Chaos is here

 And most wish it wasn't, apparently

Lo and behold, after hardly believing it to even be a real game: Final Fantasy: Stranger unto Paradise- around of Paradise- inside of- whatever that stupid title is supposed to be- has landed! And can I just say that no one is more ecstatic than I? Not that I'm actually sitting around looking forward to a game from the guys who inflicted Nioh upon me, (I still haven't recovered from that game) but more that I'm tentatively anticipatory for the meme potential of this utter writing travesty. Intentional travesty, as far as I can tell; there's no way you write characters with lines like these unintentionally, but it stands as perfect mocking fuel whatever the guiding heart behind the words. If Metal Gear Rising Revengence can prove so transcendent that even now, nine years later, we're still memeing on it; then I think Jack's Mad Chaos Murder Bender can certainly squeeze out a couple of years of thigh slappers.

And before we set off on the wrong foot here, I think it's important to say that I do acknowledge that Stranger beneath Paradise has managed to score some positive impressions when it comes to raw gameplay. Much as I would expect them to, coming from a studio who once put together the Nioh games which play fantastically. (my gripes with that game don't touch the raw gameplay at all.) I mean, it only makes sense that Team Ninja are going to bring their considerable talents with them wherever they go, so that even a title which is bumrushed into a Final Fantasy game by the excitable lunatics at Square Enix will hold some basic merit to it. Could you imagine a studio renowned for their action gameplay putting out a title that totally sucks in gameplay, presentation and playability? That would be crazy, it would- well, I guess that would be Platinum Game's Babylon's Fall, now wouldn't it? Huh... (It didn't have to be that way...)

Speaking of, can we talk about how weird it is that this game started off as a completely original brand which got twisted into this new 'Final Fantasy: Origins' franchise? I know that's not exactly unique on the landscape of maintaining game franchises, but it's still weird to hear about it happening. Like how the original concept for Resident Evil 4 ventured so far away from the series' routes that the team just got permission to branch off and rebrand the game as Devil May Cry. Isn't that wild? (You're thinking about how similar Dante and Leon Kennedy look right now, aren't you?) But there's something especially weird about this happening for a title which is supposed to reimagine the origin of the entire Final Fantasy brand. Providing context to an originally bare bones game so that new avenues of lore can be explored; it really sounds like the sort of thing you'd expect to be expressly commissioned and watched over by the series arbiters like a thirty eyed Malboro. But then again, I guess people do tend to play it somewhat loose around the FF titles nowadays; given that they've let FF7's remake bloat up into an unwieldly 10 year project.

Paradisiacal Strangers, on the otherhand, is just one kick ass action game with tons of monster dungeon delving, some cool class systems, (called Jobs. Yes, they bought back Jobs) and customisation so that we can make our generic-looking protagonist man slightly less or more generic-looking, depending on how we're feeling that morning. There are enemy types here that are indicative of classic Final Fantasy monsters, which still fills me with that sense of excited wonderment I felt back when they were doing that same thing with Final Fantasy XV; yet here they look and feel even more robust. On it's face, this has everything it needs to be an absolute rocking Final Fantasy game which successfully boots the franchise into the action genre which it has never truly thrived in before. From this vantage point, it's only a matter of time before the inevitable Final Fantasy Soulslike is made. Piano version of One Winged Angel? Yes please! But I guess this isn't a just world.

At it's launch Paradise Falling Strangers ranked on the list of top 5 worst selling Final Fantasy spin-offs of all time; and when you consider that there are over 50 Final Fantasy games and only around 20 of them are mainlines (including sequels like Final Fantasy XIII-2) that is an absolutely damning slap in the face. The only Final Fantasy games which have sold worse are those three Chocobo Spin-off games that I only just discovered existed when reading up for that Chocobo GP blog. (Kind of makes me want to play them now. They're like lost FF gems. Assuming they're any good.) Whilst 'Theatrhythm Final Fantasy',  'World of Final Fantasy' and 'Dragon Quest & Final Fantasy in Itadaki Street Portable' rank higher. (No word on how the Kingdom Hearts franchise fairs up, nor my arch nemesis: 'Chain of Memories'. >Blearg< I spit on that name!) Now to be fair these are numbers coming from Japan because America and some other western territories don't release sales numbers, and one might point out that Dragon Quest typically outsells Final Fantasy in Japan anyway. (I will not make any sweeping statements about an entire country's taste for RPGs based on that knowledge, but know that I'm thinking about it.) But it's rare to see any major discrepancies with sales figures across seas when we're talking about a JRPG; so indications point to this being a bit of a major flop. But why?

If I had to point fingers, and for the sake of this blog let's presume that I do; I'm going to be honest, that reveal trailer made this game look trash. I know we joke and meme about the amount of times the dude said 'Chaos'; but that single introduction, seething of B-movie cheese, was enough to make the non FF diehards just write this game off as more trite nonsense. Despite the genuine talent behind it, despite the global superbrand printed on the box! And for that first impression to knock off some points, it only teed up the game for another hit once the reviews started coming out and they were less than stellar. The game isn't a disaster title, but it's not anything special worth rushing out for. It's just good enough, which doesn't meet the threshold requisite to wash out the taste of week-old cheese that clings to this game.

And that is despite that raw meme value which is no doubt responsible for at least a few impulsive purchases. I mean that one scene alone of seeing Jack let someone pour her heart out to him before dead-beat responding "Bulls***" pumping a Limp Bizkit song through his headphones and storming off moodily is pure gold. And if I told you that scene is literally indicative of Jack's attitude for a good half of this game's scenes, tell me that doesn't make you at least a bit curious as to what this game is about! But clearly that's value we expect to pay off for the brand in the far future, because it's not making dividends anyday soon. Not only is this sad, but it's confusing. How did the Nioh guys make something so reportedly bland? Is this a self fulfilling prophecy of people who went in expecting the game to be bad and thus have brainwashed themselves into thinking that it is? Or is this Square Enix leaning on the team to keep to the 'mostly disappointing' standards that Square have been confusingly maintaining for the past year?

So we have ourselves an unfortunate dud that just makes us want to exclaim "Bullsh***" and play our edgy rock music as we storm out of the death castle. And can I just say what a loss for everyone this is? With this failure it might mark the end of the budding Final Fantasy Origin's subseries before it even had a chance to shine. Which means we're not going to get that Final Fantasy VII origins game featuring Zack that you just know Tetsuya Nomura was rubbing his hands for since the word go. (The freak.) Or that potential FF XIII origins game, where they'd finally have a chance to execute that ultra ambitious Fabula Nova Crystallis crossover they were building up all those years ago. (I just wanted to see Noctis from XV face-off against his pretty boy clone Ace from Type-0 whilst Lighting cosplays as 2B or whatever the heck 'Lighting Returns' was supposed to be about.) What a loss this world has endured.

Final Fantasy Origins: Stranger to Paradise

Chaos hates capitalism, and yet he participates in it. Ironic.

Climbing off of the success of previous E3 years, it seems Square Enix committed themselves to a notably low-stakes conference this year. That is to say, they showed off precious little of anything new apart from two games, both of which managed to disappoint in uniquely interesting ways. The start of the show kicked off with an indepth look at a lukewarm looking title that's deserving of it's own blog, but the end of the show ended with something so magical that I just couldn't let it wait any longer. I need to talk about it. So, what do you do, when you're Square Enix, and you've just managed to sweep up the world as they've fallen in love with your spate of  Final Fantasy games recently? You hire outside teams to make more, of course! With FF7Remake being such a success that rumours tell of a potential PC release just around the corner and Final Fantasy XVI already knocking people off their feet with little more than a single reveal trailer and an old-school fantasy aesthetic, it only makes sense to commit even more for greater results, right? But if there's one thing we should all take away from the newly revealed Chaos-Simulator, 'Final Fantasy Origins: Stranger to Paradise', it's that you should be careful what you wish for.

However starved the fans may be for content, and however much they may beg for ever more adventures with spikey-haired teens in fantastical worlds, there'll always be a point where the trigger of 'what the hell is this nonsense' overrides their desires. Such was rung loud and clear during the reveal trailer for 'Final Fantasy Origins: Stranger to Paradise', thanks to... well it's whole thing. You see, Stranger to Paradise is set to kick off a whole slate of 'Final Fantasy Origins' titles, wherein modern engines and development principles are bought to the old school 8-bit FF games in order to tell stories set in those universes but around the key events, thus buffing out the lore of those games. For a game like Final Fantasy 1, a title with practically no story over than it being a quest to slay some guy called Chaos, such designers have an uphill battle. And judging from that aforementioned reveal trailer, it was a battle that they lost.

All but the most forgiving fan on the planet recoiled a little on the inside when they saw this trailer, and that didn't come from the quality of the gameplay, but for the contents of it's dialogue. For you see, if there's one thing the trailer footage manged to let everyone know deeply and intrinsically, it's that our protagonist Jack really doesn't like Chaos. (The FF1 antagonist) In fact, I'd say he even hates Chaos, considering how much he talks about him. "I'm here to kill Chaos" "Looks like Chaos has been waiting for us" "I only know one thing; I want to kill Chaos. Need to. It's not a hope or a dream. It's like a hunger. A thirst" "You sure Chaos is here?" "This is the shrine of Chaos, he's here" "Chaos"  "We're here to kill Chaos" "I, am to become Chaos". All those was excepts from a 2 min 33 trailer, the name Chaos is said eight times. I invite you to watch the thing for yourself, but I'm telling you now that the only character trait we learn about our hero is how he wants to kill Chaos. I'm more than familiar with the melodrama of series' like this, I revel in it, but this seriously steps over the line into cringe territory, and the internet noticed right away.

Obviously this became a meme pretty much overnight, with people mocking the hilariously one-note trailer and it's depiction of the 'Warriors of Light'. Oh that's right, that odd-job assembly of what looks to be background characters from a low budget isekai; those are the protagonists. (Seems not just the dialogue was phoned in.) Bonus points go towards our leading man, Jack, who looks like a render of Eminem after he rolled out of bed in the morning. The man walks up to the castle of Chaos in nothing but a shirt and trousers, whilst his equally as forgettable friends a least had the common decency to wear armour. Of course, defenders have been quick to point out that this seems tied to the progression system, in that Jack will get more actual armour as he finds it during his adventure, but that doesn't excuse such a lacklustre base design. Maybe this is just coming from someone who's discovered Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, a series which has nothing but great unique designs for it's characters, but I really don't have time for these utterly uninspired designs anymore, it's boring. I can't care for it. It's muda. Muda muda.

Strangely, the low effort design and script cannot just be blamed on this game being some side project that Square hoofed to some no-name studio who couldn't care less. Stranger to Paradise is actually being actively developed by Team Ninja, no less, creators of the lauded Nioh souls-like games and some of the 3d Ninja Gaiden Games before that. And that boringly named protagonist Jack and his pathetically generic design, curtsey of Tetsuya Nomura. For those unfamiliar, that's the man who created Kingdom Hearts, worked on Final Fantasy XV for decidedly too long before he was kicked off the project, and now seems to be trying to stretch out his work on Final Fantasy 7 Remake to be work lasting for the rest of his life. He's also credited for designing Noctis Lucis Calem, protagonist of Final Fantasy XV, and though he's not exactly the most interestingly designed character in the franchise, Noctis is still leagues better than Jack here. What happened?

Chaotic shifts in branding, it would seem, because as Mr Nomura has been kind enough to share in recent details, Stranger to Paradise was designed to be a completely stand alone title with no connection to Final Fantasy. Apparently he was trying to envision a Final Fantasy game with no ties to the licence whatsoever, where the gameplay would be action based and dungeon-clearing oriented. Somehow that led to him designing a lead face with as much character in it as a concrete wall, apparently, but that does sort of make sense at least for why we have a protagonist named Jack, in a series where heroes are typically called stuff like 'Cloud', 'Tidus' and- 'Clive'? (Okay, I guess Final Fantasy XVI and Stranger of Paradise are more similar then we thought. I see why Square Enix chose to bring them together now.)

'Chao's Garden' from Sega's Sonic Adventure is an entirely separate-from-the-main-story addendum to that title for which the franchise wouldn't suffer at all were it to be removed, and yet many found it to be a valuable and worthwhile minigame that they enjoyed coming back to, for whatever reason. Stranger to Paradise is a little more than a minigame, being sold as a full release, but coming out as a prequel side-story game in the middle of the marketing for XVI and the episodic release of FF7R, it's easy to squint ones eyes and put this title in the same shoes. So what if the game seems to not have the most amount of effort behind it's words or character design, it's not the focus of Final Fantasy attention and fans have other games to flock to, so perhaps a little bit of half-assed work is fine. At least, that's the perception I get from this, even if personally I look upon this and worry that if Sqaure are allowing this cringe quality to be associated with their brand, what on earth are they cooking up in XVI proper? At the very least Square managed to put out a demo for Stranger of Paradise on the day it was revealed, so even if the trailer hit the world as badly as it did, the gameplay (crafted by a studio known for their gameplay) would speak for itself. So I wonder how that turned out like?

Chaos. In a word. The demo somehow hit the storefront in a completely corrupted state so that no one who downloaded it could even play the thing, something which took all of 24 hours to rectify for whatever reason. (How does that even happen?) And then some of the people who actually got to play the game found the thing be mediocre anyway, so this has been just a total failure of marketing all the way around at this point. (I don't have a PS5 so I can't judge for myself.) Now perhaps these are just kinks that Team Ninja fully except to iron out in the months to come, but I don't really think that's the case, do you? Stranger to Paradise is probably going to suck, and given the sheer volume of FF content flying our way of late we were bound to get one total failure in the mix. Or maybe this game will perform great regardless of it's content, propelled by sheer meme value; the world is so unpredictable nowadays I wouldn't rule anything out.