Four elemental crystals - wind, water, fire, and earth - have grown ‘dark’ and it’s up to the four prophesied Warriors of Light to save the world from darkness. During their quest, they save Princess Sarah from a rogue knight named Garland who has taken up residence in the Chaos Shrine. After defeating the four fiends, our heroes find the power of the crystals is being drained by a mysterious force hidden through a time portal.
The heroes travel 2,000 years into the past where they are confronted with Chaos and his new arch-fiends. It turns out that Garland - now Chaos - created a time loop wherein he sent the fiends to the future to save himself before the heroes defeated him, then snatched the aforementioned crystals to become Chaos. After defeating Chaos, breaking the time loop, and saving the world, the characters are entirely unaware of what transpired due to the wibbly wobbly timey wimey time loop aspect.
There is a matter of debate when it comes to the first title’s translation as to whether the four original Warriors of Light came from another world entirely or just another branch of the timeline given the time loop shenanigans.
This is a very condensed version of the first Final Fantasy. If you’re wondering why this is important, guess what the premise of Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin is? The four elemental crystals have become shrouded in darkness and it’s up to four Warriors of Light to save the world from darkness… I’m not going to repeat it all for you, but essentially it’s the same, some of the locations are the same, even some of the characters are the same - though not always in the way you would expect.
Square Enix recently released a brand new trailer for Stranger of Paradise at the Tokyo Game Show and alongside seeing familiar characters such as the King of Cornelia, Princess Sarah, and Bikke, fans were surprised by the revelation that protagonist Jack is none other than Garland himself.
Considering none of the original game’s characters remember what has taken place previously, it’s not too unbelievable to have Jack running around looking for Chaos not realising that in some strange way he is - or at least was - Chaos. But he doesn’t even remember he’s Garland, as the heroes mistakenly believe the boss from the first demo to be Garland. This amnesia is alluded to often in the content we’ve seen so far, where characters have various moments of deja vu.
As well as sharing the same premise and characters, the trailer directly references the events of the past game and mentions “None can recall the struggle the warriors endured. But the memory of their deeds lives on… and now their return is upon us.”
But the kicker is this - Square Enix has declared that Stranger of Paradise is not a remake of nor a sequel to the original title, but instead says that the game uses the first Final Fantasy as “a motif”. So how does it contain so many of the same base components without falling into either of these categories?
There are some clear differences between Stranger of Paradise and the first Final Fantasy, Jack being Garland aside - we know there are more than four “Warriors of Light” in this new title. The recent addition of Neon takes the party count to four, but in a recent interview with TheGamer, Stranger of Paradise producer Jin Fujiwara confirmed there would be additional ally characters.
Given the recently revealed key artwork, it’s safe to assume that the woman with long dark hair from the trailer will be another ally. If we choose to ignore Jack as some “bonus” as he’s actually Garland - then we still theoretically have our “four Warriors of Light”, but you definitely can’t ignore that Jack has his own crystal - does this make him one of the chosen heroes now?
This could be the black crystal that is used to channel the other crystals’ power and create the time gateway in the original game. However, that crystal didn’t share the same appearance as the other crystals, yet in Stranger of Paradise, they all look the same. Perhaps it’s like that moment from Loki where the TVA has a drawer of Infinity Stones - the time loop means we’ve ended up with a crystal double along the way.
Either way, things are derailing from the original game, but it wouldn’t be the first time that Square Enix has rewritten Final Fantasy history. Final Fantasy 7 Remake changed up a number of key plot details, and even changed the fate of some characters. So if Square Enix is happy to remix an original and still call it a remake, what exactly is Stranger of Paradise?
For a long time, fans believed that Stranger of Paradise would be an isekai title - where a character is transported from their world (usually one similar to our own) and into a fantasy one. Forspoken, another upcoming Square Enix title, is clearly an isekai story. Much like the name suggests, the team behind Stranger of Paradise has explained that the characters do not belong in the world they find themselves in and are “strangers” there. This is also why their modern, understated clothing and names seem rather out of place.
However, now we’re faced with the information that Jack isn’t some average Joe who’s been thrown into the world of Final Fantasy - he’s from Final Fantasy. The original Final Fantasy. So could this be the start of a Final Fantasy multiverse? Perhaps Garland’s time loop - or the breaking of it - was the equivalent to the death of He Who Remains causing the Marvel multiverse to spill over. It would certainly explain why the game isn’t a remake or a sequel while still heavily sharing a lot of the same elements. I’m not just talking about a multiverse of the first Final Fantasy either, but the series as a whole.
VG247’s Alex Donaldson recently pointed out that the Refrin Wetlands area included in the latest demo for Stranger of Paradise shares the same aesthetics and weather-changing mechanic as Final Fantasy 13’s Sunleth Waterscape, as well as a musical remix of Sunleth Waterscape’s theme. The recent trailer also showed a very modern-looking area that was reminiscent of Midgar, which could possibly be a glow-up of the Flying Fortress, but it’s unclear.
Stranger of Paradise director Daisuke Inoue previously worked on both Final Fantasy 13 and Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy 7, so perhaps these are just Easter eggs to past projects he helped create… or perhaps it’s something more. Seemingly corroborating the idea of Stranger of Paradise being a mash-up of Final Fantasy worlds and themes.
Stranger of Paradise’s launch coincides with Final Fantasy’s 35th Anniversary. While it seems only natural that the series would go back to its roots with an experimental game that clearly pays homage to the original classic, a Final Fantasy-verse would be an even better form of celebration.