Since its humble beginnings in 1987, the Final Fantasy series has received ever new numbered features. The next game in the series is none other than number 16, and hopefully we do not have to wait enormously much longer until we know more about the.
However, Square Enix is not resting on its laurels, as they have now teamed up with Team Ninja to create the action side jump Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin. It’s a slightly chaotic name, but still covers what is, by and large, a rather chaotic game.
But is there no one missing?
Linear action
In addition to lightly dressed fighting games, Team Ninja has mostly spent the last 20 years creating fast-paced action games. On the developer’s track record, we find Nioh, Hyrule Warriors and the modern Ninja Gaiden games, among others, and after just a short while with Stranger of Paradise, this is starting to make a lot of sense.
Stranger of Paradise is not like any of what has come in the Final Fantasy series before, and appears more like a boastful and rowdy action role-playing game of a bit of the same school as Dark Souls and Nioh.
This means not only that weak and strong attacks are tied to “R1” and “R2”, respectively, but that you can and must also roll away from a bully with increasingly strong enemies. Stranger of Paradise leans most in the direction of Nioh, and dishes up a number of more or less linear levels you have to get through.
Here you will explore rusty medieval castles, emerald green forests, gritty volcanoes and everything in between, with the aim of restoring four crystals and saving the kingdom of Cornelia from the darkness that threatens.
On guard!
Once upon a time
If this sounds familiar, it’s because Stranger of Paradise offers nothing less than a brand new interpretation of the very first Final Fantasy game. It is not a “remake”, “reboot” or “remaster”, but draws inspiration and uses places, names and events from 1987.
At the opening of the game, we find Jack, Jed and Ash in the three main roles, as three quarters of the legendary “warriors of light”. After a quick audience with the King of Cornelia, it carries out on a cruise. It does not take long before it turns out that there is more to ferment than first thought, but exactly what the is, I will not go further into here.
Once upon a time … way too much loot!
It is good to know that the story is unfortunately far from Stranger of Paradise’s strongest card. In fact, I would say that it is perhaps the weakest aspect of the game, with clumsy dialogue, enormously poor storytelling technique and generally very little to get excited about.
It does not help that the main characters are extremely unappealing. Especially our character, Jack, is so simple and blunt in his longing to take “CHAOS” of days that he has almost no personality at all. I know how to appreciate stout and quiet protagonists, but Jack somehow does not manage to shut up either: Instead, he and the other main characters constantly fuss about how to save the world from evil. “Bla bla bla”.
All right voice acting helps a little on the overall impression, but it does not mask the fact that the action in Stranger of Paradise simply does not have much vague to come with.
Each of the approximately 20 main missions kicks off and ends with an intermediate sequence, but with a few notable exceptions, everything is quite unremarkable and very typical of mediocre Japanese role-playing games.
Could have been a PlayStation 3 game
The same can be said for the game’s graphics, which are not all the world either. I do like some of the enemies’ designs, and the game should have boasted of variation across the many different environments, but it helps little when the rest of Stranger of Paradise looks like an upscale PlayStation 3 game.
So …
It is especially horrible to watch when the various characters talk to each other, with a complete lack of voice synchronization and stiff, drawn facial expressions.
Out in the world itself, the experience is helped a bit along the way thanks to hard-hitting special attacks, cool outfits and powerful magic, but the levels you explore are very uninviting and I get annoyed little by little at irregular intervals.
Violent imagination
Fortunately, actually playing Stranger of Paradise is a far more enjoyable affair. Team Ninja has several exciting tricks lurking, such as the ability to steal selected attacks from enemies, appear with a greater risk of building up MP and combining weak and strong blows to create unique combos.
The game is energetic and fast-paced, but the flow in the battles I never fully understand. For that, the enemies are too fierce, with few and limited opportunities to strike back.
This is especially true in the face of the various boss enemies, and after many long hours of trial and error, I find myself having to turn down the difficulty level. Then, on the other hand, it’s quite fun to literally squeeze the life shit out of all sorts of fantasy beasts – Team Ninja is, after all, good at action.
Everyone should get (bank)!
Jobs and multiplayer to the rescue!
In addition to his enormous hand utility, Jack is also well versed with most types of weapons, which degenerates into 27 different classes you can take. This is a further development of the job system that has appeared in many a hilarious Final Fantasy game, and allows you to play like anything from a regular sword fighter to a very wizard.
Consequently, you earn experience points as you defeat enemies, and when you have put enough points into a job, you can eventually unlock advanced versions of the current class. A fairly ordinary “stomach” can later pave the way for both “white stomach”, “black stomach” and “red stomach”, and if you master both light and dark magic, you can eventually also unlock the expert class “saw”.
There is a lot to get acquainted with.
It is a fairly comprehensive system, and helps to give the game tons of depth and reason to continue playing even after the caption has had its say.
Multiplayer is fun!
I basically had no ambitions about this: I gradually started to get bored towards the end of the game, and was really ready to stamp it with a slightly laber 4/10. But then I realized that Stranger of Paradise also has a multiplayer mode.
Here you can team up with up to two other players to tackle the many missions you have available, and jaggu comes into the game more to its right here. Where during the single-player part I had to struggle with useless computer assistants, both the job system and the collaboration work much better in meetings with other players. I quickly took on the role of “support” character, and dished up both health, magic shields and a number of other spells, and things flow mostly well.
You still can not get around the game’s enormous weaknesses, but it picks up a bit by having this in place from the start.
Conclusion
I’m still not quite sure if Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin is meant to be a tribute or a parody.
There is clearly a certain respect for the Final Fantasy series that underlies this: Both music and surroundings borrow glimpses of what has come before, and at times I even get carried away by the nostalgic undertones.
Bø!
For the most part, the game still feels like one big action lubrication, where neither graphics, sound image nor characters can live up to what the years-long game series is worth. The story is also incredibly clumsy told, despite a couple of clever twists towards the end of the adventure.
In fact, playing Stranger of Paradise is fortunately more rewarding. The game is fast and hard-hitting, with interesting solutions to magic and an atypical in-depth job system. I still have the enormous flow to experience, but thanks to a solid multiplayer mode, it can actually be a lot of collaborative fun to get here.
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin launches on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 (tested), Xbox One, Xbox Series X / S and Windows on March 18.
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