Tell me one more time that final fantasy
The announcement of Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin It was something beyond what was special and spectacular, it was a title that clearly told you: ‘Don’t take me seriously, but don’t underestimate me either’. Yes, it is certainly something crazy, but it happened after spending several hours on this title.
First of all, this proposal that comes from the hand of Team Ninja and Square Enix it gets out of all that traditional line of remastering the first games of the Final Fantasy series and gives us a kind of spin-off or a very separate story that hangs on the legend of this story that was born from the mind of Hironobu Sakaguchi.
The result is sort of a hybrid of what Final Fantasy has been in recent years with a bit of Final Fantasy’s proprietary gameplay. Team Ninja and, as icing on the cake, a clever, chaotic and interesting narrative throughout. Yes, it is many things and that can be dangerous, because the saying goes that “he who covers a lot, squeezes little”.
Within all that “many” – they would say in Alice in Wonderland – we have a very special title which we will tell you if it is worth it or not, because that well-earned money must be spent – or not – on something that you will yield many hours of entertainment.
You are Jack and you go after chaos
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin It should be defined as a celebration to remember the beginnings of Final Fantasy as a franchise. Of course, the ideal is to replay those old titles from the 8-bit era. But this time around, it’s worth taking a different route.
The heroes of light are there, the team of 4 brave men, the crystals and a huge world too, however, contrary to the custom of 35 years ago, here we don’t have turn-based combat, but we do have a lot of magic, items, weapons and An interesting progression indeed.
The protagonist is certainly difficult or lazy to explain, because we have Jack Garland, a guy who wants to come to blows with Chaos at any cost and – by chance – met two other guys who have the same mission as him, without the need to live in the context of revenge all the time.
Then one more girl joins the team of four in order to gather who will be the warriors of light, who carry dark crystals that vibrate when they walk together. This is good? Bad? The context is interesting and it is the engine for which you are going to spend several hours playing because it is worth doing.
Is Stranger of Paradise a Souls?
The game mechanics of Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin they are very much in the style of Team Ninja: the combat is fast, it always has some kind of parry and mistakes are very expensive, It is not a difficulty type Elden Ring, Dark Souls or Nioh because we have options, but the challenge is felt at all times.
The system is very clear, you have a weak hit, a button to absorb enemy attacks that help you fill a bar of magic points more or less similar to that of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and also another bar that breaks which is used to finish off the enemies or not.
Technically, the game tells you that the joke is to block enemies in time to fill your magic bar or, to attack the opponent enough to break their yellow bar and thus obtain that material so that you can perform more devastating attacks and cast magic.
That is the basis of Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, in solid combat based on the jobs in the franchise and how you can use 2 during a mission. It seems like a game system that goes from the basic to the complex so that the user decides how much he wants to complicate his life or not with this action RPG title.
Swordsmen, monks, spearmen, wizards and more in Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin
There are two points that you should pay close attention to while playing Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin and they have to do with the progression of Jack. The first has to do with the items that the character carries and the second with the job that you are going to develop. The first works in a very basic way, you collect all kinds of items from boxes and enemies and put them on your characters.
Clothes, swords or shields can have a certain level of rarity, which affects the parameters of the protagonist. Just as you can have very simple articles, you have others that have certain characteristics. Now, all these objects come out in loads and the joke is that you discard them to obtain other items and you can improve the weapons that do serve you and are the end of your job.
On the other side we have the jobs, these jobs are developed through a skill tree that increases with anima points and that not only unlock skills, adjust parameters and also special attacks. You have to adjust this very well with the items, because that can speed up or slow down the progression of – maybe – a white mage or a monk.
Team Ninja and Square Enix managed to combine these two points very well so that Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin feel very entertaining and idle when you are not fighting. Beware, it’s not a perfect progression system because it doesn’t always feel that clear, but it really works after you spend some time figuring out how it works.
Spectacular battles, but where do they take you?
As you’ve already noted, up to this point we’ve been talking about the game in its execution in terms of its system, but how’s the narrative doing? This is where the question may or may not keep you from making an investment after this Square Enix launch. Let’s just say that the story takes a long time to take shape.
At first everything feels very clear: You are going to defeat Chaos! But how do you eat? where do you live? Why is everyone hiding it or not wanting to tell you exactly what’s going on in this world full of Final Fantasy references? All that mystery at one point feels entertaining, but then you feel like there’s a lot of combat and little development.
Of course, the animations, the dialogues, the character design bring Square Enix’s seal everywhere, but something doesn’t quite add up after several hours of play. You feel like you’re breaking your heart for each of the scenarios, but you never see the light at the end of the tunnel until a certain point when the story makes sense.
Said moment manifests itself in a ridiculous or unnecessary way, but as I mentioned at the beginning of this review, perhaps Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin It is not a title that you should take so seriously when its objective is another.
A huge world full of scenarios and missions
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin It’s not open world, it’s like Nioh where you visit certain points on a map where there’s a main quest and optionally a side quest. They are linear scenarios with more than one path and points to save and recover magic and health points.
The design is very light and full of details, the problem is that it is too dark and details can be lost. Each of these sites and their respective bosses reference classic Final Fantasy and sometimes spin-offs. All this happens for the sole reason of celebrating one of Square Enix’s most successful series.
Although the places can be varied, the enemies are somewhat repetitive and these can be somewhat tedious. A huge worm that you ran into in one scenario can come out in the other or if you have pirates in one castle, there are soldiers in the other, but you will always run into a dark “shadow” that will corner you to cast spells on you.
This situation combined with the game mechanics can make the experience tedious. If it weren’t for the fact that there is a real challenge in each of the scenarios, you wouldn’t come back to level up the jobs and discover more special moves.
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Technically it fails a lot
While the game’s stage designs, enemies, and protagonists look great, the game is riddled with bugs that make the experience feel far from next-gen, at least on PS5.
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin It’s not a stable game when you choose to have higher frames per second instead of 4K images. AI characters can get stuck in space on your stage and suddenly you’ll see a few glitches here and there.
Although it is not something constant, there will be very clear moments where everything beautiful is diminished with so many technical details that they must receive one or more patches to stabilize Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin at least in his version of the PS5.
From then on, the music, the voice acting and even the translation were fine. Even on more than one occasion you will feel that Jack Garland really wants to take revenge as the Bat Man in The Batman, but there are other times when the game looks very ugly and leaves much to be desired. With all this established, we must now ask ourselves…
Should you buy Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin?
At the time of writing this review, Square Enix kicks off the celebrations to throw the party together and applaud 35 years of Final Fantasy’s existence. Yes, there we have the remasters to remember the games of yesteryear, but, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin it is a different work to pay tribute to a series that will have more games in the very near future.
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin it is absurd, daring and very entertaining, but its story takes a long time to start and that affects the gaming experience. Not that you should take it so seriously. The references and the combat system keep you glued to the screen for the challenge, however, the narrative could be better and much more rewarding.
This game is a very good option if you are going to celebrate Final Fantasy for its 35 years, but the best thing you can do is wait until you find the best offer and not pay more than 1,100 MXN for this title that is available on PS4 and PS5.
We played Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin on PS5 with a code provided by a Square Enix representative in our region.
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