STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN

When I booted this game up, I was immediately drawn in by the combat. It's really fun. The job system? Fantastic and the best it's been since FF Tactics which is a game I absolutely love. The story though. ♥♥♥♥♥♥. At first it's genuinely intriguing, I had tears in my eyes watching Jack demand to fight Chaos, constantly restate his intention to kill Chaos and ignore anything any other character says if it doesn't relate to Chaos. However, the game starts to lose it's charm quite quickly. After a while it feels like Jack's autistic rambling about Chaos inhibits the other characters from being likeable? Like he's the one performance in a movie that makes the whole thing suck. He's like Rebel Wilson, incredibly one note and genuinely unlikeable in large doses. The fact that the other characters don't tell him to shut the hell up at any point makes them cowards. This, combined with the lack of enemy variety and mission variety and the ridiculous amount of loot management makes this game feel like a slog, even though at it's core it has everything needed to be a fun action title like FF16. 3/10

I only recommend this game for the combat, which is its only redeeming quality, and even then only on a heavy sale 10~15 bucks. The cutscenes are a joke and have some very odd pacing, and they almost feel like there's meant to be an open world or hubs to move around in between most of them. Cutscene walking into town> loading> cutscene of us in the town> loading> cutscene in the throne room> loading> "gameplay" allowing us to walk around small throne room and optionally talk to 2 other people. leave throne> cutscene leaving town> loading> cutscene walking into chaos shrine>loading> explore the chaos shrine level. I was surprised by the mission select screen as well, just a static map with a few nodes that pop up here and there, some side missions appear later and are redo's of the levels but in reverse.

It's unfortunate that I hesitated so long to get this. This is a great action game with a lot of gameplay variety, nice boss battles, decent enemy diversity, and serves as a nice homage to other Final Fantasy games in its level designs. Everything has weight to it. When you power up a charge with a massive axe it feels incredibly satisfying to smack a floating eye in the face with it. The progression is mostly well done, though the item drops are even more obnoxious than the most plentiful of Diablo-like games out there. The dismantle system that automatically destroys items in accordance with parameters you set was a nice touch, but quality is always better than quantity in my opinion. The maps are linear and offer little in the way of exploration, though there's a hint of that. The side quests of the game have you going over slightly altered routes of maps you've already played through. All in all, while each map is great to play through the first time, they do start to wear a bit thin. Story wise, for the vast majority of the game there isn't much to say... the writing is peak anime cringe in a way that most people will love but will cause physical discomfort to some. It's si…

Great action game with a surprisingly deep combat system and a well-balanced Hard difficulty.

CHAOS My journey is to kill CHAOS You are not CHAOS? ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Are you CHAOS? Where the hell is CHAOS? ... I suddenly lost my purpose as if CHAOS is just gone CHAOS is me? I be CHAOS? Hahahahahahaha Give me CHAOS! MORE CHAOS!!! I am THE CHAOS! - Jack "CHAOS" Garland

Not good