Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin

the real lord of chaos is the scriptwriter

Just... why is this so freaking chaotic man, doesn't feel like an arpg at all most likely a nightmare.

As someone who played Nioh 1&2 and Wo long for hundreds of hours.. this game is very good and can be very hard too, but at the same time has much simpler mechanics.

I liked it a lot the characters are funny and you will end up loving jack in the end, the story is surprisingly good too, the graphics is a little weak but the compromise is worth it because the combat is soo smooth and fun
With a tons of different job where you will never be bored, as you can be a samurai, thief, warrior, black mage, white mage, red mage, monk….etc
Level design is average and not fun at all, it feel like randomly generated

the package is overall is really unique, and definitely worth it.. but I don’t think I will play it more than once.

The story is absolute garbage,
gameplay mildly interesting but repetitive.

waste of a potential good story due to lazy writting

I was excited about this game since I'm a huge Final Fantasy fan who always preferred the medieval theme of the series over the sci-fi one that started with FF7. Not long ago, I was talking with a friend about how it would be really epic if they remade Final Fantasy 1. Imagine my shock when I saw this game announced. Even though the trailer didn't look promising, I still had hope and wanted to see FF1 as a reimagined modern game.
So, I finished the game. What can I say? It was not bad at all. It's just a really low-budget game.
First off, the story is good. However, the presentation has so many problems. I actually laughed my ass off at some parts about how bad the cutscenes were, especially in the first part of the game. Half of the story is explained via notes, and it doesn't have enough cutscenes. Party members have no character whatsoever because of that. We don't interact with them enough to learn more about them. If it had a good presentation, the story would be awesome. I really liked the ending, even with what we had. (Kenjiro Tsuda's voice acting helped a lot, lol) It is mind-blowing and kinda rewrites FF1 and the Final Fantasy universe. I don't wanna give much detail to avoid spoilers. But I wish this game had a bigger budget so that we could experience this story better. The game is literally the origin of Final Fantasy and is vital to me in that matter.
The gameplay is fun. Even though the game doesn't have any hit feel, finisher animations and skills are really satisfying, which compensate for that. The armor and weapon designs are excellent and they probably used all of the budget for those lmao. It is really fun to drop new armor and weapons to try them on. The job system is the best part of the game. There are 28 jobs, which give you a variety of styles to enjoy the game. I personally unlocked every job since changing my playstyle was so interesting for me. If you ever play it, you should definitely use all jobs to enjoy the game. It would be a literal hell if you used only one job. You’d be bored as heck. But changing them constantly made me have so much fun.
About downsides... There are many. Level design isn't creative and is usually basic as hell. Enemy variety is incredibly low. The game is pretty unbalanced, etc. And it is nowhere near like a Soulslike, even though it was advertised as one. It definitely got inspired by Souls, but the only thing they have in common is the bonfire system, and that's all, to be honest. My friend expected a Soulslike from this game and was disappointed because of that. If you see the game as an Action RPG though, things look better. And that's what I did, and I actually enjoyed the game. If you are a Final Fantasy fan, this game is a must. If not, you can pass.
Overall, it's definitely not a masterpiece. But I didn't find it as bad as people are saying. And I’m glad that Garland has a character now 💀

Nioh and Final Fantasy are both franchises which I am a huge fan of, so a marriage between both seems like a dream game to me.

Unfortunately while the idea was great, the execution wasn't quite there yet.

The game pretty much plays similar to Nioh expect it relies heavy on its very satisfying parry system and stamina system. The combat is actually really good which helps this game immensely since the rest of it is flawed.

I originally played this at launch and got through about halfway until I couldn't play it any more due to the visuals being extremely muddy, the framerate was terrible and it suffered lots of crashes and just had many inconveniences. I would have given this a 5. Since then, the devs have actually listened to feedback and have patched the game to the point where it is actually a good game.

The game relies on FF tropes such as monsters, crystals etc which if you're an FF fan, it is a plus. Every stage in this game is a dungeon from each game in the FF series which all have remixed songs from those games. Again, while a very cool concept, it wasn't executed very well. Each stage is a bland flat maze with no creativity or passion. You are running through corridor after corridor killing enemies with a boss fight at the end of each stage. As previously mentioned, the combat is the best part of the game and the boss fights are really fun, which keeps these somewhat bland stages still playable.

The story and writing are laughably bad, and I do mean laughably where it is so bad it's actually quite funny. Jack is the most unhinged FF protagonist in the most unintentional way.

Overall I enjoyed this game as a fan of both franchises however I wasn't loving it. Perhaps the next time something like this is attempted, it can take more inspiration from the Fromsoft level design.