Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin

[Dragon Lord]

I think I just barely missed the first demo when I got my PS5. So it'll be nice to get in there and give this game a try this time around. Hoping to have a good experience so that my hype for the game stays high.

[Moonface]

Square Enix have made a new post on their website detailing new characters, locations, and jobs that will be in the game: https://square-enix-games.com/en_US/news...hia-tiamat

I also didn't know they had done another update post last month that goes into other details such as the combat and story (not that it seems the story descriptions want to venture beyond crystals and chaos): https://square-enix-games.com/en_US/news...creenshots

[Dragon Lord]

I hate that they finally reveal a female party member and she ends up looking so god damn ugly. :|

C'mon SE. You even name her Sophia, which is my favorite name, and she ends up looking like that.

[ShiraNoMai]

They definitely are taking a more Western approach to the character designs for this. Sophia is alright but not waifu material in the least.

[Moonface]

I have to agree, Sophia's design is incredibly dull for the type of world that Final Fantasy can be. But then again, absolutely none of the playable characters of this game have good designs or outfits; Jed is so bland that his only saving grace is the ability to change outfits. I understand maybe they want characters to be a bit of a blank slate due to the customization, but holy shit at least don't make them all appear like protagonists that got sucked from desk jobs into a world with fantastical environments like castles and mechanical fortresses.

[Moonface]

Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origins Has Exclusive Digital Pre-Order Missions
Square Enix have announced that Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origins will have missions locked behind the Digital Deluxe Edition's pre-order option:

The Digital Deluxe Edition will set you back $89.99, and the missions locked behind its pre-order are not available in the pre-orders of any physical editions of the game nor the standard digital version; fun if you've pre-ordered any of those editions of the game prior to this announcement being made. Even more so that the tweet seems to indicate these bonus missions will not be sold separately at a later point, but it could just be marketing speak to drum up sales of that particular edition of the game much like how timed console exclusives aren't always announced as such to dissuade waiting it out.

If this was early access it wouldn't be too bad, but it sucks that buying any of the special physical editions makes you miss out on this, especially for how long pre-orders have already been open. Apparently on some platforms such as PlayStation you can't upgrade your standard digital edition to the deluxe one if you already placed a pre-order. I guess you could cancel one and then grab the other, but I don't know how Sony are when it comes to placing and cancelling pre-orders.

EDIT: Nice to see posts get entirely nuked if a Tweet gets deleted.

[Dragon Lord]

So apparently it's very bad wording on SE's part. This version of the game just comes with the Season Pass included, which is where those missions come from. The season pass will be available for purchase to everyone after the game launches, so the missions will not be locked to one specific version of the game.

Square Enix just dropping the ball on their communication like always.

[Moonface]

So coming in here made me aware Tweets are broken right now and make entire posts disappear, so that's fun.

Definitely poor wording on SE's part though. It really makes it seem like the missions aren't available separate from the Digital Deluxe when what it meant was you can't buy just one, you have to get all three and that's through the Season Pass. I am surprised the Twitter account didn't make a clarifying tweet to clear things up though and just left everyone in the comments to figure it out themselves, but maybe I'm just not very familiar with how SE's PR team works.

[Dragon Lord]

That's Square Enix for you. Just when you think they might do something right for once, they do 10 things completely idiotic and wrong.

Also to comment more on Sophia. I don't need her to be "muh waifu" material, but at least be a little better looking than that. I have plenty of anime games where I can go obsess over my cute waifus. I just wanted her to not look like, as someone on Twitter said, a mom/Karen trying to fit in at Hot Topic.

[Moonface]

Sophia looks like a secretary or something to me. Is the issue for you her whole appearance though @Dragon Lord or is it the attire? For me I think the attire is the biggest problem with a lot of the playable characters because the developers put them all in something plain due to the outfit customization the game will have, but there's plenty of games that provide that but don't use such dull choices for the default attire.

[Dragon Lord]

Whole appearance for me. Don't like her attire and I'd say she's more on the ugly side than the pretty side. Final Fantasy games have a lot of very pretty/attractive female characters, so seeing a character like Sophia is just like... ew.

The weird thing is that even though this is being developed by KT and Team Ninja, it's not like they aren't capable of adding cute females to the game. Nioh/Nioh 2 have multiple female characters that are very attractive.



Just as one example. So it's not that KT/TN are incapable of making good looking female characters. For some reason they decided to make Sophia... not very good looking.

Hopefully there'll be more playable female characters that are better looking that they are keeping under wraps for now.

[Moonface]

KT and Team Ninja aren't behind the character designs. I just looked it up and "longtime Square Enix employee Tetsuya Nomura created the original concept, and acts as character designer and creative producer in the game."

This female character is also a party member, but like every other party character she too just feels very plain. The NPC's all feel better designed, even ignoring the attires: https://strangerofparadise.wiki.fextralife.com/NPCs

[Dragon Lord]

Ah, that explains why the character designs suck. Square Enix really needs to stop letting that hack Nomura any where near any game development.

At least that character is slightly cuter than Sophia. Still not the greatest looking, but I'll take her over Sophia every day of of the week and every hour of each day.

[Moonface]

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin - Final Trailer
Assuming the title is true to its word, this will be the final look we get at Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, which releases on March 18th.



Judging by the shot in the first 30 seconds and subsequent parts of the trailer thereafter, there are no more party members to be revealed and thus there are five playable characters: Jack, Ash, Jed, Sophia, and Neon.

[Dragon Lord]

I have to say that was a pretty good final trailer. Showed off the fights with the four major bosses of the game, plus gave enough story info to make you wonder how everything is going to end up playing out.

Very excited for this game still, and I cannot wait for March to get here so I can get my hands on it.