"I'LL CRUSH YOU"

~me to ANYONE who talks shit about jack garland in any fucking capacity. the protagonist to surpass caim has arrived

EDIT:

ok here's an actual review - this is the best action game to come out in well over a decade. play on hard with party disabled and you'll have a thoroughly challenging experience with some of the best boss design the genre's seen period. come for the stellar combat; stay for more of it plus a godlike narrative. jack garland IS the best protagonist in ff

and he did it HIS way

Jack is not the first Final Fantasy character to acknowledge the existence of the word Fuck (that would be Prompto in XV Episode Duscae).

But he is the first Final Fantasy character to audibly vocalise the word Fuck and that's the kind of representation I'm looking for in video games.

What I'm saying is they need to let Aerith say the Fuck word in VIIR2.

Loot, out of place sidequests, the weirdest decisions at the most crucial cutscenes, keeping everyone dressed up during the most dramatic events (poor souls that don’t disable visible headgear and have to stare to a close up of a helmet or the dumbest mask), and yet…

The action has some good fundamentals in order to keep you active and managing space, but if it stays fresh for the whole game it is because of the combination of the different variations. Small gimmicks in every mission, trying new jobs, some slight changes in the enemies that may not seem that much but end up making you plan some new strategies, specially when the placement is a little thought out, and why not, infinite comboing against the wall your least liked monster with your friends, never gets old. And bosses don’t fall behind, they often take the highlight, a good arsenal to cover all the surroundings and distances, barely taking any breath between an attack and the next, good luck finding an opening.

And what a bunch, three thirty-something years old join with two twenty-something years old to play the most visually overdesigned sci fi dungeons and dragons campaign ever. The IA distracting the boss when you need a rest, trying to keep every distraction away from your target, helping you to not drop the staggering… Not anything never seen nor complex, but always very present while fighting side by side nonetheless, giving more strength to every chit chat, to every dialogue, to every fist bump. The Warriors of Light… not, they don’t fit that role no matter which side they are viewed on, that prophecy would materialize later. What is the role of the outcasts forced to complete a prophecy that not even they understand? The biggest merit of the narrative is that even with the amount of giant obstacles that it likes to place arbitrarily, you never leave Jack's resolve, a guy that speaks in punches, and me backing up every single hit thrown. To fight with all that he has for what he knows is right, no matter the cost, with Ash, Jed, Neon and Sophia on his side, even if the role of the heroes is for another group. Finding their way to make it work.

You’ve got to be crazy if you want to change the world.

Well, I did it.

I 100%ed Stranger of Paradise (all of the achievements anyway).

This epilogue to my initial experience taught me a lot of things, mostly that the Soul Shield is an incredible ability and something I should have touched upon more in my initial review is that it allows you to steal certain enemy abilities for instant use.

This technique essentially makes every class in the game have the subclass of Blue Mage, whose signature ability was copying enemy attacks. I love the Blue Mage and being able to basically always be that class is one of the most fun experiences I've had.

I played a lot of the Sage class and I have to say that Magic is extremely good in this game, I think the charging time is a good balance for just how powerful fully maxed spells are, and you can always cancel the charge into a Soul Shield or Dodge in the heat of battle, so you're never truly locked.

This is definitely the most fun I've had this year, and though the final achievement of grinding a single job to Level 99 was exhausting, I still think this entire experience was worth it.

I apologize if this review is a little less on the in depth side, but this is more of an epilogue than anything.

Jack, you are truly my favorite Final Fantasy protagonist, and it's unfortunate that this game has not been selling well.

Please, please give this game a shot. I swear, it's not just an ironic memefest, it is artwork at its purest form. A genuine, truly mystifying experience.

If you only play Jack's game once, you know that it's a 7/10. If you play it twice, you know that it's one of the greatest character action games ever made.

I mostly play games to the credits, and then I stop. My reasoning for this is that if I see the credits of any given work, then the creator is signaling to me that the work is now over. It's a pretty good system, largely because creators seem to be on the same page as me; the most they'll usually include is something like a post-credits scene, or maybe a New Game Plus option if they're feeling especially daring. Stranger of Paradise offers a post-game with a decent wealth of side missions to take on, but I never felt any real need to dig into them. I saw credits, after all. The game was over, and everything after this was just a bonus for those who desperately needed more and didn't feel like starting a new run from scratch. I imagine that this is how most people experienced Stranger of Paradise, and I similarly imagine that this is why most people seem to agree that Stranger of Paradise is good. Not great, not awful, just good.

Stranger of Paradise doesn't do a good enough job at incentivizing you to use even a quarter of the tools you have available until the DLCs, which I think is a shame. You can easily cruise through the entire base game with any job on Hard by hitting the Optimize Equipment button every now and then. There's really very little that you need to do to roll credits. I suppose it's good for encouraging the player to learn their fundamentals — blocking, dodging, parrying, learning when it's safe to hit and when you need to back off — but I don't see much of a reason why they're given the entire length of the base game to do it. Stranger of Paradise certainly doesn't start when you get into the DLC, but it opens up so much when you do that you may as well be playing a completely different game.

Suddenly everything matters. Everything. Gear now requires you to balance affinities and blessings and attached skills rather than just picking whatever has the highest level appended to hit. The smithy becomes something that you actually use, forcing you to swap affinities and skills around while upgrading the gear that you've got to be better at everything it does. Figuring out a command ability rotation you can bust out during fights to keep your buffs going is critical. You get three Lightbringer forms instead of just one, and you need to be making regular use of them to beat the highest-tier enemies. Job levels get capped at 300 up from 30, and each level beyond 30 gives you a master point that you can allocate into extra stats to create a myriad of different builds even within the same job. The game stops playing fair, and it similarly demands that you stop playing fair. You will struggle, wonder how the fuck anyone is ever supposed to do whatever is walling you, figure out that the trick is based on some mechanic that you haven't been making use of until this point, develop an understanding of that mechanic, and then use it to win. You repeat this until Jack becomes an unstoppable beast and you break the balance in half over your knee, and the game immediately ends with a message of congratulations.

Stranger of Paradise might be the mechanically deepest character action game I've ever played, but it rolls out all of its mechanics masterfully over the course of the base game and its three DLCs. You never really stop learning until the end of the third expansion, but it never feels overwhelming. Struggling with the Dragon Trials? Learn how to balance affinities and allocate your job's side-upgrades. Struggling in the rift? Learn how to play around with the smithy's tools and identify relic gear. Struggling against the final boss of the rift? Learn how to use Dimension Bringer. Struggling in the final zone? Learn how to work blessings into your build. I didn't even know that you could parry until about fifteen hours in, but it eventually became the cornerstone of my entire final setup.

I said it earlier in my review for Sekiro, but you can boil most action games down to one of either slow or fast, and one of either simple or complex. Fast and simple is my least favorite combination. Fast and complex is my most. Stranger of Paradise is kind of fast and ridiculously complex, and is accordingly one of the best action games I've ever experienced. Rare is it to find a game that's as fun to play as it is to break. Your reward for struggling through the past thirty hours of the game is to attain borderline godhood just in time for it to end (provided that you didn't use Extra Mode to cheat your way through most of it), and it's a wonderful capstone to a delightful playthrough.

Of course, the gameplay is far from the only thing that managed to slip its hooks into me. The fact that I can describe the narrative as "a post-modern take on how nostalgia shapes our memories as viewed through the lens of Final Fantasy setpieces" and not be incorrect is ridiculous. This is the killing Chaos game! This is the bullshit game! This is the game where Jack turns on his iPod and plays nu-metal and then walks away! How the fuck is this serious? How can you describe it as anything other than blunted edge, more resembling Shadow the Hedgehog than Paradise Lost?

The key here is intention. Jack is a completely one-dimensional edgelord. However, he wasn't always that way; it's only by seeing everything through to the end that you get to see the full picture of who Jack really is — who he used to be, at least — before he gave himself completely over to his quest for revenge. There's something about your first playthrough that'll make you feel like the writing is bad, because it plays into a lot of very basic, newbie pitfalls; everyone always talks as if they know exactly what's going on, leaving the player feeling mostly bewildered at every development. Everyone seems to know something that you don't, which makes all of the characters have this sort-of alien quality to them that you often see in stories that are poorly-written. However, that's exactly the point. Everyone else in your party knows exactly what's going on, and, as the player avatar, he's about as confused about all of this shit as you are. It's only by the time the game ends that you're filled in on all of the details, and it largely feels like an asspull the first time you play it through. Go through the game a second time with the knowledge that you now have, and a lot of what seemed like bad writing from the outset reveals itself to be secretly masterful all along. You and Jack just didn't know it yet.

It's remarkable that Stranger of Paradise has as much to say as it does, while never managing to get in its own way. Many players will breeze through it, never engage with the deeper narrative hooks — why would they, right? — and walk away feeling as though they got a pretty decent experience. In a way, that's admirable. Stranger of Paradise doesn't grab you by the shoulders and scream in your face that you need to equip this job with this gearset for this boss to understand this plot thread to appreciate this bit of story. It gives you a lot of leniency to overlook all of that in a way that makes me feel bad for not playing closer attention to it on my first time through. I feel like I've failed Stranger of Paradise, in a way, and this is the best way for me to make things up to it.

If you've only played it once, I don't have strong enough words to beg you to play it a second time. Take what you know, everything you've learned your first time through, and bring it with you again. Re-enter the cycle, just as Jack has done hundreds of times over, and realize why the Lufenians felt it so important to make sure you don't get to keep your memories when you start over. It's because your knowledge will make you more powerful that anyone could have expected.

I don't give a fuck who you are.

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin

Não é lá o título mais sofisticado huh? Primeiramente, eu ainda não joguei o primeiro Final Fantasy, minha vontade de jogá-lo é mais curiosidade histórica do que vontade genuína, se trata mais do fato de ver como essa franquia maravilhosa começou.

Eu não sabia bem o que esperar do jogo, assim como todo jogo que tem ''Final Fantasy'' em seu título, já esperamos uma história grandiosa e memorável, o gameplay muitas vezes pode ser tolarado se o plot for engajante. Um exemplo é o Final Fantasy VIII, eu acho o gameplay dele um dos maiores crimes já cometidos pela humanidade, mas seu plot absurdo e mirabolante junto com a trilha sonora de outro mundo do mestre Nobuo Uematsu carregam o jogo deixando o saldo final positivo. Engraçado que aqui com o Paradise, em 20 minutos de jogo eu já pude ter uma noção de como a história seria e desisti de esperar algo dela. Dialógos sem pé nem cabeça, personagens com o carisma de um casco de tartaruga, cenas patéticas e ridículas, atitudes artificais e sem sentido, mas cara... esse jogo tem uma vibe diferente, todos esses pontos que poderiam ser algo comprometedor, eu acabei encarando como algo divertido. Como eu já tinha esquecido de esperar algo dessa história, eu só fui acompanhando a história de Jack & Cia. A história não é nada engajante, os personagens não cativam, e há um momento no jogo que poderia ter uma baita bagagem emocional se eu me importasse o suficiente com esses personagens rasos e sem carisma, mas porque eu não consigo desgostar desse jogo e ficar revoltado com a péssima escrita de seu plot? A história é uma bomba mas eu não consigo ficar bravo... é bizarro. Será pela nosltagia que o jogo evoca fazendo vários callbacks a outros jogos da franquia? Talvez, mas muito desse saldo positivo vem pelo seu gameplay extremamente divertido, que é o completo inverso do exemplo anterior.

Ele é uma espécie de soulslike, com checkpoints servindo como bonfires e missões selecionadas a partir de um mapa. Todas são dungeons lineares e cada uma inspirada em dungeons de cada um dos 15 jogos da franquia (que agora é 16 mas..) A ideia é legal, mas a maioria das escolhas acabaram sendo um desperdício, pra cada uma dungeon visualmente linda, vem uma esquecível. O sistema de jobs é rico e vasto, com vários e vários estilos de jogo diferentes, o jogo realmente brilha em seu combate, me peguei zerando o jogo mais rápido do que esperava visto o quanto ele era divertido. O sistema de loot inicialmente é bacana, mas com o tempo vai ficando absurdamente redundante visto o quanto de loot os inimigos dropam, você raramente vai passar mais de 5 minutos com o mesmo equipamento, era sempre indo na auto-seleção dos equipamentos mais fortes toda hora no menu. As boss battles são magníficas, apesar de eu ter passado uma dor de cabeça com uns 4 bosses apenas, todos as batalhas foram divertidas e o visual dos chefes são absurdo de caprichados, os inimigos comuns são muito bacanas também, embora eu ache que faltou um pouco mais de variedade já que a quantidade deles não é lá a maior. O jogo tem uma dificuldade justa no padrão, mas ele te incentiva muito a rejogar em dificuldades maiores, visto que a dificuldade ''Chaos'' que é a mais díficil só é destravada quando se zera o jogo. Não sei se vou ter saco pra platina agora visto o quão redondinha e bem cadenciada minha experiência com o jogo foi, mas é um jogo com bastante conteúdo.

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin é um jogo com uma história bombástica, chegando até a ser risível, sem sentido e as vezes pátética de quão mal executada ela é, embora eu não a tenha achado ofensivamente ruim. Acho que seu gameplay bem divertido conseguiu sustentar o jogo do começo ao fim pra mim, entregando um saldo mais do que positivo.

In an ideal world, the term "remake" wouldn't be used to refer to games that are just a pre-existing one without a lot of the eccentricities that made it what it is but rather unique reinterpretations in a completely different genre with the gall to make choices as unhinged as making the new protagonist say "Bullshit" and blast a song on his phone that people were tricked into thinking was Limp Bizkit and turning the boss fight you probably forgot about into a fleshed out doomed yaoi storyline. Stranger of Paradise's journey from another nail in an already disappointing E3 to a source of ironic humor to a game sincerely enjoyed by most of those who played it was truly something special and I'm glad I was along for the ride. Every issue I had with the game (the awful loot system, how often it feels like repeating the same lines of dialogue in gameplay sections, etc.) was already outweighed by the sincere charm it has as this weird reinterpretation of one of the most formative works in the RPG genre but man did it stick the landing in that final act. I'm just sitting here trying to process the sheer amount of peak fiction I was hit with in quick succession.

Spent most of my play time wondering how everyone I've ever met or thought about gave this a 7/10, only to hit the point in the game where it goes "Let's get this shit over with" and flips everything on its head in the last 10% of the campaign. I stand corrected. This is what a 7/10 looks like.

But son, let me tell you right now, there is nothing better than shoulder-slam-express-mailing some stupid goblin into a wall at highway speeds. Actually, there is, and it's using the Gambler passive (making people leave the lobby) until someone sticks around long enough to let me play blackjack in the middle of their boss fight. The combat's just good, there's so much room for creativity and skill expression with the way you can mix and match skills and weapons and jobs and use the unique properties of these attacks and their "cancels" to fly through the levels like a caffeinated hurricane of blades and magic and bullets.

Jack rocks. Dude cares about one (1) thing. Talking about the past? Talking about the MacGuffin? Pipe down, pencil-neck. If it's not about killing Chaos I'm not hearing it. Multiplayer is actually made better by forcing the other players to dress up as your party members - watching Jed and Ash bop around the stage with you in a way that makes them feel like people instead of Pikmin. But, uh, just one thing. A lot of things, actually-

Why does Sophia show up and then only talk like twice? Why are the "quick" versions of the executions on normal enemies still 45 minutes long? Why is it so hard to see anything on some of these levels? This bloom got me feeling like it's 2008 again. Why is there NO gear variety? Why is auto-dismantling located in system settings when I've gotta update it every sixteen seconds? Why is the level design so... unambitious? What's up with that framerate? Why is the last act paced like that?

To be clear, I like more than just the combat - there are so many little things they get right that keep the flaws from sinking the whole project (despite the pacing, I like the plot, I like Kenjiro Tsuda, I love the soundtrack, I could go on). Can't say I'm smitten with it or anything but when it works, it really, really works. That pacing issue just keeps rearing its head when I think about this game though, how it feels like the game ultimately just gives up on proper execution of plot beats and goes "here's 'end game', this is what you're here for, right?" and drops you back into the menus assuming that you'll figure it out. Not really sure that the game holds up to that endgame grind either, unless we're giving bosses new attacks - the red/purple attack system is a little too generous to the player when the bosses already telegraph their moves so far in advance.

I love that we finally have a soulsy action game that turns your defensive options alone into a whole new category of risk/reward system that I've never quite seen before like this. Choosing between parry, soul shield, dodging and avoidance through abilities for every enemy attack while managing the break meter is the most fun I had with defense in a game period. I also love that this game finally does away with the stamina paradigm of many of its contemporaries and introduces this different kind of active resource management that feels fresh and exciting. The combat as a whole doesn't have the depth of Nioh 2's combat, but it is satisfying for many hours all the same. You can make up so many fundamentally different strategies for every challenge this game throws at you, and while that does throw balancing out of the window for some of them I would much have this breadth of choices that I can mix and match through the job system to create my own depth rather than every boss having the "adequate" difficulty. You know you made a soulslike game fun when the magic casters are a) viable and b) make you think rather than just spamming spells. Speaking of, the MP system (getting more max MP through soul shield) is also very smart, because it plays into the aforementioned strong defensive options while giving casters a strong reason to move in.

The story is a cool subversion of the classic Final Fantasy tropes, the game is a heartfelt love letter to the series in its music and visual design.

Also, there are both a banger Dubstep and a DnB remix of FF5 music on this OST, so this is an instant 5/5 stars

It’s a mercy to forget, but you shouldn’t forget Jack’s game. Sweet music, a story that ends up being surprisingly affecting by the end and an accessible yet slick combat system all add up to form a legit great ARPG that’s much more than what the post-post-ironic meme culture surrounding it would have you believe. Comparisons to Nioh are easy, but leaving it there would be reductive; Stranger of Paradise has plenty of ideas that help it stand on its own two feet and which I’d like to see carried forward into future iterations of this genre.

The star of the show is probably the job cancelling system. Being able to instantly cancel special moves by switching to another job makes combat a real sandbox for creativity – the first time I remember instinctively saying “oh shit” out loud was when I scooped up a bunch of enemies with Aeroga, switched to Ronin and wiped them all out with one fully charged slash that would’ve left me vulnerable otherwise, but that kind of thing is only really scratching the surface of what’s possible. Throw in one of the more fun magic systems this side of Dark Messiah, customisation of your combo trees and party members, experimenting with enemies’ hit reactions (like launching them into the air or splatting them against walls), directional attacks, stealing enemies’ attacks like a human Kirby, etc. and you’ve got a really robust set of mechanics that invite replays just by virtue of how much variety’s on offer.

In particular, I like what an emphasis Stranger of Paradise puts on positioning. Soul bursting an enemy causes a small AOE explosion that damages nearby enemies’ break gauges and sends them flying, which gives you more to think about in terms of timing than just exploiting i-frames. Inputting a direction when you job cancel makes Jack dodge in that direction, which can and will often save your ass in a pinch on top of giving you the drop on your opponent (accentuated by the fact that you get automatic crits when hitting an enemy from behind). Bosses tend to have a specific body part or other quirk that can crippled in some way, rewarding you for being in the right place at the right time by staggering them or occasionally disabling some of their more troublesome moves. All good stuff that gives you a bunch to consider when it comes to the simple act of just moving around.

Anyway, how’s the music? I mean, good God. How am I supposed to not like a game that’s launching an all-out assault on my eardrums with a constant stream of phat beats like this, or this, or this? It’s sick, in other words, but it offers more types of tunes than even these. I’m a big fan of the Nier-esque choir that kicks in during the fight with Tiamat, for example, or the watery acoustic guitars that string you along through the two forest levels. Mizuta & co. knocked it out of the park.

I won’t give much away story-wise, because the whole second half really deserves to be experienced yourself, but I will say it’s nice to have one that gets better as it goes along for a change. By the end of Stranger of Paradise, which is well executed enough that even the initially weird timeskip at the very beginning starts to make sense, I was more eager to see what came next than with most modern games I’ve played which got a lot of praise specifically for their stories. Part of the credit for this surely goes to the voice actors, most of whom are surprisingly relatively new to the industry, because I can’t imagine Jack & f(r)iends with any voices other than the ones they have. Mocean Melvin in particular said he made a point of researching Final Fantasy to really sell his role, and I think it shows. Case in point: Lich's introductory cutscene is already legendary, and anyone who's played up to that point will know what I'm talking about.

This isn't all to say that Stranger of Paradise doesn’t have a few issues, of course. In contrast to internet hyperbole, the level design never really dips below ‘functional,’ but it could still stand to be a bit more interesting. 150+ hours on the PS3 version of Dragon’s Dogma has made me basically immune to caring about framerates, but it’s still worth mentioning that SoP is a little wonky in that regard (though never to the point where it affects parrying). Visually, it would’ve helped if the contrast had been dialled down a smidge too – I sometimes found it hard to see where I was going in the (still good) penultimate level in particular before I eventually caved and turned the brightness up.

Overall, though, it’s too enjoyable in too many ways for this stuff to weigh it down much. And it’s got heart, dagnabbit. Did you know that despite being introduced in FF2, Amano drew concept art of a Behemoth for FF1, which until recently was the only instance of it ever having wings? And then along comes Stranger of Paradise, FF1 prequel-sequel-reimagining extraordinaire, featuring a Behemoth with wings? Bellissimo, says I. A thousand chef’s kisses. That's not all in the way of small, lovingly crafted details either - pay attention to the colour of Jack's hand as he finishes off the final boss.

Between NEO TWEWY and this, I can only hope Square keep hold of whoever is greenlighting all these poorly marketed but really good ARPGs that feel tailor-made to my tastes. If Stranger of Paradise’s DLCs are at all comparable to the Niohs’ quality-wise, it’ll only keep going higher in my estimation and it’s already pretty up there. Can’t wait to see more of Jack’s antics, whether there or in future spinoffs (fingers crossed).

Until then, goodbye... Jack.

Marvelous duality to everything here. The story from the ground up is my shit, with the world surrounding Jack being a perilous shell of other FF games bereft of context as we are complete strangers to this place, both textually and metatextually. Haunting, unfeeling, then recontextualized at last in the end to these ghosts looking towards Paradise we say a mighty fuck you to. And on the other side, probably the most frustratingly dull interior and exterior for the vast vast majority of its time spent playing.

I'm not one to give props to being "intentionally" sludge, as in, I wanted to buy that maybe this gripping sense that Team Ninja simply Did Not Give a single SHIT past what they were asked to is an Intentional choice. But no I really think it brings everything down, as much as emulating the FF feel is nice the "variety" is genuinely smokescreen. Options between classes blend together real quick without much uniqueness to them, even with a kinesthetically sound toolset to all of them too much boils together into tedium. In hindsight, part of this is my fault for playing Monster Hunter at the same time as this, which pretty much takes the uh, for the sake of levity let's call it the 'soulsborne' system of whiff punishing, to an actually fantastic conclusion. Even beyond that though, somebody else mentioned it that, Nioh was never THIS bad. Nioh was never THIS tiring and boring. Even when upping the difficulty to hard and losing the party assist (which, tbh, i never used it anyway but needed to take away the temptation), things formulate too much together. The most praiseworthy aspect of the design is in its bosses but even that comes with a lot of caveats, as so many of them, almost all of them really, limit themselves with their pre-ordained telegraphing. In that the purple-orange-red system is bluntly, a fucked system that pretty much lowers the ceiling tremendously on what a boss's attacks and moves are capable of!!! After Tiamat the game might as well have ended, because once my head entered the rhythm that is how to respond to every single one of these attacks, nothing else ever puts a wrench in it.

Additionally, this project could not have had less caring hands on it for the lead-up to those final couple hours. Not so much in a budgetary way, but more so in a "this is a first draft, and it shows!!!" Found myself a lot of the time script doctoring how I could've paced so many of these elements better, because there's so little to emotionally buy into. And no it's not like that Is the idea, the last hour or so is absolutely riding on that payoff ludicrously.

So, something something duality, two teams who conceptually MAY have been a match made in heaven rather turned the whole thing into a smushed together crust that formulates only barely by the strength of some of its parts rather than the sum. I don't know, I really do love high concept stuff, I really really really really love Nomura's markings and pullings here, the futurism and its cracks and Jack's very multifaceted awakening! Maybe my standards have simply been put too high to accept a very good story told super terribly. I wanted to be floored, I was rooting and hollering for Jack but he just said meh and walked off. And you know what, I somehow enjoyed this a good deal overall.
So good for him, good for him. Respect.

this game is a lot smarter than a lot of people will ultimately give it credit for. it's a perfect anniversary game, a metatextual remake of the original final fantasy in the general shape of a 'soulslike' (though it's much easier than any souls game ive played past the first boss). its an anti-jrpg masquerading as a straight jrpg, looping around to being a straight jrpg masquerading as an anti-jrpg, a polemic of jrpgs, and a polemic of polemics of jrpgs (particularly obvious in the character writing, and when i say jrpg here im mostly referring to the narrative and stylistic conventions of the form rather than their ludoexpression which this game doesnt really touch upon being a straightforward action game). there's layers. it's sadly buried under a very poor first impression narratively speaking, which might put some (many) people in the position of "this game is sincerely incompetent and is funny because of it", and i think that's a shame, almost every scene thats been mocked on twitter has been intentionally constructed to be puzzling and off-sounding, to tick one off into thinking deeper as to the whys, and others (the so-called limp bizkit scene) are genuine attempts at humour. so while i think the game's poor initial impressions do not help, it will be eyebrow raising to me if someone plays through this whole thing and doesn't realise the game and the developers are in on the 'trick' (it's not purely a joke). very wonderful game.

Unpleasant by design, and, but, hauntingly beautiful. There seems little point in mastering the (very) difficult combat when it's all in the service of something so fragmented, maddening. For Jack It's like a hunger, a thirst, and for us it's an endless grind that doesn't even have the decency to feel continuous. Princess Sarah looks at Jack's face You have more scars — and so within the world of Stranger of Paradise he's an enduring Jack that rises and falls and comes back insistent. But to the player he's a wind-up toy, materialising in spaces, soaking himself in blood, repeating phrases, and dematerialising again. The central hub is only the menus available in the world map; the world map, stripped of navigation, is only the holographic top-layer. Every level is a different Jack with the same programmed phrases, the same lost memories, the same vague sense that if he gets to the end of this tunnel maybe this will be the last one. But over and over another appears at the end, a hollow shell reproduction from another Final Fantasy stripped of context and placed within the amnesiac Stranger of Paradise. The context without context. The origin without origin.

The will to remake something is the nostalgic return to Paradise. That timeless time where everything was okay and every new thing seemed to open a horizon for future discovery. Notably, beginning with Kingdom Hearts, it's Testsuya Nomura who has been elected custodian of Paradise: the one evoked by childhood memories of Disney, and Final Fantasy's turn of the millennium futurist spectacle. It's also Nomura who is chiefly concerned with the fact that terrestrial Paradise is an impossibility that only reveals itself in hindsight. To have the tools with which to recognise Paradise is to find oneself on the other side of the Fall, only now with the ungraspable that one cannot let go of lodged into the heart like a wound or like a chasm. Many speak of the opening of Final Fantasy VII as one of those rare moments where the future was here and everything felt possible, and so they cast the infinite promise once experienced within the language of nostalgia, which is the romance of the past's finitude. Note this paradox, because this is the difference between Paradise as another name for Eden, and Paradise as the thing that comes later. One unfolds hopeful into the unknown, and the other retracts, chasing only that originary feeling of the infinite. Nomura will simulate this feeling in Final Fantasy VII Remake, but then he will tell you that it stops there because this is only the simulation of a feeling. While you can simulate the idea of Paradise as much as you desire through each new generation of technology, terrestrial Paradise as you know it is gone.

The Paradise we now desire is not the arrival of the future but the prelapsarian point of origin. Nomura's rejection of Paradise is that of the Origin, because he knows that under these conditions if Paradise were to arrive, we, ever occupied by the unrecoverable origin, would be Strangers to it. And so what he does is present the Origin but fills it with ghosts who recognise that this is not the real Origin, because they have already been here, a hundred times before. Working within the repetition of simulation immanent to the videogame system, the Paradise we desire remains outside of what can readily be simulated. This is why Nomura's pursuit of futurity is so optimistic, even if it means campy iconoclasm. The game system must become unbearable in its inability to deliver us to Paradise, and then it must self-destruct in order to reveal the gap where Paradise may enter.

The soul of Final Fantasy, It's never a mercy to forget

In an era where video games have extremely super serious narratives, deeply complex characters and extremely dense world building comes a game like Stranger of Paradise that comes in like a breath of fresh air of a bygone era of Square's history. A new vision for Final Fantasy that comes closer to what it actually is than you might think too as Team Ninja manages to do the Final Fantasy name in good service here with the great and engaging gameplay, great soundtrack, the narrative that takes its time but pays off in spades and a one note protagonist with one of the roughest exteriors with a lot of heart: Jack Garland.

I've never really played any of Team Ninja's action games beforehand but I can say I love the pacing of the combat and how responsive it is. A less methodical approach and rewards perfect reaction: the mechanics all work in tandem and when it clicks, it truly clicks. Soul shielding is one of the most rewarding parrying mechanics along with it being pretty easy to use too which lets people that aren't versed in action games a feeling of accomplishment when you pull them off perfectly. I haven't really paid much attention to gearing in my playthrough but it'll probably be more important in the "endgame" activities but the loot system works like a traditional one seen in most games these days with enemies dropping loot with colored rarities. The job system which actually seen in much in Final Fantasy anymore makes a return here and the number of jobs and weapons is staggering. Almost every iconic job here bringing something different to the table with unique abilities each to the point I'm actually surprised they pulled off mages in an action game pretty well. The soundtrack is overall great here with some remixes to old familiar songs from the Final Fantasy series if you can hear them out and some of the combat themes remind me of XIII's music with the way the strings present themselves (you'll see in the main combat theme and the first boss fight). The story doesn't actually deliver much but it does deliver things in fragments but then when it all comes together makes for one of the best endings in a game and something you'll love if you played the original Final Fantasy and with that said, I really do recommend playing the first Final Fantasy to get the most of this story because what you'll appreciate here is really good and for someone that hasn't played it or at least know the premise, a lot of it will be lost on you.

One thing I'm sorta disappointed about is the levels in this game. As you may or may not know, each level or area in the game is based on a previous Final Fantasy title. While the areas visually look good, the levels themselves are sorta disappointing in terms of seeing them not as realized and not giving as much fan service as this title was willing to utilize areas from the previous final fantasies. I was hoping for a little bit more or some unique monsters from each game but the game other than the passing dialogue mentioning each area. I don't really care about graphics but the PC port is pretty bad and for what it gives, it's not worth the tradeoff at all but in my personal experience, I only really had slowdowns during the executions so it never really impacted my gameplay and the game ran at a smooth sixty frames a second 95% of the time but it's still not excusable so it's something to keep in mind. I still think the story is great but it does keep its cards close to its chest to the point some people might find it lacking for a good while and I can understand that even though the ending made up for it and especially if you're a Final Fantasy fan.

Stranger of Paradise isn't a perfect game and it won't be for everyone but honestly what is here is a fun action game in the end of the day. The story and ending hit really hard for me to the point I can't see this game as nothing more than a celebration of what Final Fantasy has become for a lot of people. It's really rough around the edges but the heart of the series is in full force here just like with Jack Garland.

He really did it his way.

I just finished it the other day and holy shit, that last stretch of the game had so much damn emotion. I'm not afraid to admit I teared up a bit.

I really ended up caring about all the characters. Especially Neon, what an absolute cutie. Also the gameplay is really good, this game was awesome. I highly recommend that more people actually give it a chance.

Launch sales may have been weak but I'm hoping the total lifetime sales end up better when people start realizing it's actually a great game. Will probably give you a big urge to play or replay ff 1 after beating it too

Stranger of Paradise was a real sleeper hit for me. My experience with Final Fantasy has been pretty limited and Im sure im not alone when I wasnt particularly hopeful with this game from all the trailers. But I planned to get the new releases of 2022 and me and the boyfriend learned it had co-op so.. one thing led to another. And now here we are.

This game is awesome

The combat is super fun, and while the gameplay can start to get competitive, if you rotate jobs and weapons it basically never loses its charm. Co-op was also a hell of a time.

Buuuutt

Its far from perfect. The level design quite frankly is pretty shit, the locations while looking cool are very confusing to navigate, and especially the inside areas where a lot of the walls look the same. This led to us getting lost a bit too often, but usually the levels were still fun enough to explore that this wasnt a big bother. The story is well... its not very good! Towards the end it actually is pretty interesting and theres some good things, but most of the characters are given so little time to develop and for the story is just told so disjointedly that it made it hard for me to follow and after most cutscenes I had to ask my boyfriend to explain what just happened to me lol. (I may be stupid) The writing is pretty bad but I think this actually helps the game be a lot more enjoyable, I for the life of me cant tell if its intentional or not but the game takes itself pretty seriously and had us laughing quite a bit, its honestly a great ride. Also, the graphics just look really scuffed on PS4, at times the quality is worse than streaming PS Now games, but thats usually only during cutscenes

Now the only thing I actively dislike about the game is some of the way Co-Op is set up. For one, in Co-Op you get to play as the other party members which is really neat, but for some reason your armor doesnt change if you're the one in co-op. Not a big deal, but other party members in solo change appearance so It was just a bit silly. Fortunately this meant i got to play as Neon with no pants for most of the playthrough. But what really irked me was the solo sections. Theres a few parts where you're forced to play solo. These were the low points for me. I dont believe the game is balanced very well for solo play, theres far too enemies on screen attacking you at once and with how much damage they do it just led to a lot of frustration especially being used to co-op. Worst for me was the final boss fight, which of course was forced solo. Now complaining about difficulty is a fickle thing, and the game gives you enough options that you can overcome anything with persistence. But this boss, it took me 4 hours. Four hours, my bf had already long seen the credits and finished the game by the time I was able to get past that. Having a mostly co-op game have a final boss like that really soured things for me, and Im disappointed my final moments with the story were bad ones.

That being said, overall this game was surprisingly enjoyable and a real treat. I had a lot of fun playing this co-op and ill treasure our time with it. Just, maybe dont play it solo.
Also it'd be a waste to not mention the pretty awesome music. Closing out with Sinatra fit really damn well

Trophy Completion - 61%
Time Played - 33 hours 43 minutes
Nancymeter - 83/100
Game Completion #46 of 2022
April Completion #15