“I was expecting to get a lot of feedback from Final Fantasy fans saying, ‘This isn't what the series is about. This isn't what I want to play. This isn't Final Fantasy’”, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin director Daisuke Inoue tells me. “I prepared myself to receive that, but actually, we received even more feedback from people who were happy with the game, satisfied with the game, and who were interested to see where it was going. That was a big discovery for me, and also something I was very, very pleased with.”

Square Enix is carving out a brand new path for the Final Fantasy series with Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin. Working in collaboration with Team Ninja and Koei Tecmo, the game will offer a brutal, more challenging combat experience and feature a darker, more mature tone than fans are used to. Though Stranger of Paradise uses the original Final Fantasy title as a motif the difference in direction is very noticeable, leading to a somewhat polarized response from fans on its initial reveal.

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“I think everyone will have a different idea of what really makes a Final Fantasy a Final Fantasy,” Inoue-san explains. “For example, some people might think that Final Fantasy 3 really encapsulates the spirit of Final Fantasy, whereas other people might think that it's Final Fantasy 6. So that's something that we had a lot of discussion about in the development of lots of past instalments of Final Fantasy as well — what makes this a Final Fantasy?

“I think one of the things that we always come back to is that Final Fantasy is a series that always challenges new things. It takes on new challenges and ideas. And I think in that sense, this is a particularly Final Fantasy-like Final Fantasy because we're taking on some really big new challenges for this title.”

Jack killing an enemy in Stranger of Paradise

Inoue-san has previously worked on other Final Fantasy titles, including Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 13, and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time. His experience with the series has helped with balancing the spirit of Final Fantasy with the bold new aspects of Stranger of Paradise.

“I've worked on a lot of different titles — multiplayer, action RPGs, or mainline numbered Final Fantasy instalments,” Inoue-san tells me. “And the common thread running through all of them is Final Fantasy and RPGs, they all have elements of those things. Earlier you mentioned the spirit of Final Fantasy and I do think that my experience working on so many different types of games and so many different games in the past has really been helpful in taking on this new challenge of Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin because it's a very new kind of game. And so I think that all my experience across that wide range of games that I've worked on has really been helpful in exploring this game.”

When the first Stranger of Paradise trailer was revealed at E3 earlier this year, the internet went into a chaos-meme obsession, ridiculing the number of times “Chaos” was mentioned — eight times in total in the 2 minutes 33-second trailer.

“There was still quite a lot of mystery surrounding the game and we couldn't really reveal too much,” Stranger of Paradise producer Jin Fujiwara tells me. “But in terms of the general plot that was being covered, if someone goes to the Chaos Shrine to look for Chaos, to defeat Chaos, and meets a boss figure — the one who will become Chaos, inevitably [when] explaining that plot the word ‘chaos’ is going to come up quite a lot. We didn't really think it was going to cause quite as much of a reaction as it did, and that was a little bit unexpected.

“It's obviously not something we're terribly pleased about. But I think looking back on it from where we are now, it may have had a slight positive impact if it got people interested. From our point of view, it's better than nobody paying attention.”

Stranger of Paradise Chaos boss

With Team Ninja’s Fumihiko Yasuda on board, it’s only natural that Stranger of Paradise features many similarities to the likes of Nioh. Many fans are already referring to it as a “Souls-like Final Fantasy”. Stranger of Paradise producer and Nioh franchise director Fumihiko Yasuda thinks this added difficulty and embrace of Souls-like ideals can make the game unique in the Final Fantasy series.

“I think that the experience of trial and error, trying to do the same thing, and then finally succeeding and getting that sense of achievement — that whole kind of experience — is something that really appeals to gamers and [is something] that they really enjoy playing,” Yasuda-san says. “So I think that for these games, that's the secret behind their popularity and how this sort of progressing through different dungeons in different areas and fighting against harder things has taken hold.”

Adopting a more Nioh approach for Stranger of Paradise means that the game will not offer any open-world aspects. Classic Final Fantasy titles are particularly open-world — so much so that you can get lost and forget where you should be going — but recent titles are more linear in nature, though still breakout open-world hubs. While fans might be disappointed to hear that the game is level-based, the decision was made to prioritise well-structured levels that would challenge players, rather than include the unpredictability of an open-world.

“The concept is going into these dungeons and areas, and working your way through conquering that particular level,” Inoue-san explains. “And that means that level design has to be really tight and really solid to be able to offer the player the kind of experience that we want them to be able to have. The more open-world you make something, the more unpredictable the player's actions can be and they may end up not quite experiencing what we're aiming for.

“Based on the games that Team Ninja has worked on as well, that's really the expertise that they have. So in order to make the most of their expertise, when we were discussing this in the initial stages of the project, we decided that that was the direction that we were going to go in — more designed levels.”

Jack killing a monster in Stranger of Paradise

However, Yasuda-san did take this opportunity to mention that he would love to work on an open-world game in the future, a sentiment he has shared with us before. “I’d very much like to try making an open-world game someday but considering the games we’ve made previously, and keeping up the intensity and the challenge of the levels — that was considered the most important thing.”

One of the benefits of this focused level design is the ability to implement a weather-changing mechanic. In the Refrin Wetlands, players are able to open up new areas by changing the weather, either to find treasure chests or to progress further. Other levels with similar mechanics will feature in the full game. “There will be mechanics that change the route you can take to progress through a level and depending on those routes, a player might find this route more difficult or this route easier, depending on the player as well,” Inoue-san tells me.

While Stranger of Paradise deviates from the classic Final Fantasy games in terms of level design, other game aspects have remained true to the series. Just like always, the protagonist will be a set main character rather than a player-built character. The team considered a character creator, but ultimately decided against it.

“When we originally were thinking about this project, thinking about what kind of game we wanted it to be, we did consider the option of character creation,” Inoue-san explains. “But one of the things that makes that quite difficult is to build in individuality for those characters and characteristics that then tie into the story.

“And that's something that a lot of Final Fantasy games have. They have that sense of individuality for the characters, that personality that makes them who they are and we just found that difficult to tie in. So although the equipment can be changed so the appearance can be changed in that way, we decided not to have the options to change his face or change gender as the player character.”

Jack from Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin

One thing that many Final Fantasy fans love about the series is the variety in party member characters. With the addition of Neon — the first female ally to be unveiled for Stranger of Paradise — the character roster is now up to four characters. While this would seemingly fill the quota of “the four Warriors of Light”, Fujiwara-san confirmed that there will be more ally characters that have yet to make an appearance.

In a previous interview with Famitsu, Stranger of Paradise creative producer Tetsuya Nomura explained that there was a hidden meaning behind the names of the heroes — Jack, Jed, and Ash. Although the latest trailer reveals Jack to be Garland — though previous gameplay would suggest he’s forgotten this — Fujiwara-san explained that this is not what Nomura was hinting at and that the meaning behind the heroes’ names, including Neon, are all linked to the storyline in some way.

“That's not necessarily what the meaning was behind the ‘Jack’ part of his name,” Fujiawara-san tells me. “I think that's the same for Ash, Neon, and Jed as well, they do have meaning behind their names, but it's not specifically related to characters from Final Fantasy 1. It's more connected to the story, and so unfortunately that is all I can really say at this point. Hopefully, once you're through the story, if you think of that hint again, it might be a little clearer.”

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