Info about STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN:

Official game description:
STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN - Deluxe Edition
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Product Contents  
• STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN (main game)  
• Season Pass (includes additional missions: "Trials of the Dragon King," "Wanderer of the Rift" and "DIFFERENT FUTURE")  
• Digital art book  
• Digital mini soundtrack  
\*Various game contents require an internet connection.  
\*The main game must be cleared first to play season pass contents.
STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN - Season Pass
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Additional Bonus with Purchase of Season Pass  
Now including a complete Warrior of Light equipment set. Featuring 400% knight job affinity and other special effects, this equipment set is designed with tackling high-difficulty content in mind.  
\*The main game must be cleared first to obtain the Warrior of Light equipment set.  
\*Customers who have already purchased the season pass can also obtain the Warrior of Light set.  
A set consisting of the additional missions "Trials of the Dragon King," "Wanderer of the Rift" and "DIFFERENT FUTURE." Features new equipment, abilities and enemies along with new missions and story content.  
\*Various game contents require an internet connection.  
\*The main game STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN (sold separately) and related updates are required to play this add-on content.  
\*There are other products available for purchase containing these missions. Please be careful not to purchase the missions in duplicate.  
\*The main game must be cleared first to play season pass contents.
About the Game
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With the memory of their struggle buried deep in their hearts...  
Fight your way through fierce battles with a variety of means to defeat your enemies. With multiple difficulty options and a wide selection of jobs and weapons available to customize your party, you can choose exactly how you want to play.  
Will restoring the crystals' light usher in peace or a new form of darkness? ...Or perhaps something else entirely?  
This game features memorable locales from other entries in the FINAL FANTASY series.  
Pravoka Seagrot recalls Sastasha of FINAL FANTASY XIV. Beyond the cave's mystical landscape of vividly colored coral lies the pirates' hideout where their ship is anchored.  
Hallowed Massif recalls Mt. Gagazet of FINAL FANTASY X. Fierce blizzards and avalanches impede the progress of travelers, while graven figures sleep within the mountain.  
Other areas and battle music also draw inspiration from the main titles in the series, providing FINAL FANTASY fans with plenty of familiar tidbits to stoke nostalgia and make the game even more enjoyable.  
\*Various game contents require an internet connection.

Release date: 6 Apr, 2023

Categories: Action RPG, Real-time Combat, Character Customization, Character Progression, Cooperative Multiplayer, Endgame Content, Mission-based Gameplay, Dungeon Crawler


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Excellent and Deep Combat System (weight 0.96): Players overwhelmingly praise the combat system, highlighting its fast-paced, fluid, and satisfying nature. The depth provided by various jobs, weapons, and customizable abilities, along with rewarding boss fights and a unique 'break' system, makes it a standout feature.
- Highly Enjoyable Final Fantasy ARPG (weight 0.76): The game is widely regarded as a highly enjoyable and surprising action RPG, particularly for Final Fantasy fans. It's seen as a successful reimagining of the original Final Fantasy, blending classic elements with modern action gameplay, and is often considered one of the best recent Final Fantasy titles.
- Robust Job and Customization Systems (weight 0.63): The extensive job and character customization systems are a major strength, offering immense build diversity and replayability. Players appreciate the freedom to mix and match jobs, weapons, and skills, allowing for varied playstyles and powerful character builds.
- Surprisingly Engaging and Evolving Story (weight 0.45): The story, initially perceived as silly or nonsensical, evolves into a surprisingly engaging and emotional narrative, especially in its latter half and through the DLC. It offers a clever reinterpretation of Final Fantasy 1's lore, with satisfying twists and a strong conclusion.
- Successful Blend of Nioh and Final Fantasy (weight 0.31): The game successfully blends elements from Team Ninja's Nioh series (like loot and combat mechanics) with classic Final Fantasy themes and the job system. This fusion creates a unique action RPG experience that appeals to fans of both franchises, often simplifying Nioh's complexity for broader accessibility.
- Rich Final Fantasy Fan Service (weight 0.23): The game is rich with fan service and nostalgic references to the broader Final Fantasy series, including recognizable monsters, locations, music, and lore. This deep integration of classic elements creates a strong sense of familiarity and appreciation for long-time fans.
- Flexible Difficulty Options (weight 0.22): The game offers flexible difficulty options, catering to a wide range of players from casual to hardcore. Players can adjust the challenge to their preference, ensuring an enjoyable experience whether they seek a relaxed playthrough or a demanding boss fight.
- Excellent Multiplayer Co-op Experience (weight 0.2): The multiplayer co-op functionality is highly praised, significantly enhancing the game's enjoyment and making challenging content more accessible. Playing with friends is considered an ideal way to experience the game, offering seamless collaboration and shared progression.
- Memorable and Humorous Protagonist (weight 0.15): The protagonist, Jack, is a standout character, praised for his unique personality, humorous dialogue, and surprising depth. His 'brutish' and 'chaos-obsessed' demeanor, combined with his interactions with companions, makes him memorable and endearing to players.
- Engaging DLC and Endgame Content (weight 0.12): The DLC content significantly expands the endgame, offering substantial new challenges, bosses, and opportunities for build crafting and grinding. It provides a fun and engaging experience for players who enjoy optimizing their characters and tackling higher difficulties.

Common complaints:
- Confusing and Poorly Told Story (weight 0.86): The story is widely criticized for being confusing, poorly told, and nonsensical, especially in the early and middle sections. Many players found the narrative difficult to follow, with vague dialogue and a lack of clear progression, often requiring DLC to make sense.
- Excessive DLC Grind and Difficulty (weight 0.85): The DLC content is heavily criticized for its excessive grind, repetitive nature, and artificial difficulty spikes. Players found the requirement to replay existing missions for gear and progression tedious and unrewarding, with enemies often one-shotting characters.
- Poor Performance and Outdated Graphics (weight 0.7): Players frequently reported significant technical issues, including poor optimization, low frame rates, stutters, and crashes. The graphics are often described as outdated, visually straining, and not up to modern standards, especially for a Final Fantasy title.
- Bland and Confusing Level Design (weight 0.4): Level design is consistently criticized for being bland, linear, and repetitive, often consisting of confusing hallways and recycled environments. The frequent lack of a mini-map or clear landmarks leads to players getting lost and backtracking, hindering exploration.
- Overwhelming Loot and Inventory Issues (weight 0.33): The loot and inventory management systems are a major source of frustration. Players are overwhelmed with excessive, often useless, gear drops, making inventory management tedious and undermining the sense of progression or meaningful build crafting.
- Identity Crisis: Not True Final Fantasy or Nioh (weight 0.19): Many players felt the game failed to deliver on either the Final Fantasy or Souls-like experience, often being unfavorably compared to Nioh. It is perceived as a diluted version of Nioh with a Final Fantasy skin, lacking the depth and polish of either genre.
- Uninteresting and Flat Characters (weight 0.09): The characters are widely considered generic, shallow, and uninteresting, with little to no development or backstory. Players struggled to connect with the cast, finding them forgettable and lacking personality.

Gameplay feedback:
- Strong Nioh and Looter-RPG Similarities (weight 0.35): Players frequently compare the game's core mechanics, mission structure, and loot system to the Nioh series, often describing it as a 'Nioh-like' or 'Nioh lite' experience with a Final Fantasy skin. It's also noted for its hack-and-slash and looter-RPG elements, similar to Diablo or Borderlands.
- Fast-Paced, Challenging Combat (weight 0.32): The combat is described as fast-paced, challenging, and responsive, blending Soulslike difficulty with hack-and-slash elements. Key mechanics include a 'Break' gauge for enemies, a 'Soul Shield' for parrying and MP recovery, and the ability to absorb enemy skills. Difficulty can be adjusted, with higher settings and post-game content offering significant challenges.
- Mixed Story and Linear Progression (weight 0.23): The story is often described as confusing, corny, or wild, though some find it interesting or better understood through atmosphere. The game features linear, mission-based dungeon crawling, with options for difficulty adjustment, co-op play, and skipping cutscenes. The overall presentation can be seen as silly or convoluted.

Performance notes:
- Inconsistent Performance & Stuttering (weight 0.25): Despite patches, many players report inconsistent performance, including frame drops and stuttering, especially during combat with many enemies or particle effects. While some find it runs smoothly, others experience significant slowdowns even on high-end PCs, though these issues often don't severely impact gameplay.
- Community Performance Fixes (weight 0.05): Players have found various workarounds to improve performance, such as adjusting process priority, capping FPS, disabling certain graphical settings (like VSync or Screen Space Reflections), or using third-party tools like Special K and upscaling technologies (FSR3.x, XeSS).
- Steam Deck & Linux Issues (weight 0.04): The game has specific performance and visual issues on Steam Deck, particularly with cutscenes. Community solutions like using specific Proton versions or command scripts are often needed to improve the experience.
- No Game-Breaking Bugs (weight 0.01): Based on limited feedback, no game-breaking bugs that prevent progression have been reported.

Recommendations:
- Mixed but generally positive reception (weight 0.6): Overall sentiment is mixed but leans positive, with many recommending the game, especially on sale. Some players found it highly enjoyable and worth their time, while others advised against it due to various issues or simply found it mediocre. The game's value proposition often depends on price and player tolerance for its flaws.
- Strong appeal to specific genres (weight 0.3): The game is highly recommended for fans of Final Fantasy, especially those who appreciate action RPGs, Souls-like combat, or Team Ninja's previous works like Nioh. However, some advise against it if players are looking for a traditional Final Fantasy narrative or prefer Nioh's combat over this game's.
- Mixed opinions on DLC value (weight 0.11): There's conflicting advice regarding DLC purchases. Some recommend buying the DLC for the complete story or additional content, while others suggest sticking to the base game, especially if not interested in extensive grinding or extreme difficulty. The value of the DLC is debated.
- Varying difficulty recommendations (weight 0.02): Players have differing opinions on the optimal difficulty setting. Some recommend playing on Hard for a more engaging experience, while others suggest Normal difficulty or even Co-op for a more casual playthrough.
- Desire to 'kill Chaos again' (weight 0.02): A recurring humorous sentiment among players is the desire to 'kill Chaos again,' indicating a memorable antagonist or a satisfying gameplay loop related to this character.
- Abstract hitboxes are a concern (weight 0.01): One reviewer expressed frustration with Team Ninja's abstract hitboxes, stating they would not recommend their games until this issue is addressed, though they still appreciate the combat experience.

Other player notes:
- Nostalgic Final Fantasy Prequel (weight 0.16): The game is seen as an overlooked 'hidden gem' that serves as an alternate universe prequel to the original Final Fantasy, heavily referencing and reimagining elements from across the entire series, including its music and locations. This deep integration of lore and nostalgia is a significant draw for fans.
- Polarizing Yet Cult Classic (weight 0.1): The game is described as a 'chaotic mess' or 'gold wrapped in shit' due to its extreme pros and cons, often being seen as polarizing. Despite its flaws, many find it surprisingly enjoyable and believe it will become a cult classic due to its unique and unapologetically weird nature.
- Minor Visual & Multiplayer Issues (weight 0.03): Some players noted issues with screen darkness requiring monitor adjustments, and a desire for better graphics options. While performance was generally stable, the lack of visual enhancements and missed multiplayer opportunities were minor drawbacks.
- Influenced by Meme Culture (weight 0.02): The game gained significant attention for its meme-worthy moments, particularly from early trailers. While the game itself doesn't consistently deliver these moments throughout the story, the meme culture surrounding it influenced initial perceptions.
- Active Community Presence (weight 0.02): The game has an active community, particularly on platforms like Discord, indicating a dedicated player base. Its availability on Steam has also contributed to its accessibility and community engagement.
- Team Ninja's Development Approach (weight 0.02): Team Ninja is recognized for continuously improving their game systems and taking risks with new ideas. Despite this, there's a perception that their status within Square Enix might be low, potentially impacting the game's marketing or overall support.

Emotions:
- Satisfaction (weight 0.32): Players felt satisfied by the deep, fluid, and rewarding combat system, often highlighting the variety of jobs, builds, and customization options. The engaging story, character progression, and overall quality of the game, especially its value for money and faithful reimagining of Final Fantasy elements, also contributed significantly to this emotion.
- Frustration (weight 0.19): Frustration stemmed primarily from technical issues like poor optimization, performance problems, and game-breaking bugs, particularly on PC. Players also expressed frustration with repetitive gameplay, confusing map designs, tedious inventory management, and significant difficulty spikes, especially in DLC content.
- Disappointment (weight 0.16): Disappointment was largely driven by the game's perceived mediocre or nonsensical story, unpolished graphics, and poor optimization. Players also felt let down by repetitive level design, a lack of meaningful progression, and the game failing to meet expectations as a Final Fantasy or Nioh-like title.
- Excitement (weight 0.08): Excitement arose from the game's fantastic, dynamic, and challenging combat system, coupled with rich customization and build variety. Players were also excited by the surprising quality of the story, engaging boss battles, and the game's unique, bold approach to the Final Fantasy universe.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.06): Players enjoyed the game's overall fun and direct gameplay, particularly the combat and job mechanics. The ability to play with friends, the game's entertainment value, and its successful integration of Final Fantasy elements also contributed to a general sense of enjoyment.
- Amusement (weight 0.03): Amusement was frequently caused by the game's absurd dialogue, protagonist Jack's one-liners and obsession with 'Chaos,' and the overall unintentional comedy or unique quirks of the narrative. The game's self-aware tone and ridiculous story elements often provided unexpected humor.
- Surprise (weight 0.02): Players were surprised by the unexpected quality of the story, its depth, and its connection to Final Fantasy lore, especially given initial low expectations. The game's distinctiveness, unexpected enjoyment, and surprising gentleness for a Soulslike also contributed to this emotion.
- Confusion (weight 0.02): Confusion primarily stemmed from the game's complex, unclear, or poorly explained story and narrative progression, particularly in the early stages. Players also found the job system and numerous in-game systems to be overwhelming or unintuitive.
- Joy (weight 0.02): Joy was experienced through the game's overall fun, especially when playing with friends, and the humor derived from its more absurd elements. The rewarding combat, versatile job system, and clever Final Fantasy references also brought joy to players.
- Anger (weight 0.01): Anger was directed at the game's poor optimization, low frame rates, and perceived disregard for players, particularly concerning the PC port quality. The design of DLC accessibility and overall game balance also provoked anger.
- Admiration (weight 0.01): Admiration was expressed for the game's gorgeous graphics, cool factor, and awesome visuals, particularly in boss fights. The quality of the story, especially its expansion on Final Fantasy I lore, and the compelling character of Jack also garnered admiration.
- Boredom (weight 0.01): Boredom was a result of monotonous and repetitive gameplay, including repetitive boss fights, side missions, and the late-game grind. Uninspired level design and a perceived lack of variety in combat also contributed to this feeling.
- Appreciation (weight 0.01): Players appreciated the game's numerous Final Fantasy references, its darker and more mature tone, and Team Ninja's unique reimagining of Final Fantasy I. The depth of the FF job system and the developer's attention to detail and updates were also appreciated.
- Nostalgia (weight 0.01): Nostalgia was evoked by familiar music, FF-inspired level scenes, and direct tie-ins to the original Final Fantasy. Musical themes and maps referencing other Final Fantasy games also played a significant role in triggering this emotion.
- Mixed (weight 0.01): Players experienced mixed feelings due to elements like the narrative's potential repetitiveness, the death penalty mechanics, and inconsistencies in graphics, story, and overall gameplay. The game's difficulty and side missions also contributed to a mixed reception.
- Love (weight 0): Love for the game stemmed from an overall positive experience, particularly highlighting the awesome combat system. Players expressed a deep affection for the game as a whole.
- Annoyance (weight 0): Annoyance was caused by the post-game grind, the layers of RNG in DLC content, and issues with visuals and dialogue. The repetitive grind was a common source of irritation.
- Hope (weight 0): Hope was expressed for the possibility of sequels, the game becoming a cult classic, or more remakes being produced in a similar style. Players desired continued development and recognition for the game.
- Concern (weight 0): Concern was raised regarding epilepsy-inducing visual effects, optimization issues, and the accessibility of homages and difficulty for the target audience. These issues pointed to potential negative impacts on player experience.
- Relief (weight 0): Relief was felt when players experienced improved performance, found fixes for technical issues like stuttering, and when initial confusion about the story eventually gave way to clarity. This emotion was tied to overcoming initial hurdles.}