When talking about “Final Fantasy”, it is impossible not to think about the success of the franchise and how there are thousands of fans around the world. Considering this, when a new game is announced, there is sure to be a huge amount of hype created.
This must have been precisely the case with “Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin”. The title was advertised as an RPG with soulslike elements. That alone should be synonymous with success, right? But that’s not quite what happens.
Below, you can check our opinion about the game that arrived on March 18th for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series S/X.
History
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In the game, we control Jack who – and here’s something that bothered me a lot -, meets Ash and Jed by chance and, because they have a specific element in common, they decide to team up to defeat a great and mysterious threat called Chaos. For this, they form the Warriors of Light.
“Stranger of Paradise”, despite not being sold that way, is a kind of remake of the first “Final Fantasy”. Therefore, several elements refer to the original game – unfortunately, in some cases, not in a good way.
The rest of the script is a mystery. It is possible to look for some collectible items through the game’s dungeons that allow you to have glimpses of the story and go assembling the “puzzle” of the plot.
Of course, everything gets clarified at the end, with a tight ending and with several answers to various questions. However, passing the entire title with a protagonist who, when someone is going to tell something about the story, interrupts the interlocutor, can be a little uncomfortable.
mechanics and dungeons
Now we come to one of the coolest features of the game: the mechanics. There is a Jobs scheme, which has distinct skill trees and allows players to customize the game experience to what they see fit.
Therefore, it is possible to focus on a Job with spells or on a brute force one. In all, there are 28 that can be exchanged according to need.
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Another element – which is interesting and can also be a problem – is the dungeons. The title doesn’t have a world to explore. The story is all told through dungeons that, as you progress, are unlocked.
So there is not so much freedom of movement and exploration. Even so, it is possible to go back to a previous dungeon and go through it again in search of better equipment for your character. That’s because the drop rate and items are given randomly, making the player have to take a farm route to survive the adventure.
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An interesting idea is that the more difficult the chosen difficulty level, the better the equipment left by enemies. However, it is important to remember that, as it is a game inspired by games from the souls saga, the higher the difficulty, the more relentless the enemies will be – but the reward can be better too.
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Despite having five members in total – which can be switched when leaning on the save point – the player can walk through the scenarios with two more collaborators. They can be controlled by the game’s artificial intelligence or by two more friends, which makes the experience cooler.
Still citing the save points, after activating one, the enemies are revived, making it necessary to kill them again to proceed – the same goes if the character dies.
graphic question
Now comes a delicate question in “Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin”. The graphics are quite questionable at various times.
PlayStation 4 version
For this review, I downloaded the PlayStation 4 and 5 versions of the game. In both cases, more so in the previous generation, the textures are blurry and the characters have serrations in their design.
PlayStation 5 version
The story animations are beautiful and show the care taken in the production of the game, but when the situation changes and the player starts to control the character, the quality drops and can be quite uncomfortable at times.
Soundtrack
On the other hand, the soundtrack is something to be applauded. Many fans will recognize iconic songs from across the saga that have been remade for this title. Therefore, it is common to walk through the dungeons and feel nostalgic for knowing that background music – albeit in a different setting and with different elements.
Conclusion
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“Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin” is a fun game in its mechanics, but it lacks in several technical and narrative aspects. It might be a big deal for “Final Fantasy” fans, but they should weigh in if the nostalgia factor outweighs the issues presented.
Anyway, it’s a new and interesting look for the first game in the saga, released back in 1987.
