Co-oped it and it was a funny romp.
There's a lot of great ideas here but it kinda feels like it's a 50+ hour JRPG plot hypercondensed into 12-15hrs, as a lot of big plot beats are unceremoniously dropped on your lap. Gameplay's fun but the co-op balancing is stupid, me and my friend kinda lawnmowed through almost everything save for two bosses.
I'm hoping they get another shot at this sort of formula but man I hope they're better with their plot pacing next time.
There's a lot of great ideas here but it kinda feels like it's a 50+ hour JRPG plot hypercondensed into 12-15hrs, as a lot of big plot beats are unceremoniously dropped on your lap. Gameplay's fun but the co-op balancing is stupid, me and my friend kinda lawnmowed through almost everything save for two bosses.
I'm hoping they get another shot at this sort of formula but man I hope they're better with their plot pacing next time.
I can't wrap my head around the making of this game but so blessed it was.
You haven't experienced gaming like this.
You haven't experienced gaming like this.
This was... something? Honestly, I have to say I just picked this game cause it`s a FF game, otherwise I wouldn`t come near it since soulslike games (which this game is not really that) aren`t really my thing, but at the end of the day, I think I only enjoyed it because of the fact that is not entirely a Dark Souls kinda game, but it has that Final Fantasy touch on it.
The combat, I dare say, was pretty dope. The solution the devs found to put the FF magic on this was simple: jobs. You have a whole lot of them to try out, 27 to be more precise, and even so most of them don`t really change that much the gameplay, it`s still lots of fun to give it a go using a spear and jumping as a dragoon, mixing spells and melee attacks as a sage or just blasting away powerful magics as a black mage, and this really sets aparts this game to the similar ones.
However, if you got this looking to find an intricate story just like every other FF game, i guarantee you will not find this here. The story is just bad, an utter and complete chaos (you see what I did here?), ; the dialogues are dreadful and it`s hard to guess if this game is meant to be taken seriously or not - the first scene is a bloody, dark and mysterious one and then the next starts off with a Frank Sinatra song, so it can be really confusing. My advice? Don`t take this serious at all. That way, you going to enjoy this more.
The combat, I dare say, was pretty dope. The solution the devs found to put the FF magic on this was simple: jobs. You have a whole lot of them to try out, 27 to be more precise, and even so most of them don`t really change that much the gameplay, it`s still lots of fun to give it a go using a spear and jumping as a dragoon, mixing spells and melee attacks as a sage or just blasting away powerful magics as a black mage, and this really sets aparts this game to the similar ones.
However, if you got this looking to find an intricate story just like every other FF game, i guarantee you will not find this here. The story is just bad, an utter and complete chaos (you see what I did here?), ; the dialogues are dreadful and it`s hard to guess if this game is meant to be taken seriously or not - the first scene is a bloody, dark and mysterious one and then the next starts off with a Frank Sinatra song, so it can be really confusing. My advice? Don`t take this serious at all. That way, you going to enjoy this more.
Mejor juego de lo que dice la gente,buen final fantasy a lo nioh
Easily THE best FF spin-off ever made.
(NOTE: FFT: WotL is technically a spin-off, even though that transcends almost all video games. It's on a different plane of existence.)
From the start, this game is dripping in earnestly self-aware schlock and it never lets off the pedal. Nearly every line of dialogue is hilarious, the plot goes into nonsensical (but fun!) directions, the performances largely sell it, and Jack is so entertainingly single-minded in his mission that he loops back around to being a fascinating character.
Team Ninja knew what they were doing, and they stuck the landing. Hour one I was hooked, and by hour 34 I genuinely loved where the story went--even if I barely understood it--and now Jack stands firm as one of my favorite protagonists ever but his sheer Fuck You energy. I do wish he played more music in his earbuds, though.
The gameplay is about what you expect from Team Ninja's Nioh, but with some twists, for better or worse.
For starters, there's no stamina management at all. You can dodge as often as you need, and swinging any weapon doesn't deplete any gauges. However, it is largely balanced out by the MP gauge, which is used for spells, special attack, and combo finishers.
This goes up as you play the level, but goes down as you die, making bosses a fun tug-and-pull of giving you an abundance of power at the first try, but making you weaker if you keep dying. This sounds terrible at first, but think of it as a "the first time's free" trial run allowing you see the mechanics wholly, afterwards you need to use that knowledge to act smarter in subsequent tries.
However, you might not need many tries as this game is shockingly easy on Normal difficulty. Enemies rarely pose a challenge, the environment isn't often littered with traps and instant-kills, and even the early bosses are pushovers. It doesn't help that you have 2 party members at all times that can draw aggro, demolish break gauges, and even heal and buff you later on.
Still, being easy or difficult is hardly the point, and you can up the challenge if you want: mostly, you'll want to experiment with the 35(!) different jobs, level them up, play around with skills, weapons, armors, and so forth. Unlocking advanced and even expert jobs always feels good, and they even let you use materials to level up jobs you'd otherwise never want to play, like a Marksman or Mage, removing a lot of grind that could've potentially been there if you want to see it all.
That said, don't be completely fooled. Some bosses and enemies pose a healthy challenge, particularly towards the end. Damage flows freely both ways, and you can often panic at even a single hit.
You also don't lose anything upon death, not a grain of resource, so you can throw your head at a boss as often as you like.
Once the credits rolled, I needed more. I can't wait to see what the DLC has, and even so, I want to max out all the incredibly fun classes I have yet to touch. Hell, I think I'll even play FF1 after this, the sequel.
(NOTE: FFT: WotL is technically a spin-off, even though that transcends almost all video games. It's on a different plane of existence.)
From the start, this game is dripping in earnestly self-aware schlock and it never lets off the pedal. Nearly every line of dialogue is hilarious, the plot goes into nonsensical (but fun!) directions, the performances largely sell it, and Jack is so entertainingly single-minded in his mission that he loops back around to being a fascinating character.
Team Ninja knew what they were doing, and they stuck the landing. Hour one I was hooked, and by hour 34 I genuinely loved where the story went--even if I barely understood it--and now Jack stands firm as one of my favorite protagonists ever but his sheer Fuck You energy. I do wish he played more music in his earbuds, though.
The gameplay is about what you expect from Team Ninja's Nioh, but with some twists, for better or worse.
For starters, there's no stamina management at all. You can dodge as often as you need, and swinging any weapon doesn't deplete any gauges. However, it is largely balanced out by the MP gauge, which is used for spells, special attack, and combo finishers.
This goes up as you play the level, but goes down as you die, making bosses a fun tug-and-pull of giving you an abundance of power at the first try, but making you weaker if you keep dying. This sounds terrible at first, but think of it as a "the first time's free" trial run allowing you see the mechanics wholly, afterwards you need to use that knowledge to act smarter in subsequent tries.
However, you might not need many tries as this game is shockingly easy on Normal difficulty. Enemies rarely pose a challenge, the environment isn't often littered with traps and instant-kills, and even the early bosses are pushovers. It doesn't help that you have 2 party members at all times that can draw aggro, demolish break gauges, and even heal and buff you later on.
Still, being easy or difficult is hardly the point, and you can up the challenge if you want: mostly, you'll want to experiment with the 35(!) different jobs, level them up, play around with skills, weapons, armors, and so forth. Unlocking advanced and even expert jobs always feels good, and they even let you use materials to level up jobs you'd otherwise never want to play, like a Marksman or Mage, removing a lot of grind that could've potentially been there if you want to see it all.
That said, don't be completely fooled. Some bosses and enemies pose a healthy challenge, particularly towards the end. Damage flows freely both ways, and you can often panic at even a single hit.
You also don't lose anything upon death, not a grain of resource, so you can throw your head at a boss as often as you like.
Once the credits rolled, I needed more. I can't wait to see what the DLC has, and even so, I want to max out all the incredibly fun classes I have yet to touch. Hell, I think I'll even play FF1 after this, the sequel.
Horrible Cutscenes, horrible story, very poorly optimized, too expensive, music isn't as good as other Final Fantasy games... Yet I still had a good time playing this game? I played it with two friends all the way through, laughed at the story, loved the combat system and had an overall good and memorable time. If its less than 20$, go for it. Any higher and I would pass immediately.
Absolute meme. I can not believe some of the cutscenes in this game got past the planning stage. The cutscene towards the beginning where Jack starts playing Limp Bizkit after beating a boss is the funniest fucking thing a video game has and ever will do and I have never laughed harder than when I first watched that scene. And scenes like that are actually good for the game because without them it would be so fucking boring because the story actually does suck and not a single character is memorable in this game. I appreciate the complexity of the combo system and how you can customize you combos, but ultimately I do not think the game is good enough that anyone would have really used that feature. I probably would have finished the game were it not for the weird out of place looter shooter style drop system that equipment has. I feel like I spent most of my time organizing and throwing out equipment while playing this game because even the auto trash equipment feature was not fleshed out enough to actually dump the equipment I wanted while keeping the pieces I might want. Part of me does wish that FF16 had this games combat, because the combat is this game is actually really good and if paired alongside other game mechanics and features that were actually good, would put this game much higher up on the list.
Was an interesting game. Probably one of the best combat systems I have seen in a game but I generally felt let down in every other area. The bosses while generally being decently designed felt like they peaked at the first 2 in terms of being interesting fun having a good sized arena and having a fair amount if break gauge to keep the fight interesting but not repetitive. Past that I generally felt the bosses were mediocre and couldve used some much better design. The general missions generally allowed you to run past encounters which I didnt do but still felt like an odd choice with the enemies by the end generally feeling annoying to break gauges for and were easy to get overwhelmed by considering I did a solo run. The parry system I also felt a little undesirable due to the fact perfect parries still affect your gauge and how it generally depletes fast and being caught with a broken one usually lead to death. The story left alot to be desired in terms of the characters being forgetable and one note until a twist at the that by the time I reached didn't care for due to there being no emotional buildup or interest with the characters but still it was a cool ref to ff1. This game is worth playing and I hope it gets a sequel to fix all the issues I have with it because the foundation is genuinely amazing and I feel that the new action based ff games need to use this as a base going forward.
26th of April, 2024: “Final Fantasy Origin: Stranger of Paradise” is on sale for just 20€. I had heard of the game before, mainly about how utter dogshit the story was, how funny its protagonist was, and how inconsequential its cast. I call a trusty companion, one @Trumai, and with a shared poor financial decision, we end up buying the game with the intent of playing it together.
As we start, we’re dismissive—me and her both. I laugh a few times at Jack’s pure hatred for Chaos and his unrelenting will to “kill” it, and I start to realize that every single criticism thrown at this game is almost entirely correct. The plot is disjointed, always a step ahead of you in classic Nomura (or Nojima?) fashion; the characters are one-note and rather dull; and Jack is every bit as funny as you’d expect him to be.
But that’s where it all started.
We found ourselves enjoying the gameplay so much that we regularly broke into giggles, always in pursuit of more ways to make the game ours, and in that regard, this game is absolutely incredible. There are so many jobs, so many builds to make, and so many fun mechanics. And as time passed, the more I played, the more I fell in love with Jack. I started to joke around, calling things “Jack’s” as soon as I approached them. Like “Jack’s door," “Jack’s ladder," or “Jack’s chest." I thought it was a silly joke, but I soon realized it was only my subconscious trying to tell me what this game was truly about.
This is Jack’s game. Not Neon’s, not Ash’s, not Sophia’s, and god forbid, it’s Jed’s. This is a game about Jack; this is Jack’s adventure. And you’d be a fool not to make it yours too.
I started to grow bitter of the other characters, of these errands the Lufenians had us run, so much that I began to agree with Jack, I began to tear through hordes of enemies, my desire to reach that final boss, that Chaos fight I so anticipated, it was overpowering me, and my trusty companion kept her dismissive behavior, I began to even detect a hint of annoyance at my, at Jack’s, mission.
I swore to myself, “You will defeat Chaos, Jack. We will do it.”
The doors were no longer just Jack’s; they were mine too. The ladders, the chests. I had become an extension of Jack; I had become his will to defeat Chaos and his unrelenting fury. I had become the belief he doubted.
This is Jack’s review, and you better like it.
As we start, we’re dismissive—me and her both. I laugh a few times at Jack’s pure hatred for Chaos and his unrelenting will to “kill” it, and I start to realize that every single criticism thrown at this game is almost entirely correct. The plot is disjointed, always a step ahead of you in classic Nomura (or Nojima?) fashion; the characters are one-note and rather dull; and Jack is every bit as funny as you’d expect him to be.
But that’s where it all started.
We found ourselves enjoying the gameplay so much that we regularly broke into giggles, always in pursuit of more ways to make the game ours, and in that regard, this game is absolutely incredible. There are so many jobs, so many builds to make, and so many fun mechanics. And as time passed, the more I played, the more I fell in love with Jack. I started to joke around, calling things “Jack’s” as soon as I approached them. Like “Jack’s door," “Jack’s ladder," or “Jack’s chest." I thought it was a silly joke, but I soon realized it was only my subconscious trying to tell me what this game was truly about.
This is Jack’s game. Not Neon’s, not Ash’s, not Sophia’s, and god forbid, it’s Jed’s. This is a game about Jack; this is Jack’s adventure. And you’d be a fool not to make it yours too.
I started to grow bitter of the other characters, of these errands the Lufenians had us run, so much that I began to agree with Jack, I began to tear through hordes of enemies, my desire to reach that final boss, that Chaos fight I so anticipated, it was overpowering me, and my trusty companion kept her dismissive behavior, I began to even detect a hint of annoyance at my, at Jack’s, mission.
I swore to myself, “You will defeat Chaos, Jack. We will do it.”
The doors were no longer just Jack’s; they were mine too. The ladders, the chests. I had become an extension of Jack; I had become his will to defeat Chaos and his unrelenting fury. I had become the belief he doubted.
This is Jack’s review, and you better like it.
CHAOS difficulty is now unlocked.
absolute peak fucking gaming. everything about this game rules.
video games will never be able to top this. it's all downhill from here babey this industry is COOKED
absolute peak fucking gaming. everything about this game rules.
video games will never be able to top this. it's all downhill from here babey this industry is COOKED
jack i found chaos its in valorant
Maybe it’s because I was playing multiplayer, but this game is so damn easy that it’s intriguing combat systems didn’t matter, even on hard. Enemies hardly attack and they just get absolutely MELTED by your attacks. Why bother learning the enemies when spamming gets you through every encounter? Again, it could be because of an unbalanced multiplayer mode, but I found this extremely boring even with the admittedly well-thought out job system.
Came to kill Chaos, stayed for the genuinely great combat system.
Story is decent, a little confusing. Ending was very good, and chaos is chaos. I love the fact how the mc is so edgy
I have alot of respect for this game.... but it's just not for me :///
Disgusting
2 years later still the best purely focused action game to come out post NGII
There will never ever be another man like Jack Garland
There will never ever be another man like Jack Garland
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin (2022) is one of the games ever made.
This is one of the worst pieces of shit games i've ever played. I LOVE it.
Chaos.
Stranger of Paradise es un caso curioso, hace bien la parte más importante, el combate (aunque podría ser mejor), pero descuida prácticamente todo lo demás que termina siendo mediocre como mínimo (exceptuando la banda sonora y alguna que otra cosa). Una lástima, siento que esta idea daba para muchísimo más, pero nosé si está hecho a las apuradas o que pasó. Desaprovecharon un buen protagonista y lo que podría haber sido una buena historia. Igualmente, lo recomiendo porque es muy divertido, aunque al final se pone medio pesadito.
You are the entropy in the system ^_^
Every halfway competent action RPG SE manages this decade just makes FF16 look that much worse in comparison, and because I am an empty-hearted little gremlin, this pleases me.
Every halfway competent action RPG SE manages this decade just makes FF16 look that much worse in comparison, and because I am an empty-hearted little gremlin, this pleases me.
It was pretty fun. Played with @Aiko1704.
eh close enough welcome back durge of Cerberus
I spent a lot of time trying to write a long and smart intro to this kind of tying things into the current state of corporate IP crossover stuff but Final Fantasy is more of an anthology series crossing over with itself constantly so it doesn't totally work. I wanted to do a bit where I call Multiversus a knockoff of Eirgeiz: God Bless the Ring. So I'm putting that there because really that was the main reason I wanted to write it.
Seriously though, there are so many 'all the finals fantasy mashed up' games. They remade a bunch of them on GBA and added crossovers. They did Dissidia and then Theathrythm as a spinoff of Dissidia. They made FF4 the After Years and gave it like a whole plot that tries to put all of the mainline games into a shared universe. I haven't even gotten to Kingdom Hearts.
Stranger of Paradise is so many things. It's the Dark Souls ripoff Final Fantasy game. It's another attempt at putting all the mainline games in a shared universe. It's the unofficial sequel to Brave Fencer Musashi. For as svelte as the game is, there's a ton of just, SHIT in here. Ideas. You've got turning enemy attacks back at them, and hitting the button to power up your pals, and the fake devil trigger, the job system, command abilities, setting up your combo enders like mini God Hand, all kinds of stuff. I was always forgetting two or three basic mechanics and having a hard time, and I'm sure the couple of actually hard parts could have been easier if I knew something about one of the systems I didn't care to engage much with. The loot, in particular, is like come on. Fuck off with that shit I'm just hitting the auto-equip button periodically.
But other than that! Other than the loot numbers, SoP feels like a throwback to the lost days of B games. It's even in the little things, like everybody saying "Hey look, cubes" whenever you see save cubes. Or the fact that the characters seem to decide if they thought you did well or poorly in a fight based on a die roll. Or the many, many cutscenes that end with everyone walking off only to fade back into another cutscene in a slightly different location where they all resume talking about the same thing. It's so good. We should never have given them budgets to do more than this.
I basically haven't said a thing about the actual game or story or anything yet, and that's all fine. It lets you keep everything when you die so it's breezier than real Dark Souls. There's a ton of jobs to level which is always fun because I like unlocking a new one and finding out it has Runic or whatever as its ability. I was pretty firmly in team Sage by the end but there's plenty of customization even within that framework. The plot is not particularly profound but the cast is charismatic and enjoyable, with Jack fully deserving his meme status. There are scenes and bits I'm going to fondly remember for a long time to come. I'd say two bosses were a giant difficulty spike for me but that's fine. They were pretty fun. There's a bunch of DLC I have but you can only access on mega super duper secret CHAOS difficulty which is so absurdly evil I kind of respect it. So maybe I'll try it and maybe I won't I dunno. They put a Frank Sinatra song in the game for some reason.
I haven't played FF16 but I bet this is better. I bet it'll piss me off when I do play it because the FF14 people wrote it. I'm all in on Team Jack and that's that. Raises paw to the fistbump position
Seriously though, there are so many 'all the finals fantasy mashed up' games. They remade a bunch of them on GBA and added crossovers. They did Dissidia and then Theathrythm as a spinoff of Dissidia. They made FF4 the After Years and gave it like a whole plot that tries to put all of the mainline games into a shared universe. I haven't even gotten to Kingdom Hearts.
Stranger of Paradise is so many things. It's the Dark Souls ripoff Final Fantasy game. It's another attempt at putting all the mainline games in a shared universe. It's the unofficial sequel to Brave Fencer Musashi. For as svelte as the game is, there's a ton of just, SHIT in here. Ideas. You've got turning enemy attacks back at them, and hitting the button to power up your pals, and the fake devil trigger, the job system, command abilities, setting up your combo enders like mini God Hand, all kinds of stuff. I was always forgetting two or three basic mechanics and having a hard time, and I'm sure the couple of actually hard parts could have been easier if I knew something about one of the systems I didn't care to engage much with. The loot, in particular, is like come on. Fuck off with that shit I'm just hitting the auto-equip button periodically.
But other than that! Other than the loot numbers, SoP feels like a throwback to the lost days of B games. It's even in the little things, like everybody saying "Hey look, cubes" whenever you see save cubes. Or the fact that the characters seem to decide if they thought you did well or poorly in a fight based on a die roll. Or the many, many cutscenes that end with everyone walking off only to fade back into another cutscene in a slightly different location where they all resume talking about the same thing. It's so good. We should never have given them budgets to do more than this.
I basically haven't said a thing about the actual game or story or anything yet, and that's all fine. It lets you keep everything when you die so it's breezier than real Dark Souls. There's a ton of jobs to level which is always fun because I like unlocking a new one and finding out it has Runic or whatever as its ability. I was pretty firmly in team Sage by the end but there's plenty of customization even within that framework. The plot is not particularly profound but the cast is charismatic and enjoyable, with Jack fully deserving his meme status. There are scenes and bits I'm going to fondly remember for a long time to come. I'd say two bosses were a giant difficulty spike for me but that's fine. They were pretty fun. There's a bunch of DLC I have but you can only access on mega super duper secret CHAOS difficulty which is so absurdly evil I kind of respect it. So maybe I'll try it and maybe I won't I dunno. They put a Frank Sinatra song in the game for some reason.
I haven't played FF16 but I bet this is better. I bet it'll piss me off when I do play it because the FF14 people wrote it. I'm all in on Team Jack and that's that. Raises paw to the fistbump position
This game is a Nioh 2.5. It gathers all the good mechanics of Nioh 1 and 2 but it lacks that unbalanced difficulty (thanks god).
The story is interesting, a little bit confusing in a few moments that's not a big problem.
Very solid game, it got overlooked back when it came out because it was released 1 month after the GOAT of Soul Likes (Elden Ring) and in fact this game doesn't match elden ring in quality, but it's very good and I had fun playing it
The story is interesting, a little bit confusing in a few moments that's not a big problem.
Very solid game, it got overlooked back when it came out because it was released 1 month after the GOAT of Soul Likes (Elden Ring) and in fact this game doesn't match elden ring in quality, but it's very good and I had fun playing it
Jack Garland the kind of motherfucker to hit a Royal Princess and she apologizes to him afterwards.
This review contains spoilers
I can’t believe he was chaos all along 😱😱😱
this game really made a big turn in my opinion, while the combat is always outstandingly fun i can't say there was a boring moment in this game i think all the gameplay elements are amazing and my only gripe is the first 70% of the story being lackluster and not making sense but after that was surpassed i would say the twists and events that were partaken in the story were excellent writing choices. im still yet to delve into the chaos difficulty but i will be getting 100% completion for this game and im excited to take part in the big grind ahead, good work team ninja and square enix. in conclusion i recommend this game to souls like enjoyers as the combat is not too dissimilar and i recommend it to hack and slash rpg fans as well as final fantasy fans looking for an interesting spin off with mechanics unlike the other games ,7/10
Nioh 3 is looking kinda different