If you’re searching for some rhyme or reason for why perpetually angry protagonist Jack whips out a smartphone-type device to play noughties-style nu-metal in the middle of an earnest moment, I’m afraid you won’t find it. (Nor does the song ever come up again.) As a dark reimagining of the original Final Fantasy, Stranger of Paradise is indeed strange but it doesn’t elicit surprise or wonder, just utter bafflement of how it came to be.
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin reviewPublisher: Square EnixDeveloper: Team NinjaPlatform: Played on PS5Availability: Out March 15th on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Series X/S.
This can’t just be boiled down to the worst protagonist created by Tetsuya Nomura in a long time. As much as the developers may cringe at the memes that have been going around since the game’s reveal, it’s not an exaggeration when I say most of what comes out of Jack’s mouth can be summed up as “I have to kill Chaos” and “Where is Chaos?” with nary a hint of humour or charisma to compensate. I am Jack’s complete lack of personality. But in his defence, his allies don’t fare any better.
Compared with the lavish production values of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Stranger of Paradise is straight up B-tier, and while I can abide a camp, trashy romp, much of the presentation just had me laughing for all the wrong reasons. There are shoddily edited cutscenes where audio cuts abruptly, poor audio mixing where dialogue is drowned out by the music, and – despite being an action game – I recommend sticking with Resolution Mode, as visuals are distractingly blurry in Performance Mode, which also has problems maintaining a solid 60FPS.