Team Ninja / KOEI Tecmo / Square Enix
I don’t need you to feel nostalgic but I’ve got a great blast from the past. It’s called benzos and no I’m just kidding I really mean the not-new-but-new entry into the Final Fantasy franchise, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin. If you think it’s not possible to completely confuse players of Final Fantasy with straightforward gaming experiences have I got the game for you!
It’s got cactuars, it’s got behemoths, it’s got ultima, it’s got bosses that can one-shot you for no reason, and it has some inexplicable references to Gnosticism and other religious traditions that are frequently mined for story material by role-playing game developers but not like that. In other words, a meaty, tasty Final Fantasy game.
Except! And here’s what you were waiting for—EXCEPT! It’s not your papa’s Final Fantasy! Unless you’re like 20 in which case your father did indeed play the game this is based off of, Final Fantasy. The original one, so I guess it should be Final Fantasy I. Also, it’s not based off of the original Final Fantasy but the whole series.
And it’s a soulslike. I should have said that up front.
SOP:FFO is the kind of game that is exactly what you would expect but also the most confusing, confounding divergence possible. On purpose, though! In a good way. Trust. Believe. It’s actually a positive thing ultimately. Like any soulslikeborne game the story is interesting but not that interesting. Just enough story to keep you interested, a soupcon of story, if you will.
The story so far…
If you haven’t played the first entry into the Final Fantasy series let me catch you up: an avatar of the evil force of chaos invades the peaceful Kingdom of Cornelia (mm corn) and captures Princess Sarah. According to a prophecy by Lukahn, the kingdom can expect to be rescued by four so-called Warriors of Light, legendary warriors that can harness the power of the crystals and save the world. Garland, the prime evil of the game, is ultimately vanquished by the four and sent to the aetherial sea along with his four fiends.
Stranger of Paradise takes this story and in a grand homage, and I mean grand, like GRAND grand, spins a tale of how the four crystals were first put into peril and the world saved, kind of. Centering itself on the character of Jack, along with the friends he makes along the way, who make up a Plus-One coterie of legendary heroes. There’s five of them, versus four, but that doesn’t worry the would-be Warriors of Light, they take the mission upon themselves.
Getting the blessing of the King of Corneria (mm corn) you are tasked with pacifying the four crystals while defeating the four fiends and then, ultimately, the fifth evil, Garland. At this point I’m giddy because have I got a surprise cooked up for you coming up! Big surprise! But for now Jack, Neon, Ash, Jed, and Sophie confront various monsters and discover the dark elf Astos who has helpful hints on how to advance the plot.
Throughout their adventure, the fourfive Warriors of Light encounter not just classic Final Fantasy I bosses but also a variety of locales that are ripped directly from…not Final Fantasy I. As a soulslike the game advances by individualized missions in these locations, each one referencing a distinct dimension that seem to magically mirror the setting of other Final Fantasy games. The Sunken Shrine, for example, is taken from “Dimension 7” which is described as a facility for drawing energy from the planet. Makos you wonder, doesn’t it? Maw-Co, not May-Co. Other “dimensions” lending their appearance include dimensions two through fifteen but with classic Final Fantasy I dungeon titles.
Ultimately the quintet disable the crystals and their malevolent power which leads to said malevolent power surging into the world. Seas rise, fires die, winds roar, lightning does its thing—it’s all very apocalyptic and pretty much expected if you read the flavor text between missions, which I’m going to assume you didn’t actually do—or won’t, if you haven’t played this game yet.
Eventually the dark elf Astos reveals that the mysterious Lufenians are controlling the story from behind the scenes. Tasking Lufenians called “Strangers” with reestablishing balance in the world, the Lufenians want to create beauty and imperial power through the manipulation of the forces of light and dark. Wiping their memories between capital-M missions, the Lufenians use the Strangers to involve themselves in the lives of the people of different worlds while ensuring they are a blank slate for the next mission. Think Quantum Leap but with the literal most gruff character ever, Jack. Astos plays his Sam. You can search wikipedia if that reference is too dated.
Eventually, Astos comes clean about Jack’s mission, though it’s pretty obvious what’s happening after Jack continues dropping hints about what he intends to do. Jack, it seems, is going to buck his original giant-M mission and basically destroy the balance between light and dark in order to become Chaos manifest. His goal eventually clarifies into a plot to reset the world as often as necessary in order to train the four Warriors of Light to beat him, Chaos, in the form of the evil boss Garland, and remove the shackles of Lufenian intervention from the planet’s destiny.
Also Jack’s last name is Garland.
Waxing the first trial run of the Warriors of Light, the main game ends on a malevolent-seeming Garland laughing his ass off.
The first DLC for the game, Trials of the Dragon King, adds to this end game by tasking you with training with the Dragon King Bahamut in order to convince him to train future Warriors of Light to beat Garland and Chaos.
Then the DLC lets you become Bahamut and that shit’s cool.
Ok but how does it play?
Gameplay in Stranger of Paradise is the key deviation between this game and Final Fantasy I, though only by a little if you really think about it. Isolating players in a series of “jobs,” the game establishes a key bit of Final Fantasy lore and advances it in a way that stands out from the original game, and rightfully so. Jack and his crew’s jobs range from the classic Warrior and Mage classes but also new classes like Pilgrim and Evoker. New weapons include staves that allow you to launch yourself across the field to narrow distance between you and enemies and the innate ability to absorb some attacks launched at you in order to return fire with them.
Combos are standard, heavy attack plus a slash, and so forth. What those combos do, however, is extremely customizable. The sequence of attacks that you do with those heavy and light slashes can range from a Final Fantasy-classic sparkstrike to cheaper-on-the-MP versions of your regular command attacks. Economical!
Each stage is a mission of varying length with various goals and each stage can have numerous missions, something that continues to blossom in the endgame and DLC with additional side missions fleshing out the story while giving the player an opportunity to explore the stages in new ways, such as setting up a fixed number of enemies that must be defeated or requiring you to find a particular weapon hidden randomly in the stage.
Opportunities!
Stranger of Paradise is one of those games that expands a game universe in a way that is not intrusive to the base story and experience. The aforementioned “dimensions” that each stage is modeled after are literally just references to past games, for example Final Fantasy I’s Pavoka is redesigned to be modeled after Final Fantasy XIV’s Satasha Seagrot, right down to elements mirroring that game’s version like the captain’s quarters and the wolf cages. Also the sahagin everywhere.
This innovation creates a kind of opening that most Final Fantasy spin-offs can only aspire to. In this case, the use of “dimensions” and the intervention of the Lufenians makes it possible that the game can incorporate future series homages and perhaps mix the Chaos story into the back stories of other games where it really would work, like Final Fantasy VIII. Additionally, the open-ended nature of game advancement means it’s ultimately possible to create a Final Fantasy Record Keeper-type game that incorporates other series into the backstory of Final Fantasy I.
Ulti(meci)ately
Ultimately this game is a solid entry into the Final Fantasy franchise. Its deliberately varied and innovative gameplay helps expand a Final Fantasy story far beyond its original bounds into the wider world of Final Fantasy, as one should expect from the origin of the series (hence the title!).
It’s not by any means the best Final Fantasy game but it’s extremely playable and extremely fun in so many new ways.