Spoiler Warning for Strangers of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin, Final Fantasy (1987), and basically the entire franchise

Y’know, it’s funny. When I initially saw the announcement for this game around a year ago, I was absolutely livid. I hated the concept of the game, thought it was going to be a besmirchment of the very first game, especially when I saw that Tetsuya Nomura’s name was attached to it. I hate most of the works I’ve played by Nomura, and I was afraid at first that this game would ruin the reputation of Final Fantasy I, and possibly the entire franchise.

Eventually as more trailers came out, and I saw how absolutely ridiculous some cutscenes were, I warmed up to it and figured I’d be having a good time laughing at it.

Never did I expect this game to deliver the emotional gut punches and resonance that it did, and those very moments as well as the game as a whole served not just to be a love letter to fans of the original Final Fantasy, but to fans of the entire series.

Before you play this game however, I heavily recommend at least playing the original Final Fantasy to fully appreciate the plot and the various references throughout this game. It’s not required, but I would definitely recommend doing so, it isn’t very long by JRPG standards, and it has many rereleases.

We’ll start with the gameplay which I’ll admit was the weakest aspect of the game for me. While there are combos and interesting ways to utilize magic and class skills, a lot of the combat amounts to mashing RB, and then RT, and then the B button. It’s a bit unfortunate given that this game has quite the bevy of available classes, all with unique abilities, but you really don’t do much with them.

I was personally a big fan of the Void Knight class, which is really just the Rune Knight with a more memeable name. You can create a giant rune shield that absorbs magic attacks and gets bigger with the more attacks it absorbs, allowing you to slash with a large magical sword and fire an energy slash back at the enemy, in some cases one-shotting them, which I did with Tiamat when I fought her. Very kino class.

Even though the combat isn’t the most advanced thing in the world, there is something inherently satisfying about seeing Jack crystalize and bash every enemy into a pile of dust and blood. It reminds me a lot of Doom, which I also thought was very relaxing.

Don’t get me wrong though, there are parts where the combat gets pretty difficult. I for the record played on the Action difficulty, which is the Normal Mode of the game. Regular combat usually isn’t super difficult, but some bosses can and will absolutely wreck your shit if you aren’t prepared. A good example is the Dragon Zombie, which if you don’t have White Mage or its promoted classes leveled up, will be hell without Holy Magic to clear up the poison or heal your health. It has a small arena, and shoots out poison goo from almost every attack, which makes it quite the hassle to work around.

Almost the entire final stretch of the game has the difficulty spike up due to more aggressive enemies coming into play and points where you do not have party members. It was a little exhausting, but not enough to ruin the experience I found.

Level Design starts off pretty lackluster with how hyper linear it was, but by the second half of the game there are a lot more branching pathways that loop back into each other, allowing for faster travel through the levels. The levels themselves look absolutely phenomenal, and as we’ll get to in the story, carry a lot of significance for not just the plot, but for the franchise as a whole.

All in all, if you like high octane action with constant snarking by the cast members, you’ll definitely like the gameplay.

Now onto the actual meat of this review, the plot.

At first the game starts out with a really comedic tone, with Jack being the most blunt and hilariously assholish man to ever exist, yet somehow having this underlying belief of comradery with his initial companions, Ash and Jed.

The three strangers meet in front of a castle, and upon showing each other their crystals and discovering their shared goals, the trio makes an immediate friendship as they set off to KILL CHAOS!!

They eventually arrive in Cornelia, and make their way to the king. After bringing up their quest, with the Chancellor questioning the validity of the trio’s claim as The Warriors of Light, the King sends them to investigate the Chaos Shrine. Before they leave, Princess Sarah asks Jack if he could find a knight she knew who went missing. The knight’s name is Garland. Jack makes no promises, and the three set off.

They arrive at the Shrine, kick the ass of a bunch of monsters, and find a man in a large suit of armor, Jack concludes that they must be Chaos, but Jed realizes that their description matches that of Garland. The suited man claims they are to become Chaos, and so Jack decides to kick his ass.

It then turns out that they were neither Chaos or Garland, but rather a young woman named Neon, who was attempting to become Chaos so that the Warriors of Light could come along and kill Chaos bringing an end to its spread. She believes Chaos isn’t really a deity but rather a concept, but Jack is having absolutely none of that so he just plays his Limp Bizkit and fucking leaves.

I will admit that up to this point, I was laughing my ass off. The character interactions felt so awkward that it was honestly hilarious, but now having finished the game it all kind of makes sense.That doesn’t mean these moments aren’t funny, but that in the full context of the plot the awkwardness serves a genuine purpose.

The four return to the King, who now firmly believes them to be the Warriors of Light, and are sent to the small town of Pravoka to speak to the Mayor about the Elemental Crystals that have gone out of balance, in order to fulfill Lukhan’s Prophecy.

Unfortunately, mayor’s dead, the townspeople hate the Kingdom, and the town is now run by pirates, specifically the Captain, Bikke. Back in the OG Final Fantasy I always pronounced his name like Bike, but the actual pronunciation is Bick-kay, which was interesting.

The Warriors go to the Pirates’ hideout to find Bikke and get info out of him on the crystals, which results in a fight between the two groups. After being soundly defeated, Bikke directs our heroes to find the King of the Dark Elves, Astos, who has apparently made a deal with Chaos, as he might have more answers.

So Jack and company make their way to the Western Keep, fighting their way through the colossal fortress and arriving in a throne room to encounter… one of the Black Knight enemies from Final Fantasy II. This was the point where I initially realized this game was going to be more than just a rewrite of the first game. After defeating the Knight, the group highlights how Jack has come back, and that only Jack can fight the way he does. It seems weird given that there’s been no point where we haven’t had Jack kicking massive ass, but this moment was carefully planting seeds for later.

Astos then appears and attempts to introduce himself, but Jack in his usual temperament, backs him the fuck off and demands just the important information. Astos, chuckling in his new, more coy personality which I definitely appreciate, directs the party towards the flying fortress of an ancient civilization known as the Lufenians. The location houses the Wind Crystal, so the crew wastes no time in making their way to it.

After a bit of traveling, they finally warp to the massive scientific facility that happens to be in space, and arrive at the Wind Crystal. They find that it is being protected by the giant, multiheaded dragon, Tiamat. Tiamat reveals herself as one of the Four Fiends, and attempts to slaughter our protagonists, but one Rune Shield Sword Beam later and she’s nothing more than a pile of crystals.

However, upon Tiamat’s death, Jack notices a pixelated phantom showcasing… something that happened in the past, and then a woman appears where Tiamat died. She introduces herself as Sophia, and much like our heroes, she too has an obsession with destroying Chaos, something which starts to feel very… unnatural.

Using a terminal in the crystal’s room, she shows the locations of two of the remaining Crystals, allowing the player to decide which route they want to take.

At this point, my suspicions arose quite a bit. Firstly, one of the key things about Jack, Ash, Jed, and Neon is that their names all fit within the four character limit of the original Final Fantasy, and that their initial classes reflected base classes of that game, Jack being the Warrior, Ash being the Monk, Jed being the Thief, and Neon being the Red Mage (in this game these are all promoted classes, but they’re also the promoted classes these character’s get so it still makes sense). Sophia on the other hand has a five character long name, and is associated with Lances (she can also be a mage, but Lancer is one of her starting classes) which are associated with the Dragoon class, which didn’t appear until Final Fantasy II. There’s also the fact that she also breaks the original Final Fantasy’s norm by being the fifth party member, where the original only had a party of four. It’s just something to put players of the original on their toes, along with the timing of her arrival, but it ultimately serves a different, more obvious purpose.

Since the game went in the unusual route of having Tiamat be the first fiend fought, which is the opposite of the original, I decided my next Crystal would be the Earth Crystal where I would fight the Lich, who is normally the first Fiend fought in the original.

The plot during this part focuses more on Ash as he starts to regain his memories, remembering his old companions and how he feared them dying and did everything in his power to stop it from happening. This of course conflicts with Jack, who wants solely to focus on the mission and keeps telling Ash that “forgetting is a mercy.” Jed also starts to recover his memory, but gets ignored by the rest of the group.

Eventually they arrive at the Cavern of Earth, a boobytrapped underground temple, which hosts the Earth Crystal. They arrive and encounter the Lich, who has been polluting and rotting the earth with his darkness. He begins introducing himself, and Jack, irritated from the entire experience, jumps to punch the ghastly fiend right in the face while saying “I DON’T GIVE A FUCK WHO YOU ARE!!”

I chuckled, as it was a very funny moment.

After a relatively tough fight, victory is again seized, and another phantom is found where the Fiend was killed. Their build being very buff, much like Ash, as the phantom lies there lamenting the death of their companions.

Eventually the darkness residue begins to move towards the group. Earlier in the story, Sophia mentions that the dark mist that comes from the enemies slain by Jack and the party can mess with their minds, and make them remember things they’re better off not knowing. Ash of course absorbs the darkness with his Crystal, and starts to ease up on the memory stuff, before the party is warped back to the Fortress to go to the next Crystal.

The Fire Crystal comes next, and the party makes their way to the treacherous Mount Gulg. Neon gets a little more characterization here as the crew talks to her about if she is starting to believe that Chaos actually exists and what not.

Our heroes eventually reach the core of the volcano, where they encounter the Fiend of Fire, Marilith. After finally beating her, another phantom is left in her place, with Neon absorbing the dark mist with her crystal. Neon later accepts that Chaos is real, and vows to continue fighting alongside Jack and company. Then, just as the volcano is about to erupt, the heroes are warped back to The Flying Fortress by Astos.

Astos shows them the location of the final remaining crystal, the Water Crystal. Once again, the heroes don’t hesitate to make their way to the Sunken Shrine. On the way, Jed begins to have more doubts about the mission as he begins to recall the past, with Jack becoming more irritable the more the past is brought up.

This culminates in a moment where after killing the Cray Claw, which is a Final Fantasy V boss, Jack tries to absorb the dark mist with his Crystal, but Jed interrupts him, forcing the two of them to have a flashback of meeting each other at some place that wasn’t were they met earlier in the story.

Jack asks if this makes Jed happy and the two reconcile with a fist bump. Eventually they arrive in the Sunken Shrine, a large energy harvesting facility requiring multiple key cards in order to progress, and at the very bottom lies the Kraken.

Neon demands that the Kraken return the Crystal, but the Kraken posits as to why they need it, as they’ve been doing fine without it. This response causes Neon to clam up, but Jed comforts her before Jack goes in swinging. This of course ends with the group having a tough long fight against the mighty Fiend, with Jed absorbing the mist.

Can I just say that Jed’s voice actor, Alejandro Saab (better known as KaggyFilms), does such a phenomenal job voicing the character. Jed is very much the emotional core of the group and the performance makes him both incredibly relatable in both humorous and serious moments. Seeing him develop from the mostly comedic sidekick to a man who wants to know who he is and what his true purpose is just resonates so hard with me and I’m thoroughly impressed with how Alejandro captured the emotions of such a character.

Anyways, after completing the task they set out to do, the party makes their way to Cornelia to find… that it is covered in darkness. The villagers are suspicious of group, claiming that they serve Chaos and that one of them must be an imposter as the prophecy only mentions four Warriors of Light.

This of course pisses off Sophia, who besides Jack, has been the most obsessive in the group about forgetting the past and trying to kill Chaos. This scene, while a little awkward feeling, does elicit a genuine sense of frustration and anger. After everything the player and these characters have been through, seeing that your journey seemingly did nothing hurts quite a bit.

Jack then decides that maybe talking to the King will get them a warmer reception… which turns out to be false as the Chancellor and even the King believe that our heroes are to blame, and nearly has them executed. Luckily, Princess Sarah arrives and manages to convince her father that they shouldn’t expect for the world to immediately improve upon the rebalancing of the crystals.

This manages to save Jack and company for the time being, but that peace is short lived as the pirates from Pravoka have begun wreaking havoc in the city, with monsters appearing as well. This is because the pirates grew impatient with the restoration of the crystals, as the Wind Crystal being restored only made the raging of the seas due to the corrupted Water Crystal more difficult to work with.

The party is then ordered to stop the attack on Cornelia, and as they soon discover, the pirates themselves have been turning into the monsters, due to succumbing to the darkness. This eventually results in a rematch with a possessed Captain Bikke.

After his defeat, Bikke reveals the fact that the impatience of the pirates caused them to be possessed and that while he tried to keep them under control, he too lost control. He went to try and find Astos, but he was nowhere to be found.

Bikke then charges the heroes to find Astos, as he believes he is the only one who can find a solution to the massive spread of the darkness, telling the heroes to follow the ominous white bats that have been spotted throughout the game as they are Astos’ creations. Bikke then passes on while the heroes go seeking Astos.

Eventually they find a large ancient tower, and begin to regain memories about a race of people called Lufenians, with Sophia noting things like how she “never made it this far before”. The group discusses how the Lufenians were apparently a civilization that existed along with Cornelia, but surpassed it in regards to technology until one day disappearing altogether. Yet for some reason, they believe themselves to somehow be connected to the Lufenians in some way, with exception to Neon who says she was born in Cornelia and given a Dark Crystal by Astos at some point in time. She fears she can’t be trusted, but Jack says as long as she’s willing to help them, he has no reason to send her away.

The group begins to think that the darkness could be because of the Lufenians, and continues up the tower to encounter an Iron Giant which has apparently beaten up Astos. After turning the synthesoid creature into scrap, Jack tries to obtain some answers from Astos, especially after he keeps regaining more memories of his connections to Lufenia, and questioning his mission about killing Chaos. Astos tells him he’ll give him the answers he seeks, but only if he kills more creatures that have suddenly appeared in a weird modern skyscraper-like building.

Jack and the crew investigate the location, and start to firmly believe that this is definitely being caused by Lufenian interference, which makes the entire party believe that Astos is in league with the Lufenians and is perpetuating the cycle of darkness throughout the land. After encountering a Behemoth, which Jack recognizes despite never having seen the creature before, he crystalizes it… but then it turns into a makeshift Bahamut, coming with its own Megaflare. After managing to defeat that, Jack regains even more memories, finding out that the crystals he and the others bear are not merely for purifying the Elemental Crystals, but for retaining their memory data, and that Jack’s crystal is now completely full, meaning that he can no longer protect himself from remembering the past.

Our heroes, called “Strangers” by the Lufenians, are apparently a part of a project to find a way to balance light and darkness in the world of Cornelia.They are sent in to prevent the creation of Chaos, which is an element created when darkness mixes with negative emotions as it results in an uncontrollable circumstance, which causes the Lufenians to reset the timeline and send the Strangers back to get better results.

Astos being in league with the Lufenians leads the party to go to an area called the Terra Tortura. This was the part of the game where I fangasmed hard because Terra Tortura is… The Floating Continent from Final Fantasy VI. You have to go and destroy three statues in order to open the main gate, and the statues are directly referencing The Goddess, Fiend, and Demon from that game.

Actually on that note, most areas in this game are in reference to the other games, most of which is aptly described in the loading screen’s little journal entries called the “Fool’s Missive”. It turns out that the various areas are related to “Dimensions” with those Dimensions being the other games. For example, the Sunken Shrine level is in reference to the Mako Harvesting Factories of Final Fantasy VII, while the Crystal Mirage level is in reference to the worst part of Final Fantasy III. Meaning that the Lufenians have been pulling these areas from those worlds for some purpose.

Back to the story though, once we destroyed all of the statues and unlock the final gate, we finally encounter Astos. He reveals that those white bats that have been following him are actually Lufenians whom he transformed with magic. He was born in Cornelia, but was allowed to travel with the Lufenians to see the various Dimensions, eventually being brought back to be a part of the project as an organic reconnaissance unit. However, after having to see the timeline be reset, and being one of the only characters to retain his memories of the past resets, he has come to hate the Lufenians.

Jack demands that Astos give him a purpose, an enemy to fight, but Astos states that he has no enemy for Jack. Astos then asks who he is to Jack… with Jack recovering some memories about knowing Astos, but his uncertainty leads him to say that he is merely the King of the Dark Elves, and nothing more.

Astos finally snaps, and goes all out against the party. This was easily the second hardest fight in the game for me as Astos is not just capable with magic, but is a master of martial arts and can mix both to deadly effect. However, after his initial defeat, he goes all out and transforms into THE FIRST CANONICAL VERSION OF THE ULTIMA WEAPON!! with a design that mixes the VI, VII, and VIII designs all together, and he uses familiar attacks like Flare Star and Antimatter. Unfortunately, he is much easier as Ultima Weapon Origin, but the fight is still cool as shit.
Astos is defeated, and begins to pass away. Jack tragically regains all of his memories of Astos, things like Jack’s line earlier in the game “Nothing a bit of spit can’t handle” being something that Astos said to him about his own injuries in a previously reset timeline.

Astos initially thought of himself as nothing more than an item to be used whenever the heroes needed, but Jack and the rest of the party grew to see him as a friend, and due to the constant suffering, Jack proposed a plan with Astos and the others to end the Lufenian’s grip over Cornelia for good, utilizing as many exploits as they could like Astos’ retaining his memory.

Before departing back to Lufenia to begin the plan, Jack entrusts Astos to guide the group to this end by any means necessary. Astos states he’ll simply forget, but Jack promises that he won’t.

Unfortunately, Astos winds up being right about his assumption, but does his best to get the warriors on the path towards completing their true goal. However, Astos grew resentful of being forgotten, despite knowing that it wasn’t Jack’s fault, and it led to him giving in to the growing hatred inside of him.

Todd Haberkorn’s portrayal of the character absolutely nails the rage and emotion that fuels Astos’ final speech, and was a mastery of voice work. Usually I can recognize Todd’s voice in most of the things he does, as I’ve usually seen his more comedic high pitch voice roles like that of Jaco and Death the Kid that this deeper, more distant voice he gives to Astos was stunning to me. He truly brings out the anger and frustration of a man who has been through time loop after time loop, abused like a tool by a civilization who sees you as only a means to an end, forgotten by the friends he made who trusted him with their ultimate mission.

As he dies, the Lufenian Bats die with him, and he directs the heroes to fight back against Lufenia and save the Cornelian people from the constant repetition of the timeline.

So, with nowhere to go off of, the heroes head back to Cornelia, which has all but been consumed by the darkness. The King and Queen are dead, along with most of the soldiers. Princess Sarah is alive, but is headstrong in not abandoning her people, something which Jack sees as suicidal… so he punches her in the gut to knock her out. It’s kind of a standard thing in media, but it was definitely not something I expected.

Jack has the soldiers and the party escort the Princess out of the city while he takes on the hordes of monsters on his lonesome. As he does, he winds up rescuing civilians to escape along with the princess.

As they exit the city, the Princess realizes that her initial mentality would have meant the death of her and all of the Cornelians who will depend on her guidance during these times, and the party ponders where they will take the remaining civilians.

However, the darkness winds up being too strong and corrupts the soldiers and the townsfolk, resulting in all of their deaths, including Sarah… who happens to also be holding a Dark Crystal.

Both her and Jack remember one of the timelines that was reset, where the two of them were very close to one another. Jack introduced her to the song that she would go on to play on her Lute in the future timelines. At one point, she asks what his name is, with it being Jack Garland.

At the end of the memory, it is revealed that Jack gave her his previous Dark Crystal so that his memories could be truly restored during the plan he set up with Astos.

She asks him if it was worth it to try and change the world, before passing away in his arms…

What happens next… was probably one of the most heartbreaking moments in any video game for me.

Ash, Jed, Neon and Sophia all turn their weapons on Jack, as Jack questions what is going on. They tell him that he needs to take in the darkness and rage, and begin to attack him.

Jack, or rather you the player, are forced to singlehandedly murder these characters that you have grown to love and care about throughout the course of this game. You don’t want to do it, but they give you no choice.

This was the part of the game where I almost cried, as it was such an utterly painful moment for me. Slowly killing each and every one of the members of the party, doing those critical attacks which no longer feel satisfying but rather agonizing as Jack screams and cries that he doesn’t want to do this, and me feeling in my heart that *I didn’t want to do this.

All of the fist bumps, all of the chitchats while walking through the levels… it was all gone. Jack had to kill them… I* had to kill them, all in order to get the power to defeat the Lufenian’s for good.

To become Chaos.

Jack questions where he should go, before being reminded by a memory of Astos that one of the Lufenian’s primary pickup points was the Chaos Shrine.

The final level is a solemn reprise of the first level, with Jack wandering through the shrine on his lonesome. Muttering to himself about how he’ll make the Lufenian’s pay, how he’ll make them suffer.

He eventually arrives at the pickup point, and enters into the wheatfield seen throughout the game. Voices of Lufenian’s tell him that they’re going to reset the timeline as he screams that he’ll destroy them as he begins attacking their crystal computer matrix.

Suddenly, the darkness within Jack manifests into a physical form that calls itself Chaos. Jack, pissed off and claiming himself to be Chaos, faces it off in the final encounter.

The big meme about this game was all about how the mission was to “Kill Chaos” and stuff, but at the end of the game you do so much more.

You don’t just kill Chaos…





YOU MAKE CHAOS YOUR BITCH!! AND TAKE ALL OF ITS POWERS AS YOUR OWN!! THE LUFENIAN’S TELL YOU THAT THEY’RE IN CONTROL AND YOU SAY “FUCK YOU ASSHOLE, THIS IS MY WORLD NOW!!”

As Jack attempts to destroy them, they disconnect themselves from Cornelia, as Jack gets pulled back in time by the Four Fiends, revealed to be our party members.

The plan was a success. Cornelia is finally free.

They admit that they remembered the plan far earlier than Jack did, as evidenced by those earlier lines like “Jack’s finally back” and “Only Jack can fight like that”, things that in the situation they were initially stated in didn’t make much sense, but those seeds were planted to make that ending twist much more impactful, which is something I love about this game.

It all sets up for a “how” situation, since Jack’s identity was spoiled long before the game came out, and I think the way they handle steadily building up questions for the player is phenomenal.

The group asks what the plan is now, and Jack states that now they’ll be the ones to train the actual Warriors of Light and fulfill the true prophecy, to truly save Cornelia once and for all.

The game then ends with Garland, sitting on his throne, as the Warriors of Light (which includes the specific one from Dissidia) arrive to fight him.

He truly did it his way.

While the story might seem convoluted, I think the emotional beats hit hard nonetheless. This game did an amazing job at making me feel joy and pain throughout the story, and it really captures the essence of friendship and comradery that some of the best Final Fantasy games are known for.

At the end of the day, while I’m sure a lot of people will simply discount this game for seeming schlocky and being a stupid edgy mess, I think this game tries to do something that a lot of games don’t do anymore.

It tries to be genuine.

I recommend giving this game a shot, though be warned that the PC Port (which I unfortunately played) is incredibly unstable and frequently suffers from crashing, even on high end PCs. You are better off playing the console versions of the game if available.

The people who worked on this game truly created a celebration of 35 years of Final Fantasy that I believe should be experienced by all. A respectable entry in the long lasting series that despite having “Final” in the title, will likely not be ending anytime soon.

They did it their way, and this review is my way of showing my appreciation of a project that I initially doubted would hold unironic value to me.