Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origins

Some call me a Warrior of Light. Some call me a renegade. Some call me when Chaos rears its corrupted head. But you can call me Garland. Jack Garland. I’m the one they call when there’s nobody else.

Jack Garland? Didn’t we just kill you in Final Fantasy I? And… weren’t you Chaos?

I honestly hadn’t heard of this game until Squenix sent me an e-mail talking about the demo. This happens again and again. Cool games that everyone (but me) has heard of, I come to it eons too late, way after it would have made sense.

Stranger of Paradise is a randomizer version of the first Final Fantasy game. Instead of being Chaos, in the demo, Garland fights and defeats someone wearing his iconic suit of armor.

Garland and his team, initially two fellow Warriors of Light, are sent out on missions by some mechanism we don’t yet know in order to defeat the chaos that has taken root.

The first mission on offer is “Illusion at Journey’s End”. This is a first level mission that introduces several basic jobs and moves and offers tutorials before every encounter. It takes place in Chaos Shrine, a building that appeared mysteriously, transported from the distant past by some unknown mechanism.

FF1 players will remember the role the Chaos Shrine played in that game, transporting the Four Fiends from the past to the present day, and eventually transporting both the antagonist, Garland, and we, his pursuers, into the past.

And the trailer for the game reinforces that, showing Tiamat and what seems to be a couple more elemental lords.

The other Warriors of Light take on single iconic jobs from the Final Fantasy series; Ash the Pugilist, Jed the Duelist and Neon the Swordfighter. I am assuming that these WoLs will be able to change to Monk, Thief and Knight at some point, but in the demo, they are locked into these jobs.

You play Jack Garland, who can take on any of the basic jobs (those above, plus his starting job Swordsman, as well as Mage and Lancer). Also available to be unlocked in the demo are the advanced jobs Dragoon, White Mage, Black Mage, Red Mage, Thief, Monk, Knight, and Warrior. In the demo, I was able to unlock most of them — and all of them play fairly differently.

The game has a number of systems to master. The combat takes place in real time, and each job has its own collection of counters and blocks that serve to keep you alive. You can even change jobs between any two of them on the fly — for instance, swapping in as a Red Mage for a moment to get yourself a quick regeneration before swapping in the next moment back to Dragoon to stun the enemy with a powerful jump.

In addition to the basic abilities, there’s a list of combos that are started by pressing the standard attack button some number of times, and then pressing the special attack button — R1 and RT on my PS5 controller. L1 is a block, but the O button is also a block — one that uses a different meter, and can copy an enemy’s named ability for a few tries, allowing you to, for example, absorb a Bomb’s fire attack and then shoot that right back at a Goblin.

Garland can also do a finishing move on monsters that are staggered and low on health — this is the preferred way of taking on patches of corruption, but bosses usually require this a few times before they succumb.

Garland’s companions (and he can have only two at a time) work autonomously, although they can be asked to fight more fervently at request. They chatter with you during the game, but don’t really reveal too much of the plot.

Each of your companions competes with Garland for gear. Some pieces of gear have an affinity for a certain job. Getting affinity gives you some of the attributes of that job — for instance, more magic power from mage affinities, or better defense from the tank affinities.

Did I mention that jobs are split between four schools? Orange for tanks, green for physical melee, red for physical range, and blue for mages. Affinities work together within the school. I believe experience is also shared with those affine jobs, but I’m not 100% certain on that.

The game supports three difficulty levels — Hard, for experienced players; Action, the “normal” mode; and Story, the easier experience. Story mode can also be made even easier with Story — Casual Mode, which removes the penalties for dying entirely. I managed to make it through the first mission on “Action” mode, but decided to go with Story/Casual, as that was the most fun for me. I got nothing to prove to anyone.

I had to play through both missions and the optional side mission that unlocks once the other two are done on Story/Casual before I felt I knew enough about the various mechanisms to even make a stab at Action mode. This is a brutal game, even on Story difficulty. For me, anyway.

I enjoyed the game. I felt, though, that mages aren’t given enough time to select spells in the heat of the battle while they are being beat on. This made mages difficult for me to play. Perhaps in time selecting spells from the spell wheel will become second nature, but mostly I used the mage jobs for buffing and healing between fights. With the other WoLs being tied to physical melee attacks, I was hoping for more and better ranged options.

Since it seems impossible for tank Neon to actually, consistently hold the attention of a mob (who all inevitably came straight for me whenever I made any attack), I found it better to just stick with Lancer and Dragoon and attack from range, absorb attacks thrown at me, throw them back and then move in with some combos before jumping back.

I imagine future companions will take on the ranged role, and especially healing, so that I can move into the Knight job and keep the mob’s attention while I take the hits. I just barely unlocked Knight, so not sure if this will be the improvement I hope for.

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origins is due out on Xbox, PlayStation and PC sometime early next year.