You have basic attacks, heavy abilities mapped to R2, and a list of commands that can be accessed with L2 plus the corresponding face button. Using your wealth of gear to spec out your teammates in particular can really change up the team-combat in some interesting ways – but the combat in particular is probably the high point of the gameplay. ' Stranger of Paradise takes its immediately-familiar set of action game systems and delivers a fun game with big weapons, tons of loot, and little reason to care about its story.' Striving for more upgrades to your weapon affinity of choice or keeping your eyes peeled for the perfect addition to your outfit are all things that you’ve seen before but are still done well enough here. What this reimagining of the original game brings to the table is a far more linear journey where levels are divided up, characters are fairly simple, and the compelling narrative moments are few and far between.

Might as well experiment with everything you can, I guess.

Even mainline Final Fantasy games haven’t resembled what the series was back when it was in single digits for a long time now, so all bets are off at this point anyway. I don’t really find that to be an issue, though. Like many action games from the PS2 era all the way to those who owe a lot of their gameplay design cues to the Soulslike games, Stranger of Paradise takes its immediately-familiar set of action game systems and delivers a fun game with big weapons, tons of loot, and little reason to care about its story.ĭespite Final Fantasy lore being nestled somewhere in the DNA of Stranger of Paradise, you wouldn’t really notice that by playing it. If the vague, open-ended nature and pure challenge of modern Soulslike games aren’t really your thing, or you just want a very different flavor of action RPG, there is a strong possibility that Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin is likely a game you’ll enjoy.

Stranger of paradise review