Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin Reviews
Delivering a cohesive game with addictive gameplay and mechanics, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin brings back classic characters in an honorable way. It is a good choice for fans of the franchise and lovers of the genre.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
To my delight, I had an impressive amount of fun with Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin. Thankfully, its awesome stage designs and intricate character customization component ended up shining brighter than the humdrum story and disappointing visuals.
Stranger of Paradise is a great choice for anyone who enjoys Action RPGs and Souls-likes.
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin shines in its combat system and its class system, leaving the story in something more anecdotal.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
There’s no denying that Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin has its unintentionally awkward moments when it comes to the story, but at its core it’s a solid experience from both a gameplay standpoint and in terms of how it links back to the entire Final Fantasy universe. In fact, fans of the franchise will certainly be blindsided by nostalgia when it comes to music and settings, so I encourage newcomers to the series to try a few of the mainline entries first if they want to get the most out of this one. As for me, I found myself enjoying Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin in the same way that I enjoyed Final Fantasy X-2: preferring combat to story. Simply put, as long as you set your expectations accordingly, you’ll have a good time.
Like a good dad joke, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin may not be for everyone, but it grew on me and in the end, I loved every minute of it.
Trials of the Dragon King gave a great boost in difficulty that will challenge the end game players, but as a whole, it felt empty and seeing how the DLC can not be bought separately, it did feel like a bit of a letdown for the story driver players as they would’ve bought the season pass to find that the new content is locked behind a massive grind before they can even start it. I personally don’t mind a grind in games but the lack of new bosses and areas is a big letdown in my opinion, but hey, at least we got a summoner job, so there has been some hope from this for all players to enjoy.
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin is a flawed, but actually quite enjoyable action RPG. The story is surprisingly good, combat is incredibly satisfying and the excellent character customization goes very deep. Graphics are a major sore spot, as was the disappointing end-game content, but overall I'm glad I got to experience this game.
For fans, this is a wild ride of nostalgia but don’t expect it to be the next great spin-off from the franchise. For players outside of the Final Fantasy scene, it’s an okay beat-em-up with laugh-out-loud scenes that might make for an unforgettable weekend.
Team Ninja took the Nioh formula with one of the most peculiar and exciting spin-offs of the Final Fantasy saga, even if it goes quite a bit off-the-rails.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
If you're a Final Fantasy fan, are more into the series's lore, and are looking for a Souls-like game where you fight to the death, I recommend this title. However, if you are a non-Final Fantasy gamer who wants to try something similar to Dark Souls, I cannot recommend this title.
Review in Czech | Read full review
It’s somewhat fitting that in this topsy-turvy action spin-off, the only thing that’s truly upside-down is the presentation of the original game’s story. Even as the narrative stumbles, the core gameplay is strong enough to motivate to see this story through to completion, no matter how chaotic.
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origins is as strange and, at times, puzzling as it is fun and addictive.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Those who love action RPGs and have fun with Team Ninja games, will undoubtedly have a good time with Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin.
Review in Greek | Read full review
Stranger Of Paradise combines Nioh's gameplay and Final Fantasy worlds in a very beautiful way, providing a rather good experience even with problems with the characters and the repetition of missions
Review in Arabic | Read full review
It can be challenging to wrap one's head around Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin. On the one hand, it is utterly steeped in Final Fantasy mythology. And yet, it's a far cry from a traditional Final Fantasy game. In a way, it feels like an attempt to apply the Final Fantasy VII Remake approach to a game much less suited to such treatment, with fascinating, if not entirely successful, results. Fans of heavily customizable action games will find a lot to love but might be divorced from the nods and homages to Final Fantasy history. It'll be the players who have a foot in both worlds that will most enjoy Stranger of Paradise, but despite some narrative pacing issues and a bit of bloat, most players will find it an enjoyable, action-packed fantasy adventure.
The writing team at Square Enix fed the 1987 Famicom classic Final Fantasy through a wood chipper running on a neural network forced to watch Army of Darkness more times than I did in high school. This game’s scenario popped out and it’s wild, awesome and hilarious.
Yes, you will walk away with the Chaos meme stuck in your head, and it will probably be the most memorable thing about any of the characters here, but at least there’s something that will stick. Regardless, Stranger of Paradise puts forward a Final Fantasy game that presents less of the regular formula, yet a mixture of great action-adventure, soulslike, role-playing that will entice you to come back again, and again.
The finale of the campaign is undoubtedly one of the high points. A couple of near-end frantic and action packed segments reveal more twists and revelations than a rerun of a Jerry Springer episode. After the credits roll in Stranger of Paradise, you are treated to a fun endgame that has the potential to be entertaining, and even better, the game’s co-op feature allows you to buddy up with 2 of your pals for some friendly monster slaying. The problem is though, that getting to the finale may well prove too difficult for some. Not because of the game’s actual difficulty, but because of the string of huge issues that litter the game. The graphics, the characters, the dialogue, the inconsistency amongst levels and boss design. You could literally spin a roulette wheel with all of these things on it, and whichever one the needle lands on has the potential to make this game very tough to play through. Given the pedigree of both Final Fantasy and Team Ninja as developers, it is incredibly disappointing that this game fell so short of expectations. The combat is super fun throughout, and the story concludes very cleverly, but these things are dwarfed in comparison to all of the issues Stranger of Paradise presents us with.