not use that scale as a constant wall of sound. The soundtrack includes quieter travel and location material, allowing the orchestral colors to expand when the narrative or battle system needs emphasis. This dynamic range is important to the “inside the head” concept: internal thought can be subdued, while fear or determination can suddenly become overwhelming.
Chant as a fictional cultural marker
The vocal writing adds a quality an instrumental orchestra cannot provide on its own. Chant evokes ceremony and communal belief, which links the battle music to the invented religion and the game’s broader cultural world. Because the vocal lines are not presented as ordinary pop singing, they sound like a practice belonging to the setting rather than a contemporary song imported from outside it.
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Who performs the battle chants?
The cited listening analysis identifies monk Keisuke Honryo as the voice behind the chant-like performance used in the principal battle material. His delivery is a major reason the cues sound ritualistic rather than like standard rock or pop battle songs. The voice sits inside the orchestral texture as an active musical force, not as a celebrity vocal feature placed over a backing track.
Honryo’s monk-like tone combines with fast strings and forceful orchestration to create a distinctive escalation. The strings provide forward motion; the orchestra supplies impact; the chant supplies identity. Remove any one of those elements and the music would lose part of what makes it immediately recognizable as Metaphor.
The two main battle themes
“Warriors in Arms”
“Warriors in Arms” is one of the two principal battle themes identified in the listening analysis. Its rapid string figures and orchestral drive communicate urgency, while the chant places that urgency inside the game’s ritualized world. The cue can make a routine encounter feel consequential because it frames fighting as part of a larger cultural and political struggle.
“Warriors in Valour”
“Warriors in Valour” is the other main battle-theme example. Like “Warriors in Arms,” it uses aggressive strings, orchestral force and Honryo’s chant to push combat forward. Hearing the pair as related themes helps explain why the game’s battles feel connected even when the enemies, locations or tactical circumstances change.
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The game’s combat design reinforces this musical contrast. Official descriptions present a hybrid system: the player can use real-time attacks to dispatch weaker enemies in the overworld, while squad encounters move into turn-based strategy with Archetype customization. The soundtrack therefore has to support both immediate physical action and deliberate tactical decision-making. Its vocal-orchestral attack gives the encounter energy, while the recurring thematic language keeps that energy tied to the world rather than making every fight sound like an isolated arcade stage.
Exploration, towns and the road between battles
The score’s identity is not limited to combat. The official game presentation emphasizes travel through landscapes, visits to towns and exploration of dungeons alongside relationships and battles. The soundtrack’s track list mirrors that structure with titles covering journeys, locations, social institutions and threats.
Examples include:
- 英雄の旅のはじまり, glossed as “beginning of the hero’s journey,” which points to departure and narrative momentum.
- 王都グラン・トラド, “Grand Trad,” which anchors music to a major urban setting.
- 王権競技会, “Royal Tournament,” which evokes public spectacle and political power.
- 戦う者たちよ, “fighters,” which turns attention toward people defined by struggle.
- 強敵との対峙, “confronting a formidable foe,” which marks a sharper level of danger.
These titles show how the soundtrack maps the player’s route through the game’s society. A journey cue is not interchangeable with a capital-city cue, and a royal tournament carries different implications from a confrontation with a powerful enemy. The music can distinguish those situations while preserving the same invented cultural foundation.
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Metaphor’s score compared with Meguro’s Persona approach
The useful comparison is not “orchestra versus pop” as a simple genre contest. It is the relationship between music, setting and viewpoint. A reported Famitsu discussion describes Meguro wanting Metaphor’s music to sit somewhat more separately and quietly behind play, whereas Persona often fuses visual direction and hard-hitting music more tightly. That is a difference in dramatic function, not a claim that one series has no orchestration or the other has no atmosphere.
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| Comparison axis | Metaphor: ReFantazio | Persona contrast described in the discussion |
|---|---|---|
| Setting and musical world | Invented religion, fantasy societies and a journey through landscapes, towns and dungeons shape the score’s vocabulary. | Music is more closely associated with the contemporary social and visual identity of each Persona game. |
| Relationship to the protagonist | Hashino’s “inside the protagonist’s head” request gives cues an inward, character-centered perspective. | Music more often works in tight fusion with visual direction and scene presentation. |
| Orchestral versus contemporary palette | Grand orchestral writing supplies high-fantasy scale, with chant and invented-language vocals preserving ATLUS character. | Hard-hitting contemporary styles are often foregrounded more directly as part of the series’ presentation. |
| Vocal language and performance | Esperanto-inspired elements and Keisuke Honryo’s monk-like chant make the voice sound culturally native to the fiction. | Vocals generally function through the language and genre identity established by each modern setting. |
| Exploration versus battle | Quieter travel and location material can sit behind play, then expand into ritualized battle cues when the hybrid combat system demands it. | Battle and visual sequences are more frequently locked into an overtly forceful musical presentation. |
The comparison should be read as a design tendency, not an absolute rule for every track. Meguro’s point is that Metaphor needed a different balance: enough distance for the world to breathe, but enough thematic force to make battles and political conflict land.
How large is the official soundtrack?
ATLUS GAME MUSIC lists a 130-track original soundtrack in a boxed release. That count is substantially larger than the earlier 61-track special soundtrack, adding roughly 70 tracks to the listening archive. The physical package includes a booklet and travel-map/bookmark bonuses, while the music is also distributed through Spotify, Apple Music and iTunes.
A regional ATLUS 35th Anniversary Edition page lists a two-disc special soundtrack, a premium artbook and additional physical bonuses. Edition contents, prices, stock and streaming catalogs can change by region and over time, so buyers should check the current regional listing before ordering. The stable point is the scope of the music: the official catalog documents 130 tracks, not merely a short selection of battle themes.
What to listen for on a first pass
- Start with a battle theme. Listen to “Warriors in Arms” or “Warriors in Valour” for the combination of rapid strings, orchestral weight and Honryo’s chant.
- Notice the vocal language. Treat the words as part of the fiction’s sound design. Their Esperanto-inspired construction is intended to avoid the feeling of a contemporary pop song dropped into a fantasy setting.
- Move to a journey or town cue. Compare the intensity of combat with material associated with the hero’s journey or Grand Trad. The contrast reveals how the score supports movement and social observation, not just danger.
- Listen for continuity rather than repetition. The recurring orchestral and vocal identity links locations, political events and fights without requiring every track to use the same tempo or volume.
- Keep the protagonist’s viewpoint in mind. Hashino’s interior-music brief suggests hearing changes in texture as changes in the hero’s mental state: curiosity, pressure, resolve or alarm.
What the music contributes to the game’s themes
The invented religious style gives Metaphor a way to discuss belief and authority without borrowing the worship music of a real community. The elda’s stigmatized status makes that choice especially meaningful: the soundtrack can evoke the power of a state religion while leaving the religion itself fictional, allowing the game to focus on discrimination, legitimacy and social control.
The chant also complicates the idea of a “battle theme.” Combat is not presented as a neutral mechanical interruption. It happens in a world where institutions classify people, where public contests involve royal power and where the protagonist’s identity affects how others see the party. Ritualized vocals make each confrontation feel connected to those structures.
Finally, the score’s inward perspective keeps spectacle from overwhelming character. Grand orchestration can make the world feel enormous, but the music is framed as something the protagonist experiences internally. The fantasy scale and the personal viewpoint therefore reinforce each other: the journey is vast, yet every landscape and battle is filtered through one person’s attempt to survive and change that world.
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