![]() ![]() While this is easiest before a battle begins, your party members will very rarely become useful and distract a boss for a second or two for you to shoot off a spell. Holding the button brings up a radial menu and waiting for a bit will allow you to cast stronger versions of the spells, but the game really wants you to remain mobile and constantly on the offensive, so these are only really useful when attacking from out of an enemy’s range. Most of them are pretty fun to use, but spell casting feels very clunky. Spellcasters can bring up a menu to fire off a fireball or heal, beefy physical attackers can set up a counter attack or buff themselves, and much more. It’s complicated to explain, but simple in practice: play every Job to unlock more and make your favorites more powerful.Įach Job comes with its own unique ability usable when not attacking. Your characters don’t have levels and stats are mostly determined by gear, but playing as a job will earn skill points you can then spend in their tree for bonuses and new moves you can then take into other Jobs. You begin with only a handful of jobs, such as Swordfighter, Mage, and Lancer, but leveling those will eventually grant you access to Advanced and Expert Jobs like Dragoon, Dark Knight, and Sage. While each of your party members can only use one Job at a time, Jack can swap between two by pressing R2 when not attacking or after using an ability to cancel out of its cooldown animation. Just like a few other Final Fantasy games, all of your characters can equip Jobs which completely change how they fight. You can set what ability you want at each point in the combo, which makes this system highly versatile – especially when you mix in Jobs. These skills can be anything from an overhead slash with your buster sword, readying a charge attack, to even casting a spell. You can press Square repeatedly to perform a combo then, at different points in the combo, press Triangle to use some MP and unleash a special skill. It plays like a more flashy Dark Souls, which makes sense given this is the same team that made Nioh. Thankfully, combat is pretty dang satisfying here. So if the focus isn’t on the story, then it must be on the gameplay. Some bits of the story are out of order or misleading to great effect, but the majority of it just feels like it comes out of nowhere. For example, I could kill a whole group of enemies in a single combo without getting hit, but someone will still say how “we barely survived that” and “we’ll do better next time.” The whole game feels like it was written by aliens who have only seen Memento. I guess their personalities are supposed to come across through in-game dialogue, but that’s more often than not nonsensical, poorly written, and contradicts what’s actually going on in the story and whatever fight is happening. Even then I only started to care near the end. I like what I’ve seen from them, but there isn’t nearly enough to get me to actually care about anyone other than Jack. Neon, Jed, Ash, and Sophia all have a moment or two throughout the story. Likewise, the characters are likable… but very poorly defined. Don’t get me wrong, I really like the ending and the way it connects to FF1, but it could have been far more satisfying. It feels tongue in cheek how Jack actively prevents people from expositing for the majority of the story, but the ending feels like it should have had a full, 40 hour JRPG to set it up. However, Stranger tries to have its cake and eat it too – not much happens over the twelve hours it takes to beat the game, until, that is, the final two hours where all the plot was shoved. Near the beginning of the game, Jack storms out of a room after finding out the foe they just busted wasn’t actually Chaos and starts playing Limp Bizkit on his iPhone he suddenly has. While the story is not the focus of Stranger of Paradise, it’s undeniably a huge draw because of how seriously it takes itself. If you’re familiar with that game, saw any of the marketing, or have looked at SquareEnix’s merchandise lately, it’s pretty obvious where this plot is going but I’ll do my best not to spoil anything in case you aren’t. Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin is a prequel to the original Final Fantasy, taking place in the same world. Does Chaos truly exist? Or is he just a fairytale? Deemed the Warriors of Light by the King of Cornelia, they journey around the realm to defeat the four fiends and their master, but not everything is as it seems. Chaos must die by his hand, and four strangers share this wish along with a lack of memories. Jack has no memories other than this need – this hunger. ![]()
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